Nine months!

I can't believe I let his nine-month birthday slip by without posting. He'll be ten months old in 10 days!

He is a wonder. He has six teeth now (four on the top, two on the bottom) and his blonde peach fuzz is growing out, though it's coming in faster on the bottom than on the top, which makes him look a little bit like he has male pattern baldness. In the most adorable way, of course.

His new favorite word is "Dat!" I think he's saying "that." He blurts it out all day long, but he says it sort of like, "Det," so he sounds like a little South African. The other night he murmured it to himself as he was falling asleep. He really is uncontrollably cute.

And he's crawling and pulling himself up like a madman and getting into everything. I predict he will be free-standing by the time his ten-month birthday rolls around.

Oh, and he is REALLY happy, lately, squealing with joy and babbling and shrieking with laughter. What is equally adorable is the fact that the only time he is not happy is when he wakes up in the morning. He is really grouchy; it takes him a couple of minutes to stop being pissed off and start smiling. I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Eight months.

Well. It has been a ridiculously long time since I posted. Being a working mom is hard. And time consuming. And I so wanted to write just a little something every day so I would have a record of his first year, like Anne Lamott's book Operating instructions. And I even have stuff I want to write, but then I forget or run out of time. I guess Facebook will have to be my official record. 

So S is EIGHT months old! I cannot believe it. He is the happiest baby on the planet. He smiles and laughs and squeals with delight. His bottom two front teeth are halfway in and the top two are starting to poke through. He is crawling like crazy and pulling up to standing and climbing on everything he can. Diaper changes are a nightmare; it's like trying to put a diaper on an eel. An eel crossed with a hyperactive monkey.

We are still cosleeping. Not sure when that is going to change. Still nursing, too, though he loves his solid foods and eats with gusto. He's my little man and we are totally in love with him. 

Six. Months!

My sweet baby boy turned six months old last weekend. He is such a joy. I love him so much I can hardly breathe sometimes. I can't even describe how ecstatic I am that I get to be his mother.

He ate his first solid food this week; puréed bananas. He made a hilarious WTF face but then got into it. And he's eating a better formula, which I pay ridiculous amounts to import from England, but it really is so much better than the other crap he was eating. Still trying to find a good Eco-conscious disposable diaper though. I tried the Honest Company diapers and learned that not only do they cost an arm and a leg, they don't work. He peed our bed three times in a week. Someone should tell Jessica Alba her diapers are as good as her acting. Zing!

But back to S. he is rolling and pre crawling up a storm. He loves bouncing up and down, either in his Jumperoo or when you hold him. He is, for the most part, really smiley and sweet and cute and colic free! We love him like crazy. He is the cat's pajamas.

Elimination communication breakdown

I'll admit it, I'm one of those people who, before I had a kid, had Very Definite Ideas about what parents should and should not do when it came to raising their babies. And then I had a baby, and I realized I was a judgmental asshole who didn't know what the fuck I was talking about. Happens to the best of us.

Take "attachment parenting." This consists of holding your baby all the time, co-sleeping, nursing on demand until the kid is pretty old, etc. I always thought this was a surefire way to raise clingy, overly dependent kids who can't wipe their own asses when they're 32. Well, guess what--when they're very small babies, you're attachment parenting whether you like it or not. "Breastfeeding on demand" means feeding them when they're hungry. And just try not picking up a crying baby. You can't do it. You're biologically programmed to be incapable of it. So yeah, I did all those things. And then we started co-sleeping, because it was the only way he would sleep. So my objection to attachment parenting pretty much went out the window. 

Then there's the "cry it out" method for sleep training. While I don't think this is for me, I know lots of people who have done it, and they say it saved their sanity. On the other hand, I know lots of people who said they can't stomach it, and I totally, 100% get that, too. 

Also, there's the thorny issue of breastfeeding. I truly believe--and numerous studies have shown--that breast milk is the best source of nutrition for babies. There's really no arguing that point. That said, modern formula is really pretty good these days. And while I think every woman ought to try as hard as she can to breastfeed, even if she can only do it for a short while, the truth is it just doesn't work out for everyone. And at the end of the day, the most important thing is that your baby is well-fed and healthy. So I say, do what you've got to do, ladies. No judgement here. 

