The World Is A Deadly, Dangerous Place

OK, well, anything beyond our living room is dangerous.  So not the whole world. Isaac, you see, is a crawler.  And a world-class speed crawler, at that.  We have caged in the living room, and fingers crossed that he doesn't discover how to use stairs in the next five minutes, we have established a baby safe zone.  For the most part.  I mean, yeah, I caught him chewing on a few extension chords here and there, sure.  And he does, of course, attempt to spill my morning coffee on himself just about every day (usually he just grabs for the identical decoy coffee mug that I set out for him while I hide in the corner and secretly sip on the real mug. Who's the smart guy now, sneaky baby?). And there was the one time he succeeded in pulling down the baby gate.  But he was fine.  I don't know why toy manufacturers insist on making baby toys in bright colors with all the flashing lights and goofy noises.  Those very elements seem to signal "Baby Toy", and thus "giant waste of plastic that I will play with exactly once and then abandon for the stereo knob and something sharp". Please, Playskool, make baby toys that look like everyday objects, just without the eye-poking-outness and potential for electrical shock.
At least he hasn't made it in to the dining room. Sigh...yet...The dining room is baby Shangri La, filled to the brim with all the good stuff. No fake, Elmo cell phones in here! No one is trying to pull the wool over his eyes with board books or plastic cups. In this strictly off-limits, grown-ups only room of horrors, we have the real deal. A wall of book cases, overflowing with treasured and well worn volumes of poetry, art and cook books, just waiting to be de-shelveved and gleefully ripped to shreds.  Beyond that is the china cabinet to which I cannot seem to locate the key, so our beautiful wedding china is just waiting to be the victim of  toddler curiosity. We also house the computer, the printer, vacuum cleaners, under-the-stairs half bath (a garbage can for picking and grazing! Toilet seat left conveniently up for easy toy-dunking and accidental drowning!), not to mention my coffee corner, and, worst of all: the entrance to the kitchen.  If Odysseus does somehow survive the gauntlet of the dining room, the River Styx, if you will, he will find himself in Mommy Hades. Baby Death Trap. Kitchen. We keep the kitchen neat enough.  I have moved the poisons to slightly less accessible cabinets; I don't cook, so the oven is never on; I keep the dryer door shut so he doesn't take to hiding in there, not to be discovered until I finally get around do doing the laundry.  I still cannot shake the feeling that he is going to choke on some over-looked dog biscuit, learn how to open child-proof caps and chug the floor cleaner, climb the chairs and fall off the table...On the rare occasion we do let him crawl around in there, he actually does very little damage.  His worst offense is, by far, the tipping of the dog dish.  He loves that game.  Beating a parent to the dog's water dish brings joy to that chubby baby's heart like no other scheme.  When he succeeds in covering himself, and the whole kitchen floor, in cold dog-drool water, he is the winner.  The winner of the moment, winner of the clothes change wrestling match, winner over the seriously worried dog, winner of the day. And I, Mommy Over-It, is the clear loser.  This is inevitably the point where I give up. It is automatically Jammies Time.  I don't care if it is only 1 in the afternoon.  Jammies. Just woke up? Back into jammies.  Why? Because the all the fight has left me. I know I lost. This James Bond of Household Dangers has out-foxed me again. The only way I can regain control is to jammie up. You may have won this round, Little Hartley, but I know something you don't know.  That thing is the future.  In your future, if you survive another day of rusty-nail discovering, cat-tail pulling and shoe-chewing (WHY does he want to do that???!), you are going to eventually go to bed. And do you know what my giant, red wine glass, that I waste no time in filling, says on it? V. For "Victory".  It doesn't, actually, but it I should totally get one that does.

