The Heathen Housewife

It’s been a year already. My little one is a year old. Let’s flash back to this day a year ago. It was cold and snowy outside, but not quite as cold as it has been this week. I woke up having contractions at 1:30 in the morning that day, and I spent all morning in labor at home. We finally headed out the door to the hospital around 11:50 – that’s the time stamp on this photo. The Bradley childbirth classes taught us that if the mom can smile for one last picture on the way out the door, she’s not ready to leave for the hospital. I remember actually thinking this thought as our doula took our picture, but I wasn’t playing possum – I was very serious about getting through the contractions and making it to the hospital without losing my composure. It makes me laught that I insisted on leaving for the hospital wearing my purple pajamas and my big pink robe. I got a lot of stares as they wheeled me moaning through the ER that day.

Up in the room, this photo is time stamped 12:49. That hour between getting in the car and getting in the hospital bed was like a blink. I remember keeping my eyes closed for most of the time so that I could focus on relaxing and riding the waves of the contractions. I was SO relieved when they checked my cervix and I was already at 7 cm. You can’t tell it, but I’m working really hard in this picture. Joe is so cute – so excited, maybe so relieved to be in the hospital with some of the responsibility off his shoulders. That is just about the happiest face I think I’ve ever seen on him. It’s the same smile he smiled on our wedding day.

2:08 P.M. This is toward the end of the pushing – I know because I started out leaning over the back of the bed and they made me switch positions only for the last few pushes. Again, I look calm, but I was concentrating very hard on staying calm and relaxed, all but the muscles I needed to push.that.baby.OUT!

Sophie was born at 2:34 – that’s the time stamp on the photo of her sliding out of my hoo-hoo. Nobody really needs to see that one – the quality of the photo is really bad anyway.

This one is at 2:46 PM – she is just over ten minutes old. God, what a rush – having that intensely scary and powerful experience over with, and in my arms a sweet, fresh, moist little human with a cute little nose that looked just like her father’s. She had already nursed a bit at this point, and was very sleepy. Being born is hard work.

5:06 P.M. We spent the next couple hours snuggling with the baby while the midwife fixed a couple of tears, the nurses cleaned up the room and entered data in the charts. Joe had just called in an order to a sandwich place for some food – we were both starving! I stood there taking pictures while the nurse gave Sophie her first bath. Look how chubby she is in this picture! I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look so angry since then, either.

I had to ask Joe to come take the camera so I could sit down because I was feeling lightheaded. That was when the nurses realized I was hemorrhaging and a few more hours of scary shit went down. I remember feeling pretty calm about the whole thing – not scared, just in a lot of pain as they started to work on me right there in the room. The drugs they were using to numb me weren’t working, and I was so relieved when they finally decided to haul me down to the OR. Looking back, the overall recovery from that surgery was far more painful and difficult than that from my c-section with Julie. But each birth experience is different. Thankfully, Sophie slept the whole time I was gone, and I spent the rest of that night alternately dozing and holding her, nursing her and just staring at her, kissing that cute little nose. The detailed birth story is here.

Flashing back to today…It was a pretty normal Thursday with a few exceptions. I’m feeling a little better today, but still tired and sore. While Julie was in pre-school this morning, Sophie and I went to the party supply store and picked up her balloons. I had five from Julie’s birthday that I refilled, plus I bought two more. The girls had a lot of fun playing with the balloons this afternoon, but I didn’t really get any pictures of that I’m afraid. Maybe tomorrow.

When Joe came home from work, we took the girls down to the basement to see Sophie’s gift. The birthday girl got the first ride.

Then Julie took a turn. We knew Julie would be very excited about this gift, and oh, yes, she was.

Sophie was just as happy to ride on the tractor for a while, and now she can actually push it with her feet and make it go. When did that happen?

They played down in the basement while I made dinner, and after dinner I brought out the cupcakes we baked this afternoon.

Sophie surprised me with how quickly she shredded hers and ate it. She really liked it, and probably would have eaten the whole thing if I had let her sit there long enough. That’s my girl!

Happy Birthday, Baby. Mama loves you.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 9th, 2007 at 4:10 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.