One week old

I looked at the clock through a sleepy haze this morning and said to Matt, "Hey, exactly one week ago at this moment I was getting my epidural." As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized, Wow, that means I have a one week old baby! And what a week it's been-- filled with so much joy, so many sleepless nights, so many tears cried in frustration, so much anxiety about my parenting abilities, and so much love for one tiny person that I can hardly stand it.


I'll be the first to admit: I am definitely in the infamous "survival mode" stage right now. Thank goodness I had read about it and prepared myself for it or I might be convinced that I'm a crazy person who is more fit for a straight jacket than parenthood.

My pre-parenthood way of thinking: I hope I have the baby before Thanksgiving so he can be home for the holidays and meet everyone!

My post-parenthood way of thinking: Oh my gosh, there are germy relatives everywhere and all they want to do is hold him and touch him!

Here are some other things that my first week of mommyhood has taught me that I was not, in any way, prepared for:

-I now fully expect to be peed or pooped on every single time I change a diaper. It's pretty much a given. As soon as that fresh air hits his smooth and adorable bottom, he can't help but shower me with a little gift (or two).

-Sleep is a distant memory. Of course I knew I wouldn't be sleeping in until noon with a newborn baby but I had no idea that I would spend more hours awake than asleep during the night. I also had no idea that I'd learn to be (relatively) functional on 4 hours of sleep.

-Things that I used to find just mildly annoying send me into a near-rage these days. Blame it on the aforementioned lack of sleep or the astronomical amount of hormones surging through my body right now or some combination of the two. But if you ring my doorbell more than once? Get ready to endure the wrath of Kerri. If you don't wash your hands and you touch my perfect little baby? Watch out.

-Post-baby bodies are hard to adjust to. This has nothing to do with weight gain or a somewhat doughy stomach. Thankfully, my weight is coming off quickly and easily so far (knock on wood). It's about the post-partum bleeding. And cramping. And just the general soreness that goes along with being in labor for several hours and pushing a 7 lb baby out of a very small opening. And while I enjoy the size of my new boobies, I don't enjoy how painful they are to the touch. A simple hug makes me wince now. And the cracked, bleeding nipples are just about as pleasant as they sound.

-The crying. Oh, the hormones. I have no coping mechanisms other than crying right now. If you say something remotely insensitive to me right now, I'll cry. If you make me mad, I'll cry. If there's an especially cheesy holiday commerical on TV, you can bet I will be bawling my eyes out by the end of it.

These are just a few of the things that I wish someone had told me to expect just so I wouldn't feel like an insane, frazzled new mom.

But all of these things are a very, very minuscule price to pay for my precious son who is undoubtedly the love of my life. There are absolutely no words to describe the bond I felt with Camden from the moment he was placed on my chest one week ago today. It's an all-consuming, powerful, and selfless love. It's knowing that there isn't anything in this world I wouldn't do to protect him. It's wanting the very best things for him, regardless of the sacrifices those things might require of me.

When I was pregnant, I often felt like I was in love with someone I'd never even met. And then the moment I did meet him- that long awaited, magically surreal moment when his eyes first met mine- I felt like I had known him my whole entire life. He was meant for me, for us. I may be unsure of a lot of things as I flounder around aimlessly as a new parent, but that is one thing that I am absolutely certain of.

Happy birthday, Camden.

Love of my life

We welcomed Camden into the world on Saturday, November 21st, at 2:29pm. He was 7 lbs, 9 oz and 21.5 inches at birth. More to come later. I am, as you can imagine, slightly occupied right now. Here's my little man:

Camden's birthday?

Let's hope so! We're at the hospital right now and have been since about 3:30am. I started having contractions around 10pm tonight, but they were pretty sporadic. I ended up calling the doctor at 2:30 or so and he thought it would be a good idea for me to come in due to being GBS+ and needing 4 hours of antibiotics before delivery.

Currently, I'm 3cm dilated and my contractions are every 2-3 minutes. And remember my post about being worried about not knowing whether or not I'm in labor? Umm, yeah- there's no way that can happen. Contractions really can't be mistaken for anything else. I guess I should've trusted everyone's advice!

Matt's sleeping in the chair next to me right now. My parents are on their way over to the hospital and Matt's parents are on their way up from South Carolina. Hopefully we will have a baby later today- the sooner, the better!

(PS- No epidural yet, but you can bet that I am getting one!)

Yay for progress!

After sitting in an exam room that felt like a sauna for an hour, I finally got to see Dr. No Eye Contact. By this time, my butt was so sweaty it was stuck to the paper covering the exam table and my bladder felt like it was going to explode. As you can probably imagine, a cervical exam was about the last thing I wanted at that point.

But! I got some great and encouraging news which made my sweaty wait worthwhile.

**Drumroll, please**

I am: 2 cm dilated, 80% effaced, and Camden is at -1 station. What are stations, you ask? Or, at least I assume you're asking yourself this because I had absolutely no clue that stations even existed up until a couple of weeks ago. My understanding is this: stations range from -3 to +3 and are reflective of where the baby is located. Once the baby is at 0 station, he or she is said to be fully engaged. At +3 station, the baby is crowning. In a nutshell? My feeling that Camden has been trying to head-butt his way out over the past week or so is pretty accurate.

