One Month of CBoy

Charlie was born on a Monday night at 9:16 PM. We did not get to go home until Wednesday afternoon. I was a little terrified about getting home of course, but I was looking forward to a freaking shower mostly. Now, I am sure you can shower in the hospital if you ask enough, but I just chose to sit in my own filth for two days. 

When we were leaving the hospital, I remember sitting in the room with the door open and hearing other babies crying. I was smugly thinking "Oh well Charlie barely cried at all. Poor mothers." Then I had to put Charlie in the car seat. I need to note that before Charlie was born I never held a newborn baby in my life. So as you can imagine I also have never placed a newborn in car seat. Sooooo, yes he was screaming his head off. And I became those mothers I pitied. Awesome how that works.

Eventually he got over it and fell asleep on the short car ride to the pharmacy and then home. At the pharmacy they had my insurance screwed up so I had to stand around for far too long. Much longer than any woman who just pushed a baby out should have to stand around for. I thought I was going to pass out and I texted Erich since I was pissed. He texted back that Charlie took a dump and was having a conniption. This just caused me to be "that" woman crying in the pharmacy. Funny how when I was pregnant I found myself crying over a frozen pizza for absolutely no reason, to having the baby and crying because my baby took a doodie and I couldn't help him. 

We got everything settled and headed home and experienced the first blowout of the dozens to come. Erich wanted to start a tradition where we take pictures of ourselves every time we got pissed or pooped on. We made it through two pictures and decided that was enough to get the point.

One of the most stressful things about bringing the baby home was how our dog would respond. He was our baby for three years so as you can guess he was totally freaked out by the tiny human. He used to think he was a toy in the beginning. Charlie would move in my arms and Seamus would jump up and try to get his moving limbs. Now, I love my dog a lot, so it would kill me when I would have to push him and yell at him. One time Seamus barked and jumped up my leg to nip Charlie and I literally had to kick him. Oh yeah this led to more tears (hormones are soooo weird). Seamus is a pretty smart dog if I do say so myself, so after some time he got used to Charlie being in his life and now he has accepted him as part of the pack and protective of him. It's too damn cute.

So before the baby comes you always hear about the nesting stage.I spent a good bit of time folding stuff, organizing, cleaning, etc. Baby came and everything went out the window. Everything I had set up just did not work once Charlie was in our lives. We had to change all of our stuff around, but whatever. Variety is the spice of life.

My sisters were dying to meet Charlie so they came up the weekend after we got home. My little sister is a photographer so we got some great newborn pictures of him taken. He was pretty cooperative and now I think he freaking owns the camera. Also, reminder, this is less than a week after he was born so I was still so completely out of it.

Because I had six weeks maternity leave and everyone was dying to see this little guy we took a road trip from Chicago to Louisiana and Texas to visit our family and friends. This is a pretty great time to do it since he sleeps most of the time anyhow, but you better bring tons of clothes. I think the angle they sit in their car seats just creates messes. It's like the carseat manufacturers and cleaning product distributors are in some sort of conspiracy. Also, why don't po-dunk gas stations have changing tables? We were forced to wing it. Which has basically become my parenting style ever since.

Speaking of winging it, I don't think I will be winning parent of the year award when I say that every time Charlie needed to eat, I would crawl into the backseat while on the road and just pop him on the boob. Yep I would take him out of the carseat and hold and feed him while going 70 mph down the highway. In hindsight I now see the total dangers in this, but at the time that's what made the most sense to me. Not so much anymore I can assure you. 

First stop was Colfax, Louisiana for Great Grandma Marie.

Then we went to we alternated between Lafayette, Louisiana and Houston, Texas. Charlie was quite popular. Who would have thought? Erich and I took the approach of sleeping as much as Charlie would allow. I know they say to sleep when he is sleeping, like when he is napping. But we just chose to sleep until noon with him since he would get up 3 or 4 times in the night. It worked out and it was a nice refreshing trip. Although near the end of our three week trip I was so ready to go home. 