Mommy's First Halloween

Oh yeah, Halloween...so just when I think I've gotten the "cool mom" thing down, something happens to call my bluff--like, I actually have to leave the house.  That is where things usually start to go wrong.  Clearly, if I am to be an effortlessly hip parent, I am going to need some more practice.  For those of you aspiring to this end someday, I have some recommendations: go find a heavy, unhappy bowing ball.  Place it in a car seat and drag it around town.  Try to look skinny and not at all burdened.  Then, get home and take all the things in your living room and toss them in the air.  Because, for some reason, that is what living rooms have to look like after a child comes in to your life.  No real explanation, just a fact.  Try to pick up while either A) holding the bowling ball or B) while the bowling ball sleeps for 26 minutes. GO.
Now it's Halloween.  A new week of WTFParent. First year holidays have always been a mystery to me.  He has no teeth. He can barely eat the Kit Kats I give him now! What is he going to do with a bag full? So we have to pick out a costume.  Obviously, a Star Wars costume is in order...oh wait, our niece is going to be a witch and wants Isaac to match.  The girl wants to use our son as an accessory? Ok! He's a bat.  Problem solved.  Only we got invited to this party and...maybe I should just knit him a Yoda costume. Today. No big.  I'm cool. I have a blog and I knit things and enable my husband's Star Wars problem. This will be a breeze. Also, everyone will think I'm awesome (as in: I will inspire in them an awe like no other when they behold my perfect son's Yoda hat). I am going to make my costume today as well.  And Occupy Wall Street.  And clean. And start boyman on peas, which I will make myself (I can't believe I didn't grow any this summer) and nurse every feeding, too, because I have been relying too much on the bottle.
I hate the guy who shows up to the party AT 7:00.  Whenever I host a party, I invite one of my closest friends to arrive at 6:45 just to insulate me from 7:00 guy. "Wow! Hi! Look at you! Right on time! And with a sheet pizza! Even though it's a dinner party.  Awesome.  Can I take your coat?" So today, after making 2 costumes, experimenting with peas, going to the craft store at 3pm on the Saturday before Halloween (cause I'm not only a hip and cool Do It Yourself-er, I was also born yesterday), getting both cranky Yoda, his witchy cousin and myself ready for the party...it was only 6:27. "Everybody in the car! Not you Jackson, Good Lord, why EVERY TIME that I call the dog he's deaf and suddenly I say 'car' and he can fucking hear? Look out, Jackson.  Lookout. Lookout. Lookout lookout lookout! Isaac, I know, we're going. Reilly, get your broom. Do I have my phone? Do you have my phone? No, I do. Do I have the baby? Do I have the keys?..." This seems endless. Nope. Losing all sorts of cool by the second, I get the masses (minus the seriously dejected canine) into the car, determined not to be the 7:00 guy.  How in the world am I running ahead of schedule? As I drive aimlessly around town, trying to kill time and lull the baby into a deep, blissful sleep that will allow me to have fun, I school Reilly on the art of being "fashionably late". We talk about when it is ok to be late, when it is never ok and when it is  preferred. 6:55.  "ok! Who wants McDonalds?!" Cool Auntship redeemed, child fed, time squandered, cooperate profits expanded, conscience crushed...now it is finally 7. Only 20 more minutes...
At the party: Isaac screamed at every loving, wonderful and dear former mother of an infant who tried to take him off my hands for 5 seconds, Reilly looked like the most miserable witch of all time, dire and as serious as a child can be at a Halloween party that features mini-quiche; Isaac ate the feathers of my bird costume, and as he grabbed a fistful, I remembered just how allergic I am to feathers and hoped that eating them is not, somehow, the same as sleeping on them. Reilly went home, Isaac feigned enjoyment, no one, not one person said "what an  AMAZING hat! and YOU made it?! TODAY?!"...all in all...Never Again. 
I lost this round, folks.  I tried. I did all the right things. Everything was so homemade, so simple and so wonderful. It matched.  It wasn't overdone. It was miserable. In the mirror, as I poured myself the great glass of wine I so richly deserved, I saw a zombie.  No really.  The eye makeup I wore to accentuate my Crow or Raven costume (whatever), had positively smeared under my eyes. Yes. My $3.99 eyeshadow failed me. Staring back at me was the zombie with which I threaten my infant son (a practice I plan to continue, by the way). It's not that I resemble or relate to the walking dead (though I do). It is not that having a babe robs you of your humanity and leaves you a (metaphorical) brain-sucking nobody (and it does)...  Not the problem. It's just that I talked to people. All night. While I looked like this. Somehow thinking I was pulling this whole thing off. Cool-O-Meter reading: Zero.