But there is a new parenting trend that, I'm sorry, I'm judge-y as hell about. And that is something called Elimination Communication.

There was an article in the New York Times about it, then in something called DNA Info. Of course all of the parents interviewed are from Brooklyn, because we Brooklyn parents need something else to make us look like assholes. Anyway, from what I can gather, elimination communication involves not using diapers and instead "reading your baby's cues" to figure out when they're going to take a shit, then hustling to park their little butts over the closest bowl (because you're supposed to strategically place them around your house) and hope they crap or pee in it.

SERIOUSLY?

I know people in other cultures do this, but those cultures are impoverished. I guarantee if you backed a truckload of Pampers up into a rural Chinese village, they'd use the shit out of them (no pun intended).

And also. I have a full-time job. I get very little time with my precious baby. I do not want to spend all of that time scrutinizing his facial expressions and panicking over whether he's about to take a shit and racing to get him over the nearest bowl when really he's just grunting because he grunts sometimes.

And finally. I breastfeed him several times a day, bathe him, play with him, comfort him...I kind of have my hands full as it is. I really think these people have no jobs or something. I mean, we looked into cloth diapers and quickly realized we would never have the time to deal with that; how on earth could anyone have time to do this?

Sigh. Parenting is hard, people. There is no reason to make it harder than it already is. 

Despite my blog title, I'm not fucking pregnant.

So I have exactly 14 pounds to lose to get to my pre-pregnancy weight. You'd have thought that breastfeeding and forgoing wheat and dairy for so long (I'm done with that, thank God) would have whittled the weight right off me. Well, it actually kind of did--I've lost 30 pounds--but since I pigged out a little harder than I meant to during pregnancy, I gained like 45 pounds. Not quite Jessica Simpson baby #1 territory, but close. So I've got a little ways to go.

Still, I think I look mostly okay; I can get away with wearing some of my old clothes, at least the wrap dresses. But for the last several days, I've been getting offered seats on the subway. WHERE WERE YOU BASTARDS WHEN I ACTUALLY WAS PREGNANT? I mean, there were days when I was NINE MONTHS PREGNANT and it was so fucking obvious, and the dude I was standing in front of would take pains to pretend like he didn't see the giant preggo belly in his face. These last few days, the men of New York have become unbearably chivalrous all of a sudden and are falling all over themselves to offer me a seat. I know they are trying to do the right thing, but I can't help it; it makes me angry, it's so humiliating. Worst of all, yesterday some bitch actually gave me the "when are you due?" line.

Are people really that stupid? I didn't think they were, but apparently I was wrong. 

When the f*ck did I become an attachment parent?

So yeah, the reason I haven't posted in a million years is because I went back to work. I thought I had no time before, but holy shit. This is serious business. And it's haaaaaard. I work all day, I pump all day, I come home at night and drop everything and breastfeed, then I soothe him to sleep until it's time for us all to lie down. Somewhere in there, my husband cooks dinner and I scarf it down my pie hole in the few peaceful minutes that I don't have a boob in my son's mouth. Then I wake up at six the next morning, feed my son, get myself ready without any help because my husband leaves for work at 5:00 a.m., scarf down cereal while my son plays, and try to be ready to walk out the door by 8:00.

Work is going good, though. And we finally resolved our childcare sitch, albeit expensively. I sucked it up and got a nanny. We were going to do a share, but we broke it off when the female-to-male transexual father of the child my son was going to share with ended up being too closed-minded about the nanny I wanted to hire (you read all that right. It's a hilarious topic for another posting. Also, my life is a sitcom, as a friend pointed out).

Anyway, I was all scared of hiring a nanny because of the idea of leaving my baby alone with a stranger all day, and one terrible thing that happened in NYC last year that I can't even bring myself to mention fully. But as it happened, some good friends of ours announced they have to leave the city for a work opportunity, and lo and behold, they needed a new home for their beloved nanny. So we met her, loved her and crunched some numbers. And because my husband gets home at 4:00 PM and I don't leave for work until 8:00, we found we could make it work financially, albeit just barely.

