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July 15, 2001
Harry seems to enjoy "looking" at his boobs (ok, well they're mine, but it always seems to me that the true ownership belongs to HIM right now-someday I hope they will be MINE again!) lately as much as he enjoys being fed by them! If I am wearing a tank top or bathing suit, he will climb up me and yank out the top to take a peek at least 10 times a day. As of yet it hasn't happened in a true public arena, but I am sure I won't escape the summer un-exposed!
My husband has been working long hours lately (he's a chef-long hours are par for the course, but it's been excessive these past few weeks) and I am SO looking forward to Wednesday, when he'll be off & home with us and maybe I can have a bit of "me-time". I love nothing more than spending all of this time with my babies, but boy, I DO need a day off sometimes! I also have a mountain of laundry cluttering up our bedroom, so it will be tough to call whether I stay in & do laundry all day (without Harry on my hip) or go out & have some me-time...Hmmmmmmmm...what to do, what to do...
I promised I'd share Harry's birthstory sometime, so since this is a short-ish entry, here it is:
Harry’s birth story
I was due June 10. Everybody had been telling me for the duration of my pregnancy “oh, you’ll go early…”
I TRIED not to believe them, but somehow, my mind failed me and I was quite convinced that I would have this baby sometime BEFORE June 10. HA HA HA HA HA…
I had a very uneventful pregnancy, and since Hazel was just 7 months old when I became pregnant, I was VERY busy and the 9 months zipped right by. That is, until that last couple of weeks…
I was H U G E.
My doctor ordered a 38wk. Ultrasound to measure how big this kid was going to be. My first baby, Hazel was born 2 days past her due date at 9lbs. 1oz. so I had no doubt that I would have another big baby. I also had a really easy first delivery, so even though my doctors had been telling me “this is going to be a big one!” I really wasn’t stressed about it. I had convinced myself that I was in for another relatively easy delivery. Chalk it up to the power of positive thinking!
The ultrasound estimated the baby was already close to 10lbs. At 38 weeks, so at that point my doctor told me if I went past my due date, they could induce if I wished. I told him we’d just wait and see how it went. At my regular appointment one week past my due date, he asked again how I was feeling, and if I wanted to go ahead and schedule the induction. He advised we go ahead and schedule it, as the hospital where I delivered is a very busy big city hospital. So we penciled me in for June 21. I was told to call the day before to find out when to report to the hospital (if nothing had happened before then). I was still somewhat confident that I’d go into labor before then, but the idea of being induced was scaring me a little…I’d had such a pleasant delivery with my first baby (epidural included), and I really trusted my body to do what it needed to do. BUT, I was also only dilated 1/2cm…they told me with 2nd pregnancies, that really doesn’t mean much, not to worry…My body was “labor ready” (that’s what they said). I knew my MIND was labor ready, ha ha ha, but I hadn’t felt so much as a teensy contraction like thing, so I wasn’t so sure about that one…
June 18 was Father’s Day, and my Mother-in-law was scheduled to arrive back in town after doing the Avon 3-Day Walk for a Cure for Breast Cancer. I told her if I wasn’t in the hospital, we’d be there at the finish line to greet her. So that morning came and we went to the festivities to greet her! Now, I was still feeling pretty good, albeit humongous and VERY FULL OF WATER. My feet were truly unrecognizable. They looked like walrus flippers. I kid you not. So we drove to the lakefront where the walkers would be arriving, and had to park about 8 city blocks from the finish line. I toddled along as fast as my walrus flippers would take me, and Tom had Hazel in the backpack. We greeted his mom and she was elated to see us. I was SO glad I’d actually gotten my big self out to be there! It was really touching and special.
After saying our good-byes to Mom & our other friends & family who’d gone down to greet her, we walked back (boy do 8 blocks seem FAR when travelling on walrus flippers!) to the car and decided to go get a bite to eat somewhere. OH, and I forgot to mention, it was about 85 degrees outside, and any of you who have ever had the blessing of pregnancy, you can imagine how hot that felt to my 9+mos. pregnant self…toasty…
So we went out to eat, went home, put Hazel to bed, relaxed & then went to bed ourselves. I also need to mention that at this point, I was pretty much convinced that I would indeed be pregnant forever. This kid just DID NOT want to come out. All that walking, and not a thing…
WELL, at about 1:45 in the morning, I woke up with a contraction!!!! Hallelujah! I got up to go potty (fellow child-bearers also know all about this) and had another contraction. And another. All within about a 5-minute time span. SO, I woke Tom up and said, “I think we’re finally in business!”
We debated for a few minutes whether we should call my sister (who would be coming to stay with Hazel) and I was really thinking we could wait a while, not wake her too early & all…But then I figured, ah, what the heck, she might as well be here now…So we called her. I was having very steady, rather strong contractions during this entire time. As soon as Tom left to go pick up my sister, I called the doctor on call, and reported that my contractions had only been coming for 10 minutes or so, but that they were following rapidly. She immediately said, “Oh, you need to get on down here. We’ll see you soon!” Oh, how right she was! As soon as I hung up with her, I called my mom to tell her we wouldn’t be going to lunch the next day as we’d planned…She’d need to be coming to the hospital for lunch! Well, now the contractions were VERY strong (the kind you can’t talk through) and coming every 2-4 minutes apart. I called my sister’s house to see what the status was & her poor boyfriend had to tell me they were on the way (he was probably more panicked than I was, ha ha ha). Tom & my sister arrived within minutes of my calling, and now I was starting to feel a little panicky, too. These were STRONG contractions and I wanted to be in the car and on the way NOW. My sister rubbed my back a little while Tom got the bag into the car & then I went down as fast as my contracting self would go.
