A few weeks later, I had no choice. I found myself pacing the halls of the hospital, attempting to get my water to break “naturally.” Always one for a fun scene, I was rather looking forward to a big flood of water as I stood up after dinner or waddled through the mall during the busy lunch hour. No such luck, and my water had to be broken manually (which, for the record, is not nearly as fun as it sounds). The start of my labor was so not how I imagined my Hollywood delivery would be. I should have known better by then. There ain’t nothing glamorous about childbirth.
The rest of my labor went similarly. You know how in the movies and on TV, it’s three pushes and the baby comes out? In my dreams. With all of my deliveries, it was hours of resting and monitoring and poking and prodding. I was actually bored. When it was finally time to push, I was ready. I was in the zone. Bring it on! I was woman, hear me roar!
But I didn’t. Roar, I mean. I’d opted for the drugs early on so I wouldn’t be in pain, and I wasn’t. None at all. It was the best decision I could have made. Seriously, highly recommend, five stars, two thumbs up. What I do regret, however, was letting Jeff know exactly how little pain I was in. Because of my honesty (always my downfall, dammit) I am completely unable to pull the birth trump card. When he’s whining about a cold, my “Well, I bore children and complained less!” isn’t nearly as effective as it could have been. It sucks. My advice to you, future mothers: Get the drugs, but fake the pain. It’s a win-win.
When I finally grunted Lily out, along did come a little something else, but it wasn’t even a blip on the radar at that moment. Actually, being able to piss and shit openly was oddly liberating. Kind of relaxing, even. Plus, I had a far more important thing to concentrate on. Something that, eight years later, still infuriates me. From the moment my daughter came out, one thing was clear: She didn’t resemble me in the least. She did, however, look eerily like her other DNA contributor, whom we shall now refer to as “the prick who trumped my genes.”
I mean, seriously, what the hell? I carried this child for nine months. She bruised my insides and caused my feet to grow and hips to spread and made a road map of my stomach. I had to get rid of my favorite heels for her! And my skinny jeans! What did he do? He made a deposit and went on his merry way, that’s what. I knew one thing for sure: the gene pool was bullshit. And I was pissed.
Also bullshit? That moment immediately after birth that I’d been waiting for. I’d watched enough soaps and movies to know what those precious moments would be like: The nurse would place my hollering baby on me and she would latch onto my breast and I would instantly feel like a mother. The clouds would open and light would shine in and we would be surrounded by rainbows and butterflies and happiness.
Or not.
I wanted my money back.
Instead of a perfect pink baby, I was given a slimy, nasty-looking thing whose head looked like it belonged in a dated Saturday Night Live sketch. She was gooey and blotchy and looked like she’d just been in a major fistfight. Unfortunately, she also looked like she’d lost. Big-time. Fortunately, she cleaned up well. (Thank God.)
But even all tidied up, I didn’t feel the immediate outpouring of love that I was expecting. I felt relief that my months of puking up prenatal vitamins hadn’t resulted in two heads and twelve fingers. I felt grateful that she didn’t need to be carted off to the NICU or have a barrage of tests. I felt ecstatic to no longer be pregnant. And I certainly felt protective of her tiny little body. But love? How do you feel immense love for someone you don’t even know?
I wanted to get to know her, though, and I wanted to do that at home. I was ready for us to begin our lives together. I missed my dog and I wanted to sleep in my own bed. Plus, I really needed a good shower and the hospital didn’t have all of my yummy shampoos and body washes. Home sweet home. I could almost taste it.
In retrospect, I have no idea what the hell I was thinking. With my subsequent children, I was smart enough to know that the hospital is a pleasure cruise compared to what I had waiting for me at home. With my last, I practically had to be escorted out in handcuffs. Seriously, if I’d had them, I would have cuffed myself to the bed.
