Will Anything Happen? - Blondie

i will continue the birth story. or at least i think i will. but i've been conspicuously absent here, and on and off over at facebook. i have just been overwhelmed a bit, and i want to explain why, for the two or three of you that still check in over here.

emerson started school in august, at a montessori school, since he's still too young for public preschool. whatever, state of georgia. lame. montessori seemed to be the best fit for him anyway, and at first, it seemed like heaven. and then? not so much.

long (LONG) story short, ems has problems. several problems. and after trying and trying and trying to deal with these problems, we're still not where we need to be in terms of diagnosing these problems. i can not delve into the issues just yet. too sad tonight. but when you have appointments at the marcus autism center, well, you know that the problems are real. and scary.

can't tell you how much i've cried about this. and thanked the stars for amalah and her kick-ass blog, which is rife with stories about her charming, sweet little boy, noah, who is quirky and awesome like ems. and having read her as she's gone through every emotion imaginable with noah and his progress/setbacks, etc., i can gain a little confidence that em will be ok. more than ok. we just have to get through this shit.

birth, part one.

so...hi. how are you? i have been imagining so many posts in my head over the last few months, but haven't actually sat down to do anything about that. so much has been happening, not the least of which is that we have a new son. so yay for that.

want to hear the birth story? i need to write it so that i have a record of it before i forget, and if you want to read it, go ahead. if not, don't be waiting around for actual entertainment to roll around any time soon. it might be another matter of months before i post again.

i worked the whole time. all day, every day. people kept asking me when i was going to take some time off, and i was all WHEN I'M DEAD, BITCH. no, but i was all, WHEN THE BABY COMES, BITCH. or just, heh - when the baby gets here, i think. because i'm really rather averse to confrontation, if you get right down to it.

so, yeah. due date was september 13th. and for part of the day on the 8th, i was feeling some crazy pains that kind of felt like contractions, but they eventually passed. same thing happened on the 9th. the whole weekend went by, then the due date (which was a monday), and i started to get cranky. emerson was almost a week late, but i was really hoping for a change with this kiddo. my ankles and feet were swollen beyond recognition. the only shoes i'd been wearing for a while were a pair of black teva sandals, which were a freaking size up. i would post a photo, but don't want to make you ill.

i wanted so desperately to stop being pregnant. i mean, yeah, i wanted to meet the baby and all, but first and foremost on my mind was to stop being so goddamn swollen. my ankles and feet were the worst bit, but even my face was swollen beyond recognition. i won't post a photo of that carnage, either, because i still can't believe how gross i looked. (side note: my mother-in-law had us all do family photos at the end of august. i look totally fucking unrecognizable, and now that fun memory is preserved FOREVER. awesome.)

i had a doctor's appointment on the morning of the 15th, and went to that feeling fine. he checked me out, and said that there was absolutely no progress at all. he swept the membranes, but i felt exactly the same. went back to work, and worked the rest of the day. started feeling the same pains that i'd felt the week prior, but didn't think anything of it, considering that they'd been no big deal before. i left at my normal time of 4:30, and went to pick up emerson at school. he'd had a good day, and i remember talking to him for a few minutes, until the pains started to get worse. i called dave at work and said he might need to call his parents.

emerson and i got stuck in traffic on the connector. if you live in atlanta, you know exactly what i mean. if you don't, i'll give you a quick explanation. the connector is where two interstate systems - 75 and 85 - come together for several miles. as if this doesn't suck enough, they come together just in time to go through downtown atlanta. even shorter explanation? in traffic, this is a giant clusterfuck. the pains got worse, and i think it was then, sitting in traffic, that i realized that i was really, truly in labor. i called dave back, and told him to get his parents to our house as fast as they could get there. and it really started to hurt. REALLY. A LOT. and i started to think that maybe this child would be born in traffic with only a three-year-old child as a witness.

got home, FINALLY. started packing a bag for emerson and making sure everything was all set. i had to take a lot of breaks, just to catch my breath. oh, and also to play with emerson. because nothing is more fun for a kid than playing with his mother who is in labor. seriously. he didn't want to read, he didn't want to watch a movie; he only wanted me to make stuff out of goddamn play-doh. LAME.

dave finally got home, and told me that his parents were on their way. i'll have you know that he performed some detective work in order to find them. MY parents are never far from their cell phones, but dave's folks? not so much. in fact, their phones were off. dave frantically called his brother to ask where their folks were. turned out they were at dinner with their sunday school class or some such thing. so dave had to call one of their friends who got them to turn on their damn phones.

jebus, this is boring. sorry, y'all. i'll finish part 2 this weekend, when it's possible i might be a little better rested and make this story a fraction more interesting. feels good to be writing this again, though.