Now, I'm a pretty realistic person. I know that, feasibly, I could be "stuck" in this phase for another couple of weeks. But guess what?! I won't be. Know why? Because, at the very latest, they will induce me the Monday after Thanksgiving. They would hope to induce me the Friday after the holiday, but it will just depend on the doctors' vacation schedules. Even as Dr. No Eye Contact was talking induction with me, she said that she really thought Camden would come on his own in the next few days.

So. If I'm still pregnant next Wednesday, I will go in for an ultrasound and NST (fetal non-stress test). Then we'll schedule the induction for either Friday or Monday. Let me repeat: if I'm still pregnant. Hopefully I won't be.

Either way, though, my sweet little boy will be here very, very soon. Yay for progress!

I wrapped Christmas presents last night.

It's November 16th. In years past, I don't think I've ever had presents wrapped before, like, December 23rd. And if we're being brutally honest, that's mostly because the majority of my shopping wasn't done before then.

See, the thing is, I have no idea what to expect in my life AB (After Baby). I read blogs and hear stories from people about how they have no earthly clue how they made it through the first few months after bringing a newborn home. They call it "survival mode". They allude to the fact that they didn't shower for days in a row. Sleep was a figment of their imagination, a distant memory left over from their lives PB (Pre Baby).

So I tried to picture myself with a greasy ponytail, sweats covered in spit-up, walking around in a sleep-deprived haze trying to find time to shop for and wrap Christmas presents. Seemed like a good recipe for most of the people on my shopping list this year ending up with a homemade "I Owe You" coupon and an apologetic shrug.

Then late last night, after the presents were wrapped and stacked neatly on the dining room table, I came across a posting on a community forum I participate in. The forum is dedicated to moms who are due in November 2009. One particular thread on the forum caught my eye. It was a new mom, whose baby had been home from the hospital for a week, and she labeled her thread "I am SO bored at home with baby!"

What the......?

Her posting basically said that there are only so many hours in a day she can sit around and stare at a sleeping baby. She was bored and restless. After one week home with a new baby.

Now I don't know who to believe. Am I going to be a sleep-deprived zombie who will be lucky to shower in the month of December? Or am I going to be like this particular poster, watching my peacefully sleeping baby while lamenting to strangers on the internet that I really need to find myself a hobby?

I feel pretty strongly that I already know the answer to this question. Stay tuned.

Still Cooking

Yep, I am still baking this little boy. It's funny to me now that I went through the whole worrying about pre-term labor phase a while back (you know, because I like to look for things to obsess over). Now I feel seriously doubtful that he'll be ready to join the outside world before Thanksgiving (which, for those who are counting, is a week past my due date).

Maybe I feel that way because I don't think I've been having any contractions-- or at least not the real, productive kind. I say "think" because I have absolutely no freakin' clue what a contraction feels like. Every time my doctor asks me if I've been having contractions, I tell him that I don't think so. Then he kind of smiles and says, "Well, maybe you're just going to be one of those lucky women that have a completely pain-free labor and delivery." He's used that same joke during my last 3 visits. Sometimes I'm tempted to complete his sentence for him.

Because of my lack of contractions (or my lack of ability to detect them), it's crossed my mind that I might be going into labor on my kitchen floor one of these days. And that's problematic because Matt is very squeamish and wouldn't be of much use to me. The few people I've mentioned this irrational fear to have laughed at me. "Trust me, you'll know when you're going into labor", they say. So I'm trying to trust that I will just know, that there's really no gray area when it comes to real labor; that I won't just go to the bathroom one of these days and see a tiny head looking up at me.

And as uncomfortable as I am right now (I swear he's trying to head-butt his way out sometimes), I have been enjoying my last few weeks of free time--- of "me time". I've slept in, a lot. I've napped during the day. I've shopped with my mom. I've stayed up late eating popcorn and watching DVR'd shows with Matt. Tonight we enjoyed a relaxing dinner out as we watched other couples chase their toddlers around the restaurant. I'm enjoying these moments, trying to really soak them all in, as I continue to bake this tiny guy who's about to change my world.

GBS +

I had my 38 week check up today. They didn't bother to check me for dilation this time since: a) absolutely nothing was going on when they checked last week and b) I haven't been having any contractions. He did tell me, however, that I had the "green light" to go into labor anytime I wanted now. Call me crazy but I'm still hoping to continue baking this little boy for a couple more weeks.

He also told me that I tested positive for Group B Strep. I think our (very one-sided) conversation went something like this: "You tested positive for Group B Strep, which is not uncommon. We'll just give you antibiotics when you go into labor. So, what's new with you?"

And that was pretty much it. So I wasn't really worried about it until I got home and consulted Dr. Google. Why do I do this to myself? I hate Dr. Google so much, and yet, I can't seem to stay away from him.

In order to avoid being committed into an insane asylum during these last couple of weeks of pregnancy, I am going to force myself to break up with Dr. G and trust my doctors-- you know, the real-life people that know my medical history and examine me weekly? I do trust that I'm in good hands with them.

PS- I got my H1N1 vaccination yesterday. Finally. My mom hunted it down at a random Walgreens. I'm convinced there's nothing that woman can't do.