At the hospital, you have 24/7 nursing care. You have room service (it may not be five-star quality, but at least you don’t have to cook). You have power over the remote control. You have a bed to yourself. You have a private bathroom. And, if you’re really smart, you’ll send the baby to the nursery and actually sleep. It’s the most relaxed you’ll have been in months. And the most relaxed you will be for a long, long time to come. Oh, one of the many things you just can’t appreciate with a firstborn child. Really, it’s reason enough to try for another one.
There’s nothing like that trip home, though, whether it’s your first or (God help you) your tenth. You have a new baby, a fresh outlook, and the world is your oyster.
Until you walk through your front door.
Chapter 4
ARE THEY REALLY LETTING ME TAKE THIS THING HOME?
Mommy Confessions
• After pouring my coffee, I realized we were out of milk. I used breast milk instead. Not bad.
• I wonder whether the other people hate me for having such good-looking babies . . . everyone should just quit trying at this point. It’s been done.
• My baby’s vibrating bouncy seat broke yesterday, so now my “top of the drawer” toy is wrapped in a receiving blanket and tucked into the side of the car seat. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
• I’ll never understand baby gas . . . or how it can keep them up screaming all night. When else in life does this ever happen?
• Neurotic first-time moms annoy the shit out of me.
• I cried the first time my son cried inconsolably because I felt like a failure and wondered why God would ever let me be a mom.
• Newborns are UGLY. Yes, even mine.
• I am SO thankful that I ended up with an undeniably cute baby.
• When I married my husband he could do no wrong . . . when we started having babies he could do no right.
• Everyone loves the smell of new babies, but I thought mine stunk!
• “Sleep when the baby sleeps” is the most irritating, useless thing ever said to a new mother. I’m going to slap the next woman who says it. Because I know she didn’t sleep when the baby slept. No one does.
• If babies were sleeping through the night at ten months old, I’d probably have seven more.
• I like my children best when they are newborns. I like them less every year after.
• Women everywhere should shield their babies’ chubby thighs from my view . . . I refuse to keep my hands to myself.
• My baby is the only baby in the world who doesn’t look like an ugly bald old man to me.
The first weekend that we got back from our honeymoon, Jeff and I ran out as fast as we could and bought a puppy. I remember driving out to the breeder’s house several hours away and observing the precious little litter all playing together happily in the backyard, cute as could possibly be. After we picked out our tiny orange fur ball, the breeder sat down with us and drilled us on every detail of our lives: What was our house like? How many floors did it have? How flexible was our schedule? Did we travel on weekends? Had we explored puppy training? Did we have other dogs? Children? A housebreaking plan? Good Lord, this is intense, we communicated through eye rolls and side glances. But we diligently answered all of her questions and more. At the end of the interrogation, we were rewarded with an adorable eight-week-old golden retriever, who we immediately named Penelope. The woman handed us the papers, along with a list of puppy resources and veterinarians. Off we went, our new little family, confident that we had everything we needed to raise a happy and healthy dog.
Leaving the hospital with Lily was an entirely different experience. I was shocked that the nurses didn’t ask us a single time whether we knew how to feed her or change her or soothe her in the middle of the night. They didn’t want to inspect our h
ome to see whether it was baby-ready or do a thorough background check on either one of us. They didn’t ask for college transcripts or even whether we were CPR certified—we could have been serial killers and they wouldn’t have known or cared. At the end of my two-day stay, they simply plopped me in a wheelchair and pushed me out the front door. Jeff and I looked at each other incredulously—that was it? Why was bringing home a puppy a thousand times more complicated? Where was my take-home fact sheet to refer to in the wee hours of the night when we had no idea what the hell to do? Where was my money-back guarantee? I’d never felt so unprepared for anything in my life.