A Little Note On Competitive Momming...

And I say "Momming" because I don't see a lot of people who identify as "dads" or just plain "parents" out there attacking each other online.  I have been going back and forth on this post- join in the attacking by attacking the attackers? Or just shut the f up and let them be? But grrr they got under my skin. That, and Matt's eyes are starting to glaze over when I bring up the subject again, much in the same way mine do when he starts talking about beef and radish caviar or quarterbacks.  So I must vent.
I am so disheartened by what I read women writing to and about each other on these horribl(ly addictive) blogs!  I'm not sure why I keep going back to check out the "comments" section of each and every post that piques my interest (it may or may not have something to do with my complete and utter lack of adult conversation during an average day). It is kind of like when someone takes a bite out of some questionable food and says "Eww! That's disgusting! Here, try it!" and you do...I just keep logging on to watch these meanies tear one another apart. Who knew that giving birth and nursing your baby was like, the new PhD? I mean, it is incredibly difficult. That's no secret.  But, if you'll ride this argument out with me: for cisgendered women who are able and willing, isn't having a baby and feeding it kind of...average? I know emotionally it feels just amazing and extraordinary to the individual.  It really does, you'll find no argument from me on that point.  But biologically, it is doing what is expected.  You're a C student.  Raising a child, having a healthy, functioning family to show for your efforts--that is what earns you the "A", if you will.  Yet here these women are, technologically beating the hell out of one another, hiding behind handles like "emmasmom247", for the  heinous crime of supplementing breast milk with the occasional bottle of formula.  It is disgusting!  I recently saw a post from a mother who said she was excited to not breast feed.  You and me both, sister! So I checked it out.  There were 200+ comments about how awful and selfish the poster was! What?! Obviously, if you haven't heard that "breast is best" then you're parenting from the stone age of the 1950s or, you know, have other shit going on in your life and don't obsess over how other people feed their children. I'm nursing Isaac, I know it is the best for him-- but lord almighty, I cannot WAIT to hang up my nursing bras for good.  Is it selfish to fantasize about leaving the house? To dream of one day soothing him without having to disrobe? Am I "Mean Mommy" because I would like someone else to feed the baby for one hot god damned second while I get up to pee could you please stop screaming for just that long?  "Parenting is a sacrifice" they say and "it is your job to change your schedule for your baby's". Well, yeah, no shit.  Parenting is one sacrifice after another.  You trade in your home, your routine, your life, your relationships, your body, your train of thought, your clean car, and very often your dignity for your little Ruiner.  There are so many sacrifices, so many decisions made on your child's behalf, to brutalize a mother for choosing formula over breast milk is just absurd to me! It is not like she posted a blog entitled "Jesus, I Wish I'd Had Another Abortion" or "I Can't Wait to Feed My Baby Nothing But Maple Syrup and Scalding Hot Oil". She is going with the worst-best option.  When she starts putting slurrpies in that baby bottle, sure let's lose it on her.  But for now, let her live.
And, in my opinion, it is when we begin to conflate the duties of parenting with the tasks of a job that we begin to go off track. Taking care of a child is WAY bigger than a job.  My job I can leave.  I go to it willingly, I work as hard as required, I get to leave when the day is done. Being a parent is an all-the time thing.  When I'm at my job I'm still a parent but when I'm home with the kid I'm sure as hell not a waitress.  If I don't do my best at work I could get fired, I could loose customers, I could incur the wrath of my co-workers. But life goes on.  If I screw up at parenting? The consequences are much worse.  Meth Head worse. And as much as I wish I could pay my heating bill with coos and baby smiles, I get paid to do my job. Unfortunately, in this country you don't get paid to parent. So there's one good reason not to devalue the all-consuming duties of parenting by calling it a job. Also, a job requires a certain level of training, often an education and sometimes a very good deal of schooling.  You don't need those to be a good parent.  You do, however, need them to be a good surgeon. People spend years and years working on their careers and have every reason to be proud of that, to value that.  Liking your job, loving your job, going to your job, none of those things make you a bad parent! I bet it makes many people a better parent.  Having an identity outside your home is not only OK but it is your right! Women worked really hard to earn the right to have both identities.
I guess I'd gotten into my head that breast feeding was a feminist act: that women were coming around and reclaiming parenting from major corporations.  Like selling water in a plastic bottle, feeding your baby with evaporated milk by-product isn't necessary. We come with ready-made baby food so why buy it? Now, however, I feel so put-off by the Breast Feeding Volunteer Police Department that I could buy stock in Similac just to make a point. I feel like being a breast feeding enforcer is about as feminist a statement as voting for Sarah Palin: kind of what we had in mind...but not really. If women are using it as just another reason for snarky back-stabbing and shit talk then I'm not sure it's a bandwagon I want to jump on. So Ike and I are going to chug on, he with his fat-boy eating habits and me fumbling with my nursing bra, until one day when I'll be free of the very rewarding and very exacting job of feeding homeboy from my own body. I'm comfortable with my ambivalence. I envy women who have the wherewithal to nurse baby after baby for years at a time.  I also ain't mad at formula users either.  How could you be?

