So, Max is four weeks old today and to properly document his life (or least the first few years until he tells me to stop or he'll run away), I have a lot of catching up to do. Not to mention the next time I have free hands will probably be in 2010 so at least his blog will have a few photos and stories before he turns one.Birth: I was given an Oxygen mask early on because Max's heart rate kept dropping. Somehow, Charlie and my mom found my anxiety re: the mask and the pain from contractions simply hysterical ("you look like a little kid - how can you be having a baby!"), and made me pose for the below photo. I believe this was take two, as they instructed me after the first one to "make a funnier face". A friend of mine said in all seriousness, "When did they start using laughing gas for labor?" Hi Elizabeth!
After starting Petocin at 6 a.m. (actually the day started with "Good Morning! We'll be giving you an enema now" - possibly worse than the contractions themselves), I went from 1.5 centimeters to...2 centimeters six hours later. Three hours after that, they broke my water, "got my cervix angry", and I went from 2 centimeters to...2 centimeters. What the F! After I'd received the epidural, I started to get very anxious. I really hated that oxygen mask and once the epidural had paralyzed me from waist down, (I recall the Dr. checking my cervix, and saw him moving around a prosthetic leg only to realize it was mine), I was officially freaked out. Anyone who has never had anxiety, skip this part - you simply won't understand. For all the other Jews, you'll appreciate that as soon as I felt nervous it only got worse. My dad and brother Eli came in, and after ten minutes of their joking and "lightening the mood" I promptly told them to leave.
When the Dr. said Cesarean, I knew it was coming and was honestly relieved - the thought of going from 2 cm to 10 cm to somehow pushing the baby out conjured up images of myself as the 56 year old woman who gave birth last year. As I was being rolled into the operating room, I went into full panic mode. I asked the nurse if they could give me anything for it and she said "nope, you can control it". Gee, thanks Gandhi.
While C-sections have a lot of "cons"(more on that later), one major pro is that the babies look a lot less alien when they come out - although Max did have something of a cone-head from 24 hours of contractions. His debut below.
The moment I heard him crying, the joy I felt combined with the relief of knowing it was over and that I hadn't fainted/hyperventilated/thrown up from anxiety, created a physical and emotional feeling I can only describe as utter euphoria (I'm guessing this is what heroine feels like, I forgive you Robert Downey Jr.). First family photo below: Charlie cried more than Max, for the record. They also had him in a hazmat suit, not sure why....
The next days in the hospital were filled with visits (Eli, Grandma and The Jimbo, Claud, Maris, Mara) and "battle of the helpless" between Max and I. I think I won, as Max at least had diapers on while I had to pee in front of a nurse to prove that they didn't have to put my catheter back in ("I'll run the water sugar, sometimes that helps - just try to relax"...um, sugar - I can't even relax lying on a beach with a pina colada, we're going to need a different approach). She also had to give me a shower, and I'm pretty sure we went to second base. Honestly, though I'd like to take a moment to honor labor, delivery and birthing nurses - they are a rare breed and each woman who helped us was more generous and wonderful than the last. How I managed to breast feed all day and night when I could barely move I don't know...hats off to to all other C-section moms.
The first week at home was a mixture of extreme happiness, excitement, pain, exhaustion, and meltdowns (the second night we were home I broke down weeping because "I'm a horrible mother to Lincoln (our dog), I can tell he feels I've deserted him"). See the Lincoln-Max introduction below...they get along fabulously now, Lincoln has decided Max is his favorite toy. (yes, for the record my "torpedoes" are now a size E).
I may have thrown myself off the balcony were it not for Charlie's mom, Julie (Grammy) who I now refer to as Florence Nightingale. She did EVERYTHING. She cooked, cleaned, held Max, held me, changed diapers at 3 a.m. when I literally couldn't get up from bed in time to stop his leaking poop, and kept our house going for a week. I'll never forget that week and how she saved us. And the craziest part is that she says it was the best week of her life. The lady is nuts (in the best way) - check out the shirts she made, she apparently wore hers three days in a row (love you Julie!). The picture of she and Max is so beautiful...I credit myself - I'm a good photographer, stop making me say it.
Oh shoot, stirring baby beckoning the milk maiden...my time is up. Some added photos below (I love his Robert DeNiro impression - "you talkin' to me?"). I know, I know, I look smokin hot.
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