^{You should read this in order. Previous Chapters: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7}

Enough people have written me email or have left comments about my birth story to warrant some clarification.

For starters, I want everyone to know that when I think about my experience giving birth to Emory, I don’t think about it as a negative one. For me to see it as negative, something would have had to go wrong with Emory. And he was happy! His heartbeat never took a turn. He was totally fine throughout the entire ordeal.

I also want to talk about why I was induced. I have always had a steady blood pressure. My doctors have always described my blood pressure as perfect. So, whenever things drastically changed so much at week 40 my doctor was rightly concerned. Not only was I off the charts where blood pressure was concerned, but I was seeing little white fireflies in my peripheral every time I stood up. My doctor (who I trust with my life and my baby’s) decided it was time to take action. She gave me four days go “get things going”. If I came in after those four days and still had problems with my blood pressure, we should talk about scheduling an induction. Guess what? Four days later, things were worse.

I would not have scheduled an induction had there not been a medical reason for it. I was miserable toward the end, sure, but my discomfort wasn’t reason enough to induce. Because of my deteriorating health, Emory was at risk as well.

I also need to mention that I never really had a birth plan. A couple of people asked me why I never came up with one. I put a lot of faith in my doctors throughout my entire pregnancy and looked to them to decide what I should do. I felt both my baby and me were in excellent hands the entire time. While the actual labor may not have come off as smoothly as I may have liked, Emory was in very capable hands. I really believe that. Even when he was admitted into the NICU I felt he was safe and looked after. I will say this much: if we ever do have another baby, I won’t think twice about going back to that hospital. I would like to see that evil desk clerk fired first, but otherwise, I have no complaints.

More than a few people have hinted both passively and aggressively that I would have had a better time with a “natural” childbirth. That very well might be true. We’ll never know. But I get annoyed with how loosely the term “natural” is thrown around. In order for anyone to correctly use a word, we need a common definition. When does something become unnatural? Is human action, presence, or influence the source of the distinction? Medicine? And if it’s medicine at what point do you draw the line between “natural” medicine and all other? My point is that your definition of “natural” probably varies from another’s. Is anesthesia natural? How about using acupuncture as an anesthesia? Ice is pretty natural, right? How about being submerged in ice before a medical procedure? The truth is, the word “natural” is an empty rhetorical trick used to mask a lack of clarity or spin a simpler and more concrete distinction in favor of one side over another.

I think what people mean to say when using the word “natural” is without the use of pain management drugs or an epidural. In such a case, it would be more productive to use a term such as “birth without pain management drugs.”

I did not choose to go about childbirth without the epidural. I was frightened. I hadn’t ever done anything like it before. I hadn’t been around women who had. I know of two people who nearly lost a baby because the baby swallowed meconium during labor. And still one more person very close to me lost a baby this way. I couldn’t imagine going through nine months of pregnancy, growing attached to a baby only to see it die. The idea still terrifies me. Also, there are no known downsides to the use of modern pain management drugs aside from stepping on the toes of ideologues.

One person asked me if I felt that having doula would have made things different. I don’t know. I asked my mother to be there for my labor and delivery because she went through all three childbirths differently. My older brother was born by use of an epidural. My mother was induced for me and she was then given both narcotics and an epidural. (Which is the most preferred state when dealing with me.) And my younger brother was born without the use of any drugs or anesthesia at all. I felt (and still feel) that she was a perfect person to have around. I also wanted to share it with her. Had I been able to have more than two people in the delivery room I may have entertained the idea of hiring a doula. But it never came to that. I knew from the beginning that I wanted both my mother and my husband in the room with me.

Looking back, however, it would have been nice to have a person I’m not close to around to tell me that what I was going through and how I was feeling was perfectly normal especially after the baby was born. I really beat myself up for weeks following Emory’s birth. If doulas can be hired for that purpose, I suppose it may have been helpful. But I always thought that the doula’s role is to keep a woman from agreeing to something during childbirth that she may not have agreed to under more rational circumstances. Since I didn’t have a birth plan and I’m known for changing my mind and wholeheartedly believing in said change, a doula sounded like she could become more annoying than helpful. I’m stubborn and rather pigheaded when I need to be. I probably would have pissed off a doula and fired her midway through my labor. (Granted, this is all based on what I have heard a doula is hired for. I could very well be proven wrong about a doula’s role in all of this.)

If it’s NOT a doula’s role to make a woman feel as normal and comfortable as humanly possible after giving birth, there is a huge market for a person like this. I really could have used NOT a lactation consultant, NOT a birthing coach, NOT a midwife, I could have used a sane someone who’s been there before. I would have benefited from someone telling me that it’s OK if I can’t get the hang of breastfeeding. It’s OK if I am afraid to hold the baby right away. It’s OK that I feel like I dismantled any previous version of my life and that one day I would learn to how live the new one. I wanted someone to grab a hold of my head, shake it clean and let me know that everything I was going through was entirely normal and the sadness would one day subside. Instead, that role was filled by several hundred voices from the Internet.

If we do have another baby, I will likely go about things differently. I would like to avoid being induced unless it’s absolutely necessary. If my blood pressure raises again as it did with this pregnancy, I might asked to be watched closely by a doctor to make sure we’re both ok instead of being induced. If it doesn’t work out that way, I might ask that they NOT give me the epidural until I am further dilated. (The reason they didn’t give me enough Pitocin the first time was because they had no way of judging how intense my contractions were.) If that can’t be done, I might ask for the internal monitor from the get go so they can judge how much more Pitocin to administer.

And yes, for all those out there with a boner for a childbirth without the use of narcotics or an epidural, I might give that a try as well. Now that I know what happens, now that I’m no longer terrified to give birth, I might give it a shot. Who knows. I don’t want to make an absolute plan. If there is one thing I learned from all of this is that all of it is entirely unpredictable. I planned on so many things before I actually had the baby and when I returned home with him, I was barely able to accomplish one of them. And the seeming failures made me feel even more depressed. I really beat myself up over my failures and spent little time rejoicing in having a baby.

If you take anything away from this post and the 7 chapters I wrote over the last couple of weeks it’s the following statement:

The mental aftermath hurt far worse than the days I spent in the hospital.

And I went through that both drug and epidural free.

I have one more day left of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). Writing every day for an entire month has been difficult. Especially since this month had a pretty substantial holiday. I realize that November is short, but man! It ain’t been easy.

For those of you still here, thank you. Here’s a short video. Emory thanks you as well.

^{P.S. I will be sure to include a video or picture of Murray next Tuesday to make up for his having off this week.}

I worked at a video store in college. I was 18 when I got hired. Even after I graduated, I continued to work at the video store. (I was one of those people who stuck around after graduation, you know, in order to bang the new freshmen. That’s what I loved about those college girls, man, I got older and they stayed the same age.) In the years that I worked there, I saw four different managers come and go before I became one myself. Today, I want to talk about my very first video store manager, the guy who hired me. He was a short, plump, gay man named Steve. (Names changed to protect the innocent.)

Steve wasn’t outlandish. He didn’t stand out in a crowd. He was as usual as the day is long. He always wore khakis, tucked in button down shirts, loafers, and his puffy, feathered brown hair always looked as though he had just spent the last hour driving around with the windows down. Steve always wore the same excessive amount of cologne to cover up the fact that he rarely showered or did laundry. Steve was almost always overlooked, which is I think what made him so bitter and resentful.

There was one quirk about Steve that stood out. It was his pinky fingernails. They were long and slender and perfectly filed. No other nail was as long or as well kept. I used to stare at those pinky fingernails as they typed away at the keyboard, checking out movies like two perfect military men. I often wondered what it was he used them for. Did he use them for peeling eggs? Apples? Did he use them to turn the pages of his Bret Easton Ellis novel? What were those pinky fingernails used for?

I’m now 33. I am a mother. And the other day as I stood over Emory I noticed that he had some lampreys in both of his nostrils. I found myself pondering a great question: How was I going to clean the snot out from the little guy’s nostrils? We were told not to use the suction unless he’s having trouble eating or sleeping and he’s obviously too young to understand what blow means. What was I going to do? And that’s when it occurred to me. Humans have two perfect shovels designed specifically for that very task.

After 15 long years, I have finally figured out what Steve used those pinky fingernails for. I now know why he kept them so long.

My gay video store manager was using those nails to dig the snot from a baby’s nose.

Pghgirl gave me an idea…

Let ‘em rip! I want to hear from others. If you feel up to it, share your birth story in the comments section. If you already have it written somewhere, give us a link! (See the FAQ section for formating instructions.)

^{P.S. Please leave politics out of this. Those are valid discussions but I don’t care to host them on my site. If you write about how one birth is better than another, I will delete your comment.}

^{Previous Chapters: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6}

It was 2:30 AM and I was exhausted. My body shook uncontrollably. My mother had warned me about it earlier. I was ready for it to happen, but I wasn’t ready for it to happen before I gave birth. No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t get the shaking to stop.

“Breathe, Michele. Practice what we learned during Lamaze class. Do your hee hoos.” TobyJoe began to breathe. I thought about my favorite yoga instructor Kyra and everything she taught me about relaxation. I followed his lead. After about a minute of hee hoo-ing, my body stopped shaking. But as soon as I thought about it, it would start up all over again. From that point forward, I decided to go about things as mindlessly as possible.

