Hi blog! I don’t look like this any more, because I had my baby! Yayyyyy! Betcha didn’t think I would be blogging again so soon. I know I didn’t. But here I am.

Last week/weekend we tried and tried to induce labor naturally–by extra walks, yoga, eating fresh pineapple, eating dates for weeks on end, sex…

…with a perv mustache! The joys!

Even collaborating in the kitchen on a giant pan of Eggplant Parmesan, which, although delicious, did not make my child want to leave the cozy confines of my womb any more. Harrumph.

My parents arrived into town last Sunday and spent the night with us. We feasted on Eggplant Parmesan and I got a whole lot more sleep than I expected to get the night before my induction.

The induction wasn’t scheduled until 6:30 pm (women are more likely to go into labor at night), so Monday was all about keeping busily distracted.

For my Last Pregnant Meal I requested my mother’s macaroni and cheese, but the oven took too long to pre-heat so we all ended up having hamburgers and fries for dinner. Heigh ho!

Once we got to the hospital, my OB did a cervix check and pronounced that I was already 2.5 cm dilated and 70% effaced, which she was extremely pleased about. They had a pill for me to take every 4 hours to soften my cervix, and I was allowed to take it a maximum of 6 times.

That night, walking the halls with Mumsie.

The pill had no other side effects, so I felt normal as we watched “Ab Fab” (series 1) and “The Other Guys” with my parents. They let me take a Benedryl to sleep (the hospital bed was insanely uncomfortable), and I had two more doses of the pill.

The next day, they started me on pitocin to induce contractions, and we again passed the time as best we could. I ate normally, put together a jigsaw puzzle, went for little walks around the hospital floor. Around 1 pm, the contractions started to become too painful to ignore, so I sent my parents away so I could exclusively focus on getting through them, with the help of my Doula (Josh) and the nurse.

Gradually the pain got worse and worse–the nurse was excellent, she acted like a second Doula and coached Josh and I through several different positions/techniques to ease the pain. The last medicine-free resort I opted for was sitting in the bathtub and spraying warm water over myself–but then it was just too much. The nurse had told me I could opt for Fentanyl before the epidural, since once you have the epidural you are bedbound–and I called for it. MISTAKE! The Fentanyl made my tongue slurry and vision wonky, but did not relieve the pain. I needed the epidural, stat, and they immediately brought in the anesthetist to administer it to me.

I later found out that I had made it all the way to 9 cm dilation–9 cm! Me! The person who nearly passed out from having a little ankle tattoo at age 18!–before I got the epidural. Now for the next part–I couldn’t have imagined getting through the last part of labor without that epidural. Because I pushed for FOUR HOURS STRAIGHT. It was horrible. Towards the end they want me to “hold in” every other contraction, which is almost worse than pushing, and eventually holding it IS worse than pushing. I was on oxygen and the little guy’s heart rate was dropping every time I pushed. A vacuum was mentioned previously, and near the fourth hour I begged them to use it. He was so low and it was so painful to push I knew I couldn’t let them give me a C-section, so I pushed with all my might…

…and Baby M. came screaming into this world. My eyes were closed, but I heard that he practically flew out of me, arms akimbo. I opened my eyes right as he came towards my chest and fell 100% in love instantly, and started talking to him immediately (Josh was sobbing).

“You’re going to learn very soon son,” I murmured into his perfect ear, “That the family motto is, “Nothing comes easy for us”.”

I had a second-degree tear from pushing my 8 pound, one ounce son out of my body, which required stitches. After a little while we called all the grandparents in, who had shown up at the hospital without our prompting and had been waiting in the waiting room while I labored for who knows how long.

Baby M. was born on January 10th, 2017, the day before Mumsie’s 65th birthday. For her birthday this year I had put together a book of “65 Reasons why you’re awesome”, just like I had done for my father on his 60th. I forgot to take pictures of it. Darn it. Priorities.

This was around 5 in the morning, when I looked into my son’s eyes and cried over how beautiful he is.

The hospital discharged us around 5 pm the next day, and Josh’s parents are staying with us for the next two weeks to help out. Well, week now, they’ve been here for nearly a week already. It’s taken me three days to compose this blog entry!

The great-grandparents came for a visit. He is their 6th great-grandchild.

My little man.

He has my monkey toes (poor kid) and my beautiful ears.

The dogs have been great. Curious, but not pushy. And Bear Cub is quite protective already.

Josh has been so good about staying up with the little guy when he has his midnight to 3 am cry fests. I feed; he walks and rocks and soothes. I can’t do a lot–everything hurts. Not to mention I threw my back out Friday at the doctor’s appointment and that didn’t help ANY thing.

Love this picture of Fleeta and Bob. They’ve been wonderful.

Josh’s former boss came over for a visit. She’s a little baby crazy. She brought pasta salad, homemade chocolate cookies and donuts, mmmm.

Looking forward to not hurting any more, but in the meantime, this view helps.

Being a mom feels very natural to me.

Can’t wait until I can walk the dogs again.

So gooooood.

My life right now is just sort of hobbling around the house re-applying Tucks pads to my XL Depends, drinking lots of water and eating lactation cookies, and feeding my son whenever he gets squirrely. Not too shabby. It’s all good.