I am not sure if it is like this with all new moms, but I could not stand to hear everyone's opinions about what I need to be doing with him. I know lots of people would just say things in passing, but I am new at this so I heard everything and would get upset. Erich is awesome and can just let things roll of his back, I am not like that so I would just fume about things after awhile. Now, this is really lightened up and I think there is some sort of silent understanding or something. Anyway, three weeks were ending and I had one more week before I had to return to work so Erich and I hit the road to get back. 

 LSU LSU LSU

 Grandpaw

 GGMa

 TT (Tante Tiffany)

 Aunt G

 Uncle Sean

 Papa

 Uncle Greg and Uncle JP Thibodeaux

 Tante Vicki

 Uncle Bart

 Tante Liz

 Aunt Gabbie

Aunt Sherry

Oma

Told you he was popular. It was busy month, but we had to head back to the real world which included work and cold weather. Everyone bought Charlie winter clothes so we were ready!

The Charlie Man Cometh

January 23, 2012 at 2:00 a.m. I woke up with slight cramps. Now if I were without child I would think, "Oh great, here comes a week of crying, exhaustion, headaches, and mood swings." Funny thing is, all of that still happened!

So my doctor kept telling me if you get pains for a minute or two straight and they start coming every five minutes then come in. So I woke up my husband so he could monitor the time, while I tried to sleep since I had to work the next day. Sleep was not coming. The pain was not unbearable or anything just ANNOYING. I called the doctor after about an hour of this and she said I could go in if I wanted to, but I could manage at home for awhile as well. My husband is always anti-hospital so he was trying to convince me to stay home. Since I was terrified of ruining my office chair (see my first post) and since I still had a few hours until I had to be at work I decided to head in just to be safe. For all I knew it could be false labor and I would be sent home, but I just wanted the verification.

At 6 a.m. we finally dragged ourselves into the hospital and were sent to OB Triage until the doctor decided to admit us. The doctor checked me out and I was still sitting at 3 cm like a few days prior. The monitor was hooked up to follow the contractions. I am not sure what the highest number is that it goes to, but when I got in they were hovering at around 30. Whatever the hell that means. The doctor had me walk for an hour to see if I would progress further. So I waddled around and decided I should call my office to take the day off just in case.

The hour helped because contractions went from a 30 to almost a 60. And I was 4 cm now. Now I waited to start the admission process.



While there we were surrounded by several different women. None that I could see faces of since curtains separated us. To my right there was a woman who was 7 months pregnant who fell and hit her head so they were monitoring her and baby since she had a slight concussion. She got up to use the restroom once and her husband did not help her up and she collapsed on the ground. Erich, would NEVER hear the end of that one, if that was me. To my left, a woman did not feel the baby kick for a day. So they were monitoring her. And across the room, this is the gem of triage, a teenager. Her parents brought her in and said, "If she is really in labor will you call us?" Then they left. She was in triage screaming bloody murder after that. They wheeled her out after 5 minutes in there and had the baby 15 minutes later. Sooooo I am pretty sure her family was full of morons. Needless to say, I was ready to get out of triage with all these happy stories all around me.

At about 11 a.m. I was admitted. I called my mom, WHO DIDN'T ANSWER! How can she not answer a call from her 9 months pregnant daughter? Well I called my dad, who sadly was laid off weeks prior, and he was at home grouting tile in the kitchen. I said, "Dad it's time." And he said, "OK it's time, let me call your mother." What they didn't tell me till hours later was that the stupid grout has a process to it and he was smack in the middle of it.  So they had to wait to get on their plane until that was finished. Now whenever I take Charlie home, I show him the grout so he knows what is more important. It's great grout. Best grout I've seen. Anyway, my mom was in a meeting, so she called me when she was finished and cancelled the rest of her meetings. They would be in Chicago at around 11 p.m. So 12 hours sounds reasonable for  delivery I thought.

Around 1 p.m. the doctor came to check on me and said I was still hovering at 4cm, and the contractions were still about 60 (again, this may not even be a real measurement, but it sure felt like it was). She then said, well we can give you pitocin, break your water, or send you home. The last option was never going to happen. I was in that room and I was not leaving without a baby! I did not want to take pitocin because it sounded weird to me, but the water breaking sounded pretty standard. So that's what we chose. And again, I would wager that a third of the 25 pounds I gained during pregnancy was amniotic fluid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKGTklU8wlA&feature=related This is how it felt, minus the gun of course. Then she said, now I will be in totally active labor. I scoffed at that, because so far the pain was annoying but manageable and I was almost half way there. Come on, I've got this.