She's great, though. And it's such a load off my mind not to have to load him up every morning and take him on the subway, then drop him off, then get back on the subway and go back to work (which had been my only option before, because there aren't really any daycares in my neighborhood who take infants and have open spots).

Meanwhile, I am a gross attachment parent now, apparently. My son sleeps in the bed with us all night now. It was going to be a temporary move to get us through the 19 week sleep regression, but we never stopped. Truth: I kind of love it. I think it's partly because I miss him so much during the day that I love snuggling with him all night. And the nursing is still going strong, though I'm supplementing now. I expect I will keep doing it for at least the next 7 months. It's such a sure-fire way to calm him down that I'm not sure I want to take it out of my arsenal just yet. So yeah, I'm hoping I'm not still doing it when he's 2. Of course I can say now, "I would never do that!" But that's exactly what I said about him sleeping in the bed with us. Sigh.

Also, I bought a recipe book to make his baby food, and I ordered him these special non-toxic diapers, because I care about whether he has chemicals up in his butt. As I said to a friend, "What happened to me? I used to be sort of cool."

Google "four month sleep regression" if you want to understand what fresh hell I am living through right now.

S., a formerly champion sleeper, is now waking up a gajillion times a night to eat. He slept soooooooo gooooooood when we went to Texas (oh, and he did fucking awesome on the flights--thank you, breastfeeding, even though you are a pain in the ass). He slept eight hours a night for like three nights in a row.

And now? He will. not. sleep. Unless we co-sleep.

I know, I know, I knowiknowiknow. It's dangerous, I'm setting a bad precedent, blah blah blah. But I feel like it's more dangerous to breastfeed sitting up, then put him back in his sleeper, because a) I fall asleep while feeding him, and I'm afraid he could roll out of my arms and onto the floor; and b) because he wakes up and cries the instant I set him down in the sleeper and we need to fucking sleep some time.  Also, when we do co-sleep and my boob happens to fall out of his mouth, he wakes up and cries.

So that's what we've been doing the last several nights. I feel awful about it. (But I admit I also really enjoy the snuggling. Especially since I've gone back to work this week. Yeah, I buried the lead. More on that later.)

My boy

Have I mentioned that my baby boy is dreeeeeeeeeamy? He's all downy cheeks and pouty pink lips and huge, saucer-like blue eyes framed by lush, curly eyelashes. When I wake up in the morning, I stand over his sleeper and give him the cheeriest smile I can muster, and the smile he gives back sends a bolt of pure, electric joy rushing through me. It is the best possible way to start my day. As Holly Hunter said in Raising Arizona, "I love him so mu-hu-huch!"

Here's your medal

Here is something I've noticed: If you are a man walking around alone with your baby, you will be showered with endless kudos and treated as if you deserve a medal for actually spending time with the offspring you voluntarily brought into the world. My husband takes care of S. every afternoon for several hours while I work part-time at home, and he has been stopped in the street numerous times by women (usually older) who say something along the lines of how wonderful it is to see a man taking care of a child.

If you are a woman spending time with your baby out in public, however, you will be treated to a lecture about how you dressed him wrong. I always heard chicks talk about this and wondered if it was really a thing. It most definitely is a thing. (FWIW I don't dress him up in plastic carrier bags; we're talking weather-appropriate togs and hats.) Gah.

Mother's Day

I could get used to this Mother's Day business. It is like having a second birthday. Okay, so I ended up cooking breakfast myself, and we spent the day doing long-ago scheduled plans that had nothing to do with ,other's Day and not going out to brunch, but I got lots of love and cards and calls and texts. It was a really nice day. And while I may not say it often here, being a mother is fantastically, ridiculously wonderful. It really is. Hard, but wonderful. So, happy belated momma's day to all the mommas out there. You are goddesses. Keep up the good work.

The breast whisperer

So, after getting some help from the breastfeeding doctor but still suffering from sore and cracked nipples, I decided to throw still more money at my breastfeeding problem and call in the big guns: This lady, who is something of a Brooklyn legend (I actually called her three days after I got out of the hospital, but she was booked).

