The old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be.

Used to--and by "used to," I mean back in 1997--I could drop pounds just by thinking about it. Well, actually, "thinking about it" meant routinely having nothing but a cigarette for dinner after my 3-mile run. In my refrigerator stood a lone orange, some fancy cheese, and a bottle of beer. How the hell did I do that? I'll tell you how the hell I did it: I was 25 years old. I could eat nothing but angel food cake and Hydroxycut (with ephedra!) for a week and thrive. I could drink tequila until 3am, sleep it off in 3 hours, and then bop into my classroom full of kindergartners singing silly Good Morning tunes. Damn. Do ten years really make that much difference?

Well, feel free to keep reading, but I'll go ahead and tell you how this one ends: Yes. Yes, those 10 years DO make a difference. Those ten years are bitches and whores.

I went to my naturopath last week. In the past couple of months, she has helped me resolve some low energy issues, some crazy get-your-period-EVERY-MONDAY!!! issues, and a couple of other things that I've already forgotten. Oh yeah, some blood sugar stuff.

Anyway.

Last week, I cheerfully announced that everything was great. And it is. Except for one little thing. I can't lose weight. For ten days, I had been counting calories and religiously recording every bite of food I ate. I had been doing a great job, and I had been rewarded by zero, zilch, nada in the weight-loss department.

What would the magic potion be this time? More kelp? Maybe some fantastic super fat-melting herb? A thyroid support combo? Nope. You know what she did? Do you KNOW what she asked me?

"What do you typically eat for breakfast? And then what do you eat? What's for lunch on a normal day? How about a snack? What do you eat for dinner?" and so on.

And then, THEN, she told me that my bedtime bowl of cereal had to go. Along with my whole wheat tortillas. AND my sandwich bread. In fact, according to her, all of the wheat and simple carbs were poisoning my diet.

Do you want to know what my favorite foods are? Yeah, you guessed it.

"Why can't I just lose it like I used to?" I whined.

"Because bodies change. Age and babies, they change everything."

So, the super-amazing magic potion was to add protien and cut some carbs for a few days and send her an email to let her know how things were going. Then, we'd adjust from there.

I haven't managed to do this 100% on an entire day yet, but last time I weighed, I'd lost a pound, which is more than I accomplished in all of those ten days of counting calories.


I can still remember what my body felt like 10 years ago. It was lean and firm and strong and efficient and energetic and forgiving. I am determined to feel that way again. Just this time, I have to do it without the cigarettes and without the ephedra and, perhaps worst of all, without the angel food cake.

How could I NOT share this with you?

Wrong on many levels:





Thanks (I think?) to Kottke.org for the heads-up on this one.

Yes, this is the best entry that I can come up with for now.

**Now edited for your enhanced viewing pleasure.***


Like Lizzy said, this lil' exercise brought back some memories. I did not include any states that I have only driven through. Besides, that would have only added Missouri and Illinois.




Give it a go, and share your own map.

Not So Bad.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. I totally missed Delurking Week 2007. That kind of sucks. But the thing is, I could hardly manage to find the time to blow my nose this week. And on top of the busy-ness, there were some healthy dollops of Not Sleeping and Stress and Big Decisions and frankly, at the end of the day, I was toast. So much so that I couldn't even find the strength to copy and paste the html for the cute delurking buttons y'all were sporting (yes, I noticed, and I am very sorry that I didn't comment and stuff, but again, this week, the brain=that slime on the top of Spam).

So anyway, here I am. And just because I need to get my butt back in the writing saddle pronto, I'm going to give you a recap of one of the most ordinary, yet crappy and stressful weeks in recent history. At least in my world.

Disclaimer: Yes, I know that things could be so much worse. SO much worse. It's just that having all of this shit piled on one little plate (me!) this week was a little much. I tried to keep a happy face on it, and maybe that's why I didn't write about it. Because if I wrote about it, I would have to just bust out with the damnshitfirecraphell*. And besides, I just didn't have the energy.