It must have been obvious to the world that I had no clue what I was doing, because suddenly, everyone and their freaking mothers was an expert on child rearing. The neighbor who dropped by with an aluminum tray of overcooked lasagna had all the answers regarding sleep scheduling and took two full hours to explain them to me. The one with the chicken pot pie informed me that pacifiers had permanently botched her now teenage daughter’s teeth. Baked ziti with a side of meatballs explained to me that the less I bathed my baby, the more beautiful her skin would be. My mother-in-law claimed that she knew the best way to soothe a crying infant. Cousins and aunts and uncles and mere acquaintances piped in with their experiences and knowledge concerning spitting up, burping, bathing, and umbilical cords. Even the UPS guy volunteered his views on circumcision. (For the record, he was vehemently opposed. I didn’t ask him to elaborate.)
One thing that I decided, on my own and through no consensus from the peanut gallery, was that I would breast-feed my child. Not only was it best for the baby, but also it would help me take the baby weight off, and I needed all the help I could get in that department. Plus, practically speaking, formula was expensive—why spend thirty bucks on a jar of something my body could make on its own? For me, it was a no-brainer. I knew nothing else, but I was definitely going to breast-feed. My distant cousin would be so pleased.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy. In retrospect, it did seem a little suspicious that I was able to wear the same exact bras all through my pregnancy. Every single part of me grew right down to my feet, but my boobs remained the same dismal cup size. This is bullshit, I remember thinking: the one part of pregnancy that was worth getting excited about, and I got completely gypped. At least when my milk came in, I’d have real cleavage for the first time in my life. I’d wear low-cut tops and get out of speeding tickets and trouble of all kinds. The prospect got me through the misery of pregnancy. It was also never gonna happen.
Minutes after birth, Lily latched on like a champ—she was a natural; I was told by the experienced nurses that we’d have no feeding issues at all. But no matter how hard she sucked, she couldn’t seem to get satiated. They assured me that once we got the positioning down, feeding would be a breeze. So I cradled her in my arms and nursed her. I cross-cradled her. I nursed her sitting up and I nursed her lying down. I even nursed her like a football, despite never having actually held a football in my life. Nothing seemed to work and she became one pissed-off little girl.
To test exactly how much milk I was producing, the home lactation consultant set me up with a double pump, Old Bessie style. I sat on my bed, bottle hooked up to each breast, and cried after an hour when I had less than a few drops in each bottle. Clearly, this wasn’t working and all the fenugreek in the world wasn’t going to make a difference. Feeling like a complete failure, I started her on formula, sobbing the whole time.
It turned out (much to the dismay of my diehard breast-feeding friends) that formula wasn’t really evil. Actually, it proved rather miraculous. Once Lily was actually getting nourishment during feeding time, the hysterics (from both of us) subsided. With a full tummy, she became a much more pleasant baby. She began gaining weight, rather than losing it, and the pediatrician gave her a big stamp of approval. It may not have been what I’d planned, but it definitely wasn’t the worst thing in the world. And, I tried to convince myself and the people gasping when I pulled out the Similac, it certainly didn’t make me a bad mother.
Plus, bottle feeding wasn’t entirely awful. I did get to eat and drink whatever I wanted without worrying about the repercussions on my baby’s tummy. And it left Jeff or my mother or my best friend just as capable of feeding Lily as I was, a fact that made me sad as well as a little bit relieved. Best of all, now that I wasn’t feeding and pumping 24/7, I could get out of the house. And Mama really needed to get out.
That first trip out of the house, I think I wore pajamas. Even if they weren’t actually pajamas, I’m certain I slept in them the night before (and, perhaps, the night before that as well). Motherhood gave me the excuse not to give a shit about how I looked, and I took full advantage of that fact. I assumed the public would forgive my confusion over how to use an ATM machine or properly park my car in between two white lines. I was a new mother; I had the best excuse out there.
First-time mothers are the easiest people in the world to identify. I never noticed this fact before I was a mother, but after experiencing what they’re going through, I find that the breed is just impossible to ignore. And it seems like they’re everywhere. Try it: The next time you are at the grocery store or a coffee shop or the bank, take a good look around—I know you can spot her. The first-time mother will be in a complete daze, totally oblivious to the spit-up adorning her left shoulder and the stench of exhaustion emanating from her hair. She will have circles under her eyes and be swaying back and forth, even if there is no baby in her arms at the time, soothing herself just as much as her absent infant. She will be drained, mentally and physically, and could cry on command, if you asked her to.