She was a riot, a New York City character out of central casting. She advised me to rub olive oil on my sore nipples, "But just a little bit--your breast is not a bagel; you don't need a schmear." And she cracked jokes throughout the whole session. But she was also very warm and funny and loving with my baby. She told me he has the cognitive awareness and interactivity of a five month old. Go S! And she threatened to not let me leave with him. (S. has that effect on people. Bit of a ladies' man already.)

She also said that she thinks his suck problem is down to the fact that he was vacuumed out of me, because in the days after birth, that causes soreness in the muscles he should be using to suck, so instead he uses the muscles around his mouth too much, which is what causes him to clamp down on the nipple, which is what causes the pain. I have no idea if any of this is true, but it makes a certain amount of sense. So we're going to do physical therapy-type exercises three times a day.

So now, my breast feeding regimen consists of feeding him eight times a day, pumping three times a day, doing exercises three times a day, doing tummy time three times a day (to improve other muscles), soaking my nipples in saline four times a day, rubbing olive oil on them after every feeding, and taking something like 10 pills a day. I'm fucking exhausted just typing that.

Hopefully this will get easier soon! Christ on a cracker, I'm not sure how much longer I can keep doing this.

Breastfeeding. Sigh.

I don't even have time right now to get into what a saga breastfeeding has been for me (note that I said saga and not "journey." Nothing bugs me more than the use of that word to describe anything other than getting from point a to point b. Setting sail from continental Europe to travel to South America in the 15th century? Journey. Cutting refined carbs, working out and losing a few pounds? Not a journey. But I digress).

Someday I will write the whole story, but for now I will give the Cliff's notes. In my quest to make it to six months of feeding my darling baby boy nothing but breastmilk (six months is the minimum lenght of time recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics), I have had three visits with a lactation consultant; one with a doctor who specializes in breastfeeding;  endured scabs, blood blisters, and bleeding from my nipples; started taking a prescription drug to boost my milk supply, and pumped several times a day in addition to nursing eight to ten times a day to make sure baby S. is getting enough to eat. Oh, and I cut out wheat and dairy because they don't agree with him.

To put it bluntly, it's fucking exhausting and I am ready for it to be over. The crux of the problem is that he has a bad latch, and I can't seem to fix it no matter how hard I try or how many experts I see. (And for those who know the lingo, he doesn't have a tongue tie; I checked). The latch problem is what's causing my nipple injuries, and it also means he isn't removing as much milk as he should at each feeding, which is causing my supply to drop. I could supplement with formula, but I have been told that this will cause my supply to dip even more.

In desperation, I attended a breastfeeding support group last week. It wasn't that helpful for my specific issues, but it was nice to hear that other moms are also not loving it and are having their own issues.
Except this one mom. She complained about "oversupply" (which I'm told can suck but I hardly doubt it sucks as much as undersupply) and also worried that her baby only spends 5-7 minutes per breast at each feeding. To put this in context, S. spends 30-45 minutes at EVERY feeding. This means I do nothing all day but nurse and pump, nurse and pump, nurse and pump.

Honestly, this chick seemed nice, but I found her infuriating. It's as if she'd said, "I am worried that I have too much money; I just don't know what to do with it all. And no matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to put on weight."

Bitch.

Sleep! Sleep! Sleep!

Baby S. turned three months old on Friday. And he decided to give ME a present. For the last several nights, he's been sleeping in longer and longer increments, and last night, he slept the much-coveted-by-new-moms 10 PM to 6 AM stretch. Yay! Yay! Yay!

Right now he is napping. And NOT in my arms. This is another big milestone. He normally won't sleep during the day unless I'm holding him--which is incredibly sweet, but makes it hard to do much of anything.

Seriously, I could weep with joy. I love you, little buddy! Now keep up the good work. 

Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

For the last three nights, my baby has slept through the night!!! I can't even believe I'm typing this.

When you are pregnant, everyone who has a child relishes the chance to tell you how sleep deprived you are going to be. Believe me, my husband and I were well aware that we were not going to get any sleep. We knew it was going to suck. We knew it was going to suck big time.

