Itzbeen a miracle

Guess who slept from 11pm to 5am last night? What a wonderful day!!!

Edited to add:

The itzbeen is a timer so that sleep-deprived parents can keep track of how long it's been (itzbeen) since a specific task was done. Mike and I find it to be a useful tool to communicate with each other.

Anyway, they measure hours and minutes. Specifically:
- 6 hours and 2 minutes since the baby's diaper was changed
- 6 hours and 2 minutes since she was fed
- 5 hours and 51 minutes since she fell asleep
- I have no idea what that last one measured (it's the misc button)

Doula, etc...

So I have about a million things to share, including:

- my sleep obsession
- unsolicited parenting advice from people on facebook
- the difficulties of breastfeeding (and my experience at La Leche League)
- baby blues/PPD
- general thoughts on labor, hospitals, newborns, etc...

BUT today I want to talk about "the doula"...a few weeks ago, I had a little "breakdown" (I can't think of a nicer word). Basically I was sobbing about the baby's diaper rash when CCBL called...I guess she could tell that I was "not myself" and contacted Mike. He had already spoken to me and had gotten the same impression and was already on his way home. Between him and CCBL, they worked out a little plan for "Operation Bring Sanity Back to Job Satisfaction":

1. get a therapist (she specializes in PPD and is awesome)
2. make sure JS gets some sleep
3. hire a doula!

A few things about doulas:
- they can be either L&D or postpartum
- they can do overnights (like baby nannies) or during the day

The doula service that Mike found does postpartum and they don't do nights (which kind of stinks but would suck our bank acct dry). The director says their services are threefold:
- mother care - lactation support, psychological support, etc...
- newborn care - baths, etc...
- household care - light housekeeping, errands, etc...

A few things about my doula:
- TOTAL HIPPIE
- gray braid on top of her head
- big hippie dresses - i am 99% sure they are breastfeeding dresses even though her kids are grown. I feel like she could whip out the bo.ob at any moment.
- looooooves to recycle
- knits big wool socks for her grandchildren
- obsessed with cell phone ringtones
- loves to make fruit and yogurt smoothies

Anyway, to sum up my first experience with her - within 5 minutes of arriving at our condo, she was grabbing my bo.ob (not sure if that is googlable) and getting my child to eat; within 30 minutes, she was RUBBING MY NASTY SWOLLEN FEET; within 90 minutes, I had left the condo and was heading to pick up a prescription while a stranger did my laundry and watched my newborn. Being overly tired will allow you to do things that you would never imagine.

Since then, she has come over once/week. She has done countless loads of laundry, watered the plants, gone to the supermarket, helped me pack for a weekend trip to see my family, etc...Also, I have napped for two hours while she held my crying child. Like I said, I would never have imagined that I would allow a stranger to care for my child while I slept...then I had a baby and became REALLY TIRED.

We bought a package of 20 hours so it will run out in about two weeks. I think it's a great service but I don't think I can justify it as an ongoing cost. But I'll miss my hippie!

Sidenote - I haven't posted a picture or named my child on this blog. Thoughts on internet privacy?

Timeline

Ok, for those of you who asked, here's the timeline of my birth story. For those of you who did NOT ask, sorry for the details! For those of you who want more grossness, you know where to find me!