The Little Stranger

And he is pretty strange.  Well, mad.  And hungry.  And he looks like a frog.  After nine months of preparation and worry with a giant human growing inside of you, you finally give birth and there is a teeny tiny baby looking all wobbly and upset waiting for you to know what to do with him.  He arrives with his own set of needs and preferences.  I find that so strange.  How does someone so new have an opinion on seemingly everything? And how in the world did I not know how to solve his ailments intuitively? I felt every movement he made from the first second possible and I can't explain why he likes to sleep sitting up or has a mini panic attack if he isn't fed within 1 minute of waking.  I guess all babies have the same basic needs but I am still getting used to the idea that I am the person who provides for those needs.
When Matt and I took the labor and delivery class offered by our hospital I remember the moment reality began to sink in.  The nurse teaching the course was talking us through the different stages of labor (I suggest now they change the names of those stages as part of my new Honesty About Childbirth Initiative.  Stage 1 shall now be called "I Can Probably Do This As Long As I Stay Calm", Stage 2 "Yeah, I'm Gonna Need Those Drugs You Kept Offering Earlier", and finally, Stage 3 "I Heard You. I Am Pushing. And If You're So Great At All This Why Don't You Get Up Here and Have This Damn Baby Yourself Cause I'm Going Home".)  She began discussing Stage 2 she mentioned that now is when the real "discomfort" (their word) starts to kick in and "when the moms start getting a little upset".  I remember thinking "why would my mom be upset? Ohhhh.  You mean me, the mom.  Oh shit. I'm gonna be a mom". And in the delivery room the midwife kept asking me if I was "afraid of the pain", which admittedly, I kind of was, but what I was really afraid of was the baby.  I couldn't say as much because I couldn't talk at the time, but what I was thinking was "no, I'm terrified that if I keep pushing I am going to have a kid!"  I really, really wanted to be done with the labor but the prospect of becoming a parent was enough for me to want to stall.  A little.
           I studied Early Childhood Education in college, have read about infant and fetal development extensively before I even thought about starting a family of my own, and worked in an early childhood center in the infant room.  Also, I love my own mother with a cult-like devotion. Strangely, aside from my love for my own mother and my education providing all evidence to the contrary, I realize now I have been assuming I would have to earn my child's love.  Like, if I mess up enough midnight feedings by being really annoyed at the fact that it's a midnight feeding, my baby is going to resent me and wind up with tattoos and run away to Alaska after sophomore year in college to write, but not well, and end up frozen to death in a van.  Or go to business school and join the Young Republicans.  But it doesn't work like that.  When he is fussing and he hears my voice, it soothes him.  Wild.  He prefers my company and my solutions to his little poop-pants needs.  I fix it.  Me, just stupid old me who has been making a joke out of this whole thing for months now, is, by this guy's standards, doing the right things.  He doesn't know any better.  It took me a while to realize this, as I am primarily the one he is yelling at all day long, but I don't have to convince him of anything.  I just have to be willing to let him nurse 22 hours a day and not mind terribly when he tries to pee on me (his aim is still a little weak).  I have screwed up a lot in my life-- my completion rate of Things That Really Matter, sucks.  I dropped the ball with college- all 3 times. I have been a waitress for a decade- just waiting for something to fall into my lap, I guess.  Having a baby is the one thing I couldn't fail out of, couldn't not show up for.  Now that I'm stuck with him, and he doesn't seem to mind that too much, I think its possible that I might just see this thing through.  That's not to say he won't end up living with us well into his 30s while working on his "music career" out of a slap-dash recording studio in our garage that features a beer bottle pyramid, or working for Michele Bachmann's re-election campaign.  But some things can't be helped.

