I know how much she loves me. I do. She tells me now, all the time, even at her age. I know by how tightly she holds onto to me when I hold her, by how big she smiles when I walk into the room. I know, because I am the first person she looks for, asks for, needs. I KNOW how much she loves me, because I do.

But she never smiles and runs to me like she does her daddy. At the end of the day, when his key turns in the door and he walks in, jacket folded over his arm, briefcase swinging by his side, she almost bursts with happiness. She doesn’t laugh like that with me. She doesn’t run that fast to me.

She loves me, but she doesn’t ever miss me. I’m never gone.

I was gone this evening, for a few hours. When I got home, and my key turned in the door, I heard her. I heard the squeal, the pounding of tiny toddler feet running to the door, to me. I opened the door to the biggest smile I’ve ever seen, the tightest embrace, the best kisses. Her little fingers prodded my face, her head rested on my shoulder, her voice whispered “mama” in my ear. She was bursting with happiness. For me.

She missed me when I was gone. I know how much she loves me.

My job is pretty boring. Not boring, in the “oh my god snooooooooooooze” kinda way, but in the repetitive, brain on auto-pilot, kinda way. So most nights, I tend to zone out and my mind wanders and when my mind wanders I come up with some really weird shit. Hence, this post.

{Side note: I read some really disheartening stuff for work, so the zone out is part unintentional, part necessity, because if I allowed myself to fully process the crazy that people spew, I would curl up in a fetal position and cry for days}

So, the other night, I started thinking about what I would want to be able to do if I could do anything in the world. Not like a job, but like a natural talent. I think I had watched The Voice earlier that evening, and whenever I watch singing or dancing shows, I spend an inordinate amount of time afterwards imagining how awesome it would be to have that much talent. Or, in my case, ANY talent. I can dance pretty well (for a white girl), but holy mother of god, I should not be allowed to sing. Even Dylan gives me side-eye when I do, and she eats lint from the floor.

Sometimes I think I would LOVE to be able to sing or dance like they do on So You Think You Can Dance or The Voice (not American Idol, because apparently you can only be on that show now if you’re prepubescent). I mean, who wouldn’t want to entertain the world with their beautiful talent? But then I think about ALL THE PEOPLE who can sing and dance, and how very, very few of them actually get to entertain anyone else but their mom and grandparents. And honestly, I don’t want to be able to sing or dance if the world isn’t watching. My family has to love me, I don’t need to impress them.

Then I thought about how cool it would be to be able to draw or paint something other than slightly embellished stick figures. But Jesus, that must take a ridiculous amount of time to practice and hone and what have you. And really, I want a low maintenance talent.

Know what I eventually settled on? After hours of thinking about it? Math. I would love LOVE to be able to do math. Not basic math (I can do THAT. Kind of.). I’m talking long, complicated problems. I want to be able to do that in my head. I don’t know why, since one, I don’t have a job that requires any math skills whatsoever, and two, have a phone that does whatever little math I need. But man, how cool would that be, to just bust that shit out at a party or something? “What’s that? You need to know what 8374648293747 divided by 3858593927264 is right this second? Oh, no worries, let me just BUST OUT MY BRAIN.” I realize that the odds of anyone, ever, anywhere needing to know anything like that are slim to none, but I’m not worried about that. Whatever time wasn’t spent doing math shit in my head would be dedicated to coming up with scenarios in which my incredible super power would come up ORGANICALLY. Plus! Oh my god, it just occurred to me: Dylan could take me to school for Show N Tell! As the thing she’s showing and telling! Can someone say best mother ever?

So, yeah. That’s what I do when I’m bored and zoning out. Well, that’s one thing, anyway. You know what I DON’T do when I’m bored and zoning out? Complicated math problems. How unfortunate. For us all.

I’ve always considered myself a fairly organized, together person. I was never a planner/calendar/organizer type gal mind you, I just always managed to keep all my balls in the air using nothing but the magnificent power of my mind (heh). But, like almost EVERYTHING ELSE IN MY LIFE, having a baby threw a giant fucking monkey wrench at my mind power skills. And it’s been raining balls ever since (double heh).

