Cloudya

Pretty much the only thing that can wake me up at 4:30 am and get a smile.

But sometimes?  Like when I spend all year dreaming about the day I graduate just so I can spend all my time crocheting, only to come down with severe carpal tunnel within my first two weeks of freedom?

Then I think, there has to be someone out there laughing their ass off.

Ken: Hi, my wife was on the student health insurance and it expired last week and we’re looking to extend it.

Insurance douche: Okay, what’s your wife’s height and weight?

Ken: 5’0” and 130 pounds. But she’s pregnant.

Insurance douche: Oh she’s pregnant?

Ken: Yes.

Insurance douche: We can’t cover you.

WTF??? Isn’t that several different flavors of illegal?

I really wanted to post a picture for you guys of our Brazilian neighbor standing on his balcony smoking a cigarette and jabbering into his cell phone in nothing but his tighty whities and a smile this morning but Ken covered my eyes and ushered me inside and now I’m not allowed on the balcony without supervision.

No tan butt crack for me. Or you.

• There’s a big difference between having an opinion about something and being judgmental.  That one was an STM.  But it’s also a truth.
• I sold two of my Etsy scarves today.  What have I done in the eleven days since my Ph.D. was conferred?  I sold two flipping scarves that’s what!  Those ten days with no sales though, they made me very, very nervous.
• I started writing again.  I started writing again!!!
• I’ve watched four seasons of Mad Men in the past two weeks and I don’t get it.  A group of grown-ass people with the emotional maturity of kindergarteners running around in old-timey outfits behaving badly.  Why is this show so popular?  I mean besides Christina Hendricks.
• I’m retaining water and my fingers look like little sausages.  I have little sausage fingers.  I want to roll them up in pancakes and eat them up with syrup nomnomnom.

What I say: “I think an angel just came in my mouth.”

What I mean: “This Krispy Kreme donut is delicious.”

Using extra virgin olive oil for a perineal massage adds extra irony to a “touchy” situation

I will cry.  Every single time.

When I first got pregnant, I cried in fear and horror.  (You want me to push WHAT out of WHERE???)  With time and exposure and lots and lots of research came acceptance.  (All right just make sure you tell no one what went down here.)  Now I cry with the wonder of it.  Every time a little person makes its wriggly pink way into the world, my emotions get the better of me, and no matter how much I fight it, I cry.

I’m not a child.  I accept what is to come.  I know it will hurt.  I know things can go terribly wrong.  I know it won’t be my most delicate moment.

I also know I can’t fight it.  I know that it’s worth it.  I know that I can do this because I am strong.

I chose to have my Nugget at a birth center because there are certain things I don’t want to be worrying about while laboring for umpteen hours.  I want my Nugget handed to me immediately after he is born, skin to skin, so I can comfort him.  I want to nurse as soon as possible, without interference.  I want him with me at all times, not taken to a nursery full of anonymous crying infants.  I want his newborn exam to be done in front of me.  I want to walk out of the center with my Nugget in my arms four hours after delivery (standard practice if all goes well.)  Ken wants to give him his first bath.  Ken wants to catch him.  Ken wants to cut the cord.

And yes, I want to do all this without placenta-crossing medication or pushing time limits or constant intrusive exams.  I want to feel in control.  I want to be empowered because that’s how I feel safe.  In life.  In love.  And in this.

I realize that things can go wrong.  I know from my own life experience and the stories of dear friends that no matter how much you plan, life can bite you in the ass.  I’m prepared for that, too.  I’ve accepted that, too.

My eyes are open and I make my choices based on reality, not on fantasy.  I watch video after video of childbirth because I want to be immersed in the truth of what childbirth is.  (And also because our midwife makes me watch them in our birthing class.)

I cry because it’s what I do, and how I show emotion.  But my tears aren’t a sign of weakness.  They are tokens of my joy and wonder.  Yes, I will go through hours and hours of agony, but hopefully I will come out the other end of it.  And there will be my Nugget, and my Ken, and my new family.  And I will be “mother.”

But I announced I had no bra on so it’s okay.

The part where I was wearing a nursing pad over just one boob though?  I kept that to myself.  I’ll assume my neighbor either didn’t notice or just figured one boob is bigger than the other.

This doesn’t make me classy or anything.  It’s the fact that I wrote a whole post about it that makes me classy.

Me: Can you imagine driving back from the birth center with Nugget for the first time?

Ken: You’re going to be glancing at the back seat the whole ride aren’t you?

Me: Are you kidding? I’m going to be in the back seat with him.

Ken: Watching him sleep?

Me: If he can sleep through my barrage of kisses. How the hell am I ever going to stop kissing him?

Seriously, how do you keep from overflowing with love??  I love this little guy so much and he’s not even here yet.  He has this new thing where I’ll gently rub one side of my tummy and he’ll respond by pressing into my hand really hard and even though it hurts I fall all over myself with the cuteness of it each time.

And even though it’s 5:45 am and I’ve been up since 3 because he woke me up with a right hook to the cervix, I wouldn’t trade this for anything, anything, anything in the world.

Childbirth class was laborious.

Get it?!?!

Okay seriously though, it was loooong.  But at the end, they gave us each an ice cube, and we were instructed to hold it in the palm of our hand for 45 seconds.  Our husbands/partners weren’t allowed to speak to us, and we had to hold it until we were told we could put it down.

I cheated.  A lot.  I didn’t even care that the instructor busted me each time.  That thing hurt and I didn’t like it and I am rebel.

So after a while we were told to put the ice cube down, and the instructor talked to us about relaxation techniques and creative visualization and not fighting the pain.

Then we were told to pick up the ice cube and repeat the exercise, but this time our partners could coach us through the pain.  Ken immediately turned to me, pressed his forehead against mine, and we did this little private world thing we do where we just connect.

I swear to you, I didn’t even feel the ice cube.

Cool, right?

When the woman on the treadmill next to me took over the remote control and started raising the volume on the TV despite clearly posted signs NOT to do that, I was a little peeved.

When she muted the TV to take a phone call and I could hear the music coming out of my headphones again, I was relieved.

But when you made that remote control fall off her treadmill and hit the floor, and the batteries fell out of the remote and rolled under her treadmill so that the TV was stuck on mute? That’s when I realized you can be one cool bitch, Universe. You can be one cool bitch…