He Looks So Harmless Now That He's On The Outside

Well Some of Us Gave Birth Using Only The Power of Crystals. In My Case They Were All Out

Thank you everyone who has not only bothered to read my blog but actually liked it! I really appreciate that you enjoy my humor.  The last trimester of my pregnancy wasn't easy, but as with most things in my life, I tried use laughter as my sliver lining.  Thanks for sticking with me and for giving me so much support!
On my maternity leave I have had some time to seek answers to many of the questions that linger after Isaac made his appearance.  I wonder if the hydronephrosis of the kidney is likely to happen with a subsequent pregnancy.  I have spent a good amount of time looking for advice as Isaac and I learn the finer points of nursing. I wonder about sleeping arrangements.  I wonder about sleeping at all...I google just about everything that crosses my mind these days.  For the most part, all of the parenting websites and message boards out there (and there are a LOT of them) are pretty encouraging and supportive. The one common negativity I see is when women discuss pain relief methods and hospital births vs labors with no medical interventions.  For the life of me I cannot understand the venom behind some of those comments.  I was talking to my mother about it the other day.  She has been a great cheerleader for both my sister and myself as we have and raise our babies, and is a great sounding board for me in the creation of this blog.  So it is only natural that I cannot wait to tell her the news: one of the negative-nelly moms who gave birth levitating on a cloud of superiority and endorphins felt so strongly about my post that she commented on my site! I'm honored! First of all, I love people who take themselves very seriously.  They are so much easier to humiliate.  Second, as my brother put it, you're nobody til somebody hates you.  Feel free to check out the comments section of my last post for some background because I decided to take some time off from blaming my child to craft a response.