I still (somehow) get stuff that needs to get done, done. I’m not entirely sure how, to be honest. Luck? Dumb luck? Some weird mathematical formula? Who knows. What I DO know, is that it has gotten much more difficult as of late to remember to do stuff. And by stuff, I mean any and all of the following: pay the bills, laundry, put the laundry away, shower (dirty side of being a mom), eat, feed the animals, take out the trash, brush my teeth, blog, return phone calls, and acknowledge my husband. If it’s not directly related to the kid in some way, chances are, it’s not too high on my brain list. What can I say? In the midst of the near constant chasing/changing/feeding/wiping/entertaining/consoling/locating/bathing/mothering that goes on around here, shit gets lost. At least it’s not the kid, right?

So, in an effort to begin the long, tedious untangling of what used to be my brain, I’ve started getting organized. Like, for reals. I got myself a fancy little gizmo that puts my calendar and notepad right at my grimy little fingertips, making the checking and updating and completing of my daily life much easier. I’ve started scheduling things, like writing and cleaning and showering (if you don’t have kids, please refrain from laughing at that until you do). I’ve taken to planning our meals a week in advance, so when it comes time to hit the grocery store, we’re not scrambling trying to come up with meals for the next 5 days. The meals thing alone has been life changing, no joke. I found myself always cooking the same stuff, week after week, which gets super boring, and led to a meal out more often than I’d like. It’s only been 2 weeks, but I can see a noticeable difference so far. I’ve managed to put the clean laundry away ON THE SAME DAY I WASH IT, 2 weeks in a row. Ask my husband how big a deal that is. I’ve made some super delicious meals, and for the first time in a long time, I’m excited about being back in the kitchen. I’ve been writing more, which is the most awesome change for me. I have scheduled time to blog 3 days a week, and last week I only did two, but in my defense, on Friday we rented Bridesmaids, and I was tired, so I crapped out on the smart stuff. But still, this is big stuff you guys! I no longer have that constant feeling of forgetting something, which, when you have a toddler, can lead to a bit of panic when for a split second you think that the something you forgot is your kid.

I’m pretty optimistic about my newly discovered organizational skills. I like having a schedule, and I like knowing that I accomplished all that I had set out to accomplish that day. I realize that if you don’t have children, or have a life, this all probably sounds pretty sad to you. And having just re-read what I wrote about being excited that I folded laundry, I am inclined to agree with you. But when your days consist of reading 4 page cardboard books 897 times a day and wiping someone else’s ass more than you wipe your own, you start to appreciate the little things. Clean clothes and no B.O., FOR THE WIN.

Dylan is a week shy of turning 8 months old.  She’s got teeth, she’s scooting around her crib like her ass is on fire, she babbles and coos and laughs her fire butt off at the drop of a hat.  In other words, she is becoming a little child, right before my very eyes.  There are just a couple of really big milestones we’re waiting on in the first year: walking, which I’m in no hurry for (she hardly wants to snuggle now, how the hell am I gonna pin her down when she can run?), and talking, which we’re on the cusp of.  If I say “cat” she says “bloo”.  If I say “dada” she says “bloo”.  If I say “mama” she laughs hysterically and gives me a look that says “You wish lady”.  And herein lies my problem.