So anyway, the recap:

The Not Sleeping:
Not sure if I've mentioned this before, but my son, the one who turned one last week? Doesn't have a tooth in his head. Not. one. tooth. Now, that is not to say that he's not endured any teething. Oh, hell no. Instead of a quick, week-long agonizing bout of teething, Al has opted to go the every-other-week-of-fussiness-and-super-slobbery-gnawing-on-everything route of teething. That started back in May 2006, by the way. Anyway, the last couple of times that we've seen his pediatrician, he's assured me that there is nothing to worry about. I've heard lots of different wives' tales about the late teeth-cutting--that the teeth'll be super strong because they're busy absorbing calcium while they hang out below the gums, or that he's waiting for me to wean him from the breast before cutting those sharp little nipple-scalpels. Whatever. All I know is that Al finally has some swollen gums. And they don't bother him too much during the day. But during the night? Good-night Roxy, the boy is miserable and demands to nurse every hour or so. I finally wised up the other night and gave him a dose of ibuprofen around 10 p.m. That bought me roughly six hours of sleep without having to whip out a boob. But still, the periods of wakefulness every few hours or so is beginning to take its toll, because even though Al promptly drifts back to sleep, I stay awake and think about Things. So, yeah. If the boy could cut a tooth or two, I think we'd get some relief in this department. Unfortunately, the pediatrician did warn us that most kids who wait until after their first birthday to cut teeth sprout several at one time, thus making the teething process utterly miserable for a week or two. Woo-freaking-hoo.

The Stress:
Another thing that I'm not sure that I've mentioned is that I changed classrooms and grade levels mid-year. I was teaching one grade at the beginning of the year, and now I teach another grade. What happened was that one of our teachers took a job out of town mid-year, and his class was left without a teacher. On my grade level, the other teacher and I both had very small classes--9 and 11 students. So, the administrators decided that instead of hiring another teacher, they would combine our students and send one of us--the one with less seniority, of course, to the other grade where our former colleague had left the opening. Well, I have been teaching at that school almost longer than anyone there, so the plan was to let me stay put. Fine, right? Except that the other teacher on my grade level isn't certified to teach the grade of the opening. So I moved this week. And it has turned out to be a very good thing. My new teammates are actually friends of mine, and there is an amazingly positive attitude among them. Also, my new room is a brand-new portable, and after I finish throwing out the other teacher's crap (that dates as far back as 1993! Holy mole!), it'll be a cool little place to work. But even as good and positive and fun as this change may be, it is still change. And change is stressful. And I will be spending my holiday on Monday setting up a classroom for the second time this school year.

The Big Decision:
Remember when I learned that Al's most wonderful and nurturing and incredible daycare would be closing? Well, being the proactive parent that I am, I went out and got the boy on some waiting lists at a couple of other places. One of them is Very Close to our home, and although it costs about 30% more than what we are paying at The Wonderful Daycare, it has a very good reputation around town. The other one is also very good (so we've heard), but it's also reasonably priced and has a waiting list that is a few years long. At the Very Close Daycare, though, we were told that it would probably be May or August before they had a spot for Al. That was fine. We have until August, most likely. So I toured the toddler rooms, left a deposit and forgot about it. Until last Monday. They called. They had a spot for Alex. Right then. I asked Very Close Daycare if I could come and take a look at the room that Al would be in because we hadn't included that on our original tour. Sure, they said. So, I went during lunch on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning I called and told them to give our spot to someone else. I told them that we just hadn't anticipated that an opening would come so soon and the timing just wasn't right for our family right now. I lied. The truth was that I hated what I saw at Very Close Daycare. There was nothing wrong, exactly--everything was well within state regulations--but it just wasn't right. My gut told me no.

Instead, I began to think of other options for when Al's Wonderful Daycare closes. My sister-in-law is expecting Al's cousin any day now, and we could go in together and hire someone for our two babes. Or maybe one of the places I haven't toured yet will be an unexpected gem. I still had hope.

The Happy Ending:
This afternoon, I received the unofficial, yet very reliable, word that Al's Wonderful Daycare will not be closing after all. It seems that too many people of influence were opposed to the idea. God bless them.



Maybe I'll get some sleep tonight.

Teeth. Who needs 'em?

*When I was in grade school, my best friend came up with this expression. It consisted of all of the worst curse words that she knew strung together into one big, bad expletive: damnshitfirecraphell. I'm kind of trying to limit my MF's, both in the spoken and written word, so damnshitfirecraphell has been resurrected.

One Year

Al's First Year on Vimeo

The One I Wasn't Going to Write

I said that I wasn’t going to write this. The truth is, I didn’t know how to. I am fascinated by the new moms out there who can push out a baby or have one cut out and then turn right around and retell the story coherently just a few days later. It’s taken me a year to be able to put those two days into words. As birth stories go, there is nothing really extraordinary about Al's, but nonetheless, it was something that I wasn't in any hurry to revisit for a long time. I’m sure that this entry is riddled with bad grammar and wrong sentence structures, because even after I decided to finally tell the story, I procrastinated for so long that I ended up whipping this one out in a matter of hours. It’s a little rough around the edges. Just like I was this time last year.