  I realized when I chose the induction that it would be a different labor than if I floated into it naturally.  I did, in fact, learn about this not only from my childbirth class but my midwife, mother, sister and a few co-workers and friends, as my pregnancy did not exist in a vacuum.  I chose the induction because I could not have another kidney stent replacement surgery before delivery.  The mass of an 8lb baby pushing on the stent was wearing it out, requiring a decision: Induction and the possibility of more pain with the contractions or waiting to see if the stent failed, releasing all sorts of unsavory kidney mess into my blood stream endangering my baby and myself.  I chose life.  I will say I had a wonderful midwife and nurse who allowed and encouraged me to assume any and every position I wanted in the amazing bed in the delivery room.  I spent part of my labor on my back, a some time on my side, a good portion of it squatting, and delivered in a somewhat reclined position and using these great handles to bear down.  I will admit to glancing up at a basketball game that was on ESPN while in this position.  Having a TV on in there was probably pretty irresponsible of me but in my defense, it was a drug-free distraction that provided some relief and I couldn't reach the clicker. 
One of the first things I said after delivery was "god bless any woman who does that without drugs" and I do mean it. Childbirth with the pain relief was trying.  To undertake something that intense without medication requires a courage and determination that I don't know if I will ever experience myself. I know women have been doing it for, well, forever, but when I start to wonder if I made the right decision I stop and remind myself that medical interventions were necessary in my situation.  I refuse to crumble under the guilt and shame some women seem to enjoy heaping upon one another.  We take for granted that many of us lived through experiences that would likely have killed women of previous generations.  I'm a feminist.  Giving birth doesn't make you one, respecting other women does. I feel that pitting one woman's birth experience against another's is despicable and self defeating and I fail to see how one can value a natural labor and birth for the benefits to the mother and child while simultaneously pointing an accusatory finger at a mother who, by choice or emergency, delivered with medical assistance. It is 2011, women's health care has come very far. We might still earn $0.78 on the male dollar, have to dodge bullets at abortion clinics and seek out pharmacists without moral objections to birth control to plan our families, but we no longer have to put ourselves and our babies at risk with every pregnancy. We have the luxury of choice.  While some women may choose a path to parenthood that is less fraught with IVs and fetal heart rate monitors, that path was not available to me.  I implore all of you naysayers out there to get a grip.  Your insecurity is showing and it is not becoming of a lady.  If high school taught us anything it is that making other people feel bad about themselves doesn't make you feel better about your self.  Well, it does for a minute or two but after that you just have to go out there and find another new mother to anonymously bully.
Now if you excuse me, I am going to let my horrible baby out of his cage for a bit. But I don't think I'm going to throw rocks at him tonight.  It is high time I shoulder at least some of the blame for my choice to get kidney stones.

The Miracle of Birth

As in: It is a miracle anyone survives giving birth, let alone goes on to have more children.  I know, I know, again with the conspiracy theories and secrets people keep from you when you have a baby but: Holy Shit.  Yeah, I expected it to be bad but I feel like maybe people should be more descriptive when they talk about what to expect.  One nurse even told me it wasn't "that bad", for god's sake.  I'm gonna find her and maybe suggest she not tell women that anymore. I guess I just really had no point of reference though, so no matter what anyone told me, I wouldn't have been prepared.  But were the lies necessary? I mean, they could have started with like "yeah, this is going to be pretty horrible, just so you know.  Like, Stitches Where You Sit horrible".  There's a start. Or "don't be alarmed if your husband has a hard time looking you in the eye after all this.  You're both going to experience things you never thought possible".