Still, there's no way to really prepare for how you feel when you're going through it. To put it bluntly, it's torture. Especially if you're breastfeeding. In the beginning, they eat every couple of ours, for like an  hour at a time, so you can really only sleep in one-hour increments. In our case this turned out to be a pretty brief period, thank god--Baby S is really a pretty good little sleeper--but even when he started sleeping for longer stretches, I still never got more than three hours of uninterrupted sleep for the longest time.

There is a reason that sleep deprivation is used to brutalize prisoners and terror suspects into submission. Because it's fucking torture. My husband and I started referring to Baby S as Zero Dark Baby. We were both irritable; we snapped at each other a lot, and I was prone to fits of weeping. There were a couple of times where I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown.

And then, he just did it. About three nights ago, he slept from 11 p.m. to 6:30. (Unfortunately, I woke up involuntarily at 4:30, out of habit; when I realized what time it was I tore out of bed in a panic to make sure he was still breathing.) The next night, he went from 10:30 to 5:30. Last night, 10:30 to 6:30. I have heard that babies will sometimes do this for a few nights and then revert back to middle of the night feedings; I hope this isn't the case. Because let me tell you, this has been the most welcome development EVER. I feel like throwing a goddamned ticker-tape parade.

What we haven't quite worked out is WHERE he sleeps. For now, and as he has done for most nights since we brought him home, he sleeps in the swing. It has proven to be the only place he will sleep. This is less than ideal because the swing is a bit cumbersome to bring into our bedroom--and anyway, our bedroom is freezing cold--so right now, my husband sleeps on the couch next to the swing, I sleep in the bedroom, and he brings the baby to me for middle of the night feedings.

I'd like nothing more than for us all to be in the same room, my husband sleeping next to me in our marvelous new bed that we bought just before Sam was born. And we've tried to make this happen a few times, wheeling the bassinet up to the bedside and turning on a space heater. But the little twerp refuses to sleep in the bassinet. After about three nights of trying this, we just gave up.

I have learned, when you are in the throes of extreme sleep deprivation, you will do anything to get your baby to sleep. If your baby will only sleep when being held upside down by his feet over a fire, you'll do it.

I was always against co-sleeping, not because of the hippie-dippy aspect, but because I thought it was dangerous. Apparently, babies have died for people rolling over on them and smothering them. But then there are doctors out there who say that co-sleeping actually reduces the risk of SIDS. (Parenting books are so chock full of ridiculously conflicting information that it's honestly not worth reading them.) Anyway, I know lots of people who do it, and they basically told me the same thing--they were desperate to get some sleep, and it was the only way their baby would sleep. So they reluctantly gave in, making sure to take every precaution. It's probably more dangerous to have overtired parents who are in such a state of sleep deprivation that they could fall asleep anywhere and drop the baby than to co-sleep while taking the proper precautions.

In some ways, I'm actually a little jealous of these people. I would love to snuggle with my baby all night and then, when he woke up, just roll over and stick a boob in his mouth. I even bought one of those co-sleeper things--it's basically a bassinet that's missing a side and it attaches to your bed, so you can just reach over and grab the baby when you need to nurse or comfort him. But that was a $130 lesson learned the hard way. He will only sleep on an incline, which is why he likes the swing.

But for now, I am just not going to worry about it. He's sleeping through the night, and there's no way I'm rocking that boat.

He's here!!!

So anyone who might still be reading this can probably figure out why I haven't posted in a couple months. Baby S was born on January 26th! My water broke in the middle of the night, on the night of a full moon. We took a car service to the hospital, and after just a few short hours of intense labor (under 12 in total), he arrived! I had a normal vaginal delivery, and yes, I got an epidural, bu only after laboring for nine hours without one. And they turned it off for the actual pushing and birth. But it bought me three blissful, pain-free hours, during which I took the most refreshing nap of my life. I woke up energized and ready to push! In the end he had to be vaccumed out, which hurt like a motherfucker, but only for a few seconds. I tore, but not too badly. All in all it wasn't as bad as I'd feared, pain-wise.

There was drama in the hospital afterward though; I could not get him to latch on and his blood sugar dropped, which was terrifying. We had to supplement with formula, which made me feel like a failure. But he figured out the eating thing by the time we left to go home. Another scary thing was that they found a dimple near his spine that they said could be indicative of problems and might require neurosurgery to prevent paralysis. But they told us this on Saturday, and we had to wait until Monday to get the sonogram! It was agonizing. But it turned out to be fine, thank god.

