No one told us about parenthood: part 2

1. Now that you have a small amount of energy, you are really excited to do things like... the laundry, make a cup of coffee, water the plants, load the dish washer, pay bills, pet the dog and sort through the 3000 photos you've taken of your baby.
2. Your house has been a cardboard box storage facility for the past two months. Everything comes in cardboard boxes.
3. A well decorated, stylish nursery is no longer important. What is important is this toy and this mobile.
4. The best outfits are the ones with only 3 or 4 snaps at the crotch. This is also true for baby's clothes.
5. You still need more diaper rash cream.
6. You will watch lots of movies - mostly in 30 or 40 minute increments every 3 to 4 hours with the volume on low. And if your partner started the movie with you for the first viewing but isn't awake for subsequent viewings, that's not your problem.
7. Manners while eating are no longer important. You will no longer wait for everyone to be seated before eating. You will go first in the buffet line without encouragement from the host. You will leave your own dinner guests for an hour to breastfeed your child or whip out your breasts in front of them, depending on who they are. You will eat while doing other things. I just ate half a cantaloupe while unloading the dishwasher and making coffee, all things that I was very excited to do.
8. You will still be able to enjoy a relaxing cup of coffee - for a few minutes. Then you will get up to do one little thing and end up doing many things and later in the day, you will find your coffee cup again when the coffee is cold and the milk has curdled. Today, however, I took my coffee with me and we had many adventures - we folded laundry, unloaded the dish washer, cleaned counter tops and toilets and even fed the baby when coffee got cold.
9. It is now acceptable to sit on the bathroom floor at whataburger to change a diaper because there is no changing table thingie in the bathroom. And although baby has a nice mat to lay on that came with the diaper bag, there is not a mat for mommy.
10. When baby has a blowout away from home and it gets on both your clothes, you will remember to clean baby and change his clothes but will forget to clean your own clothes until you get home and realize there's been poop on your dress all afternoon.

Labor day

Preston took notes during the day so I could use them for my blog. But I think the notes themselves are pretty good. Also, I've decided that April 23 is not only Charlie's birthday, but my new Labor Day and will be celebrated as such.

8:30. Katie's belly looks strange, so we made a doctor's appointment.

11:00. Katie has symptoms of preeclampsia (swelling, weight gain, high blood pressure, baby's weight gain), so the doctor sent us to the hospital.

11:30. Katie just got 'hooked up' at the hospital (to the IV and monitors to rate contractions). We are the only patients in Labor and Delivery.

12:00-30. Went home to get stuff. I'm going crazy...

12:45. Katie asked the nurse where the red button was, in case she needed something. The nurse said, "We hate the button. Yall are the only ones here, just ask that button (she pointed to me) to come get us."

1:15. Katie gets up to 70 tocos, the measurement used by the contraction monitor, and asked for the good drugs. (note from Katie - Preston kept talking about tacos. It made me really hungry.)

1:30. Katie gets drugs and now 70 tocos ain't nothing

1:55. Happy drugs make Katie sleepy. Nap time.

2:30. Movie time. Katie watches Hope Floats.

3:30. The doctor arrived and breaks Katie's water.

3:35. After all this time, Katie is only dilated to 2cm

4:00. Katie asks for more IV drugs and a Sonic cheeseburger.

4:30. Katie's parents arrive

4:55. Epidural time

5:10. Epidural is in. That looked like it really sucked. (Note from Katie - complete understatement)

5:40. Katie is feeling much much better. Hopefully we are done with the bad stuff for a while

5:45. The Moms have come to visit. Katie seems happy again.

6:05. Just realized the Rangers game is on espn tonight.

6:30. Still dilated to just 2.5- 3cm

6:45. The nurse tells the moms, "Y'all can go to diner. You have time." Great

7:00. Nurse shift change. She says, "Have a good night and push out that baby."

7:10. Katie watches Maid in Manhattan.

7:30. No change. Wait one more hour.

8:30. Doctor tells us it's c-section time. (Note from Katie - at this point, I was so tired that this didn't bother me).