Is it too much to ask that she say “mama” first?  I mean, I am her MOTHER.  I carried her for 10 loooooooooooong, hot, heavy months.  I put up with the swelling, the constipation, the mood swings, the back pain, etc.  Plus, hello, I GAVE BIRTH TO HER.  I went through contractions (ouch), I had a giant needle shoved into my spine so I wouldn’t feel said contractions (which didn’t really work so I got the shit end of that stick), and I pushed her out of my vagina.  And since then, I’ve fed her using my boobs like 100 times a day, I’ve changed countless diapers, I’ve stayed up all night rocking her and shushing her and talking to her, I’ve been peed on, pooped on, spit up on, projectile vomited on, snotted on, and drooled on more times that I care to recall.  I’ve done all her laundry, wiped off her effing pacifier 3,256,796 times after she’s launched it across the room, bathed her every other day for 8 months, and have developed a baby food addiction from eating what she flings at my face.  At least 30 times a day I break into random songs to keep her entertained, and I’ve actually used baby babble in adult conversation on accident.   I spend every waking hour of my day with her; I’ve only spent 6 hours away from her TOTAL.  I am her everything.  And her everything’s name is MAMA!

I think it should be a law or a rule or ingrained in DNA that the first word a baby says should be the name of the person who gave them life.  I’m not complaining, really, but the payoff for all the back breaking, ball busting, mind fucking work is pretty small up front.  It’s more of a long term prize.  So when you can get a small victory, you want to snatch it up with both hands and hold on for dear life.  And hearing your name come out of the mouth of your precious baby in that adorable little voice before anything else is the biggest victory of all.  And then you can use it as ammunition for the rest of your life against your husband or partner, and it’ll come in really handy when you need to guilt an unruly teenager into spending time with you.

I figure that as long as I say “mama” 3000 times a day, she’ll eventually stop laughing hysterically and start understanding that I mean for her not to giggle but to repeat the word.  It’ll work, it has to.  Because if she says “dada” before “mama”, so help me God, I will go positively apoplectic.

My mom and grandma came for a little visit this past weekend.  They arrived on Saturday, left on Sunday, and in that short span of 48 hours, managed to drive me insane, get my 7 month old hopped up on sugar from ice cream, and reinforced every decision I’ve made thus far as a parent (my philosophy is to do the exact opposite of what my mom would do).  I’ve still got the mother of all headaches, pun intended.

A little background: my mother is crazy.  For many, many reasons, most of which are too deep to get into in this post.  We aren’t particularly close; in fact, this weekend was only the third time in Dylan’s entire little life that she’s even seen her.  And she lives 2 hours away.  The only time I saw her when I was pregnant was when I was 2 months pregnant.  She didn’t even come to my baby shower.  Like I said, not close.  But apparently she’s made some kind of life change, and wants to start over and be a part of Dylan’s life, yada yada yada.  So she’s been to visit twice in the last couple of months, which for me, is almost 2 times too many.  And this time, she brought along my equally crazy grandma.  The entire weekend was filled with stories of my childhood, which I’ve heard and do not believe for a second, and stories of my mother’s childhood, which if true would have resulted in the death and/or dismemberment of my mother and her siblings on several occasions.  And these women want to spend a lot of time with me and my child.  Help.

My mother is the kind of woman who has memories that differ in almost every way from reality.  What she remembers, and what actually happened, are not even close.  For example, she claims that me and my siblings were all talking by 6 months of age.  Or walking by 8 months.  Eating meat and potatoes in infancy.  Reading by a year.  All of her memories of us as babies and kids are designed (by her) to make her seem like the most successful mother of all time.  I used to halfheartedly  believe her, if only because talking at 6 months of age makes me seem like some kind of genius.  But now that I have a baby, I can say with 100% certainty that all of her stories, as amazing as they make me look, are a load of shit.  99% of babies can’t sit up on their own at 4 months old, alone climb out of their crib.  But somehow both me and my brother did?  Uh huh.  Couple of savants, is we.

She is also fond of telling stories about raising us that should have gotten her investigated by Child Services.  I know, it was a different time back then (my sister was born in 1978, I was born in 1981, and my brother came along in 1984).  But even 30 years ago, I’m pretty sure keeping loaded guns lying around, or allowing your children to run amok unsupervised in the neighborhood for 12 hours a day, was frowned upon.  It’s a damn miracle that my siblings and I made it out alive.  We never even had to go to the hospital.  But I’d sooner set myself on fire than leave Dylan in her care; I was nervous if I left her alone while I went to the bathroom.  It doesn’t take long to run outside to let Dylan play in traffic.