So far being his mother has been overwhelming-exhausting and stressful and humbling and exhilarating all at once. I love him so fiercely it is almost more than I can bear. But I am so incredibly grateful that he is here.

Oh god.

So it turns out that people make things called "Diaper Cakes," which are apparently diapers and shit rolled up into the shape of a baby. WTF?

Naturally, Regretsy is all over this. Behold their hilarious take:

http://www.regretsy.com/2013/01/24/flashback-suffocakes/

In which I confide my darkest fears (aka I hope my baby doesn't come out all f*cked up and sh!t)

And now, the entry I’ve been putting off writing, the one I where I address one of my biggest fears about this baby, and about motherhood in general.

When I was about 20 weeks pregnant, I was offered an amniocentesis test. I declined, because these tests carry about a 1 in 200 chance of miscarriage. I had a miscarriage just before I got pregnant with this baby, and it was awful. I won’t go into the details of the experience, or how badly my case was mishandled by my (now former) doctor. I do remember I was on deadline with the magazine, and I felt terrible cramps, and I knew immediately what was happening because I’d been somewhat prepared for it (though my dumb doctor told me that it was possible that there had been a mistake in the lab and my hcg results weren’t accurate, so of course I’d gotten my hopes up). I went to the bathroom and saw bright red blood and knew at once that it was over.

After the longest 10-minute subway ride in history, I went home, crawled into bed, and cried gasping sobs while my husband held me. The next day, I got it together, more or less. I didn’t go to work, and I more or less stayed in bed because of the physical pain, but I didn’t spend the entire day crying. I resolved that as soon as I could, I was going to try and get pregnant again.

It’s a good thing I did, because I got my period after only three weeks and conceived my baby about 10 days later. I spent the first 12 weeks basically living like a monk the moment I found out I was pregnant and freaking out at every little ache, pain and twinge. I turned down the offer of a CVS test at 12 weeks (it basically screens for the same things as amnio, but catches them earlier; it makes it easier to terminate, if you find something wrong, since it’s earlier, but it carries a higher risk of miscarriage). Then I was offered a series of blood tests, one in the first trimester and one in the second, that would give my odds of having a baby with Down Syndrome or Trisomy X. I also had what’s called a nuchal translucency screening, which tells you within 90% accuracy if your baby’s neck is abnormally sized (I think it’s the neck; it’s been awhile). This somehow can be a predictor of potential abnormalities.

My nuchal came back normal and my blood tests showed pretty low odds, much lower than the 1 in 200 chance of miscarriage with amniocentesis, so I decided to skip that procedure. And then try to forget about the possibilities ever since.

Look, I know there are worse things than having a child with Down syndrome. From what I understand, most parents struggle with it at first but then come around to say that they have learned more from their Down syndrome children than they ever could have thought possible. Many children with Down syndrome grow up to be happy, healthy, productive adults who vastly enrich the lives of those around them. Like, for example, John Franklin Stephens, the Special Olympics athlete who wrote Ann Coulter an open letter after she sent hateful tweets about Obama using the word “retard.” Go read the letter here (and have some tissues handy). Okay, now that you’re back--isn’t that amazing? Who wouldn’t want a son like that?

But here’s the thing: the life expectancy. I just finished re-reading “Operating Instructions,” Anne Lamott’s book about her son’s first year, and in it she basically says that she wishes all these awesome things for her kid, then realizes she doesn’t give a shit about any of it--the only thing she really wants is for him to outlive her. That is the only thing any parent truly wants. And with Down syndrome, the life expectancy is shorter, though it is much longer than it used to be. So that’s part of it. But I’d be lying if I said I also just don’t feel like I’m ready for those kinds of challenges. The fact is, I don’t know whether my child has it or not. I won’t know that until he or she is born.

And even if he or she doesn’t have it, there is a chance something else could happen--autism, behavior disorders, or something far more pedestrian that still falls outside the scope of what society deems “normal.” There is a book that came out recently, “Oddly Normal,” that talks about this (the author’s son is gay and attempted suicide at 13 despite having the love and full support of his parents). I haven’t read it, but it’s sparked a lot of articles about what can happen when your kid turns out to be something other than so-called normal.