While I concentrated on my breathing, the doctors and nurses filed into the room. It was like something out of broadway play. They were so well rehearsed, so organized, the finest ballet dancers haven’t ever been so in sync. Some wheeled in equipment, others brought in clean towels. Each person had a specific role in this organized production. Not one person ran into another, they just reacted, or acted. Before I knew it, a mess of people were all around me. Dr. Kauffman, my 7-months pregnant doctor, sat down at the foot of my bed. My husband stood at my right knee, my mother up near my head. The doctor who talked me into staying 27 hours earlier stood by my left knee. Still others milled about the room waiting for their cue. Someone had opened up the adjoining room – the room where Emory would be cleaned and warmed. They were ready. But was I?

Earlier, I had been told that it would take me three hours to push. I prepared myself for that. I asked the nurse if I could have a Pedialyte ice pop for strength. I wondered if the ice would feel good against my heartburn as well. Toward the very end, the heartburn became unbearable. And the pain made me nauseous. I looked at the clock. It was after 3. The baby would be with us by dawn. I hoped.

I saw a bolt of lightning from outside. “Was that lightning? Is it storming?”

“It’s really bad out there. There’s thunder, lightning. It’s torrential.” Someone assured me.

It was a perfect backdrop, the greatest of encores, for that particular performance.

Everyone took their position. The doctor instructed all the newcomers (my husband and my mother) what their roles were. The woman at my left knee told me what I had to do and when I had to do it.

The last 45 minutes I spent pregnant exist in my memory in pieces. I don’t recollect things in any definitive order. I know that it took me a few times before I understood how to push. At first I was afraid to push too hard because it felt like I had to take a massive crap. (Which is exactly what’s supposed to happen.) Between contractions, I grabbed an ice pop or the oxygen mask. But nothing became more glorious than sucking on that damned ice pop. It was my reward for every other push. The oxygen was a have-to. I ate two popsicles before getting Emory out. They were the best things I had ever eaten.

If the birth of Emory had consisted of only the last couple of hours I would have had the greatest birth story tell. I had an epidural, sure. But the right hand side of my body felt everything. I mentioned before that this became a blessing in disguise. It ensured that I work harder because it hurt. And since I had feeling, I also knew when each contraction was coming before the machine beeped letting the doctors know.

I had worked myself up over labor. And it didn’t end up being that hard for me. It didn’t hurt as much as I would have thought. (Although, I am sure had I been totally epidural free, it would have hurt a whole lot more.) I had prepared myself for something terrifically difficult and painful. And it simply wasn’t. When it came time to push, I had something to focus on, something real. I was no longer a spectator of my own labor; I became an active participant in the production.

It took me 45 minutes to get Emory out. I think we counted 9 pushes. That included the amount of time it took to get the hang of it. For me, the pushing part of labor wasn’t difficult at all; it was the induction, the wait, the failure to get things going, the hunger, the heartburn, the wait again, all of that proved very trying and difficult.

On push 8 in room eight, the doctor asked me if I wanted to look at Emory, whose head was almost completely outside of my body. I said no. But then my mind turned on again and it sent me a message, “Do this. How often do you get to see a human head poking out of your vagina?” So I did. I looked down. And that’s the first time I saw Emory.

He looked just like you’d imagine, which is to say freakishly weird and alien. He looked unreal. His head was a little beat up. But he was alive and well and it was only a matter of time before I was to hold him.

Push 9 was the last push. I felt him come swooshing out along with a lot of other stuff I won’t talk about. They held him up. I looked at the umbilical cord, which was shockingly beautiful. It looked like blown glass – a piece of perfectly purplish spiral-blown glass.

“Do you want to cut the cord?” Dr Kauffman asked Toby.

“Sure.”

Emory was freed from me by the man who helped me create him. He was wrapped in a blanket and then immediately placed on my belly. There wasn’t a tear in sight or a sound in range. He just looked up at me with those great big dark eyes.

“You are perfect. You are perfect. Hello, little person! You are perfect! It’s so nice to meet you! Hello!”

And then he was gone again.

The room looked like something out of an episode of CSI. It was that messy, like, over the top messy, staged even. Blood was everywhere. It was a mess. Earlier, one of the nurses made Toby lay on some sheets. She had joked about what she had seen on the floor of that very room. We laughed at the time. But, wow! Was she ever right. It looked like someone had died a gruesome death. There were clots, red towels, red gauze. The characters that had filed in so perfectly earlier were now covered head to toe in blood. Until that moment, I had no idea how much birth could resemble death. Replace tears with smiles and gasps of shock with gasps of joy and you have birth.

As they stitched me up, I fell back into my pillow and I looked toward the window again. I let out a sigh. The city was being beaten by thunder and struck by lightning. A tornado touched down in Brooklyn for the first time in a century. The subway tunnels flooded. Millions of people were rudely awaken by that storm.

And in a room on the 4th floor of a hospital along the East River, my son Emory was making his first appearance on a stage called life.

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^{Part of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). I will continue this story every day until it’s finished. Each chapter will live in a section titled The Birth of Emory.}

(Polls are open for exactly 1 hour. Posted at 12:45 PM EST)

Tuesdays with Murray? Or Birth Story: Chapter 7?

Edited to Add: Birth story it is! But I will upload a video for all the Murray lovers out there.

^{Previous Chapters: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5}

“You’re about 2 and a half centimeters dilated.” She told me.

I thought I heard her incorrectly.

“What?” I asked. TobyJoe walked over to me. He looked concerned.

“You’re 2 and half centimeters.” She repeated.

I started to cry. “But..” My voice trailed off. She knew what I wanted to say. She knew what I was thinking.

She explained that once they gave me the epidural they had no absolute way of gaging the pain and administering the correct dose of Pitocin. I was devastated. And I was pissed off. The last 11 hours were an absolute waste. I was still very upset with my body for not doing what it was supposed to do. I was angry that I had to be induced at all. I was mad that high blood pressure put me there in the first place. I wanted to meet my son. I really wanted to meet my son. I was heartbroken, seriously heartbroken. I was also worried that he was without amnionic fluid for so long.

I continued to cry.

“Here’s what we’re going to do.” She began. “We’re going to insert an internal contraction monitor to get a better idea of how intense your contractions are. And then we’ll know exactly how much more Pitocin you’ll need.”

I asked the million dollar question. “How much longer will I be like this?”

Looking back, I understand why she wouldn’t give me a time. She watched my mood deteriorate several times. She answered me as a doctor. “Well, the night nurse will be a lot more aggressive with the Pitocin. We’ll get things moving. And that will be easier with the internal contraction monitor.”

And that’s when round two began.

By the the time Tuesday came to an end, I had one tube going into my arm, another into my back, still another emptying out my bladder and another inserted into my uterus next to the baby. I felt like something out of a science fiction movie.

At 2 AM, I entered real labor and the pain became a lot more intense. The button controlling the pain medicine was getting quite a workout especially since my right side wasn’t really numb at all. At 2:30 AM, my body went into shock and began to shake uncontrollably. I felt as though I had to poop. My teeth were chattering. I was falling apart fast. That’s when my husband woke up and my mother left the room to get a nurse.

It was finally time.

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^{Part of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). I will continue this story every day until it’s finished. Each chapter will live in a section titled The Birth of Emory.}

^{Previous Chapters: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4}

Tuesday, August 7th was one of the longest days of my life. I was given the epidural at around 11 AM. Prior to that, I was allowed one last shower. I remember thinking, “This is the last shower I’m going to take while pregnant.” It’s also a good thing I showered, because by the time I was done having Emory, I smelled horrible. My left underarm smelled as though I carried a tea bag full of sliced shallots in its moist crevice. It was as awful as the previous sentence.

While I showered my mother and husband went downstairs to get some breakfast. I was starving, but wasn’t allowed to eat. (Although, I did sneak a solitary grape, which was more torturous than pleasurable.) By the end of my labor, I would have gone about 43 hours without food. I realize that’s not too big a deal but an empty stomach proved much worse for my heartburn, which peaked on Tuesday evening and by the time it came time to push, I was begging for Pepcid.

I spent Tuesday getting pumped full of Pitocin. Or so I thought. The day nurse and I quickly became friends. I asked her questions about other labors, about working there, about birth. We talked about where she was from, where she lived, and about her family. Every now and again she would ask me a question the importance of which I underestimated.

“On a scale between 1 and 10, 10 being the most painful, how would you rate your pain?”

I would answer unsure each and every time. “A five? I dunno. A six maybe?”

Had I know the significance of that question I would have been a lot more conservative with my answers.

Truth be told, it was really hard to assess pain with the epidural. I could feel pain but I had no idea how intense it was. Worse than that, I had no idea how intense it would become. How is it really possible to rate pain when you have no clue how painful level 10 will be? I failed at this. Looking back, I should have answered with much lower numbers.

At roughly 3 PM the doctor returned to break my water. By that point I had been on the Pitocin for about 4 hours. My cervix was to be readying itself for childbirth. When she broke my water, I could feel the warm liquid fall around my butt and thighs, but I didn’t feel any pain. The feeling of water oozing out of my crotch every time I laughed or coughed or moved, felt gross. All I could do was lie there and let it fall into the pads below me, which were changed several times in the first hour and a half. At that point, the nurse decided there wouldn’t be much more all at once, an assumption that was far from true. I kept oozing and oozing.

I waited a while before complaining, but I couldn’t take it anymore. “I really feel wet down there. I really think more just came out. Can you check?”