WRONG.

Instantly it kicked up a notch. Still manageable but definitely worse. I told my husband to go get his lunch at that moment because it was only going to get worse. Reluctantly he left and I was left to figure out all the answers to Family Feud on my own. Maybe 10 minutes after he left I shifted to my side and it was another pool bursting moment. I needed the nurse to come help me, but wouldn't you know it, the damn button fell behind the bed. So I started calling out for the nurse. Apparently the hospital thought it would be nice to sound proof every labor and delivery room and there was no way they would hear me. No matter how loud I yelled. So I just sat in my own grossness and cried until my husband came back all smiles with his sandwich (bastard).

After we got that all straightened out it was full steam ahead. My contractions were now jumping to the near 100 range and they sucked. No other description I can use. They were sucky. Super sucky. By 6 p.m. I was in hell. My husband was enjoying the free wifi while I would just focus on the pain to return 2 minutes after it went away. Every time a contraction would come he would hold my hand, but that was his only job. Men have it so easy. I stopped looking at the monitor to see the strength because I think it made it feel so much worse. So Erich would just look over my shoulder and tell me when they were going down. At one point, I grabbed his hand while he was on the computer, he looked at the monitor and said, "Wow 120, but it's going down now." And then went back to playing online. I never wanted to punch an electronic device more in my entire life. Doctor came in to check and I was at 7cm.

Give me the drugs!!

Sweet sweet epidural. Thank you for allowing me to sleep. In my previous post I said how surreal it made everything feel and this is true, but one thing about it: my back continues to have pains exactly where they put it in from time to time. This is not the case for everyone I hear, but I also know I am not alone in this one. Interesting fact, I have scoliosis and I was terrified the epidural would go in the curve and puncture my spine and I would be leaking spinal fluid as much as my amniotic fluid. Doctors tend to know what they are doing so I needn't worry.

I pushed for 20 minutes and little Charlie came out. Little is what I like to call him because he was smaller than me, but he was 8 pounds! Doctors kept pushing my stomach beforehand estimating he was 6 pounds. They were a little off. True if someone said they thought I was 2 pounds lighter than I actually I am I would not correct them, but two pounds is a huge difference for little baby boys.

*Interesting tidbit: In labor & delivery there are TVs in your room. Since I had the epidural they told me I would need to push when I was contracting. I didn't really know when I was so they would watch the monitor and say, "Ok push." Then when I would break between and they told me to relax. So I just watched TV in between pushes. Seinfeld was on. It was the episode where Elaine is very picky about who she uses her sponge contraceptive on. Irony?

My hospital was one of those hospitals where the baby stays with you at all times. Which I love. When he first came out and they laid him on my chest they covered him up immediately so my husband and I were sitting there wondering what he was. I felt stupid that I had to ask if it was a boy or girl, like I don't know human anatomy or something. They said, "It's a boy!" and my husband cried. He says it's because Charlie carries his name as his middle name, but I think it was just relief to have a boy. So they took him to the corner after Erich cut the cord and I heard him cry. They would announce his height and weight to me as well. The weird thing is, for some reason while giving birth they turned off all of the lights and basically shined a spotlight on my cooter. So when they took him to the corner and put his own spotlight on I just laid there in the darkness unable to move. This totally added to the surreal effect for me. It was almost like what was happening was some sort of play I was watching. Some gross disgusting play. Maybe a really demented Gallagher performance. One more small push and the placenta came out. Another thing lots of people don't think about when they think of labor. My husband refused to look at Charlie coming out ("I can't unsee that." he said), but he did watch the placenta he said. He has a way with words and decribed it as a a dark red trash bag filled with liquid that they lay on a platter. He was never more sexy to me than in that moment.

All that fun stuff for one day and now a baby was here. And life was going to get very interesting.

