Skipping Town

For most of my twenties, I believed I didn’t want children. I spent most of high school and college writing angst-ridden poems addressing themes like suffocation, identity loss, and entrapment, and believing that the worst possible fate was to wind up married and mothering in suburbia. The idea of having a family and living outside a city seemed, for some reason, incompatible with absolutely everything else life should, and could possibly, be. I am now married and mothering in suburbia, and it’s actually pretty fantastic. Of course, we’d prefer to live elsewhere; but we’ve had adventures—many years in New York, our lucky time in Barcelona—and will surely have more. It’s not surprising to have had a seismic shift on the idea of marriage and motherhood in ten-plus years, but it’s funny to look back on that doubtful girl; I wish she could have had an idea of the kind of happiness that was possible in everything she feared. Eleven years ago, when I was twenty-two years old, I wrote the poe...

Lucia Orlando Littell made her grand entrance at 6:38pm on Thursday, October 15, at Kaiser Roseville, two days before her due date. She was 6 pounds exactly and 19 inches long. Andrew and I had “planned” on a natural birth; and I use the quotation marks deliberately now, having learned a dramatic lesson about the impossibility of planning how a birth can go. I’m still shaken up about Lucia’s birth story, and am trying to focus on the fact that she is beautiful and healthy and here. I started getting period-like cramping around 4:00am the morning of Wednesday, October 14. I tried to sleep but was too excited; something told me this was it. The cramping continued through the morning but was mild enough that Andrew and I decided he should go to work. Late morning, the cramping turned decidedly to contractions, which I timed throughout the afternoon. By the time Andrew got home around 5:30pm, we knew we’d be having a baby soon. We got our things together and made a soup for dinner. Around ...

I’ve entered Baby Time. She’s been home for only a week, but already I feel transported into a world where I might not check email until noon, where time is measured in feedings and changings. She tends to sleep a lot during the day, and she’s been giving us two- to three-hour stretches of sleep at night—until around 4am, when she is suddenly wide awake, resisting our rocking and shushing and white-noise-machining and staring up at us with bright, wide-open eyes. She may or may not fall asleep again around 6am. We are hoping this will change. I’m tired; but I like Baby Time. It requires a new kind of focus and calm. Everything is suddenly subordinate to making sure this little being is fed, dry, happy. It’s rare that things are this clear, separated so firmly into what matters right now and what can be put off until later.

Our sleeping baby. I've been posting lots of pictures on Facebook. Feel free to friend me if you're on Facebook and haven't yet.

A couple of months ago, when Andrew and I began doing perineal massage to prepare me for what we thought would be a natural birth, we thought we’d taken our marriage to a new level. You don’t just break out the vegetable oil and uncomfortable downward pressure with anyone; it seemed like a step toward a new kind of marital intimacy. Little did we know. There were a lot of things I could never have imagined about labor, and one of those is the variety of compromising and, in any other circumstance, embarrassing positions Andrew would see me in. Perineal massage pales in comparison to seeing me leak bloody water all over the floor and any other available surface after I had my water broken. It pales in comparison to escorting me and my IV pole into the bathroom—and helping me situate myself and my hospital gown on the toilet. It pales in comparison to sitting with me while I was on the toilet , kneeling in front of me and squeezing my hips through a contraction. It definitely pales in co...

Two nights ago, during one of Lucia’s many nighttime diaper changes, Andrew changed her diaper, changed her sleeper, and picked her up from the changing table—only to suddenly see urine streaming to the ground. We were both stunned. When Andrew went to change her yet again, he realized he’d forgotten to put a diaper on her. She was naked inside her little sleeper.

I’d heard about the baby blues. But wow, have I gone for an emotional roller-coaster ride in the past week. Yesterday was the first day I got through without crying uncontrollably. It’s now 2:45pm, and I haven’t cried yet today, which may make this day #2 without tears. Prior to these days, I cried pretty much every time I looked at the baby. I cried when we left the hospital, and when we got home. I cried when I realized my smallest maternity jeans are almost too big. I cried when I realized I’m now within three pounds of my pre-pregnancy weight and I look almost as skinny as I used to. I cried because I wished I could put Lucia back into my belly and just start all over again. I cried because I miss being pregnant. I cried while eating cereal and reading the New York Times at the breakfast table because I looked up and spotted the stroller and thought about all the care we took in picking it out and realized it’s for her. Yesterday I felt very together. Today, together, but a bit edg...

I’m still working on putting down Lucia’s birth story. It’s difficult; I can’t seem to think about it without crying. But I want to record and share some of the details in the meantime, in bits and pieces, before they start getting foggier than they already are. Andrew and I created a basic “birth plan” that we gave to Kaiser (our HMO) several weeks ago. The plan detailed things like what pain management strategies we wanted to use, whether Andrew wanted to cut the cord, etc. The gist of our “birth plan” was this: Natural birth, no interventions. From the moment we arrived at the hospital, however, the interventions began. In triage, Lucia’s heart rate occasionally decelerated, and so from that point things changed. Here is a list, in roughly chronological order, of the interventions I underwent to bring Lucia into the world. Anything that attached to my body was cumulative—they didn’t remove one wire to make room for another. I was in labor for approximately 24 hours, 18 of them witho...

Lucia Orlando Littell, born October 15, 6:38pm, 6 oz. exactly, 19 inches long. A beautiful, beautiful baby girl. There are no words. My birth story is not at all what I had imagined it would be, and I am still working through it, processing, healing. All I can say is that the phrase "birth plan" may be the most ridiculous phrase in the English language. Details soon.

Californians in this area do not know what to do when it rains. It’s understandable—it hardly ever rains, and, in my experience, when it does rain, it rains hard . Yesterday was a particularly apocalyptic day, with high winds and downpours that lasted for most of the morning and afternoon. The environment, too, can’t handle such odd weather. Branches cracked from trees; leaves filled the streets; power lines went down; streets flooded. I ventured out only briefly, to drive Andrew to work after my doctor’s appointment, and hydroplaned slightly as a made a very slow right turn. Though I was snug inside yesterday afternoon, the chaos of the day took over here as well. My cervical exam yesterday was particularly aggressive—the midwife had a hard time reaching the cervix because little Whittemora’s head was in the way—and several hours after I got home, I began having some pretty heavy bleeding. Bleeding is just one of those things you don’t expect or want to see for, oh, nine-plus months, ...

It’s raining in Roseville, and has been for hours; the wind gusted through the night. It’s so strange for a day to be this gloomy that I can’t help but feel it portends an imminent birth. I saw the midwife today, who told me I’m now 2cm dilated, 80% effaced, with a -2 engagement. So things are progressing. It’s such a dreary, moody October day—the kind I love; a perfect day for momentous changes. We’ll see what the little one has in mind.

With my due date coming up on Saturday, Andrew and I are officially on Labor Watch. There have been enough signs—I’ll spare everyone the details; those who have been pregnant can guess what they are—to suggest that labor is imminent. But the cruel irony is that none of those signs mean anything at all. Such things can occur weeks or days before labor. I could finish this blog post and go into labor. Or I could still be pregnant a week from today. No one knows. So there’s nothing to do now but sit around and obsess about things. Last night I began obsessing about our bassinet, which we borrowed from one of Andrew’s co-workers. I was really gung-ho about borrowing this particular item, since the baby will use it for just a couple of months. But now the item is vexing me. First, I wanted to buy a new mattress and sheets for it. This attempt was unsuccessful; no sizes fit. Then I decided to just buy new sheets. Also unsuccessful. Nothing fit; the ones I bought that sort of fit shrunk to ha...

There are a lot of cases to be made for not throwing things out, for a very sage reason: you never know when you’ll need them. This was proven to me once again last night, as I worked to compile a suitable collection of music for labor. I have never been through labor, so I don’t know what I’m going to feel like listening to; but I can guess. And, unfortunately for us all, what I truly believe is going to work best to help relax me and keep me focused is new age-y music, including albums with titles like “Lifescapes” and “Music for Yoga and Other Joys.” This is what I’m used to breathing and relaxing to in yoga, and it’s what I imagine when I try to picture the labor room. Anyway, last night I finished uploading a few CDs my yoga teacher had burned for me and had culled my own paltry collection of new age music, which consisted—I thought—of one CD: “Calming Sea.” Onto the iPod it went. But when I searched my (extremely paltry) CD collection a bit more closely, I came across a 2-CD set ...

There’s a suitcase in my room, half-packed, with a lengthy packing list on top of it. Yesterday I spent hours burning new playlists onto CDs and updating my iPod with songs of a certain mood. We’ve made countless purchases—a “boombox” (to fulfill battery-only hospital requirements), cute pajamas, a robe, slippers, a battery-operated fan, a birth ball—to assist us in this very specific endeavor. We’ve made cheat-sheets about labor and pain-management strategies. And last night it occurred to me that we’ve done more shopping, planning, and preparation than we did for our two-week trip to Japan—for an occasion that will be 24-48 hours, start to finish, at the most (knock wood). It definitely feels like we’re embarking on some sort of lengthy, involved journey, not just preparing to take a five-minute drive to the hospital, and both the extent and the atmosphere of these preparations feel the same as those that always go into anticipating a major trip— with some significant differences, of...

The weird, vivid dreams are back. I had tons of them early in my pregnancy, and now, here at the end, they’ve started up again. This time, besides being incredibly strange, they’re also extremely physical—even though they’re about sensations I couldn’t possibly understand yet. In one dream, I gave birth to twins. I was surprised, but it was a happy dream, free from anxiety—despite the fact that the babies weren’t babies but rat-like creatures. As I breastfed one of the rats, it morphed into a baby. In another, I gave birth yet again to twins. I held one of them in my hand adoringly, even though it wasn’t a baby but a small figurine of a baby wrapped in a tiny, tiny blanket; it was no bigger than my palm. Then I began breastfeeding a normal-sized baby. The night before last, I dreamed that Andrew and I were gazing out at an ocean experiencing tsunami-like waves. At the crest of each wave were groups of killer whales. Some of the whales began washing up on shore, coming dangerously close...

This weekend Andrew and I put the finishing touches to the nursery. There are still a few things to get, like a mobile, but we’re pleased with how it turned out. It’s very cozy—a place, hopefully, of rest and peace. I’ve been spending a lot of time sitting in the glider, just imagining the baby and what it will be like when she finally arrives. It’s very peaceful to sit there with a book, with sunlight streaming in the windows, feeling the little one moving around in her little womb-house as she prepares for her arrival. Our bird bedding is from Target; the curtains, bureau, bookshelf, and carpet are from Ikea; the blanket over the back of the glider is handmade by Mom; and all wall art is courtesy of Dad.

Isn't it confounding that with all of today's amazing technology, no one can tell me exactly when our baby will be born? They can put a man on the moon and put a pig's heart in a human's body, and yet no one can say when I'll go into labor. It's kind of amazing. I suppose it isn't a matter of critical medical importance, but it just seems so...basic.

It’s fall. All weekend we had crisp, cool temperatures and blue skies; at night it’s been down into the 40s. I hesitate to believe it—experience has proven that such lovely fall days could be clobbered without warning by a return to high-80s temperatures and a seemingly endless summer—but for now it is just beautiful. We may not have spectacular fall foliage where we live, but the cool temperatures still make it feel like October should feel. I have a jittery back-to-school kind of feeling; the kind of feeling I always get before taking a big trip, knowing something momentous is about to happen. There are less than two weeks now until my due date, and though I don’t really believe she’ll come this early, she very well could. It was on our minds all weekend. Friday night, we went out for Indian food after some shoe-shopping at DSW—a relaxing evening we won’t have too many more of, at least for a while. Saturday began a whirlwind two days of final preparations. Saturday, we did what fel...

When I first got pregnant, I was primarily intrigued by two things I would potentially experience: cravings and the nesting instinct. I never did get the cravings, so now I’m waiting for the nesting instinct to kick in—from what I’ve read, it could be a sign of imminent labor. I’m a nesty person in general, however, so I’m not sure I’ll notice any new instincts in this area. Apparently the urge to clean house is a big part of this—but I’m not sure it’s applicable for someone as cleaning-averse as I am. An urge to organize is probably more realistic. Which is why I’m wondering if the nesting instinct—my version of it—has indeed kicked in: this afternoon I decided to prepare my tax materials for my tax guy. My taxes are always tricky, involving a random selection of 1099s and an even more random collection of receipts for tax write-offs. Some of the documentation can’t be gathered until after the end of the year, of course, but today I went through nine months of receipts, printed out pa...

We now have a stroller, a diaper bag, a monitor, and a carseat installed and adjusted for an infant. We are making concrete steps to getting ready. Last night, Andrew bought a bag of honey-roasted peanuts and opened a bottle of wine. I cannot have honey or wine. I think he is ready to stop thinking about pregnancy-related food restrictions. Usually he’s so much more…sensitive than that. More thoughtful. I don’t know what happened. I tried to enjoy some dry-roasted almonds and water. Some honey-roasted peanuts are still in a bowl on the kitchen counter. I can’t stop looking at them. On Tuesday, I tried to goad the midwife into letting me go off my glucose-restricted diet. “Could the baby really grow into a monster-sized baby in three weeks?” I prodded. “Or is it pretty safe to say she won’t be affected that much by the glucose anymore?” The midwife didn’t take the bait and said the baby could still gain a lot of weight. “So no Blizzards yet?” I prodded further. She said I could have a c...