As her daughter, it was inevitable that I would inherit a fraction of her insanity.  Luckily for my children, present and future, the fraction I inherited doesn’t have anything to do with child rearing.  I got my temper from her, my love of Cher, and my dislike of organized religion.  Any parenting skills I have, I got from books and sisters.  Thank God for books and sisters.  Without them, I might be letting my infant daughter suck on chicken bones or freaking out because at 8 months old she isn’t reading her own bedtime stories.  Needless to say, my mother thinks baby books are stupid.  She’s never read a baby book, and her kids turned out fine.  But for the grace of God.

On a positive note, I suppose I should thank my grandma for feeding Dylan ice cream while I was in the bathroom at dinner.  I was waiting until she was a year old, like all doctors and experts advise you to do, but apparently my grandma knows something we don’t, and deemed 8 months the perfect age to start dairy.  She digested it perfectly fine, so it looks like we may have dodged the lactose intolerance bullet common among people of Asian descent (Tom is Japanese, don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned that).  Good to know.  So, thanks grandma, for putting our fears to rest.  It almost makes up for having to peel my baby off the ceiling from her first sugar high.  Almost.

Dylan has taken to protesting her naps.  Meaning, whenever I put her down for a nap, she screams and wails and throws her pacifier and spins around in her crib so expertly it’s clear she was some kind of circus performer or synchronized swimmer in her previous life.  It’s not like I put her down when she’s raring to go and not at all tired; I wait for the signs, the eye rubbing and hair pulling and face smooshing, and once I see one or all of those, I declare it nap time.  But as soon as I make moves to put her in her crib, stand back, because Sweet Angel Dylan has left the building, and Demon Dylan has set up camp.

I should mention that until about a week ago, I rocked Dylan to sleep, in my arms, for every nap, every day.  Until she was 5 months old, I also completed this routine every night, and after every feeding throughout the night, with minimal success.  I rocked so much, that even when I wasn’t holding her, I found myself rocking.  But I didn’t have many other options, because Dylan has, since the day she was born, had an aversion to sleeping.  No wait, let me rephrase: she had and has an aversion to FALLING ASLEEP.  Once asleep, she sleeps like a drunk.  But getting there, to that lovely, sumptuous, encompassing drunk sleep, has always been like pulling teeth.  From a lion.  With chopsticks.

So I made the mistake of rocking her to sleep, and it worked so well that I kept rocking her to sleep.  Every night for 154 days.  Several times, when you consider that she would wake up to eat a couple of times at night, and even at 4 am after having gulped down warm breast milk in a state of semi-consciousness, this kid would no, could not put her damn self to sleep.  And I did it all day whenever she needed a nap, because I did it at night, so why wouldn’t I do it during the day?  And it was fine, it was working, she got to sleep and I got to snuggle her.  All was well.  Until it started taking longer for her to fall asleep.  And longer.  And longer.  Some nights, I started the rocking at 8, and she would finally, FINALLY, fall asleep at 1.  As in, 1 in the morning.  As in, 5 hours after I started trying to put her to bed.  And then 3-4 hours later she’d wake up to eat, and it would take 3-4 hours to get her back to sleep.  In that time, she wasn’t crying or fussing or fidgeting or anything.  She was just not asleep.  She would lay in my arms, sucking on her pacifier, staring at my face or my boobs or the cat, FOR HOURS.  And then she would finally fall asleep, and 3-4 hours later, we would do it all again.  Every night.  Yeah.

So I made the choice that mothers everywhere agonize over: I chose what is commonly referred to as the “Cry It Out” or Ferber method.  I put her in her crib when she was awake, and I went in to check on her and soothe her after longer and longer intervals, until she eventually fell asleep.  There was a lot of crying, hers and mine, that first night.  And I considered running in and scooping her up, hoping to erase whatever damage I had just inflicted by letting her cry for 2 minutes without me picking her up.  But I resisted, and lo and behold, she fell asleep after a measly 10 minutes.  And she slept ALL NIGHT LONG.  For 11 hours straight.  This was my favorite day ever.  The next few nights were as successful, and some were markedly less successful (30 minutes of crying is hard to stomach) as the first.  And even now, almost 3 months later, she cries for a few minutes when I put her down.  But she sleeps all night, and I sleep all night, and we are 2 very happy ladies when that happens.

