Ditto the Epidural

Remember how (waaaay) back in April I was bursting at the seams to bust this baby out my lady parts? How I was so bummed that he (she!) hadn’t come out early despite my cervix’s valiant efforts at effacement and dilation? How that crazy-stretchy dress was itself going to burst at the seams itself if I got even one millimeter bigger?

Well…the truth of the matter is that I signed up to get induced two days after my due-date because I COULD NOT WAIT to meet this baby. Also, I COULD NOT BEAR the thought of being pregnant for eight more days (assuming baby #2 was going to follow the same schedule as baby #1) because eighty-two weeks of pregnancy is way too much for me in this lifetime, thank you very much. Also, I wanted to medicalize my birthing experience as much as possible! To stick it to all those “natural” people who shun medication and make the rest of us look bad! To show the world (or anyone in it who could be bothered to pay attention) that a little Pitocin doesn’t make a woman any less a woman! Ditto the epidural!

Americans for Healthy Priorities

Today is a triumphant day, not because I survived my first morning alone with both girls while Dr. Husband was at work nor because I not only survived but managed to take the three of us on a walk (in the rain! My born-and-raised-in-Seattle two-year-old was undaunted!) up a flight of eighty stairs to a local coffee shop for my second dose of morning caffeine nor because I not only survived and took us on a walk but also managed to make a batch of granola (the muffin granola finally ran out), shower, do a load of laundry, and only snap at the whining two-year-old once—no, today is triumphant because I am wearing jeans for the first time in about seven months.


Jeans!


Mind you, they are in NO WAY my pre-pregnancy jeans or even my early maternity jeans. These are jeans I bought yesterday in a brand-new-to-me size—and even though they are alarmingly wide and ridiculously high-waisted, they look pretty great. Paired with the right top (loose, ruched, and black) they make me look NOT like someone who just had a baby but like a healthy rugby player. At least in dim lighting.


And this is what really matters, right, people?


photo courtesy jusben, morgueFile

The Three-Armed Woman

Hi. Remember me? The woman who would not shut up about her cervix? I'm back with a pressing evolutionary question, which is this: why don’t moms grow an extra arm when they give birth to their second child? It would be so much easier to manage all the nursing and simultaneous picture book reading and imaginary soup eating and potty emptying* and snack making and owie kissing and washing machine loading and forehead smacking and 3pm beer drinking with one more upper body appendage.


But, no. Somehow we are expected to do it all (and, if the media reports are correct, to Do It All) with the regular number of arms. Which is why I haven’t written in over three weeks because, dude! Not enough arms!