Revival of the Blog

A year has passed with no new entries to Blog of the BOY. There are many reasons for this...suffice to say that single motherhood is an extremely time-intensive and demanding job. But the returns make everything worthwhile.

I've never been great at documentation...diaries weren't my thing. However, I will do my level BEST to keep this blog updated, if only to document Babypants's development, important milestones, and major events.

I will start now. Babypants (as I've affectionately dubbed him) is now one year, one week, and five days old. He was born on March 6, 2009 at exactly 9:00 a.m. He was 8 pounds, 5.4 ounces and 21 inches long. Now for the labor/delivery story:

On February 24, 25, and half of the 26th, I took the Alaska Bar Exam for the second time. I studied for it very little, mostly due to lack of sleep from being so pregnant, I had to pee about every thirty seconds and when I didn't have to pee, I couldn't get comfortable enough to fall asleep. Consequently, when I tried to study, I would read the same sentences over and over again with little to no comprehension of what exactly I was reading. I got bored of this after about a week and eventually gave up on studying altogether. The other problem was that I was also dealing with a lot of family drama the week prior to the bar exam...to the extent that my relationship with the family was negatively affected and in some cases, destroyed. Obviously, the destruction of the family in which I had placed so much faith even a month ago was a huge distraction. Needless to say, I wrote off the bar exam as another test run...mostly due to bad timing.

On March 4, 2009, at approximately 6:00pm, I was having dinner at La Mex on Spenard. The reason why I was having dinner at La Mex on Spenard was because I had come down with a head cold and was trying to clear out my pipes with spicy food (to the extent I eat spicy food, which to some, doesn't mean much). I had just finished my fried ice cream and had gotten up to pay my check when I felt a flood of fluid course down my legs and into my shoes. Knowing the likelihood that my water broke, I rushed to the bathroom and confirmed it. Fortunately, there weren't too many people at La Mex at this hour. And fortunately, I was wearing dark sweats that didn't display the fact that I had just wet my pants in a big way. Still, I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I came home, cleaned myself up, packed everything up (including the equivalent of a television broadcast station...digital camera, digital video camera, laptop, speakers, etc.), drove myself to the hospital, the OB triage lady confirmed that my water had broken, I checked myself in, and settled into my birthing room. And waited. And waited some more. I waited through the night for labor to start. But the BOY was apparently on his own schedule and wanted to make his appearance in his own time.

I managed to convince the doctors to let me wait eighteen hours to start labor. By noon on March 5, my status had not changed and the doctors were getting nervous about infection (they had already had me on Penicillin G because I'm one of those streppy women). By 3pm, they convinced me that I needed to induce labor. So much for my laissez-faire, drug-free delivery. ):

At 4pm, they dosed me with a mild contraction inducer they called "Miso" (as in "miso soup"). I was still committed to the idea that the delivery would be pain-killer free, even if it wasn't drug-free. At midnight on March 6, I had only dilated 1 cm. and the doctors had convinced me it was time to haul out the big guns, Pitocin. Nobody mentioned to me that Pitocin contractions are about 80 million times as intense as normal, not-induced contractions. Therefore, I was still blissfully and ignorantly committed to a pain-killer-free delivery. This changed at about 3:30am, after I had suffered through about three hours of the most agonizing pain I had ever experienced...diarrhea cramps on crack is about the best I can describe it. Realizing that all my energy was going into tolerating the pain and that I wouldn't have much left for pushing, I gave up and asked for an epidural.

The epidural was an experience in itself...having to sit excruciatingly still while suffering the worst pain of my life so that the nice epidural lady wouldn't screw up my spinal cord was something I hope I will never deal with again. Sweat was dripping down my arms and legs, the nice epidural lady had to make three attempts before she finally got the damned catheter in, I was contracting about every two minutes and shaking uncontrollably...it was serious crazy-making. However, once the epidural was in, it was IN...and I passed out from exhaustion.

At 7:30 a.m., I awoke to a great deal of pressure on my pelvic bone. I called the nurse, who checked my dilation and found that I was 12 cm dilated and ready to start pushing. They got me all positioned, the midwife came in, and I started pushing. And pushing. And pushing.

From 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m., I quietly pushed and pushed and pushed. Thank god for the epidural...had I not gotten one, I would have been in too much pain to focus on anything other than the pain. There's a trick to pushing that isn't obvious...you have to isolate certain muscles that aren't normally used. But after two hours of pushing different ways, I finally found those muscles and figured out the "right" way to push. Thirty minutes later, my baby was born.

He had his extremely long umbilical cord loosely wrapped around his neck (not in an oxygen depriving kind of way). He also had his right fist in his mouth...which did not make his journey out of my body any easier for me. I needed about seven stitches when the perineum tore. And I was again very grateful for the epidural.

He wasn't crying when they put him on my belly...he actually didn't cry until they started slucking out his mouth. His eyes were open. He stretched out his right arm toward my head and looked at me. And it was amazing...it was everything everybody says it is. I won't gush on and on about it...more articulate people than I have accurately described how intense it is. I'll just say it was probably one of the most important, defining, self-actualizing moments of my life and leave it at that.

And I was not alone for the labor/delivery. Thank you Grace and Goon for being there for me and Babypants! (: