A Pregnant Pause

I am not setting out to write my "mom-iors", but for posterity sake I wanted to document my entrance into motherhood as it has been the most significant metamorphosis that I have undergone in my 30 years on this earth. I started writing Vivi a letter during my pregnancy telling her about the most significant events, her first kicks, seeing her do cartwheels on the ultrasound, but as soon as she arrived I have proven to be a slacker of a mother, or as I like to sugarcoat it a "prioritize-r". I have always been a voyeur of others birth experiences, I am fascinated by birth and the unifying experience it provides all mothers, no matter how their babies arrive. I watched birth videos long before I was pregnant, deleting my history so Seth wouldn't get any crazy ideas. I was set on the birth experience that I wanted, and viewed it as a spiritual transformation. I would go in a woman, but come out a MOTHER. Seth and I took the standard birthing class, I read all of the hippie birthing books, Ida May, Birthing From within etc. I took to doing a pregnancy meditation every night as my favorite granola midwife suggested. I did prenatal yoga and ran up until 35 weeks. I didn't realize it until months after Vivi was born, but I liked pregnancy, I was good at it and most things felt well within my control. Then came my 38 week appointment. The nurse took my weight and height and had me sit for my blood pressure. She gave me a look and said, "I swear I heard something at 150, but that can't be right because I didn't hear anything else until 122." The midwife suggested that we take another reading before I left to be on the safe side, the rest of the appointment was uneventful, but when my blood pressure was taken again, it was still in the 150's. They took an electronic reading and it continued to be high, I had no protein in my urine, but was directed to the OB Triage for a battery of tests. Once there I was connected to fetal monitors, my blood was drawn and a non-stress test was preformed. Everything came back normal, baby was healthy and happy, but my blood pressure continued to remain high. I was given a large plastic bladder and instructed to fill it with 24 hours worth of my urine and sent home. I figured that my co-workers would not appreciate putting their lunches next to my urine bag, so I stayed home from work on Friday, with instructions to come in Monday to clinic for a follow up. I spent Friday peeing and saving it, getting things together for the baby and of course fretting about my blood pressure. We returned to the clinic on Monday, and I was prepared for the worst, that I would need to be induced. Seth was still living in denial and was making plans for the following day, but I knew we were headed for delivery. Sure enough my blood pressure was sky high, and we were told to pack our bags and have one last meal together as we were to report for induction that evening. The midwife checked me and I was 1 cm and 10% effaced. She stripped my membranes (which is no dance around the maypole)and we were sent home to pack our bag. I was surprisingly calm about all of this, I thought that there would be more gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands, but I accepted my fate and showed up to the hospital ready to have my baby. We were placed in "the good room" with a tub and the portable electronic monitors, I was given cervidil to get the party started and told to just lie flat and try to sleep and they would check me in the morning to see if I had made any progress. It was not the most restful night of sleep, as I was connected to a blood pressure cuff, two fetal monitors and had started having back labor. Seth was also on his own torture device which resembled a two by four with some padding. The following morning I was checked and was told that I was now a 3 and 80% effaced, I was told that I could labor without pitocin and they would see if my body would take over and go into labor on it's own. Vivi was turned slightly up, and the midwife suggested that we try to "Rebozo" her into place. This technique consisted of me on all fours while the midwife jostled my belly with a sheet. Say what you will about natural birthing practices, but that shit worked, back labor, gone. I got in the shower and the contractions all but went away, I was feeling discouraged as I really did not want to have Pitocin, but by the time I was out of the shower lotioning up, the contractions were back, and building momentum. I got on the birthing ball while Seth worked on his laptop. I remember thinking "I thought I would have more time between these bastards". The contractions were coming 2-3 minutes apart, my mom stopped by for a visit, and I would have to stop talking to concentrate on breathing, but the pain was manageable. Seth continued his love affair with his mistress, physics, until the midwife suggested I get in the tub. I labored in the tub while Seth poured water over my belly, the contractions were becoming intense and I was no longer able to stay loose while they were happening. At some point I ended up on all fours in the tub, hanging my belly in the water. I was so out of it but had the wherewithal to know that I needed to poop...NOW, and above all else, I did not want to bathe in my own shit. As soon as I sat on the toilet, my water broke. The midwife asked me if I had any thoughts on where I would like to have the baby. "Right here" I replied, as the thought of moving seemed unmanageable to me. The midwife assured me that she had delivered babies over the toilet before, but suggested I move to the bed. I am unsure how long I pushed, and hour? Two? I know that I pushed in every position possible. The midwife asked if I was feeling the pain while I was pushing. Bitch must be crazy if she thought I couldn't feel it. "You need to push into that" which was the last thing I wanted to hear after enduring a natural labor, but I did, and after a few concentrated pushes, she was out. Crying and wide eyed. She was so alert and observant from the beginning, as Seth will proudly tell you, she is setting herself up for a lifetime of observation as a scientist. I was riding on Oxycontin high, I had never felt more powerful and yet weak in my entire life. Here I had brought this person into the world, and now I felt helpless as how to protect her, and that was all my brain could think was "I must make you LIVE". I wish that my next verse could be about how I loved her from the first minute, how I had never known a love like this before and how we all walked blissfully into the sunset. But that is not how it went down. I knew one thing, and one thing only and that was I was responsible for this person, and somewhere in my brain some wires must have crossed and equated parental responsibility with NEVER SLEEPING AGAIN. Little did I know, but I was standing on the platform of the crazy train, with my ticket punched, ready to board.

