Teeny Tiny Tessa

Tessa Paige
Born January 25, 2010
9:42 p.m.
7 pounds, 11 ounces
19 1/2 inches
Beautiful.

Much to my surprise, I had the baby a week before my scheduled c-section. I totally brought this upon myself, because on the morning of January 25th my good friend J called to check in on me, and I told her something to the effect of, "I am the greatest baby incubator ever. This kid will never come out on her own; she will have to be forcibly removed." Approximately five hours later, I was in full-blown labor.

That's right, around 3:00 in the afternoon I started having contractions. Bad ones. Painful ones. Contractions so sharp I could not speak until they passed. And they were close together, too, varying from about eight minutes to about four minutes apart. After about a half-hour of watching me moan, my mother, who was spending the day with me, started giving me the side-eye and suggested I call my doctor, to which I responded, "I'm not in labor. These are just more Braxton Hicks, and they'll go away." Then I doubled over as another one hit.

The whole thing was made almost comical because of the two twenty-something-year-old workmen who were in my house installing a massive wall unit (a combo desk/TV stand/storage cabinet). Let me tell you, nothing instills fear in the heart of a twenty-three year-old guy like a woman in labor. These poor people could not get the wall unit finished fast enough, and spent most of the afternoon looking at me in poorly disguised panic and screwing pieces together as quickly as their hands could possibly manage.

After an hour of contractions coming five minutes apart, I broke down and called Dr. M. "I think you should come into Labor and Delivery to be monitored," he said .

"I don't want to," I replied, as my mother glared at me with disapproval. "This baby is supposed to stay in there another week."

"OK..." said Dr. M, sounding surprised and possibly a bit annoyed. "Well, in that case, drink a lot of water and put your feet up, and if they don't go away in another hour call me back. You'll have to come in then."

So I did as he said, and while they didn't go away, they did seem to slow down and ease up a bit. "See," I told my mom smugly around 4:30 p.m. "I told you it was false labor." Then I doubled over as another contraction hit.

By 6:30 p.m. the contractions were coming every five minutes apart or sooner, and they were more powerful. I broke down and agreed with my mom that perhaps I should be checked. "After all," she said, "would you rather be checked now, or at 3:00 a.m. if they don't go away?" She had a good point. So I called the doctor's office, called my husband and told him to start heading home just in case, grabbed a book and a sweater, and my mom and I headed over to the hospital.

I felt sort of embarrassed heading into the L&D wing, and I apologized to the nurse right away. "I'm so sorry to cause trouble," I told her as she strapped a fetal heart monitor and contraction monitor around my belly. "I really think it's just false labor, and you'll be sending me home in a couple of hours."

She smiled and switched on the contraction monitor, which immediately displayed a contraction registering about an eight on a scale from one to ten. I stared at it in shock. Then the three of us, the nurse, myself, and my mom, watched as about two minutes later another contraction showed on the monitor, also about an eight. "I don't think I'll be sending you home tonight," said the nurse.

Sure enough, about thirty minutes later another nurse, named Sarah (and possibly one of the ten greatest people I have ever met in my life), confirmed that although I was only about one centimeter dilated, I was in labor for real and Dr. M and Dr. D were on their way to the hospital. "You're going to have the baby tonight," said Sarah. "You're scheduled for next week anyway, and the baby is full term and healthy, so there's no reason not to deliver you now."

At this point, I remember feeling:
1. Scared.
2. Cold.
3. Really sad that I hadn't had a chance to kiss Gabe goodbye since I'd now be admitted to the hospital for four to five days.
4. Sort of relieved that I wouldn't have to spend the next week obsessing about the upcoming surgery.
5. Vaguely alarmed that Matt was stuck in traffic on the 101 freeway.

That's right, Matt came thisclose to missing the birth because he and Gabe were stuck in rush hour traffic. Only the amazing Sarah prevented this from happening by telling the doctor we had to wait for the father because he had my suitcase with the cord blood kit. (Yes, we left my house in such a rush, and I was so convinced that I was not in labor, that I left the house carrying only my purse and a book, and left my halfway-packed hospital bag at home.)

But thank goodness the doctors agreed to wait and push back the surgery half an hour, and Matt arrived at about 8:50 just as they were preparing to wheel me down the hall for the 9:00 start time. I don't know if I've ever felt such relief in my whole life as I felt when he walked through the hospital room door.

The surgery itself is a bit of a blur, for which I am thankful. I remember that the lovely anesthesiologist had trouble getting my spinal in, which hurt, and that immediately upon it taking effect I freaked out and briefly fainted, and that I threw up quite a bit because I hadn't fasted for the requisite twelve hours pre-surgery. But mostly what I remember is that they didn't bring the baby over to us immediately like they did when Gabe was born.