Into the Home Stretch

Pregnancy is separated into three trimesters. I think they do this just to go with the old adage, "First is the worst. Second is the best. Third is the one with the treasure chest."

My first trimester was AWFUL. I am not just talking about morning sickness and all the joys that come with your uterus stretching to make room for another human being. Two weeks after I learned I was pregnant I learned I was losing my job. Talk about a blow.

My husband is a writer and works from home. Having him home and barely getting paid, we realized we could get by on my salary alone. For about a year he was home working on his book "Comics Comics" (on sale now at Amazon.com, hurry before it's too late!), but he was also killing it in the chores department. I may have hit the jackpot. Now I know why men in the 1950's insist that their wives stay home. Coming home to a nice meal and laundry folded was awesome! Then my company decided to sell and we were scrambling. Especially me, since I was the bread winner and I needed to find a job before the bump became too pronounced.

To add to this stress, a week later the morning sickness and exhaustion set in. I felt like I could get nothing done. Luckily with the modern age, a lot of job hunting is done online. No more hoofing it through the mall applying at every department store (although I was very close to having to resort to that). I couldn't believe how many accounting jobs required an accounting degree. Just a technicality, right? I have been doing accounting work for going on 8 years at that point, but nooooo companies want you to actually have documentation to show you know what you are doing. My foreign languages and literatures degree was nothing in the accounting world....... OK so I can't blame them.

I also did not want to tell anyone we were pregnant until I was much further along. I was still congratulating the baby for sticking around every time I went to the bathroom. No joke. This really happened. My best friend came to visit shortly after we found out and she instantly knew. She said she just had a feeling on the plane ride up here. So since she knew I had to tell my other best friend. All while hiding it completely from my family and everyone else. I cried at work when they said they were selling the company and had to tell all my friends there since that could not have happened at a worse time. Everyone was real supportive and tried to help me in anyway. Constantly giving me leads on jobs and what not since they knew I was running out of time until the bump showed. Finally at 9 weeks when I was dealing with puking and stress and exhaustion so much I decided I wanted to tell our families because, honestly, I wanted my mommy.

So Father's Day we called my dad first and said, "You know what is weird? This time next year Erich will be celebrating his first Father's Day." My dad was quiet for a minute then was yelling, "No! Really? Does your mother know? Here is your mom." Mom got on and started crying. First grand baby. I was incredibly nervous to tell them because they knew I was losing my job. And I knew they would stress for us too. But it was nice to immediately launch into the questions I had for her. *Note, mom hasn't been pregnant for 27 years. She only remembers the good stuff. But still had some advice* Then it was just a run through with everyone in the family. Lots of "No ways" and "Oh my Gods". But overall everyone was happy and I could finally talk about in detail to anyone who would listen to me bitch.

Second trimester started and I still had no new job. Luckily my job was keeping me until I was about 6-7 months pregnant. So I had that tiny reassurance. My supervisor knew I was pregnant, but my head of accounting did not. He came to me one day and told me there was a company looking for work that he knows. After two interviews I finally had a new job. I was terrified to tell them I was pregnant since I felt like I was essentially lying to them through the interviews, but they were amazing. Very accepting of it since almost every woman in that office seemed to be pregnant or just had a baby. It was tough leaving such a great company and all my friends, but the new company was great and I was very happy. Phew.

The second trimester also brought along a lot more energy. It was like a switch flipped and I could actually get out of bed. Now, I will not lie to you and say all the napping ended and I was running marathons, but I was up for activities finally. We started our registries which is always fun. We decided from the get go that we would not find out the sex of the baby, much to the dismay of family and friends. We just wanted that one great surprise in life. I totally understand why you would want to find out, but we were still in our one bedroom apartment so it's not like we had some massive nursery to decorate. So we just selected all yellow and green clothes and the most neutral looking gear out there. Although I have to say, I was pretty sure it was a boy from the start. I always wanted a boy first, but my husband was terrified of having a girl. He only has one girl cousin in his family, so he always said he wouldn't know how to raise one. But come on, girls are way more fun to shop for. Charlie will not pull off the tutu I wanted to buy darn it.

