Season 2, Episode 5

It's my baby's 5th birthday.

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O Brave New World That Has Such Babies In't

We have a new person! On October 1 (his due date), Emmett Thomas joined our family. And promptly ruined the couch.

At 3 months he weighs about 18 pounds and is in the 97th percentile for height, weight and head size. His birth mimicked Ally's, a fact that the midwife predicted. The third is similar to the first--have you ever heard that before? I hadn't. But true to the pattern, contractions started at around 11 pm Monday night, September 30th. We didn't wait long at home before they started coming on strong (the green Thai curry I made for dinner?), but as we started the long drive up to UCLA they got weaker and farther apart. I almost made Bim turn the car around but the midwife agreed we should just come in, given my history with speedy labors. 

We arrived, left the car with the valet and got checked in through triage. The very young resident* who checked my vitals also felt my belly and kindly informed me that I was about to have a not-small baby. (Information she could have saved for later, but whatever. I guess I asked her or something.) We went down to the late-night cafeteria and Bim bought a sandwich. I started to feel the real thing again and found that lunges were helpful. I'd also brought Liv's rice-filled homemade heat pack (her "moon pack") and Bim heated it for me in the cafe microwave over and over as I tried first to ignore, then to cope with the increasing pain. We went upstairs.

Lunges in the hallway of UCLA's maternity wing, which is set up like a big square. I made Bim sit in once place as I lunged my way around and around in my Doctor Who over-the-knee tardis socks. The midwife met us in the hall told me to come back in when I felt ready. It didn't take very long. When it got bad enough that I couldn't lunge anymore and I thought I'd throw up, I found a dark waiting room for us to sit in off the hallway . I made cat poses on the bench while Bim listened to his iPod. It was awesome. Only not. Doesn't matter--they're all good memories now.

They moved us to a delivery room and hooked me up to all the fancy monitors that don't work very well, like that elastic band with the rolling computer-mouse thing on it that's supposed to stay put on your bowling-ball belly and never does (hm, who do I know who patents medical devices?). Another very young nurse, this one most certainly new, tried to drive a big needle into my right arm but only succeeded in releasing a lot of my blood and freaking Bim out. After several botched attempts she got it in the other arm.

We called Lauren to come up and she was there pretty quickly. The girls stayed with our friend Tori (the Tori who, pregnant with her fourth, still took on both my kids and got Ally to school the next morning at 8) so that Lauren could be with me. She arrived in our room pretty hungry but in time to see me throw up and get hooked to my fabulous epidural. I think that display staved off her hunger for a while, but when pushing wasn't proving very fruitful she decided to jog down to the cafeteria. That of course did the trick. She was only gone a minute before I knew that baby was ready to GET.OUT. I held him back while they ran after Lauren and as soon as she returned Emmett popped out his lil' head. I got to watch too, thanks to the position I was in and a hand mirror held up strategically. Pretty fantastic. He was out after not too much hard work. Sigh of joy. The midwife said, "Look at his big hands!"

When we were transferred to the recovery room I started feeling stir-crazy and crazy-hungry. So many people from the hospital staff wanted a piece of me and not fewer than three, but possibly more than ten, people asked me how I was feeling emotionally. Did I accidentally tick the "depression risk" box? I got some of the brochures on postpartum depression that I helped to write when I worked in PR. Finally I noticed a note on my chart..."AMA" and figured it out. Advanced maternal age. I am "litrally" too old for this.

Oh, but not really I maintain that childbirth in our time and place is a not-terrible experience, and even a great one when everything goes right. But that doesn't mean I was ready to do it again right away, or ever. I am so in love with my three babes. And the more we all get to know our boy, the more that feeling grows. 

In the weeks after bringing Emmett home I felt like I rode on a giant wave of bliss. Knowing this was my last baby made me slow down and focus on him, letting the outside world slide out of view. Wonderful, but wonderful friends brought food, gifts and visits. I couldn't ask for better friends. And my sister was right there with me all the way. How fortunate I feel. And ready, so ready, for all of us to move to boy town. Here we come!

(*note to self: remember to get pictures from Sony camera)