Tessa was born at 9:22 (although someone wrote down 9:42 on her hospital records, so there will forever be confusion regarding her real time of birth), and she took a big lungful of amniotic fluid before she came out into the world. After she was born Dr. M briefly held her up so we could see her, then whisked her off to the team of doctors in the corner, who began to work to clear the fluid out of her lungs. They had to put tubes down her throat and down her nose, and they worked on her for over two hours. During the rest of my surgery I could periodically hear her cough and cry, but it wasn't the big, lusty, angry cries that Gabe had made when he was born.

Matt was a champion and walked back and forth between Tessa and the doctors and me to give me updates on her condition. The doctors repeatedly assured us that nothing was seriously wrong and this was not unusual, and that she would be just fine, but I've seen the pictures Matt took while they worked on her and they are awful. I remember lying on the operating table and vacillating between focusing on not passing out and not throwing up, and then focusing on how utterly terrified I was that something was seriously wrong with my baby.

Thank heavens, it appears that nothing was seriously wrong. I was eventually moved to recovery and Tess was wheeled to the nursery for more monitoring. Matt went with the baby, and my parents and Matt's parents came in to see me while we all waited for updates. Sarah continued to tell me that all was well, and she was proven right sometime around midnight when they finally declared Tessa to be breathing nicely on her own, and allowed her to be sent to me in the hospital room.

My beautiful, beautiful daughter.

She has been sleeping and eating like a champ and is gaining weight nicely. I love her. I love her so very much.

And to end this post on a high note, here is a list of amusing things that have happened since her birth:

1. On my third day in the hospital, Gabe woke up in his crib and asked for me when my mom came in to get him. She explained to him that I still wasn't home. His face fell, and he said, "My heart is broken." Lest you think his heart was permanently broken, I can report that three minutes later he asked to dance to the Chipmunks movie soundtrack.

2. When we got home and gave him his new ukulele, he looked at it and cried, "Oh me goodness! Holy cow!"

3. He has only said "All done baby sister" about a dozen times so far, which is better than I expected.

In short, all is well. Life is full of wonder and we are so blessed.

It must be this crazy weather.

We had a bit of a rough evening here. Gabe did that awesome toddler thing where he would intentionally create a small disaster, and then while I was cleaning it up, he would relocate and create another small disaster. For example, he refused his dinner in a definitive manner (he threw part of it on the floor), then while I was cleaning up dinner, he got into the pantry and managed to create a small shower of Rice Krispies in one corner of the kitchen. Then, while I was cleaning that up, he got a mostly-empty Diet Coke can out of the recycling bin, some orange peels out of the trash can, and combined the two decidedly icky items to make a very sticky art project in the opposite corner of the kitchen floor.

Wheeee.

Just when I was feeling super exhausted and approaching the end of my rope (and huge to boot - I look like a cartoon character with my ginormous belly), it was bedtime. We did our normal bedtime routine of milk and stories and rocking, and then I dimmed the light. We cuddled in the rocking chair for a few minutes when Gabe suddenly hugged me very, very tightly and said, in his sleepy voice, "I got you. Doan worry. I got you."

Much to my surprise I felt tears in my eyes. (Damn pregnancy hormones.) I hugged him just as tightly and said, "I got you too, baby." Then, after a moment or two, I settled back in the chair to rock more easily.

He was not having that. He grabbed my wrist and placed my hand on his back, where it had been during the hugging a minute before. "More hand, Mommy. More hand."

"Of course, baby," I replied, tears blurring my vision now. "Of course." He nuzzled his chin into my chest, curled his body around my belly as best he could, and thirty seconds later he was fast asleep.

Orange peels, Diet Coke, chicken, Rice Krispies all on the floor...all forgotten. It sometimes astonishes me how very much I love that little person.

Books, etc.

I keep seeing all these blog posts where people have committed to reading 50 books in 2010, or even 75 books in 2010. I could get that done no problem, assuming "Meet the Gabba Gang" with Yo Gabba Gabba counts towards my total. If you count "Professor Wormbog and the Search for the Zipparump-a-Zoo" then I am well on my way to 100 books and it's only January.

(Off-topic note: I went on Amazon.com today to try and buy a copy of Professor Wormbog for a friend's child, only to discover it is out of print and worth $125.00. One hundred twenty five dollars, people. Clearly I should not let Gabe be touching our copy with his grimy applesauce hands, ever ever ever.)