We also took a couple of trips during the second trimester. One to Florida with my family and one car trip down south to visit all of our families. I gotta tell you, my husband's family has the right idea with regards to pregnant women. I was treated like a freaking queen. I guess that's what happens when you are carrying the heir to the Beasley fortune...

Third trimester came and I was comfortably settled in my new job. We also had our two baby showers around Thanksgiving. No matter what people may think, I actually hate to be the total center of attention. I am a god awful public speaker and blush without even a thought. Blushing increased TEN FOLD when I was pregnant too. It's like all that extra blood in my body for the baby would just shut up into my face when I would ask someone a question. There were several instances, especially at work, where I would be talking to one single person discussing the weather or something totally inconsequential and I could feel my face on fire. Anyway, third trimester was going swimmingly until about 3 weeks before my due date.

New Year's my brother in law came to visit. He was on break from school and always liked to come visit us and we loved having him. We went to see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and I was sure I was going into labor in the movie. At least it was a good excuse as to why I was so confused during that film. We had about a half mile walk back to our apartment and I was waddling like a mofo. It was absolutely freezing, but I could not get my body to move any faster. That was when I knew the end was nigh.

My birthday is January 22 (a Sunday), Baby Beasley was due January 24 (a Tuesday). We had a doctor's appointment on January 19 and said she was positive she would see me that weekend to have the baby. She was wrong, Monday at 6 am we arrived at the hospital. WAY off :)

Untold Moments of Babies

So I had a baby. On January 23, 2012 little Charles "Charlie" Erich Beasley entered the world. He came one day after my own birthday, so you can imagine what a joy my 28th birthday was.

Pregnancy was a joy. Ok maybe not, but after having Charlie I would go through it all over again. My sister is currently pregnant (http://toryel.blogspot.com/2012/08/am-i-on-16-and-pregnant.html) and I hope all the information I gave her this time last year has helped her deal. In summary for all you newly pregnant girls out there, let me just list some things that those "lovey dovey pregnancy is magical" books don't tell you:

1. Morning sickness sucks. Everyone knows that, but what people don't tell you is that it sucks even more when you ride public transit to work and people don't realize you are pregnant and are at risk of puking on them. It is really hard to convince people you are pregnant when there is literally no way to show them aside from carrying your pregnancy test with you.

2. Doctors will not see you for 8 WEEKS! This was totally unknown to me. I took three damn pregnancy tests because I refused to believe it was true. All I wanted was for them to validate what I thought was happening in my body (There is a baby in there). But nope, I didn't get to pee in a cup for my doctor until I was 8 weeks along.
        a. A side note to this, you constantly feel like you are going to start your period for the first few weeks, so when they refuse to see you, you are constantly thinking, "Oh God, this is it. I am starting my period. I've lost the baby." Don't worry. You are not, you just get the joy of experiencing all the normal sensations of a period without the payoff of tampons.

3. Things happen to your body that you don't even realize would happen when pregnant. For instance, acne happened ALL OVER MY BODY. Did you know you could get a pimple on your stomach? Well, I am here to tell you that yes, yes you can. Also, you are encouraged to avoid salycic acid, which is in nearly everything acne related. Be prepared to read all about witch hazel and it's natural properties. BTW, witch hazel reeks! Dandruff also made an unexpected appearance. Wasn't so sure of the correlation, but evenutally everything that was happening to me I just blamed on pregnancy after awhile. "Hmmm, that's weird. Never had that happen before. It's gotta be the baby." (The excuse is still acceptable after the baby is born as well.)

4. You get exhausted!! I took a nap every day after work. I am not talking a 20 minute cat nap. I would come home and nap for 3 hours. My husband would wake me up for dinner and I would watch one TV show and then go to bed. No amount of sleep was enough.

5. At around the 6 month mark, we went to a pumpkin patch with some friends of our's. It was nice to gorge myself on cake donuts and apple cider, but after 20 minutes of walking the corn maze I felt like my vagina bone had broken. Called the doctor because I could barely walk and guess what, THIS IS TOTALLY NORMAL. Your pelvic bone is in two halves joined by a ligament or something and this will stretch to accommodate the growing baby. Oh and it happens off and on for the remainder of your pregnancy.