Our story begins mid-May when my OBGYN checked to see how things were coming along, reached up and told me "Oh wow, his head is way down there.  Just like a big bowling ball! Let's get an ultrasound to see how big this baby is".  To my credit I did not respond with "yeah, no kidding lady, have you seen me try to walk?"  I kept my profanities to a minimum, deciding instead to remark that I wasn't aware until that moment just how far up there one's cervix really is and that perhaps she re-asses her definition of the word uncomfortable as it pertains to obstetrics.  When the ultrasound tech told me Ruiner was measuring at 8lbs I tried really hard not to cry.  I contemplated running away but my dreams were dashed once I realized I would have to take Jr with me wherever I went.  Lucky for me, the doctor agreed that anything over 8lbs was unrealistic and unacceptable, if not down-right disgusting, so I would be induced before Mr. Giant Head made matters any worse.  She scheduled my induction on May 26, my 30th birthday.  A dream come true. 
Spending your birthday in early labor is just as fun as it sounds.  Some highlights include: contractions that accomplish nothing but pain, an epidural provided by a regular customer who got to see my big white pregnant lady ass up close, (I'm really looking forward to serving him again. I can picture it now: "...and a Guinness for you, sir.  I do recommend the special, I think you'll really enjoy it.  Remember when I was crying from pain and you gave me a giant injection in my back while my butt crack was in your face?"  Maybe he'll turn out to be one of those people who doesn't recognize me when I'm not in my work uniform.  And so rarely do I wait tables sans pants.  I tried asking the nurse for some of those fancy disposable panties to put on before he arrived but he got there too quickly).  Also, they gave me a sweet drug that was supposed to help me sleep and another to dull the pain of the contractions.  Well guess who had an adverse reaction to Dr. Feelgood? This guy.  The pain meds did not work at all and the "relaxing " drug actually gave me a terrifying panic attack which caused me not to recognize my mother or my husband.  It lulled me to sleep for just about one minute and I would wake up in terror and pain when the contractions hit.  I was crying for help and yelling at them to stop staring at me all in the same breath and finally was lucid enough for like 2 seconds to tell them that I was having what amounted to a bad trip while tethered to a hospital bed, in labor and in the dark while something close to a tornado was raging outside, and needed I the antidote.  I actually had to say it to their backs, as I recall, because I made them turn around to reduce the "staring".  Turns out the antidote was Benadryl. Go figure. All in all it was an awesome evening. In another lifetime I would have spent the evening nearly passed out in a dark room, begging for drugs and wondering if I should put some underwear on just in case I needed my dignity intact...oh wait...  At least it took the sting out of turning 30.
First thing Friday morning I got to start pushing which was a hell of a lot of fun and certainly beats some of the post-birthday hangovers I've had in the past.  I was so worried about being cold because the room was freezing all day. What a joke! You get hotter than you could ever imagine.  Ever.  And, that, I soon realized, is the fist signal that you are descending into hell.  I felt really grateful that no one was cheering me on or calling the baby by his name like that was going to make him come out faster.  I knew I wouldn't be able to take that kind of nonsense.  My sister, however, was just full of jokes.  She and Matt were on either side of the bed laughing it up. I don't remember what was said but I do recall deciding I didn't like her anymore.  The woman took a picture of the placenta, to give you an idea of what I was dealing with.  But we're getting ahead of ourselves here.
After pushing for 3 hours, hearing "he's almost here! We can see his hair" out of the lying mouths of people I used to call family, the midwife decided to call in a doctor to vacuum the child out.  I have never been happier to see a human being in my life than I was when she arrived- not even my kid.  I was on the verge of walking out.  Or, again, realizing I had to take the hairy bowling ball with me wherever I went, making my way to the operating room and preforming a C-section on myself.  There was no fucking way I could make that baby come out with all this "push" business.  Just wasn't happening.  And, on her end, "pull" wasn't going so well either.  No. Not only did she employ medical grade weaponry, but apparently used her hands to destroy me as well.  Are forceps no longer an option? Cause God forbid we shimmy those things in there.  Human hands would obviously be a better choice. Really? Forceps damage the baby's head? You should have seen that damn thing when they flung him on my belly.  It was like a foot long. Damage done, my friends.  Matt says the look on my face when they gave me the misshapen baby was one of sheer horror.  He, you see, has never experienced what it is like to have one person reach inside you and pull out another person.  With their hands.  I was not horrified so much at the baby (though the thought of being a mother to an alien headed newborn after going through that labor certainly was terrifying) but at the notion of never, ever being able to un-know the things that had just happened to me or to forgive my offspring for having been responsible for them.  But I got a good look at him while the doctor sewed me back together and he wasn't so bad.  Pretty much what I expected. His head was regular baby shape in no time, within a few hours.  And yeah, I told everyone while they were weighing him and photographically documenting the afterbirth, kidney stones were worse.  So at least now that's settled.
I keep hearing a lot of things like "oh, you forget all about the pain" to which I reply, "no, no you don't. Please mind your own business while I sit on a block of ice for the next two weeks". My personal favorite was from the nurse who came to help me to the bathroom after the delivery, who, crouching in front of me waiting to see if I peed, told me "yeah, the first baby is always hard.  It paves the way for the next ones though"- literally an hour after I had given birth.  Next one? Are you serious right now?  You just took out my epidural and you've already got me pregnant a second time?  Hell no.  While they took the baby to clean off all the uterine grime I told Matt that I was glad he is open to the idea of adopting children if we choose to expand our family. Cause I'm sure as hell not going through all that again!  You can have it, Mrs. Duggar!