Anyway, this is all very heavy. It’s too much to think about right now. Because I am a horrible person, I have to admit this also reminds me of this.

I'm stiiiiiiiiiiiill pregnant

Sigh. Went to the doctor yesterday. Still stuck at 2 cm dilated, 80% effaced. She's talking about inducing me if I haven't had the baby next week.

This is so not what I wanted to happen.

Also--kid--WTF? Does my uterus have a little sofa inside, and a flat-screen, and a mini-fridge with some snacks and beverages? Why do you want to stay in there so badly? I promise it's not so bad out here. We're cool, your parents-to-be. You'll like us. Okay, it's true, your nursery is a little WT right now what with the boxes and stuff everywhere and the lack of curtains and the fact that we haven't built the crib yet, but you won't need it right away anyway.

There is a part of me that thinks I should be slightly relieved--I will get the chance to actually complete most everything I wanted to get done. But on the other hand--I have all the grace and agility of Shamu. When I roll over onto my side, away from the nightstand, I have to get my husband to reach over me if I need something from it, because it's that much of a production to roll from side to side. Also, commuting suuuuuuuuucks. People have not been offering me seats. I saw a small opening yesterday, so I sat down, but there wasn't quite enough room for me and the lady I sat next to. Rather than offer her seat, she gave me the side eye!

(But later she gave money to the world's most annoying panhandler, a 20-something douche who said he was staying with friends in Brooklyn and wanted to scrounge up "just a few bucks so we can get a couple of $5 Little Caesar's pizza." I rarely give money to panhandlers, mostly because I never know if I'm doing more harm than good and I'd rather give to food banks and soup kitchens. But when I do give money, it tends to be to young mothers, or old people, or people who generally look like they could use it, not young Brooklyn hipsters. GAH. But I digress. Anyway, the point of that story was really to point out how much this lady sucked.)

So yeah, I am ready to be done with work, and with being uncomfortable. But I also wouldn't mind a few days to get stuff done and also spend quality time with my husband. I just REALLY don't want to have to be induced. I just feel like all roads lead to a C-section in modern delivery rooms these days, and I desperately do not want to have one. 

Snooki

So this weekend--and I'm not proud of this--I caught a few minutes of "Snooki and JWOWW." In this particular episode, Snooki was going through her baby loot and discovered that JWOWW had given her these test strips that you can dip into your breast milk to see if there is any booze in it (so, for instance, you can determine whether you need to feed your baby stored breast milk instead if you had a drink too close to feeding time).

At first I thought, "Good god, those girls are so trashy." Then I thought, "Hmm. Do they work?"

Almost at the finish line...

I have a cold now. Which is super awesome when you're pregnant. You get the added bonus of peeing yourself a little bit every time you sneeze.

For as much as I bitch about being pregnant, though, I have to admit there are things I am going to miss about it. One of them is feeling the baby move inside me. This sounds loopy, but it makes me a little sad to know I will never be this close to my baby again.

I'm 39 1/2 weeks. At my last appointment, my doctor said she didn't think I'd make it to my due date, but now I'm starting to feel like I might. I kind of want to have the baby already, partly--and I'm ashamed to admit this--because I don't want to go to work this week. Last week was so fucking brutal. Not that having a newborn isn't going to be 1,000 times as brutal. But I'm burned out, and I feel like a different kind of brutality would be better than what I've been dealing with lately in the office.

Also, I keep getting Europe's "The Final Countdown" stuck in my head. So it would also be nice not to have to deal with that anymore. 

So I had another tear-filled, hormone-fueled emotional meltdown.

After a really long and stressful week of staying in the office late at night (and working during the previous weekend), I accomplished very little at home and then promptly woke up sick on Thursday. I had to go to work anyway to finish up the issue of the magazine. I got to leave early, but of course as soon as I got home I tackled the nursery. And that's when the waterworks came, because I still have so much to do and the room doesn't even look like a room where a baby would hang out and I just need someone to give me some fucking time to do these things!