6. Constipation was something totally foreign to me. I think I should have added to my resume, "Regular Bowels" (with the exception of tons of dairy of course :)). But pregnancy really threw me for a loop on this one. I had some crying moments and some embarassing outbursts when my husband's teenage cousin came to visit. I am sure I scared him off of children for awhile. Thinking about it, maybe they should advertise that bit on 16 and Pregnant. "Hey girls, I know having a baby seems like fun. But be prepared to not take a poop for a week. And when you do, be prepared for the hemmorrhoids that accompany them!" That alone may scare some high schoolers.

* Old work bathroom

                                                    *Only pic not taken by me **sigh**

*New work bathroom

Now bearing all this in mind, I want to remind you that I still would do it all over again. Charlie was well worth the pain, embarrassment, and exhaustion. Now labor.... good ole labor. We are always told how horrible it is. I was blessed with horrible menstrual cramps, so sadly, I was thinking it couldn't be any worse than those crippling pains. I was waaaaaaaay wrong. Some things that suck about labor that they don't tell you besides the pain (which I describe as a hot knife jammed into your gut and twisted):

1. Your water breaking is A LOT more water than you think. I was worried for weeks that it would break at work and I would look like I peed in my office chair. In reality, if my water broke at work I would look like I dumped a gallon of water all over the floor.

2. The epidural is a much longer process than your pain fogged brain can comprehend. They cannot administer the epidural while you are contracting so you have to tell them when a contraction is coming so they have to stop. So every 2 minutes he would need to stop, when all you want is for them to finish so the pain will subside. * I wanted to note that I went in with the intention that I would do this completely natural. That was thrown out the window at 7 cm. I couldn't see going through that for another 3 cm. Who knows how long that would have taken.
       a. Once the epidural is in you are completely paralyzed. That was the most confusing and surreal thing. They asked me to roll and I couldn't do it without two people helping me. My legs felt like I was freezing, but then when I grabbed them they were so warm. It felt like you were touching someone else in the bed. And when I had to hold my legs, I realized that must be where all my weight is in my body, because those suckers were heavy!

3. Labor is messy. Good thing is that if you get the epidural you don't get up and walk around for awhile so you don't get to see the mess of the floor.

Now once all that was finished and 20 minutes of pushing, Charlie came at 8 pounds 1 ounce, 21 inches long. I always watched Baby Story on TV and the docs would put the baby on the mother's chest. I thought that was so gross, but guess what happened in Charlie's delivery. Right on my chest. And you know what, I didn't care in the slightest. I was so happy. My husband cried. Pictures and texts galore.

Cut to 2 hours later, talking with my parents in the room. I cannot even remember a single conversation. I was so freaking exhausted I might have been speaking another language. I wish there was a camera on us the whole time just so I can see what was said. I do not remember ANY OF IT. And I felt this way for about a week after the birth. In the hospital it is next to impossible to get any sleep. Nurses are constantly waking you. CONSTANTLY. They also scold you if you didn't feed the baby even though he has been asleep the entire time. For some reason people have this mind set that you should wake the baby to feed him. I totally disagree. Let the baby sleep. If he is hungry he will let you know. I mean that is there only mission in life at this point.

So for the next few months it was all about sleeping, diapers, crying (from baby of course), and pictures. We made a three week trip down south to introduce Charlie to the family. That was the perfect time to make a long car trip. He sleeps a majority of the time. Easy peasy.

Now he is six months, and a lot more fun. The first few months you will look at your baby like he is the most interesting and unique thing ever. And yes he will look unique of course, but he is a newborn. They are all relatively similar. Eat, poop, sleep. Repeat. Now, he has two teeth, babbles away, rolls everywhere, grabs everything, and is on the verge of crawling. He knows his name, smiles openly, and loves to be held. Much more fun. So in the next few blogs, I plan on discussing each past month and what exactly those were like. Then I will try to regularly inform the masses of disgusting, funny, normal, and awesome moments Charlie is giving us. I am nothing if not candid, so I plan on sharing all the good and bad moments. I just wish I had someone there to share with me about all the above mentioned horrible moments. Maybe I could have prepared myself better... bought a better dandruff shampoo.