Gah! A BABY!

I HAVE A NIECE! A NIECE! And she's perfect, and beautiful and...OMG. It's killing me, KILLING me that I can't see her right now. Right now, this very minute, I want to see her and give her kisses and buy her cute, adorable, pink flower-y things.

Oh...and remember the whole naming debacle? She has a perfect name as well. Naomi Louise, after her paternal grandmothers. Which is totally fine, because their 1st born son was named after his maternal grandfather. Share & share alike, right?

SO, sweet little Naomi came into the world tonight following lots of drama. The best laid plans for a fun Mother's Day were rudely interrupted by a rear-ending, followed by a trip to the hospital for monitoring, followed by some signs of labor, followed by no signs of labor, followed by full-on labor induction, followed by an epidural, followed by HOURS of waiting around for SOMETHING to happen. And then it did, and all 6lbs, 4 ozs of perfect-ness arrived. Aww...I'll share photos when I've got some non-goopy ones to share. You're welcome.

On another front, I've somehow managed to TOTALLY fuck up AllMediocre! And it's only been TWO days! T.W.O. DAYS! I think that's an all time record. Hopefully I can figure that out tomorrow. Because right now? Right now I'm off to bed.

Oh, and if The Bachelor (which I haven't watched until tonight BTW) picks the blonde girl, I'm going to throw up.

Labor: To Epidural or Not to Epidural

So, three posts have drawn my attention to this matter today, and being as it's not sunny & 75* degrees here today, I'm feeling like sitting on the couch and wasting my day away blogging. Before you go on, please refer here, here and here. If, however, you are PREGNANT and HORMONAL (Quart), Clinically depressed or prone to periodic depressive episodes when you read something sad, I BEG of you to NOT, I repeat DO NOT read any more than the post I've linked to on Mrs. Dub's Musings & Misadventures blog. Seriously...Quart, I'm talking to you. Don't, for the love of all that is good, read any further. Please.

Back to the topic at hand: Epidurals. I have VERY strong opinions about this, which I'm sure is a complete shock to you all. Or not, but whatever.

And when I say I have VERY STRONG OPINIONS about this, I mean for ME. Not necessarily for everyone else**, but, when it comes to MY getting an epidural the answer is HELL YES and HOW SOON? Really. It's true. Both times I went to the hospital to have my boys the very first one of the very first things I said was "I want an epidural. How soon can we make that happen?" Really. It's true. And when I finally got my epidural? Oh, Holey Pancakes, people, my cervix did a backflip and dilated INSTANTLY. It's like it was REWARDING me for putting it out of it's misery. Here's how it went down:

Me: Epidural! Epidural! I'm ready! I'm 5 centimeters. These contractions are starting to hurt like a MotherF*cker. Get me the epidural....PLEEEEEEAAAAAASE!!!!!!

My Cervix: Yes! Get us an epidural! Now, PLEEEEEAAAAASE! This stretching hurts like a bitch! I'm not SUPPOSED to get THIS HUGE. It wasn't my decision to get knocked up! WHY, OH WHY am I being punished this way?

Anesthesiologist: Will you both please stop yelling at me? I'm trying to get this needle stuck into your SPINE, so chill out. You're making my hands shake and you DON'T want my hands to shake. May I remind you I'm sticking a NEEDLE INTO YOUR SPINE.

Me & My Cervix, simultaneoulsy: of course. carry on.

Cut to 10 minutes later.

Me: Ahhh....that's SO much better. DJ, why are you holding your hand like that? What the hell happened to you?! You big ninny. I'm the one who's about to PUSH a living HUMAN out of my Ya-hoo.

DJ: You are freakishly strong. I always thought people were exaggerating when they were saying women in labor squeeze your hand really hard. Ouch. (Seriously, that's what he said...he really never BELIEVED that it hurt as much as they made you believe on TV. Gah!)

Me: Bite me.

My Cervix: LaLa Lalaaaaaaaaa. I feel GREAT. And PRETTY and oh, so USEFUL! Finally! I've waited my WHOLE life to feel useful! As a reward, I will dilate IMMEDIATELY! NOW! I MUST! This epidural makes me feel SO ALIVE!

Fast forward 50 more minutes:

Nurse: I'm going to check you to see how you're progressing. Oh, look at that! You're fully dilated and at +1! You're ready to push! Your cervix REALLY IS USEFUL. And, my, don't you look AMAZING for someone just about to have a baby. Really, just amazing. ***

~~~
That, my friends, is basically how my labor with Dylan went down. I pushed for 50 minutes and out he came. It was pretty much the same with Zach, except that I was induced and got my epidural, I kid you not, before they really even started me on the drugs. It was AWESOME. I felt nary a contraction, and within a few hours felt "pressure" "down there," got checked and, lo and behold, he was about to fall out. Really. He almost fell out. The Doc came in, gowned up, which shortly thereafter proved to be a REALLY GOOD CALL (which is a REALLY funny, if not totally disgusting story. Unfortunately for you, it's really only funny to HEAR DJ tell it, so I'll spare you. But take my word for it, it's really funny. And sickening at the same time), and told me to push. I pushed a few times and out he came.

So, there you go. I heart epidurals. I completely, absolutely, whole-heartedly, 100%, Hell, 10000000000% believe that it was my epidural that hastened my labor and made it, dare I say, pleasant. I was present, comfortable, rested and READY. The boys were both healthy specimens immediately, no ill effects suffered from their drug induced introduction to the world. And, Zach was even 3 full weeks early. Oh, and in case you care and because I've already shared SO much, so why not a little bit more, I didn't need an episiotomy. Which I suppose has nothing to do with my epidural, but I thought I'd throw it out there anyway. You're welcome.

*It's ONLY 63 degrees here today. And cloudy, which makes it feel SO MUCH COLDER. Like, 60 or something.
**I do, however, think you are certifiably insane if you choose a birth sans drugs. Really, I do. As I said in my comment to Mrs. Dub, my take on it is this: Yes, women thousands of years ago did not have epidurals and they successfully birthed children without them. But, they also didn't have microwaves to cook with, so should we not use those either? Uh, NO! I don't think so. Why, for the love of cheese, would you CHOOSE to bring a child into this world while in TOTAL & COMPLETE pain if you didn't have to. But, to each his own, I suppose.
***I've taken a few creative liberties here. The nurse didn't ACTUALLY say "your cervix really is useful." But, I like to continue to make it feel useful and productive in the event that I can strong arm trick convince DJ to have another baby. In, like 3 years. Or so.