On January 2, 2006, I returned to work after 2 weeks of Winter Break. I had secretly hoped that I wouldn’t have to return, but weeks of no progress whatsoever in the pre-labor department had me convinced that I would see my due date of January 5 come and go without incident.

I resumed my normal routine of teaching, although I do remember that by that point, I had to do most of it sitting down. However, I couldn’t do anything about the three flights of stairs that stood between the ground and my classroom. It was laborious, but not unmanageable, what with my mid-route breaks on one of the landings where I regularly stopped to catch my breath.

On my first day back at work, the school nurse had me sit in her office while she checked my blood pressure. Evidently, I had puffed up over the holidays, and she wanted to do a “quick check.” I assured her that the extra puffiness was all due to Christmas cookies, and not high blood pressure. Our nurse has always been a little overprotective of the pregnant ladies. It’s nice, actually.

On the second day, I kept on keeping on, but I felt a little more tired. Who wouldn’t though? Once the kids left at three, I excused myself to use the restroom again, and when I stood up, I had a contraction—not what I would consider a big contraction, but one that made me stand still for a moment and support myself with my hand on the stall wall. This one was considerably stronger than the Braxton-Hicks contractions I had been experiencing for a few weeks. Maybe something was happening.

I gathered my things and headed to the car. I was a little nervous that I might have another contraction on the way home, but home was only 10 minutes away, so I figured I was safe.

I made it home without incident, and sat down to return a few emails while experiencing a couple more strong and promising contractions.

Back up to a couple days earlier: I had (forgive the graphic information, but it’s important to the story) expelled my mucus plug, so I had been wearing some extra absorbent “protection.” With each contraction that afternoon, I noticed that I felt some wetness. I assumed that the remainder of the gunk was being loosened from the cervix.

I’m a moron.

Around 4:45 or so, the contractions started getting fierce. By fierce, I mean, I had to stop what I was doing, lean over and hold onto my desk for support. I have a pretty decent pain threshold (Really! I do!) and these babies took my breath away. They also started coming every 2-5 minutes, right off the bat. The Mr. got home around this time, and proceeded to ask some really impertinent questions like, “when did they start?” and “how long apart are they?” and “do we have everything packed? that I really didn’t feel like answering. Luckily, I had started timing the contractions from the beginning, so I just referred him to the paper where I had it all written down.

About an hour in (or was it 20 minutes or an hour and a half?), I decided I needed to take a shower. Why I decided that, I have no idea. I guess I wanted to get all gussied up for the hospital. Again, I? Am a moron.

“So go ahead,” the Mr. told me.

“No, I need you to go with me. I don’t know if I can stand up straight, and besides, you have to write down the times.” So he went with me.

So, I got into the shower, where I had a couple more contractions. Or was it 6? I don’t know, but I managed to remain upright.

I got dressed and brushed my hair and I came back into the office where I continued to read the internet and answer emails in between contractions, and when the contractions came, I would stop, lean, and grip my poor desk.

At one point, I think I may have sunk to the floor (Shut up, I’m really not a wimp. Really.) and I told The Mr. to call the doctor. By this time it was almost 7pm, and he got the answering service. He told them the story, and a nurse called him back. He repeated the story—2-4 minutes apart, since around 5pm—and she asked about fluid. Fluid?

“Yeah,” he repeated. “She wants to know if you’ve had any leaking fluid.” The poor guy was visibly disgusted, but he tried to play if off.

“I don’t know really. I feel something leaking after the contractions sometimes.”

He repeated this to the nurse who told him to take me to the hospital.

And away we went.

The car ride to the hospital was interminable. And painful. We drove up to the ER, where a valet took car of our car. That was pretty nice. But yeah, whatever, I was in pain. I walked up to the desk, had another contraction, and managed to tell the receptionist that I thought I was in labor. Because, duh.

Now, a couple of months before, I had pre-registered, meaning I had given all of my information to the hospital. All of it.

Guess what? They wanted it again. So, again with my doctor’s name and my due date and the photocopy of my insurance card and blah, blah, blah, and finally the receptionist called up to the 6^th floor and within a couple of minutes, an angel appeared with a wheelchair.

All the while, I was still having contractions, and they were not pretty. The nurse wheeled me into a room, told me to take off my clothes, put on a gown, pee in a cup and make myself comfortable on the bed. First off, sister, peeing hurts—it brings on the big contractions (I don’t know what was up with this, but oh my God, that was the worst), and second, comfortable? Geez.

So, I peed, changed, and lay down. While the nurse checked me for dilation, she asked if my water had broken. Again, I didn’t know. Maybe? There’s a little fluid, I guess? Hell, I don’t know. So she whipped out the handy-dandy litmus paper, and tested something down there. Then she announced, “Your water has broken. You’re only dilated to a 1, but you’re staying.