9:00. The family was told that Katie would have a C section shortly. A few minutes later, a baby was brought into the nursery. Everyone thought it was ours and gathered around the nursery window. But we were still in the room, waiting to go to the operating room.

9:30. (Note from Katie) I don't ever want to talk about C Sections. All I remember is I kept saying, "There's a lot of pressure down low." And the doctors would say, "Yup." 

9:53. Charlie is born!

Things No One Told Us About the First Month of Parenthod

1.  You need more of everything - space, diapers, pacifiers, blankets, towels, wash clothes, clothes, time. Think of something that you need, want or do, and just add more. And you definitely need more diaper rash cream.

2. Everything smells like poop, or wipes, which are used mostly for poop so the smell of wipes starts to remind you of poop. Even your breath smells like poop. The laundry detergent smells like poop. That smell of home when you walk into your house after being gone for a while - it's poop now.

3. You are always tired. When you get that tired, your body scarifies some part of your normal self to stay awake. For me, it is niceness. For Pres, it's listening/paying attention to words.

4. When you're pregnant, all the books remind you that you could wet your pants when you sneeze. If you're breast feeding, no one tells you that not only could you wet your pants when you sneeze, but you can also shoot laser beams of breast milk out of your nipples.

5. You will forget to do the following things for yourself on a regular basis - eat, brush your teeth, bathe, return phone calls, make the coffee, wash your own clothes, change your own sheets and go outside.

6.  Everyone will want and tell you to take a nap, and although you really should take a nap, you really don't want to take a nap.

7. Babies poop a lot. All day long. All the time. Every 10 minutes maybe.

8. the following type of scenario occurs to you regularly and absolutely makes sense: You have to stick your index finger in your baby's mouth to break the suction if you are breast feeding. If you are wearing nail polish, your baby tastes nail polish. So you can't wear nail polish on your index fingers until you stop breast feeding and you should also cut down the nails on your index fingers to the nub so you don't scratch your baby's gums. So it's like the opposite of the cocaine fingernail.

9. People have told me the following: You look tired. You look like a zombie. the color in your cheeks is gone; you look like you are about to cry. (The following was said by strangers) Is this really your photo on your license? Hmm, it's funny how we get older. You're the third pregnant woman I've seen today, hope you don't have to carry that baby through the whole summer. Why did you have to have C Section? I'll watch your baby; you go on up to the counter with your husband to order lunch.

10. Everyone wants to tell you how to do things. But my friend Sarah and I believe that this actually starts when you get engaged and the projectile vomiting of unsolicited opinions just continues throughout the remainder of your life.

11. Spell check matters less.

Charlie is Here!

Everyone is happy and healthy... and busy and tired, 

so I'll have to tell you about it later, but here is a look at our little man.

3 Weeks to go!

Really, it's 2 weeks and 6 days now. I know this because I check my What to Expect iPhone app everyday, not because I mentally keep track that well. But every time I say it that way, someone says, "Oh, your counting the days!" Of course I'm counting the days until the person living in my torso decides to not live in my torso anymore.

Our Anniversary
After Preston and I had dated for a week, he sent me a half dozen roses with a card that read "Thanks for a wonderful week." We were in college and my roommates answered the door and accepted the delivery for me. They opened the card and then snuck into my room and put the flowers on my bedside table while I was sleeping. So I woke up to those flowers and that card. It was a very sweet moment. So every time Preston sends me flowers, he writes something like that on the card. He also bought two japanese maple trees for our backyard. I bought him a flashlight. And before you think me a bad gift giver, remember that I am also making him a person.

Pre Labor
Pre Labor has begun! What does this mean? It means that "things" have started, a whole list of things, and that real labor could happen any minute... or in three weeks on our due date. It also means that my body is the topic of casual conversation, with questions like "Are you dilated?" and "How effaced are you?" at top priority. These are both nice ways to say, "So... tell me about your cervix?"

These conversations happened...
Pres: What are you laughing at?
Me: Just this facebook picture of skinny smiling pregnant people that are still happy to be pregnant.

Kroger check out lady: How much longer do you have?
Me: Ooooh God.
Pres: A couple weeks
Me: Feels like a couple hours