New mothers with older children as well aren’t nearly as easy to spot. They aren’t as overwhelmed and exhausted as they were the first time around and they aren’t stressing over sleep patterns and exactly how much milk their babies are consuming. They have gained the knowledge that only experienced mothers have: the knowledge to appreciate their newborns, before they aren’t newborns anymore.
But, even more than the ability to relish those fleeting moments, they’ve gained the wisdom that as trying and monotonous as the constant feeding and burping and changing may be, it’s nothing compared to what’s coming in the not-so-distant future. It’s the dirty little secret of new motherhood that nobody tells you: Newborns are a breeze. Just wait until you have a three-year-old and you’ll kill for those early days.
Unless, of course, you have a truly colicky baby. In that case, best of luck. You’re pretty much screwed.
Chapter 5
PAYING FOR THE NINE-MONTH BINGE
Mommy Confessions
• Last week, my hairdresser asked how far along I was. I’m not pregnant, but I pretended to be four months. I can never go back there now.
• How did I let myself get to 210 pounds? Oh, yeah. Pregnancy cravings. Eighty pounds of them.
• I’m still trying to lose the baby weight from my twins. They’re juniors in high school.
• I’m praying that my son will come out weighing ten pounds . . . I know it will be hell to deliver, but every extra pound is one more I don’t have to work to lose.
• I told my husband that we were on a sex hiatus until I lost the baby weight. That was two years ago.
• I miss my pre-kids stomach so much it hurts.
• I miss the crazy concoctions of food I created when I was pregnant: tuna and roast beef sub with onions, jalapeños, chipotle sauce, vinegar, and carrots was my favorite. Subway thought I was out of my mind.
• I’m seriously debating adopting just so I don’t gain all that weight.
• Just tried on my prepregnancy jeans four weeks after having my baby. I was sure they’d just be tight, but OMG, I can’t even pull them up past my knees. SHIT.
• I don’t know why women complain about the baby weight as much as they do. For the first time in my life, I have boobs! And I love every inch of them.
• I am eight months pregnant, but was
overweight to start. My husband just called me morbidly obese and I want to crawl under a rock and die . . . if only I could find one big enough.
• Contrary to popular belief among my family, I don’t have postpartum depression. I’m just upset about being so freaking fat.
• I’m wearing maternity jeans but I haven’t been pregnant in six years.
Despite all the things I loathed about pregnancy, there was one thing about it that I savored. One thing that made all of the misery and swelling and aches and pains worthwhile. One thing that could, perhaps, convince me to suffer through the whole thing all over again for a fourth and final time (well, one thing other than the resulting baby, of course). I’m talking about the food. The glorious, glorious food.
Eating all day long was the only thing that quelled my nausea and it just felt so damn good. Pregnancy marked the first time in my life when I wasn’t consciously sucking in my gut and it was absolutely liberating. Now, I know, I know it’s not medically necessary to eat for two, since the baby is the size of a sea monkey for the first trimester, but I did anyway. Actually, I ate for five. I easily could have fed a small village with what I consumed during my pregnancy. Probably for an entire year.
I can’t say that I had any particular cravings, because I simply craved everything. Bacon and eggs and tuna fish sandwiches topped with potato chips and pizza with extra cheese and meatball subs and chocolate milk shakes. And that was just for breakfast. I visited the food court at the mall and ate my way around the world in a day. The next day, I did it all over again. Personally, I think the whole craving thing is a crock, anyway. I think women always crave particular foods, knocked up or not, and pregnancy just gives us the excuse to indulge rather than deny ourselves. Finally. Admittedly, it’s not the healthiest way of getting through nine months, but for me, it was the silver lining to an otherwise miserable experience. The Hershey’s Kiss–filled silver lining.
Confessions of a Scary Mommy Page 3