So the trouble with the naps is bringing up some rather painful memories.  I can’t go back to rocking, I just can’t.  And if I leave her in the crib for long enough, she eventually falls asleep.  For 30 minutes.  Which sort of makes the hour it took for her to fall asleep for that 30 minutes seem like a waste.  But whatever.  That 30 minutes is gold.  And according to the sleep book that saved my sanity 3 months ago, she will indeed start falling asleep sooner and sleeping longer.  Which would be, I don’t know, platinum?  Because Well Rested Dylan is so much more delightful than Cat Napped and Still Exhausted Dylan.  Hell, I’d take Kind of Rested Dylan over that Cat Nap kid; she’s an unholy terror.

As you can probably gather from the earlier post about labor and delivery, I was ill prepared for just about everything that happened once I stepped foot into the hospital.  It was like a giant rubber band ball that someone pushed down the biggest hill in the world: it’s going, ain’t nothing you can do to stop it, and you have NO IDEA what it’s gonna do.  But once Dylan was actually out, and we were in our little room, with all the nurses and doctors and consultants and cute little old ladies delivering food, it started to feel positively calm.  Which was surprising.  But I was like, yes!  This is gonna be a snap!  I’ve got this!

And then, we went home.

There’s some kind of strange phenomena where everything that worked and was going smoothly in the hospital suddenly goes to total shit when you get home, and there are no doctors or nurses or consultants or cute little old ladies delivering food.  Sleeping: like a baby (pun intended) in the hospital, NOT A WINK at home.  Diapers: we brought them home from the hospital, WHY DON’T THEY WORK HERE?!?  Breast feeding: I will go into greater detail in the next post about my experiences with breast feeding, but for now I will say this–something that’s supposed to be the absolute best for your baby should not be that hard.  The mechanics and logistics of it seem so stupidly simple, but nothing has ever, EVER brought me down like breast feeding.  I kinda want to cry thinking about it now, and I’ve been doing it successfully for 7 months now.

The first night we were home, we didn’t really know what to expect, except we expected it to be like the previous 3 nights.  And it wasn’t.  At all.  It’s like hospitals know that babies turn into little monsters on the third day, so they deliberately discharge the unwitting idiot parents just before it happens.  And we had it pretty easy, from what I understand; some parents have complete meltdowns in the first 36 hours after bringing home baby.  We managed to survive, pretty much intact.  The sleep sucked, but doesn’t it always, with every new baby?  Everyone says start a schedule.  Ok, sure, let me explain to my newborn that she’s gonna eat right now and then sleep for 2 hours, regardless of what she wants.  They also say to sleep when the baby sleeps.  Also a great idea in theory, but then when do I eat?  Or shower?  Or talk to my poor husband, or pet my poor animals who think we’ve traded up, or check my email or watch t.v. or cry uncontrollably?  The sleep when they sleep thing didn’t really work for me, because if I’m asleep when she’s asleep and tending to her when she’s awake, there’d be no time for me, and I like time for me.

The bottom line is, nothing could have possibly prepared me for bringing her home.  It is such an incredible shock to your system, it’s almost paralyzing.  The first days are a nightmarish, seemingly never ending mishmash of poop and spit up and crying (yours and the baby’s) and zero sleep and having absolutely no idea what you’re doing or if you’re doing it right or if the baby is eating enough or sleeping enough or peeing enough.  You add to that the emotional fall out you’re experiencing, and the pain and recovery from pushing out a watermelon through a hole the size of a lemon, and it’s enough to make you want to give it back, for just a few more days to get ready.  But then, one day, it’s not as hard as it was the day before.  And the next day is a little easier, the one after that is a little easier still.  And before you know it, you’re wearing make up and you’ve downgraded from Percocet to Tylenol and you don’t cry in the shower or bathroom or dark corner, and you’re actually having fun(ish).  It’s a process, and I’m not gonna lie, it’s ongoing.  I still cry in the shower sometimes.  But never in a dark corner.  Those days are behind me.