So I rule at reading books. I kind of fail at blogging though. I kind of fail at a lot of things related to motherhood these days, including:

• Uploading/organizing Christmas and Hanukkah pictures. I have not done any of this. I haven't even looked at them to delete the bad ones. Instead, the approximately 658 pictures we took throughout the holidays are merely cluttering up every single one of our memory cards, thus ensuring that if Baby #2 decides to make an early arrival there will be absolutely no way to document the momentous event. MEMORY CARD FULL, you know. That's what we will tell her.
  
• Organizing Baby #2's room. This one is not strictly my fault, as we are waiting on some minor construction on the condo to be finished. It's scheduled to wrap up January 25th, which gives me five full days to assemble the baby's room. Don't say I don't plan ahead. Because clearly, I timed this one with excellent precision.
  
• Convincing Gabe to brush his teeth in any sort of effective manner. I live in constant terror that he's going to be the only two-year-old ever with cavities. The toothbrush spends approximately twelve seconds in his mouth, and then twelve minutes "cweaning walls. I cweaning." It's gross.
  

In better news, here are some things I am good at:

• Having heartburn.
  
• Growing a really gigantic baby. Seriously, at my 35 week appointment last Monday the ultrasound technician told me the baby was estimated to weigh in around 7 pounds, 3 ounces. Dr. M predicts a nine-pounder if I continue at this rate. (!!!) Then he laughed heartily about how her head was measuring huge and I was lucky I was scheduled for a repeat c-section. Ha ha.
  
• Throwing up. (Sorry. Pregnancy is not pretty, kids.)
• Frantically trying to wrap up projects at work since this Friday is my last day before maternity leave, several of which I am behind on because I have spent too much time at work staring out the window and daydreaming about/mooning over upcoming baby. (Not doing anything practical like ordering newborn sized diapers or onesies, mind you. Just mooning.)
  
• Laughing until I cry when Gabe says "Peace out, friends" and flashes a peace sign at his teachers and classmates as we leave daycare. (I have some stellar video of this action, but putting it into this post would of course involve me actually, you know, uploading some video, and clearly that's not going to happen tonight.)

OK. Must go to sleep now. Will try to do better. I probably won't, because of the newborn coming to live at my still-under-construction house, but I promise to try. Peace out, friends.

Thankful

I am thankful for so many things this year. The health of my friends and family, my amazing husband, my relatively easy and low-risk pregnancy, my joyful, wonderful son.

My son. My son is thankful for Kanye West.

Gabe is at that stage of toddlerhood where he craves repetition: he wants the same book read over and over, the same food for dinner every night, the same song on the car ride home played on repeat. For the past couple of weeks, the song he wants is Kanye's "Gold Digger".

He sits in his carseat, usually clutching a cracker in one hand, and demands, in increasingly insistent tones, "Gol DIGGA! Gol DIGGA! GOL DIGGA!" And then when I play it for him (as I inevitably do) he cackles with laughter. He especially likes the part where Kanye cries, "We want prenup!" He usually claps at that part.

I have only myself to blame for this, as I was the one who played it for him once on my iPod and pointed out the drums at the beginning of the song. (Gabe likes drums.) I did not realize what I was starting. But as I listened to the song five times in a row on the way home this evening, I didn't feel even a little bit annoyed, at myself or at Gabe, or even at Kanye. I just felt grateful.

I mean, the child could have picked up his dad's propensity for Radiohead. That would have been way worse.

Houston, We Have a Problem

It turns out Gabe has a jealous streak. A serious jealous streak. When I arrived at school on Friday afternoon to pick him up, he was cheerfully playing with a drum and could barely be bothered to look up and say hi to me. So I sat down on the grass beside him and watched the drumming, amused at my musical son. After I had been sitting for about, oh, eighteen seconds, three other children from his class came and sat down on my lap. One sat right in the middle, and the other two perched on each of my knees. It was absolutely charming and I loved it. Of course, I have known these children since they were only a few months old, and it amuses me to no end that they are now walking, talking little people.

After a minute or two Gabe looked up from his drum-playing to see his friends sitting on my lap, and he was not amused. Not one little bit. He stood up, threw the drum to the ground, and ran the whole distance between us (approximately five feet) in just a few seconds, shouting, "No! Mine! Move!" and then trying to push his tiny friends off of my lap. "No! Mine! Move!" he cried, getting more and more frustrated.

I scooped him up in my arms rather awkwardly, not wanting to dislodge his friends (who showed absolutely no signs of moving and looked utterly unperturbed by his protests), and managed to hold him sort of against the side of my body as I explained that yes, I was indeed his mommy but there was room for everyone to sit and it's nice to share and we don't push our friends ever no we do not push.