The Thursday Evening Post

I have forgotten how to write anything more substantial than a Facebook post, due to this long hiatus from the blog.
So instead of a paragraph, I will just 'post' a few things.

-My self esteem is so low, I worry what my therapist thinks of me.

-I refer to Maybe as 'nugget' or 'sausage' depending on the position she sleeps. The generic brand of Grape Nuts is called 'Nutty Nuggets'. Sounds about right.

- I have never given or received a hickey in romantic context, only joking, someone please explain this to Sergio's mother, who I am sure still views me as a harlot.

-Client quote of the day "You are my dick".

Interview with a Social Worker

I have been frantically applying for/ interviewing / being rejected by future jobs, and when I began this process I googled "Interview Tips". My thought process being,
"I have been out of the job market for a while, perhaps I should brush up on some basic helpful hints". I was surprised to learn that while I have taken my little 6 month sabbatical, the job force has apparently been inundated with slutty apes.
Here are some examples of interview "tips" I found: (paraphrased of course)


-Wear enough make-up to look like you give a shit, but not so much that you look like a prostitute.
-Men are sexist, so if you are interviewing with a man, wear a skirt and show some leg, but not so much leg that you look like a prostitute.
-Don't chew gum (Not being much of gum chewer, I was surprised that there were enough people out there smacking their gum in job interviews to necessitate this "tip")
-Look the interviewer in the eyes. (Because some applicants confuse their future employer with an aggressive dog)


I was feeling pretty confident about myself after reading the advice that was being given to job seekers. Until I went to my first few interviews and received the condescending rejection calls, or better, no calls at all. If you saw me in the flesh, the least you can do is be an adult and pick up your phone and let me know that I am inadequate.

Which of course would lead to me crying to Seth about how I will never find work, and him reminding me that I have only been looking for work seriously for the last three weeks. The good news for Seth is that I was offered a position yesterday working with chronically homeless veterans in a housing complex in Salt Lake. I am so excited to start putting my education to good use, and more importantly, feel less like the succubus at the bottom of my mom's stairs.