(Catch up blogs will resume tomorrow, I just had to get this one out of my head)

Last weekend, Dylan developed a little case of the sniffles.  I couldn’t tell if she was sick or just had a runny nose from being outside in the cold while we waited for a table at Umami Burger (not worth the way, btw), because she was acting like her normal bubbly, happy little self.  Until we got home, when her little case of the sniffles turned into a full blown cold, complete with mild fever, copious amounts of snot, and A LOT of crying.  By the next morning, the snot had multiplied, and her poor little voice sounded like Pheobe With a Cold on “Friends”.  It was official, she was sick.

Which wouldn’t have been sooooooooo terrible, except that around the same time Dylan’s sniffles started, Tom started complaining of not feeling so top notch himself.  Now, for those of you that are married or in a relationship, and have had the distinct pleasure of taking care of your boyfriend or husband while they are sick, you will understand me when I say that I would rather take care of 500 sick infants than ONE grown ass man.  Grown men are the absolute worse patients.  Even a mild cough is enough to lay them up for four days.  Now, in Tom’s defense, he was sick.  Not dying, mind you, but I’m sure he felt pretty crappy.

So there I was, sucking boogers out of Dylan’s nose with one of those booger snatchers, and tending to Tom while he sprawled out on the couch.  Tom slept a lot, Dylan hardly slept at all, it was magical.  I was exhausted, but strangely exhilarated, which might have had something to do with the Emergen-C I was mainlining to keep the nasty stuff away.  After a few days, Dylan was feeling much better, and Tom saw that my patience was wearing dangerously thin, so he started feeling much better too, and all was well at last.

And then, Saturday hit.  And the cold that Dylan had mated with the cold that Tom had, and laid it’s germy little eggs somewhere in my sinuses.  I hate being sick.  Like, really, really hate it.  Especially now, when I can’t just curl up in bed with a bottle of Nyquil and the remote and wait for the enemy to be flushed out by narcotics.  As it turns out, 7-month olds don’t get that when Mommy is crying and coughing and wiping away snot, it’s not a great time to crap so much it comes out the front, back, and both sides of your diaper.  I tried explaining it to her, I tried pleading with her, I even tried bribing her with candy, but seeing as how she can’t speak or comprehend and doesn’t know what candy is, none of it worked.  She just smiled and laughed and blew spit bubbles, and really, who can feel bad when that happens?  Uh, I can.

Thankfully, the enemy did not stay long, and I am slowly clawing my way back to good health.  And when all is said and done, it wasn’t THAT bad, I suppose.  It definitely could have been worse: I’ve got a friend recovering from pneumonia, which makes my petty little cold seem like, well, a petty little cold.  But still.  It’s no fun.  And I really hope that the next time I get sick, Dylan is old enough to understand and make me a card or help dad with the chicken soup.  Or at the very least, not crap all over herself when I want to take a nap.

I should have read more books on the subject.  I read tons of info on pregnancy, but I got tired of reading, so I stopped just short of reading about the actual delivery.  I think I figured that when the time came, the doctors and nurses would be there to guide me, and my body would just know what to do.  And they did, and it did.  Kinda.  But my brain was sorely misinformed.  Sorely.  Misinformed.  Let me elaborate…