Only a one? Two, almost three hours of this shit, and I’m only a ONE?

“But you’re not going home. You’re having a baby,” she reassured.

As I lay there, the contractions kept getting harder and harder. I wasn’t sure what would happen next, but I had made it clear that I wanted to have an epidural as soon as I could. So until then, I continued to squeeze the handrail of the bed and hiss at the Mr. to quit talking on the phone because good Lord, that was annoying.

I will never forget the taste of that pain. I finally rang the nurse and she came in asking if I wanted medicine.

“Yeah,” I was feeling a little overwhelmed. This was more than I had bargained for. “I feel like such a wimp.”

“Don’t,” she said. “We’ve been watching your contractions out there, and they’re pretty big. That happens a lot when the water breaks.”

Well, at least that made me feel a little better. She checked again, and this time, I was almost a 4. It was around 8:30.

“If you can wait 30 minutes, we’ll have an anesthesiologist up here.”

I forget why we had to wait 30 minutes. Maybe for my IV to finish? But for some reason, 30 minutes sounded very doable to me.

It wasn’t long before the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen strolled into my room with a cart full of vials and needles. The good stuff had arrived. The administration of the epidural was not bad at all. The anesthesiologist was professional yet witty (I LOVED him), and soon, I was numb from my waist down.

Heaven. It was about 9:30, my legs wouldn’t stop trembling, and I was wiped out.

At this point, I would like to say that all you women who have done labor and delivery and the whole enchilada without drugs are effing amazing. You are my hero. You should be given great sums of money and big ol’ trophies for your strength and endurance. That shit sucked ass.

Around that time, my parents arrived. We visited for a while, they went downstairs for something to eat, and then camped out in the waiting area while we all tried to get some rest.

My doctor was on call that night, and she came around to check on me a couple of times. Around 4am, when I had progressed only to 6cm (or was it 5?), she ordered a dose of pitocin. By 6am, while chatting with my sister-in-law and my mom, I began to feel pressure. By 7, I had asked the nurse to clear everyone out of my room again, because I was in some serious pain. At 7:30, the nurse woke the anesthesiologist up. Again.

Throughout the night, my epidural had run out of medicine twice, so the drug man had been up to visit me a few times already. He filled it up again, but still, the contractions were heinous—way worse than before the epidural. All I could do was grip the bedrail and moan through the pain. Meanwhile, there was a shift change. I had new nurses and a new anesthesiologist.

My poor mom stuck her head in the room at one point, and all I could do was shake my head and motion at her to get out. I wanted everyone OUT, and I was angry at anyone who wasn’t either my husband or a member of the medical team who tried to come in. At that moment, I completely understood why animals go into hiding to give birth.

Around 8am, the new anesthesiologist was sitting beside me explaining my options.

“It’s possible that your epidural has come loose, and that’s why it’s not working. I’ll check that first.

“OK. Let’s do that.” And as I tried to get into position for him to check it, I couldn’t move my legs. They were still numb.

“Then it’s working. You would be able to feel your legs if it weren’t. I can still take it out and reinsert it if you want me to.”

It took me forever to decide what to do. Ultimately, I knew that reinserting it wouldn’t make it work better, especially if my legs were already numb. Maybe I was wrong, but I decided to keep things the way they were. Instead, I begged for something to take the edge off. I was beginning to feel hopeless and frantic.

My nurse agreed to a small dose of Stadol. It allowed me to rest a little in between the contractions, and during the contractions, I wasn’t quite so overwhelmed with the pain.

Once that began to wear off, I had finally fully dilated. It was now around 11:00 a.m. I had been going for over 18 hours, and it was time to push.

Pushing was the most comforting relief I had ever felt. For that period from the count of 1 to 10, instead of the intense pain of a contraction, I felt only relief. It was wonderful. My nurse placed a phone call, and my doctor appeared in the doorway. We were about to have a baby.

At that moment, I distinctly remember praying that everything would be fine, and that our baby would be born healthy.

He was. And he was beautiful. We called him Alex.

Immediately after I met my son, I knew that I would gladly endure those 19 hours and 20 minutes again, but only for him.

The next hours and days are a blur of drugs and breastfeeding and visitors and really good meals (my hospital’s food rocked). We had an extended hospital stay because Alex ran a fever when he was born, most likely because of the long time span between the water breaking and his birth. He was connected to IV antibiotics for 48 hours, and after that, we came home.

And well, you know how the rest of the story goes.

One year ago tonight, I never imagined how my life was about to change.

Happy Birthday Eve, Alex.

For you, I’d do it all over again.