F*%$ Up

Seth and I have seen two movies in the last month that I related to more than I care to admit. Two weeks ago we saw Bridesmaids, I would worry about spoiler-ing it for you, but it has been out for three weeks and if you haven't seen it yet then I cannot possibly be the first person you've encountered to flap their gums about it.
Annie is struggling with her finances, love life and friendships, her business went under, her boyfriend left her, and her best friend has a life that is moving in a direction further and further from her. While Annie's situation is comically tragic, and her friend with benefits is Don Draper, her life also mirrors mine in that she is forced to move in with her mother, is broke and drives a car that eerily resembles the 1990 maroon tracer that I drove through my last year of grad school. While I know that I am married, and Seth has no choice but to stay with me unless he wants to move into the guest/Zoe's room and sleep in my day bed from when I was ten, you try having a picture perfect marriage while living under your parent's roof. Of course the movie has an almost Hollywood ending in that she ends up with the cop she meets in the first act, and makes up with her best friend just in time for the nuptials, it was still refreshing to have a protagonist that was flawed, and flailing.
Yesterday we saw Everything Must Go.
Nick has lost his job, his wife and home, and has recently fallen off the wagon. He lives in his front yard and sells all of his belongings in a five day yard sale. I know that I have yet to hit this kind of bottom, I loved how the creators of this character loved him even though he was almost despicable in his wallowing self destruction.
While these movies would fall into differing categories in my Netflix queue, they are both stories of recovery from life's follies and F*%$ ups. And right now, I need the reassurance that all is not lost, that I will rebound, that houses and babies and jobs with full benefits are on the horizon. It is also comforting to know that we pay to see the stories of lives that are not on the linear path.
So, if anyone would like to use my likeness for some sort of Eeyore type character, let me know... I retain animation rights.

Lucky 7

I ate seven cookies today.
I am pretty sure the number of cookies I consume daily directly correlates to how I feel. Today was hard, yesterday was worse. Last week was THE worst. But instead of drowning in self pity and in the true spirit of my religion of doing whatever Oprah tells me to do (Thanks Liz Lemon), I will regale you with what I did to make myself feel better, or rather to make tomorrow look like a four cookie kind of day.
1- I called my old practicum to offer my time to volunteer with Neighbors Helping Neighbors. It is an organization that I find remarkable and selfishly satisfying to work with.
2- I signed up to take drum lessons, something I have always wanted to know how to do, and now I will.
3- Thought about how on the scale of universal suffering 1 being hangnail 100 being genocide, I fall somewhere around 3. ( I mean, I do have a hangnail).
I did berate myself for not keeping a journal today, but when I look back on all of my journals they are just pathetic notebooks whose pages consist of petty jealousies and teenage longing, but I do have this blog to at least keep my future self appraised of the highlights of this time in life.
Oh and there won't be any pictures for a while because as luck would have it, feeling sorry for yourself and eating 7 cookies in one day results in adult acne.

Wake up and smell the basement

I feel that the last few months have been lived in a sort of alternate reality. It is as though I have stepped into the life of someone else, and am more of an observer, than actual participant. Yesterday it struck me, I need to stop doing this. While it may protect me from some unpleasant emotions, it deprives me of actually living my life. One of my yoga instructors called this "facing the truth". We may not like where we are in life, or our bodies, but that is no reason to ignore the facts. If I view the next 3-5 months as a life hiatus, I will float through this time like a pile of poop, wasting time that I could spend being alive right now. This post is taking a more new age-y route than I had originally intended, but the message is clear none the less, I will stop wasting precious time wishing for the life that I should have, and start involving myself in the life that I have right now.
Still no word from the remaining six schools to which Seth has applied, and I am trying this new method of communication called, "being supportive without whining about your own petty problems". I feel better already.
And now just because I haven't posted any pictures in a while, Maybe's most charming feature...

The Final Countdown!

Week three, slightly better than week two as far as craving nothing but sugar and fat, the struggle really lies in the lack of variety of your options. But halfway through the week, I realized that it wasn't junk food that I was craving, it was oatmeal, artisan bread and fancy cheese, and true to my senior citizen form I crawled out of bed this morning and made plain oatmeal with bananas and it was the most delicious breakfast I have ever had. The last few days of the Detox were made rough by the terrible cold that hit me late Friday night, the thought of spending an hour to prepare my lunch was enough to make me want to cry, and I just could NOT chop one more butternut squash for soup, so we cheated a little and picked up soup from Whole Foods, vegan, but mine had tomatoes, and it was heavenly.I was so excited to emerge from this cleanse a normal human being, ready to eat and drink and be merry, but alas that will still be a few days until I get over this affliction that causes me to sound like Christian Bale's batman when he went through puberty.
Weighed in this morning, and am down 10 1/2 bs, now if only I can avoid the the blocks of cheese that have been coming to me in my dreams the last three weeks.