Now, let me pause right here to thank God once again for letting me go into labor in the middle of the night. Our hospital is only about a 15-minute drive from our place AS LONG AS THERE IS NO TRAFFIC. In rush hour, it can take up to an hour to get there. Thank you, Lord. (readers, you’ll soon see why I am thanking Him)
All I really remember about the drive is 1) asking my darling husband to turn off the scary, Wagner-ish classical music that was on the radio (NOT what I wanted to hear while in heavy labor) and 2) telling him “you need to BREAK the speed limit. GO!”
We got to the hospital, and I had the door open & myself hanging ½ out of the car before Tom had pulled to a complete stop. They have an area for pick-ups/drop-offs, and then you have to go park in a garage. SO, I instructed Tom to go park the car & meet me up on the Labor & Delivery floor. I was not about to wait for him in the lobby. I hustled in to the elevator, which seemed to take an eternity (probably took 6 seconds or so) & hobbled off the elevator at the L&D floor. Somehow I managed to remain semi-composed long enough to tell the nurse at the desk my name, doctor, etc. She asked me to have a seat around the corner and told me someone would be with me soon. Around the corner I went, and as I tried to lower myself onto the waiting area seat, I just knew that wasn’t gonna be good. I was VERY uncomfortable and sitting just didn’t seem to be the answer, so as I was raising myself up, Tom was just arriving and WHOOOOOSH broke the water! Wow, is there a lot of water in there (when Hazel was born, the doctor broke my water for me, so I was unaware of the volume of water involved…WOW.)! I yelled, “I need a nurse! My water just broke and I THINK I HAVE TO PUSH!!!” A nurse was there almost before I finished hollering, and she whisked me into a L&D room, all the while trying her best to make me laugh & feel somewhat more at ease. Once we were in the room she asked Tom to help me get undressed (out of my SOAKED ensemble) which he did. Then they got me onto the bed & somebody checked me out “down below” and promptly announced “OH, yeah…She’s complete!” to which I moaned “does this mean I’m not going to get an epidural???” clutching the rail on the bed…The kindly nurse replied “oh, no, well, I don’t think so.” Then they hooked up the external and an internal monitor (I don’t even remember why they said they did the internal, I didn’t care at that point, all I could think was that I was going to have to have this 10+ pound child drug free…eek… The nurse told me to go ahead and push when I felt the urge, and they whisked that room into shape in what seemed like a matter of seconds. The doctor arrived and the pushing began in earnest…Poor Tom, I don’t think he was at all prepared for the speed at which things were progressing. We were certainly NOT going to be doing any hall-walking/showering/all those things they tell you in the birthing classes to prepare yourselves to do at the hospital, ha ha ha. Well, he announced to the doctors about 3 minutes into the deal “I think I might pass out. Can I sit down?” and they all hollered “LAY DOWN! We don’t need you needing stitches, dad!” Laughing all the while (I guess that wasn’t the first dad to say something along those lines, eh?) So he lay down for a couple minutes, and then he somehow composed himself & rejoined the party. I didn’t care. I was just pushing my little (ok, not so little) self and pushing and pushing. The nurses were GREAT. They just kept telling me how great I was doing and that it was going to be very soon now… Well, after about 15 minutes of pushing, VICTORY! The doctor was saying “oh, man, that was SO COOL, did you see how the baby turned & came right out on that last push…And WHAT a BIG ONE!…” Well, I still didn’t know if it was a boy or girl (nor did Tom) and they’re all babbling about how cool the delivery was, and how fast the baby came out, and how amazing it was for an unmedicated birth, and how BIG…Finally they turned him & I could see the little penis! “It’s A BOY!” Tom & I said! And then of course were the tears and the kisses and the complete and utter perfect happiness that comes with bringing a new person into the world. Our beautiful little (ok not so little) Harrison Thomas had arrived. 10 pounds 10 ounces and we’d only been at the hospital a little over ½ hour! Total labor time less than 2 hours! I can not even explain how surreal the whole thing was. It was SO FAST, it was literally like a dream. I was rather dazed. BUT, I must say, I felt GREAT. MUCH better than after Hazel’s epidural arrival (which at the time I’d thought was a breeze, too)…
I needed a few stitches from a bit of tearing (you try having an almost 11 pounder, ha ha ha!) and a teensy episiotomy (to get those hulking shoulders through), but boy, I felt great!
Harry scored 10’s on his apgars & was never taken from the room. They cleaned him up & gave him back to me to nurse within minutes. He latched on like a real champ (as he still does a year later, ha ha ha!) and boy was he hungry! I guess those extra days in there he worked up a real appetite! He nursed so often that first 24 hours, my milk actually came in that 2nd day! He was a perfect peach. Of course he was the talk of the floor, as he was so big. The nurses all thought he was a riot. When he cried, he cried “Mmma! Mmmma!” so they said they always knew when it was him hollering (he roomed in with me, and only went to the nursery to have his little heel pricked, they do that with the big ones to test their blood sugar…poor little (big) bugs…They have to do that every couple of hours that first 24hours).
We went home on the 22nd. and when I saw my little Hazel, she said “BABY!” and I promptly started bawling LIKE a baby…I was so happy to have my little family all together at last. And although I enjoyed having my time in the quiet hospital with my new little man, boy had I missed my little girl! But there we were! Our newly bigger little family of four! Just perfect!
I love you Harry! Welcome to our family!
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