She would change the pads, which were covered in amnionic fluid, and replace them with fresh ones. Fifteen minutes would pass and I’d feel another burst of liquid. I’d wait, and when I could take it no more, say something once again. After several times of this happening, she finally conceded. “You do seem to have a copious amount of amnionic fluid.” Maybe that’s why I was so large toward the end of my pregnancy. We thought Emory was going to be a big baby, but in all actuality, I think he just had a larger jacuzzi.

The doctor came to check on me a few times just to make sure I was doing OK and wasn’t in too much pain. The head anesthesiologist, a small Indian woman who wore a large button with the word “PAIN” on it with a red X through it, came in to see me several times as well. At one point she lectured me on not using the button to trigger my Fentanyl drip.

“You have a needle in your back,” she said. “You might as well use it for the pain.”

Truth be told, I didn’t feel all that much pain, which was a fact that would later come back to haunt me.

Finally, at around 9 PM, the doctor came in to give me a cervical exam. The exam itself was a lot less painful because of the epidural. But the same epidural that brought me both a state of well-being and a fairly pain free vaginal exam, would be the very thing to blame for what happened next.

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^{Part of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). I will continue this story every day until it’s finished. Each chapter will live in a section titled The Birth of Emory.}

We’ve been away for the past several days and without Internet access. My parents recently moved from Pennsylvania to New Jersey and so we drove to Jersey to check out the new digs. My brother and his wife Melissa flew up from Alabama with their kids as well. It was great seeing them. I rarely get to. TobyJoe made a killer Thanksgiving dinner while we were there.

I overate and probably put on all five of the pounds I lost since November 3rd. (As of Thursday, I weighed 150 pounds. I haven’t gotten on the scale since then, however. I am kind of afraid to do so. I will report back here when I finally do.)

Since we’ve been running around, we’ve been away from the Internet for the past several days and I haven’t had a chance to really sit down and write about the birth of Emory and that bugs me. And it bugs him, too. See?

I wrote Chapter 4 standing in the rain from a backyard on an open router. I didn’t even have a chance to proofread it. I have no idea what I wrote to be perfectly honest. And that bugs me. I really wanted to spend time on the write up of my labor story. The fact that I started during the week of Thanksgiving probably wasn’t the best idea. But it’s a done deal now. I feel like I’ve just been throwing the story together. That said, I have decided to take today off. We just got home and I have too much to do around the apartment. I will commence with Chapter 5 tomorrow.

In the meantime, check out my black eye. Between it and the MOHs scar on my upper lip, I am looking awesome these days.

I am in New Jersey, posting this from toby’s iPhone. I have a black eye, cranberry sauce on my crotch, and vomit on my shirt.

I miss Murray lots but miss highspeed internet access more.

Gobble gobble.

More tomorrow.

^{Previous Chapters: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3}

We woke up the next morning early. If you’d call it waking up at all. Our sleep was interrupted dozens of times but I hadn’t really slept in weeks. If it wasn’t the heartburn, it was the pain on the upper right side of my abdomen. If it wasn’t that, it was having to pee every half an hour. Something always got in the way of my sleep. Lately, it had been the consistent period-like cramps that kept me awake.

At around 10 AM a doctor came in to give me a cervical exam. I was supposed to have had 12 hours of Cervidil. Normally, the Pitocin is given first thing in the morning. But since I had been admitted so late, my time was pushed back. Instead of waiting until noon, the doctor decided to come in a little early.

“This is going to be a little uncomfortable.” She said.

Now, I know I haven’t gotten to the end of this story yet but I simply must interject. In hindsight, this was by far the most intense physical pain I endured. She not only gave me an exam to find out if I had dilated any more since my previous exam, but this time she tried to “get things going” using a couple of fingers. It hurt. I let out a loud groan and tried to pull away. Nothing, not even labor, hurt quite like that exam. I suddenly had a LOT of respect for all those who go through a vaginal birth without using any drugs whatsoever.

It was at that very moment, I decided to have an epidural.

“You’re 2 centimeters dilated.” She said, tearing her gloves off.

“Only two?” I asked.

“But your cervix is 75% effaced. It’s ready.”

I had trouble hiding my heartache. I wanted a miracle to have taken place. I wanted to be much more dilated especially after all of those contractions I endured the night before.

“Even after that half hour long contraction? I’m still only 2 centimeters?” I said through tears.

“Don’t worry! The Pitocin will do the rest.” She reassured me. And then she said, “Welcome to labor.”

The nurse had already started the Pitocin through my IV drip. I had no idea how Pitocin worked. Was it like a gunshot? Would it immediately force my cervix to open? I got a little worried that I hadn’t yet had the epidural. What if my cervix started to open really fast and it hurt as much or worse than what she had done with her fingers?

“Are you going to be having an epidural today?” The doctor asked me as if it were the daily special at a fancy restaurant.

“Yes.” I told her.

She called anesthesia and left the room. The nurse continued to administer the Pitocin.

The nurse asked me, “On a scale 1 – 10, 10 being the most painful, how would you classify your pain level right now?”

“Ummm, well, I don’t know what 10 is yet, you know? It’s relative, right? If 10 ends up being really bad, then I’d say this is a two? If it’s not that bad, a 5?”

The nurse laughed. “I’ll write down a 3.”

A half hour passed and two men walked into the room. They introduced themselves to me as anesthesiologists and congratulated me.

“We understand you’ll be having an epidural today?”

“Yes.” I assured them.

They looked over the monitor.

“Michele, did you just feel that?”

“Feel what?” I asked.

“Well, you just had a pretty intense contraction and you didn’t even flinch.”

(Now, back up a minute. I don’t want people to think I’m some kind of tough guy. I’m not. But, I do need to say that I really didn’t find contractions all that painful and to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t even sure what they were until I was admitted into the hospital. I thought contractions were the painful spasms you had down around your cervix. I found that pain almost unbearable. which is why I cried out whenever the doctor gave me a cervical exam. Contractions, I could have handled without an epidural. Dilating to 10 centimeters? No way. Some woman want to have a natural childbirth. And I respect them for that. But I’m not one of those women. I hope that all those who went through childbirth “naturally” will respect my choices as well.)

“I didn’t notice.” I told them.

They left the room to grab the necessary items. The nurse asked, “Are you OK?”

“I’m nervous.” I admitted. “I may have tattoos but I actually hate needles.”

She laughed. “Well, you got the Asian guy. He’s good. The Asians are always good.”

I cracked up. I felt reassured, like, Asians are really good at what they do! I’ll do just fine! And at that moment in time, regardless of how racist the thought was, I didn’t care. You could have told me he was an Aquarius and I may have asked him to leave. We Aquarians are way too flakey to insert needles into someone’s spine.

The doctors returned. It was time.

I moved into an upright seated position and dangled my feet over the side of the bed. I was told to hunch over and arch my back.

“Like cat pose?” I asked.

The skinny doctor laughed. “Yes, just like cat pose.”

“Grab a hold of Nurse Stephanie’s hands and squeeze. You’re going to feel a couple of pinches. That’s the numbing agent. Try not to move too much. If it hurts, squeeze.”

The needles in my back felt exactly as you might imagine. Eventually, the numbness took over and then it was time for the actual epidural.

I wish I could capture the way it feels to have a needle inserted into your back to someone who hasn’t ever had it done. But it’s downright impossible. The only thing I could think to say when TobyJoe asked me how it felt was, “It feels like someone has a metal rod and is inserting it directly into your soul.”

It made my teeth itch, my ears ring. It felt like nothing I have ever known. What made matters even more intense was it took three tries for the Asian guy to get it into the epidural space. I had to tell them where the “cold” feeling was. And it was cold! At the time, I thought they were pumping cold fluid into my spine and up into my head. Turns out, it was only my nerves.

“Right or left?” The skinny guy would ask.

“Right.” I’d answer, unsure of myself.

Finally, after three tries of inserting needles into and out of my spine they got it into a position they seemed happy with even though, later, during some pretty intense contractions, I’d realize that while my right side was entirely numb, my left had nearly all its feeling. This ended being a blessing in disguise, however.

They were finished. The nurse looked at me and said, “You’re about to experience an intense feeling of well-being.”

And that’s when the Fentanyl was administered. I was as high as a kite.

My mother and husband returned.

“HI!” I yelled out. “I feel WOOOOooooondeeerfulllll” I said, slurring my words. “The nurse gave me something.”

She laughed. “I gave her a Fentanyl drip. She’s going to feel wonderful for a while.”

Now, all we had to do was wait. The rest was up to the Pitocin.

---

^{Part of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). I will continue this story every day until it’s finished. Each chapter will live in a section titled The Birth of Emory.}

^{Previous Chapters: Chapter 1, Chapter 2}

My mother stood to get a closer look at the monitor. She, too, noticed I was having a contraction, a really long contraction. We both wondered silently if it was a normal response to Cervidil.

Time passed. My eyes began to water. I wasn’t crying from the pain necessarily, I was crying because I was both worn out and really scared. Plus, I still had the residual emotional and physical damage left over from the breakdown I had earlier.

Eventually, a nurse rushed in followed by a doctor. They both muttered something to one another. The nurse put her hand on my belly and looked at the monitor. I asked her what was wrong.

“Sometimes the Cervidil can trigger an intense and constant contraction. It doesn’t happen often.”

“What happens then?” I asked. My mind raced with assumptions.

“If it doesn’t go away, we may have to removed the Cervidil.”

For whatever reason, I immediately thought cesarean. Here was my thought process: Already admitted into the hospital. Already hooked up to an IV. My body was already having issues with being 41 weeks pregnant. If induction failed to work, they would most likely schedule a cesarean. I said nothing about my assumption.

They waited there for a while with their hands on my abdomen, which kept a perfectly painful, solid arc. The doctor was concerned about the baby but he was doing just fine. His heart rate did not rise nor fall. Mine was all over the place. The nurse pressed some buttons and repositioned the fetal monitor. We waited.

I really, really wanted Murray. Tears filled my eyes. I told my mother I hoped Murray was OK. There were some more tears.

A half an hour went by maybe more and the intense contraction subsided. After a few more blood pressure readings and a watchful eye, the nurse left us alone again. It was time to try and get some rest. We were exhausted.

I did my best to sleep that night but it was hard since nurses and doctors kept coming in to check on the the baby and my progress. Each time the door opened it let in all the hallway noises and light filled our room. I was also extremely uncomfortable. The upper right hand side of my body hurt from whatever the baby had been doing to it. (The pain in my upper abdomen started at around week 36 and grew more and more intense as I grew larger. I am still entirely numb in that area. I am told I will eventually get the feeling back but I’m not holding my breath.) I had an IV in and I just couldn’t get warm. My hair was stringy and greasy, and I was so very hungry. My last meal had been at 2 PM the previous day (Monday).

It was roughly 2 AM. I was no longer in constant pain and I was hours away from meeting my son.

---

^{Part of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). I will continue this story every day until it’s finished. Each chapter will live in a section titled The Birth of Emory.}

(Read Chapter 1 here.)

The room we were given had a most spectacular view. Unfortunately, I would spend most of my time there paralyzed from the waist down and therefore bedridden. But my mother and TobyJoe were able to look out over the East River. We had a view of the 59th Street Bridge, Roosevelt Island, Long Island City, Brooklyn and boats moving to and from someplace different. I thought about the cars moving along the 59th Street Bridge and I wondered if any of them knew we existed, knew what was happening. Probably not. I promised myself that the next time I was on the 59th Street Bridge, I would make sure to think about an unknown woman giving birth from that very room.

TobyJoe made himself as comfortable as possible in a chair by the window and insisted my mother take the chair that folds down into a bed. After watching the two of them take part in the kindest of arguments, my mother finally gave in.

A nurse came in and hooked me up to a device similar to the one shown below. (Image taken from the Philips Medical Systems Web site.)

(Usually, the pregnant person wrapped up in it looks a lot less perky, however. Also, add about 40 pounds to that chick.)

At New York Presbyterian, every patient is represented by a frame on a monitor in every room so the nurses can keep track of everyone’s progress (both mother and baby) no matter where they are. We, too, were able to watch the graphically depicted contractions for every other woman giving birth that night, which made for some interesting conversation during the wee hours of the night. For example, much later, whenever room 9 began screaming bloody murder, I was able to watch her contractions fly off the chart and imagine things to come.

A doctor came in just after midnight to administer the Cervidil. The process hurt a little bit. It felt like a bad period cramp. At that point I found out that I was still only 2 centimeters dilated. The Cervidil should help things along. The cream is inserted up into the cervix. Its only job is to thin out the cervix (effacement) and ready it for the Pitocin later. It’s supposed to be a painless process, which is why they hit you with a sweet dose of AmbienCR right after insertion. I had been told by several women that the first night of induction brought with it one of the best night’s rest they’d ever had.

(Foreshadow: I turned out not to be one of those women.)

It doesn’t happen that often, but sometimes Cervidil triggers labor, something I was kind of hoping for as it would cut down on the time I’d spend in a hospital bed. Another rarer and more painful side-effect, is that it can trigger an intense and constant contraction but not actually induce labor. I didn’t know about that until later.

Once given the Cervidil, I could not use the bathroom for two hours. Since Cervidil is a cream, if a woman were to stand up too soon, it could drain out. At least that was my understanding. So, if I did have to use the bathroom before two hours were up, I would have to do so using a bedpan, and that didn’t sound all that appealing. (All fear of peeing into a metal container fell by the wayside later on. That was nothing compared to what I would learn to overlook later.)

I must have been hormonally challenged because I spent the next hour thinking about Murray at home by himself. I begged my mother and TobyJoe to go home and get a good night’s rest. And I really meant it; I really wanted them both to get a decent night’s rest, especially since TobyJoe was about the spend the next two nights on a cold, hard floor. But I also wanted someone there with Murray. I know now that this was entirely irrational, absurd even. But he became my focal point. Perhaps thinking about him kept my mind off what I was about to endure.

Truth be told, I still have no idea why I care so deeply for that cat. Perhaps it’s because he was my buddy throughout my entire pregnancy. Or maybe it’s because he spent most of his youth growing along with my belly.

Even after my persistent badgering, it was decided that sending my mother out driving through the city by herself in the middle of the night was a dumb idea. TobyJoe made a nest on the floor. My mother made herself as comfortable as possible on the chair next to my bed.

And of course an hour after the doctor gave me the Cervidil I had to pee. Normally holding my urine in for two hours wouldn’t be a problem for me, but the IV was pumping me so full of fluid, it all made a beeline right to my bladder. There was no way I could wait another hour. If I had to use a bedpan, then so be it.

I paged the nurse.

“I realize we’re not supposed to use the bathroom, but I really have to go.”

The nurse spoke with the doctor and the two of them decided that I could get up to use the bathroom early.

They unhooked the fetal monitor, my monitor, and my IV bag, and I hobbled to the bathroom.

And I peed. Forever.

When I returned to my bed, the nurse hooked me back up to the plethora of gadgets, and I waited for the Ambien to do its thing. To this day, I am not sure why it happened. I blame myself for having to pee, of course. But fifteen minutes later, I started to have a constant and very painful contraction. The frame that represented my room on the monitor – room number 8 – was maxed out entirely. It looked as if our room alone was being hit by an earthquake. I looked over the monitor while clutching my upper abdomen. All the other women looked so peaceful!

I turned to my mother. “If this is what they consider painless, I’m screwed when it finally comes to giving birth.”

Meanwhile, my fuzzy focal point was across a bridge, over a river, through a city and up three flights of stair.

It became abundantly clear: I was going to need a lot more AmbienCR to get me through the night.

---

^{Part of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). I will continue this story every day until it’s finished. Each chapter will live in a section titled The Birth of Emory.}

Emory was born at 4:05 AM on August 8, 2007. It was a Wednesday. He entered this world at the very same moment Brooklyn was being hit by a tornado and a storm was flooding the subway. I could see the lightning from my hospital bed. We could hear the thunder overtop the sounds of the delivery floor. Twenty-eight hours prior that very moment, I had been induced.

I arrived at the hospital on Monday at 5:30 PM and waited five and a half hours to be admitted. In that time, I had my first ever panic attack, which took place in the hallway right outside the Labor and Delivery Unit at NY Presbyterian. As people joyously walked through the halls holding balloons that read “IT’S A BOY!”, I was hyperventilating. I successfully “lost it” because I had spent five and half hours dealing with the most insincere person I have ever come in contact with. I wish I could capture in words just how horrible she made me feel. I wish I could capture the intensity of emotion I felt just before my breakdown. But it’s impossible. Even now, months after the fact, tears come to my eyes just thinking about her.

Imagine this: I am 41 weeks pregnant, going through contractions. I was told earlier that day they weren’t the right kind of contractions, they weren’t the kind to “get things going”. Instead, I had a blood pressure reading through the roof, which is why I was scheduled for induction. My doctors were worried about the baby. The floor was packed with scheduled cesareans and other inductions. On top of all that, there were the spontaneous laborers coming in. It was busy and insane and the nighttime desk clerk was related to Satan.

My mother and TobyJoe did their best to keep me calm. Earlier, we had a big laugh about a farting dog named Walter. You see, one of the names we toyed with was Walter until we found out about the popular children’s book “Walter the Farting Dog.” When my mother told us about Walter the Farting Dog, we both snorted with laughter. But all laughter came to an end at around 10:00 PM when I really started to fall apart physically. My blood pressure sky-rocketed. My contractions intensified. My head was pounding so much so, you could trace the veins in my forehead, they cast shadows they were working so hard. I was tired. I all of my life I hadn’t ever felt so tired. I wanted to go home. I wanted that woman to help me. I wanted to go home.

At around 10:30 PM, I approached her and suggested I go home and return when they are less busy. I was greeted with a lecture, a nasty, passive-aggressive lecture.

I calmly added, “I can’t take this anymore.” And left through the double doors that led to the hallway.

When I entered the hallway, I had a meltdown, an honest to God, no exaggeration, full-fledged meltdown. My entire body shook. My head filled with blood. I began to cry so hard I was making those uncontrollable sobbing sounds, the ones where tiny inhales penetrate one larger one. I could not catch my dying breath. I wasn’t going to have the baby. I was going to go home and see my cat. For some reason, I really, really wanted to see Murray. I was done with being pregnant, waiting. I would just stay pregnant for the rest of my life if that’s what I had to do to avoid that woman, that awful, no good, evil woman.

What I didn’t know was that after I left the room, TobyJoe had some words with her. He said, “When I get back, if you do not have a room for us, if you have not yet done your job, we are leaving. I don’t want to hear another word from you unless it’s positive. Do you understand me?”

Eventually, I regained my composure. TobyJoe was able to calm me down and we walked back into the birthing and labor unit to get my mother, collect our things, and leave. At that point, I was intercepted by an actual doctor, (the same doctor who would later hold my left leg). She talked me into staying. She apologized profusely for having not admitted me sooner. She said they actually thought I had already been admitted and induced. The woman behind the counter had accidentally crossed me off her list. I had been lost in the shuffle of paperwork.

I agreed to stay.

It was just after midnight when they finally inserted the Cervidil into my cervix.

We were going to have a baby.

---

^{Part of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). I will continue this story every day until it’s finished. Each chapter will live in a section titled The Birth of Emory.}

I understand why people move to New York. I moved here at age 27 because I always loved it. I decided to move to New York when I was a kid and my father took us to our first ever Yankee game. He drove us right through Harlem so he could teach us a lesson and show us just how good we had it. “Not everyone lives as comfortably as you do, kids.” In reality I think he was lost. I remember riding the subway convinced that I looked more like a New Yorker if I didn’t hold onto the bars. Only tourists need to hold onto the subway bars. I actually believed that. I believed that after living in New York for a while, you figured out how to ride the subways without having to hold on.

New York was where I wanted to live. Always.

I lived in Washington, DC before. Twice, even. I moved from State College to Washington, DC. Then, I moved back to State College, back to DC, to New York City, back to DC, to San Francisco and the back to New York. Writing that down sounds perfectly insane. But I can assure you that each move made sense. For example, the first time I moved to DC was for a job that wasn’t what I signed up for. I worked there for a little over a month before calling a quits. My apartment building was depressing and bug-ridden, and so I headed back to State College with my tail between my legs. (Back then, my life kind of looked like that Ben Fold’s Five song “Steven’s Last Night in Town.”)

But We thought he was gone
And now he's come back again
last week it was funny
now the jokes wearing thin
cuz everyone knows now
that every night now
will be Steven's last night in town

DC stuck the second time because my boyfriend at the time and I did it correctly; we lived in an apartment building in the city and one that wasn’t a housing project for those on house arrest.

Toby and I left New York because we were pretty messed up over what we saw on September 11th. I know that DC isn’t exactly off the radar where terrorist attacks are concerned, but it was a change of scenery for us and were therefore able to heal quicker.

Anyway, we’ve been here for three years and we’re at the point (again) where we want to leave (again). This time we’re going about it the right way, i.e.. slowly. And we’re talking about moving to Boston or New Jersey. We’ve even discussed moving to Providence with TobyJoe commuting to Boston every day. (Is that an insane idea?)

Truth be told, we’re looking for that perfect place to live. A place where we can raise Emory without running into too much trouble, whether it be something simple like subjecting him to incessant horrific language, or something a lot more serious like high pollution, or a murder rate every New Yorker tries to ignore. We want somewhere fairly safe. But we also want him to have the ability to grow up around art and culture. (I come from an art background. I really do put a lot of stock in the arts.) We want a backyard filled with fireflies not drunk and dying polish men. We want a garden fed with uncontaminated ground water as well as public transportation.

We’re readying ourself to move again. And we’re looking for the “Forgotten City”. The city on the East coast that isn’t riddled with murder or pollution. The city on the East coast with excellent public schools and affordable housing. We want to settle down and raise our son safely. Why does that seem so hard to do right now?

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^{Part of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), where one writes every day for the month of November, which is easier said than done.}

14 days ago I weighed 155 pounds.

Today I (still) weigh 152 pounds. I haven’t moved much this week. I think it’s because I was seduced by chocolate. Anyway, I’m not going to write about what I ate this week because it pretty much looks like what I ate last week, but I do feel that I must address a few things regarding the whole weight loss thing.

It’s been two weeks since I wrote the post that made the whole world scream. OK, I’m exaggerating. It wasn’t the whole world, but some folks did scream. And I’ve been trying to get my head around why. I’ve decided that the Internet is a perfect platform for people filled with anger to try and make others feel as miserable as they do. I received an email letting me know that I must have mental issues to think 157 pounds is overweight. (I have news for you, Internet: BMI charts don’t lie.) For the life of me I cannot figure out how someone can feel so much animosity toward a complete stranger just because said stranger wrote about wanting to lose weight on the Internet. Could said person feel insecure about his or her own weight gain? Would it have made a difference had I been obese and suggested I wanted to lose weight? And if I were obese, what’s a safe number to admit to weighing and then wanting to lose? Would I have to be the fattest person on the Internet? Sick with diabetes? I’m really trying to understand why my post about how much I weigh and want to lose made people angry.

I am not comparing myself to you or anyone else, I’m comparing myself to me. I have put on weight over the years. I have let things get out of hand, my hand. It’s about me and my weight gain. If you don’t think a size 10 is too big, that’s totally cool. I don’t really think it is either. Sometimes, I even wear a 12/13 but that’s because I have big tits. (Please note: If you are a small breasted woman and unhappy about it, don’t send any hate mail about my boobs. Believe me, I’m unhappy about them as well.) It doesn’t make me any less of a woman if I would rather be a size 8, or, God forbid, smaller.

One person was annoyed by my having used the wrong adjective. That just makes them look stupid. Do you really want to appear fat and stupid. Because I’m assuming that since you’re critiquing my having used the wrong adjective when referring to my weight, you’re sensitive about your own.

Seriously, I’m not trying to be rude. I am not calling anyone fat. I was not trying to make anyone feel badly. I can assure you, I’m not like that. But some of the feedback I received was just downright mean. I fail to see what I wrote that warranted such a backlash. And if I were one to eat whenever I feel badly, I’d have put on weight last week because some of y’all are mean.

Granted, I also received some awesome, incredibly sweet email, words of encouragement, words of wisdom and to all of you who took the time to do so, thank you. You helped counter the bitterness.

To the rest of you mean people, I got 8 words for you: “Your mama’s so fat, she ate the Internet.”

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^{Updates on my weight loss will take place every Saturday in a section called Saturday Stats until I reach my goal.}

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^{Part of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), where one writes every day for the month of November, which is easier said than done.}

TobyJoe, Emory and I got all bundled up this morning and headed into the city to visit my old place of employment. I miss that job a lot. I miss my boss a lot. There are still a few people there whom I miss dearly and I wanted to introduce them to my most favorite person in the whole world.

I was worried at first. I had no idea how I’d do with bringing Emory out in the cold and into the great big city, so far from home. (An entire river!) You see, anywhere else one might actually drive in and therefore be equipped with a getaway car should things take a turn for the worse. But in New York City, where parking is nonexistent, you’re kind of stuck out there. Even cabs are off limits when traveling with a baby, given the whole carseat law. So, I get nervous whenever we venture out. And the greater the distance we are away from home the greater my stress level. But I was determined this time. I was determined to get over this fear. I see babies out and about all the time. Why can’t I get out as well? So we bundled him up and put him in the stroller. We took him on the subway and straight into Grand Central Station. That’s Grand Central Station, Internet. Can you believe how far I’ve come? A month ago I freaked out bringing him to the park down the street.

The city was humming with life and a part of me missed it greatly. I missed it in spite of the fact that someone picked a fight with TobyJoe on the 4/5/6 after our stroller accidentally bumped his sneaker. I missed the city after watching a guy pick his nose and then immediately touch the metal subway bars. I missed it even after having to walk up several flights of stairs with a stroller. I missed the route I once walked from Grand Central to Madison Avenue. I even missed the guy who sells stuff outside of my old office building. I missed it all.

I missed the sound of the train station, the smell of the street, even the smell of the roasting nuts. (Although, I always figured that if actually consumed a person might shit themselves. Seriously, does anyone from New York eat the nuts?)

If this city were just a little more user friendly, if it were just a little more accessible for us breeders trying to survive on a middle class income, then I think I could settle in here. If it were just a little easier, I could see raising my son in New York. (As long as I could get him into one of those Quaker schools.) But it’s not easy. And even though today almost went off without a hitch, it still proved tiring.

I guess we could have left the baby with the nanny.

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^{Part of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), where one writes every day for the month of November, which is easier said than done.}

I used to work for doctors. Well, I worked with doctors who acted as consultants on projects designed for other doctors. But they were doctors. They had letters like MD stuck to the end of their name.

One day I was given a simple task: design a magazine spread and a tables of contents. For the spreads I used Lorem Ipsum. Lorem Ipsum is used so that the client doesn’t get distracted by the content and instead focuses on the design. For the TOC, I came up with fake article and doctor names. I have done this before. I always just put down whatever comes to mind. I added the following name to the TOC.

Side-Effects By Dr Drake Ramoray

The comp was printed and then Fed-Ex’ed for morning delivery.

Later the next day my client called to review the designs. We discussed the spread and then moved on to the tables of contents.

“I see you’re a fan of Friends,” remarked my client. He immediately added, “My wife pointed it out to me. She watches the show, too.”

Sure, maybe he and his wife worked together. Or maybe he met her for lunch and brought the designs with him to get her opinion. And perhaps they went out for SANDWICHES! It’s possible, sure. Also possible? He watched Friends along with nearly every other person in America.

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^{Part of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), where one writes every day for the month of November, which is easier said than done.}

I woke up early yesterday and trekked into the city to have my stitches removed. I got dressed up in order to do so. That’s a sign of the frequency with which I leave the house.

I learned that my skin had grown over two of the four stitches during my week of healing. I also discovered that I’m allergic to the Bacitracin I was prescribed. My doctor told me to stop using it immediately. The site was red and blotchy and slightly raised because of the reaction I had. It hadn’t healed quite as well as she would have liked, so I may need some laser treatment when this is all said and done. I’m to see her again in four weeks. In the meantime, she gave me a steroidal ointment called Cutivate (which I just found out I should not use since I’m supplying breast milk for Emory) and a topical ointment called Biafine to help with the redness after the wound heals.

To be completely honest, I couldn’t have cared less about my face or the scarring because Emory was scheduled to have his second round of vaccinations yesterday. This fact weighed on my head, so much so, I was unable to eat. (A perfect solution to losing weight: schedule vaccinations for your new baby.)

We are having Emory vaccinated. We’re skipping a few, such as Hepatitis B (he can get that later), and the flu shot. I think we’re also going to skip the chicken pox vaccination. And there are others I haven’t even researched yet that may be added to that list. I’m taking it day by day. I do know one thing: we’re only allowing for two shots per visit. The CDC requests that you do more. If a person were to go along with the schedule recommended by the CDC, a child could have up to 6 shots in one visit. And I know what I’m about to write may not go over too well with the Internet, but I think that’s too many. I might change my mind as he gets older but right now I think that 6 injections is far too many. And so we’re giving him less and visiting more often (if need be).

Emory had two more vaccinations yesterday. He was given IPV (polio) and HIB (haemophilus influenzae type b). Both shots are associated with few-to-no side effects. Technically, he was also supposed to receive DTaP already but it tends to cause problems and will thus be given alone. DTaP scares me a bit. By giving it solo, if anything should happen, I will know exactly what vaccine to blame.

Of course Emory screamed when he received the shots. We were ready for that. And I stood outside the whole time. I joked with the nurse and pediatrician and told them I planned on visiting the bar across the street to get a couple of shots myself. Had I not been driving, I may have done so. Next time, however I may take the Xanax I was prescribed for flying. I really do not handle these shots very well.

So, he screamed and TJ did his best to calm him. We waited at the doctor’s office until he was soothed. A bottle helped.

We left. He was still fine. He smiled a lot and even laughed a couple of times. When we got him home, we sang to him and played with him. I gave him a tiny bath and then wrapped him up for a nap. He passed out at around 5 PM.

TobyJoe and I made dinner. I showered. Emory was still sleeping. Emory never sleeps for more than two hours during the day but I knew that his immune system was busy so I let him rest. At around 8 PM, Emory began to stir. And then all hell broke lose. He just started screaming.

Back up. I have said this before about my son but I really must reiterate it. Emory DOES NOT cry. He just doesn’t cry. He fusses, but he saves crying for whenever he’s in pain. He has cried now about four times in his life. So when he woke up screaming and red-faced I became worried. This was not the way my baby normally acts.

TobyJoe dropped everything he was doing and scooped him up. He tried his best to comfort him. And Emory screamed. Every time he opened his eyes, he screamed. With them shut, he screamed. When we tried to feed him, he screamed. Whenever we rocked him, he screamed. Pacification? Screamed. He just screamed and screamed and screamed and his mother nearly shit her pants.

Almost ALL of the literature about side-effects associated with vaccinations says to call a doctor or visit an ER if there’s a change in your baby’s behavior. And there was. It was clear to me that something was different. I called the doctor and left a desperate message.

I have no idea how much time went by (10, 15, 30 minutes?) before TobyJoe was able to get Emory to fall asleep again. And then it was worry time. What would happen whenever he awoke again? Would we have to endure more of this? Was he OK?

The doctor called me back when he was sleeping. I told her everything.

She gave me advice and then let me know that for reasons they are still very unsure of, some babies will wake up screaming and they scream no matter what you do. She said that often enough, once they fall back to sleep and wake up for a second time, they will never scream again. She said that doctors have no idea why they scream. She told me that if he wakes up again and continues to scream that I should undress him and look for anything out of the ordinary. If I don’t see anything, and he doesn’t calm down, then I can bring him to the ER. She also told me what dosage of Tylenol to give him. She tried to reassure me that the two vaccines he had were “mild”, which didn’t really reassure me because if my child was having this type of reaction to a mild vaccine, what was going to happen with the response to the DTaP?

We waited. We listened to his breathing, made sure that he wasn’t having an allergic reaction. TobyJoe tried to wake him a few times. Finally, we decided to be a little more insistent so we could give him some Tylenol.

The following second was reminiscent of something I’ve seen in movies during on of those bomb-disabling scenes. You know, the one where the guy is standing over two different color wires as the clock tics down to mere seconds and at the very last second he cuts the yellow wire. It was the second right after the cut. The one where you’re all waiting to see if the bomb goes off. That’s what the second between sleep and awake was like. Would he scream?

Silence. Grumble. Silence. Grumble. Silence. And then the feed me hands. No screaming. Just feed me hands.

I have no idea what made him scream like that. The experience was reminiscent of the time Homer Simpson remembered having found Smither’s Dad’s dead body and continually screamed no matter what anyone said or did.

And we were able to laugh about that today, nervously so. For I know that in just 30 more days, we’ll have to go through this all over again. But right now he’s happy and smiling and awesome.

How much do I hate this? So much. So very much. But I do know that getting him vaccinated is far better an option than letting him get sick. But it doesn’t make the experience any less horrible.

^{Notes for me: 25 Inches long and 14 pounds. Smiling. Giggling. Follows people around the room. Makes direct eye contact. Sleeps 4-hour stretches at night. Holds head up but at an angle – toward right shoulder. Blue eyes. Can hold feet.}

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^{Part of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), where one writes every day for the month of November, which is easier said than done.}

TobyJoe suggested that I take a bath. I had just had surgery on my face and wasn’t feeling too well. A bath might do the trick.

I grabbed some candles and a book and ran the bathwater. Murray bolted in from wherever. Murray always bolts in from wherever whenever someone leaves the door open to the bathroom. He watched the water pool and swirl, curious as ever. I poured in some bubble bath and the two of us watched the suds bubble up. Steam filled the bathroom. I got in.

I leaned forward to shave my legs, a task made for a weed whacker. I grabbed the razor and dove right in. Murray stood on the ledge next to me dizzily slapping bubbles with his paw.

Minutes went buy and I switched legs. Murray grew more curious. He started to round the back of the tub, the skinny part where a normal, graceful cat might fair pretty well. But graceful, Murray is not. And I think it’s pretty safe to say he’ll never be a member of Mensa.

Perhaps he felt adventurous. Maybe he was just lonely and cold. Perhaps the bubbles confused him. All I know is Murray hasn’t ever smelled this good.

^{P.S. I am having some serious blog issues today. Lost a post. Found it. Lost it again. Finally, I decided that the blog was trying to tell me that I couldn’t let a Tuesday go by without a Murray. Please forgive me for the issues. But here’s a Murray.}

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^{Part of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), where one writes every day for the month of November, which is easier said than done.}

In college, I got an FCC license and became a radio DJ. My show aired from 2-4 AM and had 2-4 listeners, most of whom were either Architecture or Graphic Design majors. The exception was a convicted killer named Jon.

Penn State is about 5 miles away from a maximum security prison. Our broadcast area covered the towns of State College, Bellefonte, Lemont, and Boalsburg. It also covered Rockview State Penitentiary.

Jon used to send me intricate drawings of Cramps’ skulls and dismembered heads. The drawings took him hours to complete. He’d sign each one and include a note telling me what songs he liked from the week before. He’d end his correspondence by requesting a song or two.

I always obliged. I guess I figured that if that particular lifer ever got out, he’d spare me based on the number of Exploited songs I played for him. Plus, I had trouble saying no. But Jon isn’t why I’m writing today.

Today, I’m writing about a guy named Billy.

It wasn’t long before I became the New Music Director, which basically meant working longer hours for no money. My job was to organize the CD and record collections, tidy up the workspace, and report for all staff meetings. I also got an earlier time slot.

The most important job I had was to phone in the top 25 bands for the week into CMJ Music Report. The CMJ Music Report was extremely important to managers, publicists and bands all over the nation. To get your name onto the top 25 list of a few dozen radio stations’ was considered awesome with a capital Q. (As a graphic designer, I imagine it was like having something published in Communication Arts.)

Of course, this led to all sorts of bribery, bribery I took part in from time to time. Publiciscts would offer me free stuff, sending CD after CD, “GIVE THEM TO YOUR FRIENDS!” and then they would call back and ask me why said band never made it onto the top 25. “I sent you free stuff. Can’t you do me this one favor?”

If there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I find it very hard to say NO to someone. I am just a giant pushover. And the problem with the whole Top 25 CMJ thing was that there were only 25 spots to fill and about 200 phone calls each week. Which pretty much meant I was the worst New Music Director ever. I couldn’t say no to anyone.

So, If I DID answer the call, I’d say something promising and then hang up only to be torn apart the following week for putting Buffalo Tom above Daisy Chainsaw. “YOU PROMISED ME THAT DAISY CHAINSAW WOULD BE IN THE TOP FIVE!”

These people would offer anything from free music to fake vomit. (Yes, that came to me once). I received free t-shirts and free concert tickets. Some of them even offered interviews. I interviewed Rusted Root (who smelled of body odor and last night’s sex). I interviewed Big Chief, Black Train Jack (Who? Exactly.), and my most favorite band at the time, Quicksand. I met Lita Ford (who had nothing to do with our genre, but I couldn’t say no) who was visiting and signing autographs at a local guitar shop. I stood in line and got her to record our call letters.

“You’re listening to 91.1, WPSU, State College, Pennsylvania.”

Only I wrote it like this:

“You’re listening to 91.1 WPSU, ST. College, PA.”

And she read this:

“You’re listening to 91.1 WPSU, SAINT College, PA.”

And we kept it and played it almost every week for a month.

The seediest and therefore most successful publicist was a person who not only worked with the crappy, no-name bands but who also worked with someone huge. They would use the popular band as currency for the less popular bands.

“If you move [insert crappy band here] into the top 25 on CMJ, I’ll give you two free tickets to see Nirvana this Saturday.”

One day I was fulfilling my hours when a publicist called. He wanted me to push a really awful band into the top 25 that week.

“If you do this for me, I have two tickets to see the Smashing Pumpkins this week for a sold out show at the 9:30 Club. I would like you to interview Billy Corgan as well.”

I agreed to the deal. I put that no-name, horrible band at 24 and took the free tickets. And later that week my boyfriend and I hopped in his car and drove to Washington, DC. I brought the station’s high end microphone and tape recorder with me even though I had no intention of interviewing Billy Corgan.

What the publicist didn’t know was that previously, Billy Corgan threw a shoe at someone during a Rec Hall show at Penn State and the New Music Director watched in horror. The publicist didn’t know that Billy Corgan called us all a “bunch of fucking idiot frat boys!” He had no idea that Billy Corgan asked a hall full of people “Aren’t you missing a football game?” The publicist had no idea that Billy Corgan did all of that or that if Billy Corgan was capable of launching an attack on a couple thousand people, there’s no telling what he’d do to a lanky 19-year-old girl with a borrowed microphone.

I watched the show from the VIP section in the top tier of the 9:30 Club and it was a great show. Afterwards I didn’t step foot backstage to interview Billy Corgan. There was no way this teenage girl was going to be reduced to tears while the lead singer of Smashing Pumpkins did something similar to her ego.

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^{Part of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), where one writes every day for the month of November, which is easier said than done.}

I wish I knew the history behind tubing. I don’t even have the time to research it right now. I wonder who first decided to remove the innards of a tire and put it to water. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s a great idea. Where else can one feel comfortable toting a cooler full of Busch pounders in the great outdoors? A pastime that isn’t only forgivable, it’s encouraged.

All I know is that as a kid I loved tubing. Every year, my family would stay at a campground called Wading Pines. It was a great big campground surrounded by trees, trees tied together with rivers, rivers tied together with tubes.

There was the 30-minute tubing trip, the hour-long trip, and then there was the hardcore 3-hour plus tubing trip. I never went all hardcore, being too young and all. Plus, Swimmies were discouraged on that course. Not that the officials wouldn’t allow Swimmies on the course. To be honest, I can’t remember there being any official officials. Nope, it wasn’t about the Swimmies at all. Instead, I imagine that seeing an 8-year-old float by on an inner tube while wearing Water Wings doesn’t exactly do much along the river of masculinity, masculinity and inner tubes. Plus, how many 8-year-olds can buy beer?

I bring this up today because of my 3-month-old son and a device we have called a Boppy. It’s a must have for any parent. Even if you don’t plan on breastfeeding, I highly recommend grabbing a Boppy. They have a plethora of uses, so many, I’m certain I have yet to discover them all. Sometimes I use it to hold Emory. Sometimes I use it against my back. I’ve used it to sit on and not because I have any residual issues from delivery. They’re just nice to sit on.

And I know that the label specifically states “NO SLEEPING” but sometimes it just works out that way. Sometimes the little guy falls asleep in the Boppy (under strict parental guidance of course). We refer to this as “tubing” in our household. “Emory’s tubing again!” or “Look! Emory drank too much milk and passed out in his inner tube!” Tubing is by far my most favorite use we’ve found for the Boppy.

One good thing about tubing on a Boppy is that there aren’t ever any submerged tree branches to scratch your ass. There aren’t any mosquitoes or sudden drops. There’s never any reason to wear shoes. There aren’t any dark trails or snapping turtles, pollution, human shit, or duck feces. There are no leeches (and I’m not talking about the guy who steals all the beer). There’s no need to slather oneself in sunscreen. There’s no need for Water Wings or earplugs. And no one calls you a wimp if you’re on the 30-minute course.

It’s just him, a Boppy, and the open couch.

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^{Part of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), where one writes every day for the month of November, which is easier said than done.}

7 days ago I weighed 155 pounds.

Today I weigh 152 pounds.

I will continue to give updates on my diet every Saturday until the end of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). I hope to lose 20 pounds in total. I realize it’s not much. I also realize I am not obese. I could refer to myself as a “healthy-sized” woman, call myself “curvy”. But no matter how I spin it, according to the Body Mass Index (BMI), I am overweight. (It’s kind of shocking how easy it is to slip into the obese range as well.)

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BMI Categories:

Underweight = >18.5

Normal weight = 18.5-24.9

Overweight = 25-29.9 (Here is where I am)

Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater

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I’ve been writing everything down. I keep a list of the foods I eat in a Numbers spreadsheet. (Apple’s replacement for Excel.) I keep a fairly decent idea of the calories I consume as well. It’s been quite the learning experience. For example, I had no idea how hard it is to buy something without high fructose corn syrup!

I know the information below is probably pretty damn boring to most people, but who knows. Maybe someone will find some of it helpful.

(Organic items are marked as such.)

For breakfast I’ve been eating turkey bacon and eggs or cottage cheese and a South Beach Diet high protein cereal bar. I dig the peanut butter ones. Generally speaking, I try and avoid sugar substitutes especially while breastfeeding. The high protein South Beach bars are sweetened with sugar alcohol. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but it’s tasty and doesn’t leave an aftertaste like Splenda, NutraSweet, etc. TobyJoe has made me a couple of breakfast omelets as well.

I snack on nuts during the day, olives as well. My goal has been to avoid hunger, so spend a lot of time snacking. Glenny’s Soy Crisps are an awesome substitute for potato chips. I really love the barbecue flavored. Creamy Ranch is good as well. Glenny’s Soy Crisps are a mere 140 calories per bag. I also snack on string cheese and Babybel. I’ve also treated myself to a couple of dark chocolate covered almonds. (And when I say “a couple” I really mean two.) I’ve also had a couple of pears.

For lunch, I dig into the leftovers from the night before. TobyJoe cooked a couple of Indian dishes. He made a masala chicken dish with peas. I had chicken hot dogs twice. We usually get Applegate Farms especially if our local organic meat guy doesn’t have any on Saturday at the McCarren Park Farmer’s Market. I skipped the catsup (not hard for me) and added mustard or Hain Safflower Mayonnaise.

For dinner this week we made a lot of chicken. All of our meals included a vegetable. There was usually a salad involved. One night we made barbecued seitan, another night some tempeh. I had a veggie burger (Boca) on Thursday. Tonight we’re making chili. (If anyone cares to know more about what we’ve eaten for dinner, feel free to shoot me an email and let me know. I don’t want to drone on and on about it.)

I have had a few glasses of red wine as well. The hardest part was parting with the glass of Guinness I got so accustomed to having. It’s great for milk production, but it’s also great at giving me a belly. I’ve also had some difficulty giving up milk chocolate, an item I have craved incessantly since Emory was born.

Sadly, I haven’t done a lick of exercise this week except for lifting a chubby baby. That needs to change. I must get out and run again.

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^{Updates on my weight loss will take place every Saturday in a section called Saturday Stats until I reach my goal.}

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^{Part of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), where one writes every day for the month of November, which is easier said than done.}

Emory was conceived a year ago today. I know the exact day almost down the minute for several reasons and I’ll mention a few of them below.

Four months earlier, I had gone to visit my doctor. I had blood work run. She checked for any genetic predispositions. Everything looked fine except that my measles shot had expired. (I wrote a bit about the testing here.) We also discussed ovulation and the possibility of things taking a while based on my age. Now, that doesn’t mean my doctor thought I was too old to conceive a baby. Quite the contrary. She made it abundantly clear that while I may be older compared to the rest of the nation, I was actually younger than the average New Yorker. I felt better and immediately began adding kids to my imaginary family.

She told me that usually a woman must try for an entire year before they start dealing with the possibility of fertility drugs. She told me not to freak out if it doesn’t happen right away.

She went over ovulation with me. We discussed when a woman ovulates and then she told me about those sticks women can buy (and pee on) that let you know immediately.

TobyJoe and I weren’t ready yet. I wanted to make sure I was healthy enough to actually have a baby, that my pipes were in working order, my blood up to par, etc. etc.

Over the next four months, I made jokes to remind him of my intentions.

“What do you want to eat?”

“Let’s make a baby!”

I eventually purchased one of those ovulation test kits. It ran me a small fortune for three sticks and I remember standing in the drugstore thinking that if I had to continue buying them, we might have to take out a loan. I tested myself once, a few days before Emory was conceived, while his father was away on business. I got an idea of when things take place. I was ready for whenever we were ready.

Over the years, many friends of mine (so many, I no longer have enough fingers to keep count) have had miscarriages. Still others spent months and months and months crying and fighting while trying to conceive. I know couples who spent nearly their entire life savings trying to have a baby. I have heard horror story after horror story. And I wish I were exaggerating, if anything, I’m holding back a little bit. But if there’s a point to be had here, it’s that I was convinced, based on what I learned from the people I know, that it would take me forever to become pregnant. And I was even more convinced based on the number of miscarriages I had heard about (seriously, dozens and dozens) that I would most likely experience at least one miscarriage. I was so sure of this, I would have bet money on it.

That’s why, when we got pregnant on the very first non-try, I was shocked, downright shocked. (It was a “non-try” because I had peed on a stick and figured out that I would no longer be ovulating by the time TobyJoe got back from Boston. Oops.)

So, I was pregnant. On the very first try. But I didn’t know it for three weeks and in that time I consumed a couple of glasses of wine here and there all the while my body was creating Emory. I was absolutely certain I had screwed everything up. Of course, as soon as I figured out I was pregnant, I never touched another glass of wine. But I was certain I had ruined everything because of those first couple of weeks. I kept thinking, “You’re going to be punished for this.” Punished by who? For what?

I told a few select friends. I had one rule: I’d share my early pregnancy with any person who I also felt comfortable enough telling that I miscarried. I was so sure that I would miscarry, I told those people that if I do miscarry, I’d like them to carry on about their business. I didn’t want anyone to act sad. I wanted things to go back to normal immediately. I told everyone that I wasn’t yet attached to the “sack of cells” growing inside of me.

8 weeks into my pregnancy, when I saw Emory’s heart for the very first time, everything began to change. It was so tiny! But it was a solid, beautiful heart. And I cried when I saw it.

4 weeks later, I was still pregnant. And we made the announcement to everyone.

For a long time, for almost four months into my pregnancy, I thought of him as a sack of cells. I even referred to him as such. (He later became Ndugu.) He was growing, the pregnancy side-effects were huge, but I kept him far away emotionally. I was still so sure something would go wrong.

I don’t believe there’s a God out there making things happen. And all the prayer in the world couldn’t keep the “sack of cells” alive for my friends. I don’t believe in a higher power calling the shots for us and I tend to put my faith in science more than religion. I know this belief doesn’t exactly make me very popular with the American public, but it’s the truth. I just don’t believe in all of that.

But!

I do believe in the power of retrospect. Like, had this piece not landed on that spot at that particular time, the foundation would have splintered. For example, many of those friends went on to have and adopt beautiful babies, babies they never would have met had things not unfolded the way in which they had.

Now? Now my sack of cells is a babbling fool, a great big beautiful babbling fool that I want to smooch on so hard, my lips hurt yearning for it. And so. I look at the (albeit easy) conception of Emory as something that had to happen for reasons I am unaware of, reasons I may never fully become aware of. For example, we’ve only tried once. Who knows what’ll happen if we try again. Maybe this sack of cells was my only chance. This wonderfully awesome, amazingly outstanding, hilariously incredible sack of cells was my only chance.

(Click the video below. It’s of Emory talking to me. I am on the phone with TobyJoe as well.)

So, yeah, my sack of cells was conceived one year ago today. And the folks who believe that life starts at conception might even call this Emory’s birthday. And I have to admit, now that I know him, now that he’s Emory, I can’t help but think of today as something special.

See what I mean about the power of retrospect?

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^{Part of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), where one writes every day for the month of November, which is easier said than done.}

When Emory was first born, he had his days and nights mixed up. He slept soundly all day long and for stretches of several hours and then at 9 PM the long stretches came to an end. At night, he’d drift off and then wake up almost immediately. This left two very exhausted, new parents.

I can deal with getting little sleep. If I were to get 4 hours of sleep each night for a while, that’d be fine. It was the duration of time that eventually equalled those four hours that killed me. Fifteen minutes here and there does not a night’s rest make. And the lack of sleep added to my depression, which I felt pretty intensely back then.

So, we came up with shifts. I would take him from 9 PM until about 4 AM. TobyJoe would sleep on the couch. And then TobyJoe would take him at 4:00 AM until roughly 9 AM. This worked. I managed to get at least three solid hours a night. I still had to wake up every couple of hours to supply the food, but we each managed to sleep for longer stretches.

My shift started at 9 PM and while TobyJoe slept soundly in the living room I grumbled from our bedroom. I combed through Web site after Web site, stared off into space, and during some of my darker moments I wondered what I had done to my life. After a couple of days, I decided I simply had to get some sleep.

At some point during one of my Internet reading marathons, I learned that vibrating cribs can help ease a baby to sleep. Problem was, we never purchased one of these vibrating things. I still have no idea how this vibrating crib thing works. I read that some of them even make womb-like sounds.

On one particularly bad night, I hit rock bottom where depression was concerned. It was worse only due to how tired I was. I laid there begging, reasoning with Emory, “Please sleep, little one! Please let Mama sleep! Can you? Please?” And he’d whine and squeal. There was nothing I could do. I would rub his back, reassure him that I was still there and the repetitive motion would put me to sleep, while he squirmed and squealed. It was useless.

I thought about the vibration idea again. I began to lightly shake the crib. He calmed down. But I did as well. The vibration rocked me to sleep. Vibration stopped. He squealed again.

What to do?

A long, long time ago, TobyJoe and I spent a lot of money at a store called Toys In Babeland. (Sort of potentially not work safe). Every holiday, I would get a new toy. (Gentlemen, just because you happen to have the working parts to satisfy your lady, doesn’t mean that adding a prop or two into your love life is out of the question. Props do not take away from your masculinity, quite the opposite. The holiday season is coming up. Might I suggest you buy a little something for your lady?)

But I digress.

And you probably know where this is going.

I dug out the only battery operated, vibrating device I could think of, turned it on high, and put it right up at the top of Emory’s Pack ‘n Play. I fell asleep and so did he.

Later, when TobyJoe came into the bedroom to retrieve the baby, the device sat lifelessly in his crib.

“I got desperate.” I said answering no question at all.

“I can see that.”

“And not in the way one might assume when referring to one of these things.”

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^{Part of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), where one writes every day for the month of November, which is easier said than done.}

I had the cancer cut out of my upper lip yesterday. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be. Although, when they were finished I looked like this:

Usually I look like this.

(I’m the guy on the right.)

I arrived at 9:45 AM. They took me in at 10:00 AM and told me about the procedure. They injected my upper lip with lidocaine. A LOT of lidocaine. I learned yesterday that redheads don’t numb as easily as others. My doctor told me it takes double the dose of lidocaine to fully numb a redhead. She said that after years of having redheads complain that they could still feel the pain after a normal dose, anesthesiologists conducted a study and found that redheads do indeed need more local anesthesia. (This explains why I felt the sutures at George Washington Hospital when I cut myself with an exacto blade. The doctors didn’t believe me but I insisted and they finally gave me more.) Apparently doctors have no idea why this is. But I know why. It’s because redheads are bad ass motherf*ckers.

So I got double the dose, even though my hair is currently dyed brownish. I guess you can’t hide being even slightly redheaded. The dose she gave me made my lip swell up so much I could see it popping out from below my nose. She left me alone to let the injection do its thing. It numbed my lip as well as my teeth, my right nostril and my cheek.

The doctor came back into the room and carved a hole about the size of a large pea around the tumor. It’s kind of like what you do to a pumpkin’s head before gutting it. She removed the piece of skin and then cauterized the wound, which smelled like burning hair and (for a split second) beef. They bandaged me up and I was told to sit in the waiting room where others sat waiting as well.

One older woman had her entire chin covered up, blood oozed from below the bandage. Another guy had the right side of his head bandaged. And yet another man had his ear covered with gauze. We were all victims of sun damage. And I was by far the youngest there.

We waited. After about an hour, the nurse came in to let everyone know if they were “clear” or not. If you’re clear, you’re stitched up and sent away. If you’re not clear, you have to go back in and they carve out another piece/layer of skin. Somehow, I was clear on the first try, something that rarely happens. (I caught it early. That’s the only reason. It can spread quickly and it can dig roots. There is no way of knowing how much they’ll have to carve out and in what shape.)

I scheduled another appointment to discuss a skin cream treatment called Aldara, which apparently enhances one’s immune system so it can fight certain skin problems/diseases including basal cell carcinoma. The side effects can be a little scary but I’m going to meet with my doctor to discuss the options. Either way, I can’t do anything about it until I’m done supplying breast milk for my little dude (who will wear sunscreen or he will not get the college fund we set up for him this week).

People, wear sunscreen. If you don’t wear sunscreen you’re a moron. And I lump you in with all the idiots who refuse to wear helmets. I was a moron. If you don’t apply sunscreen while in the sun, you are a moron. It’s that simple. And besides, do you really want to look like this?

Wear sunscreen, you moron.

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^{Part of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), where one writes every day for the month of November, which is easier said than done.}

I’m dieting, which means we’re coming up with new and exciting ways to eat healthy foods. I began by purchasing this book and it’s pretty great. We’re eating a lot more veggies and more often. TobyJoe and I eat pretty well to begin with, him more so than me. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t the occasional pizza, the occasional burger with fries, and the occasional 13 cupcakes. It’s when you bring all the occasionals together that it starts to look less like an occasional and more like a habit. So, we’re cutting out the occasionals.

Last week TobyJoe cooked up some cauliflower. It was delightful. He cooked up more than necessary so I could continue to snack on it while he was at work. You see, my weakness since the baby was born, has been waiting until the very last minute to eat and I’m starving by that point. So I end up grabbing something less than healthy. For example, eating some Lite Cheese Curls is fine but when you finish the entire bag, well, that kind of kills the whole “lite” aspect.

By making that extra bit of cauliflower, I could snack on it instead. But we live with Murray and we left the pan unattended for a few minutes. And that was stupid.

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^{Part of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), where one writes every day for the month of November, which is easier said than done.}

Tomorrow I’m scheduled to have my face ripped apart for mistakes I made as a teenager. (OK, so I’m exaggerating a little.) I am not looking forward to it, not one bit.

I’m scheduled to be there at 9:45. And it can take anywhere from 3 to 7 hours. Judging by the size of my spot, I’m hoping it’s just 3. The weird thing about MOHs, and the reason that it takes so long, is a patient remains on the premises until every last piece of cancerous tis