Friday night/Saturday:
4pm - go to library where woman behind me in line tells me I'm never going to read any of the books I'm checking out. She is right.
5pm - go to Old Navy to buy summer maternity clothes because it is HOT out and I'm obviously going to be pregnant forever. I started having some "weird feelings" but I thought I had eaten something funny. Ha.
545pm - more "weird feelings" and it dawns on me that this might be real. I call Mike on my drive home from Old Navy.
615pm - I call MJ and say "it doesn't really hurt so could this be it?"...I am obviously stupid/naive.
615pm-midnight (good thing I have emails with MJ to reread - I would have forgotten all of this) - contractions get more intense but I can doze/read magazines in between. I also call my dad/stepmom and tell them to await a phone call in the morning (they don't wait - they left NJ at 6am).
Midnight - OH MY. this hurts A LOT.
1am - I have a few back-to-back contractions. WHOA. This kills. I call MD and say "I had a few two minutes apart" and she says "come in when they are consistently every 3-5 minutes". UGH.
1am-2am - I basically sit in the tub with my shower over me and cry every eight minutes
3am - Mike calls MD again and says that I can't talk during contractions. They are still every eight minutes but Mike totally lies (thank goodness) and says they are every 5-6 minutes.
4am - we arrive at hospital where RN is TOTALLY skeptical and sort of mocks my infrequent contractions. Then she checks me and I'm 5cm dilated...all of a sudden, she and the other RN start taking me seriously. Not that I'm in a mood to say anything but I totally wanted to yell that I knew I was pretty far along.
5am-8am - 6cm dilated, epidural, dozing, calling my parents to say they should start driving up (and then finding out that they are already midway here). Also, epidurals are AWESOME.
10am - 9cm dilated but head not engaged
noon - 10cm!
1230pm - start pushing
230pm - two hours later...still pushing! Head is apparently stuck a bit. Some discussion about a C section but we are making progress so we don't really discuss it further.
330pm - still pushing! Epidural wears off on right side. WHOA PAIN. Also the baby's heartrate doesn't recover quickly after contractions so I can't push with every contraction (turns out this is because the cord was around her neck).
330pm to 423pm - Mike keeps telling me he can see the head (with brown hair!) and I mostly just cry that I am too tired to push.
423pm - BABY!!! YAY! Best feeling in the world!!! They put her on my chest - they had already cut her cord before she was fully out (because she was blue). Someone asked ME if it was a boy or a girl - I was so confused and I couldn't understand why no one knew yet! So I looked...and I was SHOCKED!!! A girl!!!

It was an amazing feeling - we just took turns holding her and laughing and crying and kissing!

That's it!!!

Too tired

So yeah, I had a baby.

And yeah, I'm too tired to write about her.

So here's a photo of my newly painted bathroom with some beautiful flowers from CCS.

A conversation

Last night at 10pm...

M: where are you going?
me: the bathroom.
M: didn't you just go five minutes ago?
me: yeah.
M: wow.
me: yeah.

I will not be using any of these names for my child

VA from VA has come up with an all new list of actual baby names. Awesome.

Kionne Kizzy Olive
Medallion Paul (a female)
Rain A Star
Success
Spirit
Nimrod
Strength
Amazingly Speaks
Furious
Demanguss
Elyzabythe
Cordarryl
Margarita Petron
Exavier
Isaaclama
Jewnaiya
Derquacia
Jazzmeainia
Vanity (incidentally - being seen in in the ER for an overdose)
Fher

I only SAY that I don't like ice cream

I know it seems unlike me but I really don't like to have conversations on the medical area shuttle bus in the morning. This is my "play with my new phone time". However, this girl got on the bus last week with about a million bags, a cup of coffee and a big platter. There were no seats so she asked me to hold her coffee while she reorganized all of her stuff. I was not feeling generous enough to offer her my seat (let's be real) but i did offer to hold the platter...which meant that she then felt comfortable telling me about how she made this dessert for her coworker. HOLY. It sounded so good. I just found it online and I swear, one of you needs to invite me to a summer BBQ so I can have an excuse to make it.

FROZEN BANANA SPLIT

24 (3.5-ounce) ice-cream sandwiches, unwrapped

6 medium bananas, peeled and thinly sliced

1 (12.25-ounce) jar hot-fudge sauce

1 (10-ounce) jar maraschino cherries, drained and finely chopped

1 (8-ounce) package milk chocolate covered toffee bits, divided

1 (12.25-ounce) jar butterscotch ice-cream topping

1 (8-ounce) container frozen nondairy whipped topping, thawed

Line a 13 by 9-inch baking pan with heavy-duty aluminum foil. Place half of ice-cream sandwiches evenly over bottom of pan, completely covering bottom, cutting sandwiches to fit, if necessary. Top evenly with banana slices. Pour hot fudge sauce over bananas. Top with cherries and 1/2 of the toffee bits and pour butterscotch evenly on top. Layer with remaining ice cream sandwiches and spread whipped topping over sandwiches; sprinkle with remaining toffee bits.

Cover and freeze for at least 4 hours. Remove from pan, using foil handles. Cut into squares and serve.

**********************

And because everyone likes to go from thinking about ice cream to thinking about my feet, here's a swelling update - my feet/ankles/calves are looking somewhat normal again. Basically I drank a ton of water, stopped having any artificial sweetener, had a little bit of salt (seems counter intuitive but does help), ate a ton of asparagus, ate a ton of non-processed food, etc...I still appreciate CCBL's reaction. :)