I would write this off as an isolated incident, but it wasn't and it's not. He doesn't like me to hold other babies or toddlers or kids. Ever ever ever. In the past week he has been angry about my holding: (i) his cousin P; (ii) our friends' two-month-old son; (iii) our friends' one-year-old daughter; and (iv) Gabe's friend L who is three and who we regularly see for playdates. His protests are always some version of the aforementioned "No! Mine! Move!" (He will sometimes mix it up by locking eyes with me, pointing towards the offending child in my arms, and declaring "All done! All done!")

I think poor Gabe is in for a very rude awakening come February 1. And I have no idea what to do about it. And as much as I am thrilled and excited for baby number two, I feel so terribly guilty about how it is going to affect Gabe. I hope he can learn to love his sibling. People do this all the time, right? Someone please reassure me that I am not actually ruining his life by giving him a sibling.

OK, enough of that whining. Please feast your eyes on Gabey the Pooh! (Halloween was excellent. Gabe tasted his first bite of chocolate and ate an entire roll of Smarties candy. It may have been the greatest day of his life.)

V-Day!

Happy V-Day to me and Version 2.0, Happy V-Day to me and Version 2.0!

That's viability day, in case you were curious. As of Thursday I am officially 24 weeks pregnant, which means that if the baby were born now, she would have a fighting chance at survival. Those odds are only about 50-50, so ideally we'd like to keep her in there a whole lot longer, but I find it reassuring to know she would at least have a shot if something unexpected happened and I went into labor now. Plus I wouldn't have to try and talk the nurses and doctors into trying to save her - they would automatically take measures to keep her alive.

Wow, I sound like I'm preparing for the worst, don't I? Really I am not. She kicks and kicks and kicks all the time, and as far as I know everything is healthy and growing right on schedule. But all the same I take comfort in knowing that my little girl is past that critical 24-week mark. (Although I will happily wait another 15 or so weeks to meet her.)

On another subject, I am beginning to feel as though "Version 2.0" is not a great nickname. If her due date were any later I might call her my little valentine. Suggestions, anyone?

Popularity

Gabe has become quite the ladies' man these days, at least as far as the preschool set is concerned. When I picked him up from school one day a couple of weeks ago, his teacher met me at the door. "I have a story for you," she said with a big smile on her face.

She told me about how she was playing outside with Gabe and some of the other children in his class when three of the preschool-aged girls from the Tigers class came by to say hello (as Gabe's teacher is their former teacher, and the big kids all seem to enjoy checking in on the little kids and their old classrooms). One of the preschool girls glanced at Gabe, then clasped her hands and declared, "Oh...he's mine." Then she gave him a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. "Can I take him home?" she inquired politely.

"Oh, I don't know about that," replied the teacher. "I think we'll have to ask his mommy."

The little girl frowned. "I don't want to ask him mommy. I just want to take him home. He's mine now."

This went on for a while, with the teacher explaining she couldn't just take him, and the little girl insisting that she wanted to, and apparently the whole incident ended with all three of the little girls kissing Gabe goodbye and telling him they'd see him later.

And see him later they did. After coming by to check on him several more times in the following weeks, the ringleader brought her mommy by to meet Gabe last week. "Can we take him home?" she asked her mommy. "Please?"

I am told that when she was told no, Gabe had to go home with his own mommy and daddy who loved him very much, the little girl was quite put out. But she still frequently stops by to tell him hi and give him hugs and kisses.

Gabe, as you might imagine, eats this up. He will cheerfully sit in a circle of older women (well, four year olds, at least) and be petted and hugged and told how cute he is for twenty solid minutes, which is a long time when you're one and a half.

In fact, I have recently realized that he is happy to be admired (whether by family members, preschool girls, or complete strangers) no matter what the circumstances. This weekend we took him to a pumpkin patch to buy a pumpkin and test drive his Halloween costume, and he was very, very pleased by all the of the strangers who stopped to tell him how adorable he looked (and he really did look adorable in his dinosaur costume, make no mistake about that). He basically preened.

I have no witty conclusion to this story, other than to say he may be in for a rude awakening when the new baby arrives and he is forced to occasionally share the spotlight. Poor Gabe!

And on that note, I have to mention that the new baby had hiccups yesterday. It's the first time I've felt that odd, rhythmic movement during this pregnancy, and made me tear up a little bit. They were tears of joy and sudden remembrance. Until that moment I don't think I'd remembered just how miraculous those baby hiccups feel. And how could I have forgotten, when I was pregnant with Gabe so recently? What else have I forgotten, and what else might I forget? This most incredible time in my life is whizzing by much, much too quickly. So I sat in my desk chair with one hand on my tummy and thought to myself, "Remember this. Remember this. Remember this."

Oh, I hope I do. Maybe writing this will help freeze that feeling in my mind. I hope it does.