Anyway, I started wailing to my husband, who pointed out that we have accomplished a superhuman amount in a short time. And it's true, we have. There's just still so much to do. And I would not have been crying if I weren't so very, very pregnant and uncomfortable and worn out.

Man, I really hope I don't go all Brooke Shields after the baby is born. My doctor told me that prior to having the baby, I should make an appointment with a therapist, just so I have someone on speed dial in case I do suffer from postpartum depression. It's actually excellent advice, and of course I haven't done it because I have no fucking time. 

A stressy rant

So I’m 39 weeks pregnant, 2 centimeters dilated, 80% effaced, and 100% miserable.

I’m at the point where I have to ask my husband to tie my shoes. It HURTS to bend over; I pretty much can’t do it anymore.

And I’m learning that, ironically, the more pregnant you are, the less likely people are to give you a seat on the subway. I’m back to having to ask people. They make eye contact and then look away, so I have to say something. When I do, that usually works, but not always (there was the one guy who said no, anyway).

And don’t get me started on young white guys with their digital devices. Twice in the last week I’ve had a woman or older dude give up their seat because the perfectly able-bodied young man sitting next to them had his face buried in a phone, playing a game. A freaking CELL PHONE GAME. Grow the fuck up, guys! Have some consideration for people on this planet who are not you! Stop being douche bags!

Goddammit, if I raise a son, he’s not going to pull that bullshit.

And of course I’m working until the last second, and we’re on deadline so I’m putting in crazy long hours, which leaves me no time at home to do vitally important shit like figure out how my carseat works or put my crib together or hang the curtains in the nursery (and buy curtain rods to do so). I really hope emotional stress does not have a negative impact on babies, because if it does, this kid is gonna be pretty fucked up.

Also: I recently met a couple who had a baby seven weeks ago. I asked how it's going. "Oh, her mother is retired, so she's been staying with us the whole time. If we didn't have her, I don't know HOW we'd doooooooo it."

Well, my mother still works, so no one's moving in with us. We're on our own. Thanks for making me panic about that, too, asshats.

But now for the bright side: I get to meet my baby soon!!!!!!!

The doctor says I probably won't make it to my Jan. 24 due date. This is terrifying, but terribly exciting at the same time. I want to meet this little person who's taking up real estate and wriggling his or her little butt in my belly all day long! 

Screw you Marissa Mayer!

You know who can suck it? Marissa fucking Mayer, that's who.

Because of her "I'm going to drop a baby out of my vagina and then run back to my office immediately after" approach to combining career and motherhood, there is all this fucking pressure on regular working girls to do the same. I have been asked by no fewer than three people in my office if I'm planning on working through my FEDERALLY PROTECTED maternity leave, and when I say no, the immediate reply is, "Well, Marissa Mayer did it!" Followed by a weak laugh. Weak because they're not really joking.

Now, I understand why she made the decision she made. When you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, your job is your life, and you really don't have much of a choice about that. Her spouse will probably pick up more of the childcare, and she'll have a swat team of nannies and round-the-clock childcare professionals to help her out, and her kid will probably fine and I'm sure she'll be a great mom, etc. And it's probably not her fault that she unwittingly set this new standard. But she did. (Though screw her for saying publicly that having a new baby was "not that hard." Say that to women who have kids, work full time and DON'T have the resources that she does.)

The problem is that managers now expect this of all women. I actually pointed out to one of these people that my pay packet is nowhere near hers, and this person shrugged their shoulders.

Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh ugh. Discrimination is alive and fucking well.

The worst part is that I'm not even asking for special privileges. And I'm working my usual 60-hour weeks right up until I have the baby. I just want 12 GODDAMNED WEEKS to feed my baby, keep him/her alive, and bond with my infant. That is ALL I am asking. That is NOT too much.

Okay, now that that rant is over...

We're still unpacking, but the move is over. It was a clusterfuck, but it's done, and the place is coming together, and we're painting the nursery and we've ordered the furniture and I did a crapload of baby laundry this weekend, so I'm feeling better on the preparation front. And we looooooove the apartment. And our new neighborhood. It feels very family-centric but also very real and very Brooklyn. Yay!