See, I chose to be induced.  I literally could not take one more day of being pregnant, so I coaxed my doctor into inducing me a few days before my due date.  And for some reason, I equated induction with less labor work.  See, this is where the reading would have come in REALLY handy.  I went into the hospital on Monday night to start the first stage.  First stage was the Cervidil, which is a medication-ish thingy that goes…up somewhere and softens things.  After the Cervidil is in for 8-12 hours and the things are sufficiently soft (ewww, I know), it comes out, and another medication called Pitocin is started, which starts contractions and thus starts labor, but usually takes several hours to really get going.  Easy-peasy, right?  Well, my nurse on Monday night who did the Cervidil business informed me, as she’s doing the business btw, that SOME women, very, very FEW women, will actually go into labor with just the Cervidil.  But it almost never happens, it’s really rare, don’t worry about, you won’t have a baby till tomorrow night at the earliest.  So I was looking forward to getting some sleep while things softened, even took an Ambien to help with the plan.  Goodnight, see you in the morning, then we’ll have a baby.

And then it started.  At around 2:00 am, not even 4 hours after the first stage was implemented.  At first, I felt what I thought were just some mild cramps (Nurse Don’t Worry About It said some mild cramping was to be expected, so not to worry about it).  And then the mild cramps turned into more moderate cramps.  And then moderate cramps turned into what the hell is happening to my stomach cramps.  And then those turned into what can only be described as fiery knives trying to push their way through the inner wall of my uterus, better known as contractions.  Now, this progression took all of about 30 minutes, so by the time the really bad ones hit, I was pretty freaked out.  I was supposed to have at least another 8 hours before this part started, and here I was trying not to scream and trying to remember to breath, neither of which I practiced.  Nurse DWAI then informed me that I was in labor, had in fact started to dilate (soften, ewww), and I was being moved to labor and delivery and did I want the epidural now?  My responses: what? when?!? okaaaaaaay.  YES!!!!!!!

This whole time, Tom is asleep on the couch in the room, and I’m trying not to wake him because I thought, well at least one of us should get some sleep, so I wait until Nurse DWAI gets me ready to move.  I really regret not waking him earlier, I missed out on a solid 45 minutes of being able to cuss him out without recourse.

So I go to labor and delivery, and I’m waiting for the anesthesiologist to come in and save my life, and at the same time, I’m trying to jump off the bed during each contraction, which by then were around 3 minutes apart.  And then my water broke.  And then the real pain started.  Things got pretty hazy after that, I’ll be honest.  I remember telling Tom to call my sisters, because it was happening not according to our original plan and the new plan was a lot faster.  I remember getting the epidural, which was almost as painful as the contractions because I was bent over like a Chinese contortionist and in the middle of a couple of those bitching contractions.  I remember the initial feeling of relief once the epidural kicked in, and then the paralyzing fear once I realized that I could still feel stuff on my left side (apparently, it doesn’t always work at full capacity, did not know that, wish I had).  Things got a little better after that, my sisters got there, I was 5 centimeters dilated, we settled in for a longish wait.

The longish wait turned into an hour.  Apparently once my body got started, it was like a Mack truck, unstoppable.  I was fully dilated, ready to push.  Dylan had other plans.  She was still all snuggly up there, not really ready to come on down.  So I pushed.  And I pushed.  And I pushed some more.  I pushed for an hour straight, 3 times every contraction.  I was on the verge of quitting and begging for a c-section when tada!  There she was.  And she was on my chest and so small and warm and barely crying, and then she was gone.  Things get REALLY hazy after that.  The combination of pain and exhaustion and emotional overload brought me down.  Tom went with the baby, he called out some numbers that it took me a minute to realize were her weight and length.  There was some work being done down below, some stitching and such (all VERY unpleasant).  Pictures and phone calls and tears and cheers and laughter.  I remember feeling like this had all just happened to someone else, and I was just watching it.  And then I’d feel a stitch, and it would bring me right back around.

And then, she was in my arms.  And she was so pretty and perfect and pink.  Her little face was so serene.  Her fingers so elegant.  Her head, COVERED in hair.  And she looked at me.  And I will remember that moment for the rest of my life.  It was like she knew me, and I knew her, and we were talking to each other without words.  And then she closed her eyes again.  And we had peace.