July 11

As we counted down the days (after all today is one day closer to your birth … no matter how you slice it), we spent a lot if time listening and observing.  One time of day that is particularly amusing is around 3:pm when the volunteer (not some young candy striper, but little old ladies) come down the hall, pushing (or are they holding on to the cart for support – like an uncontrollable walker, the wheels going in four opposite directions , at the same time) … a Cart laden with Chocolate Bars, Chips, Peanuts and other assorted goodies.  You would think it was the Good Humor Truck on a sweltering day in the summer, at a Kid’s Park, the way the mothers run out, tripping over each other,  day after day to get their fix.  Unfortunately for the Moms In Waiting, a fix for them is a fix for their Babies who react to the sugar high by kicking their Moms in the ribs so violently, in such an aggressive, antsy manner, they almost feel insulted. 

Meanwhile, Baby of Mine, you stretch, extend your arms and legs, yawning, hiccupping, rolling over with tender care taken to not hurt me.  Thank you, Baby.  It solidifies the feeling I have that I must enjoy every second of the just “you and me” time since the minute you are born you will be assaulted (with the best intentions) of the world and its’ peoples (hanger on-ers) … at large and all of its’ influences, both good and evil.

July 14

Although it is your Grampsey’s birthday today and you have officially passed your July 13 ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival),  all is quiet on the Western Front.  No sign of pushing & shoving your way in to our world.  The twins, a robust 5 pound girl and a 4.5 pound boy child are delivered without incidence (praise God) by C Section to the Mom Later In Life.  She is a strong determined Mother and the same day is on her feet, up at the nursery reveling in joy and satisfaction.

I have to admit every time I hear of a successful delivery of a healthy baby I think of the odds and wonder where and when that Roulette Wheel will pounce on some unsuspecting family, reeking havoc.  Everyone knows odds being what they are, after so many healthy babies are born, a chance based on age of mother, condition during pregnancy, medical history can affect the outcome so I selfishly look at the happy new Moms and their beautiful babies and keep my fingers crossed. 

Please God, hear my prayers, not just the smartest baby (I admit I was that foolish – be careful what you wish for), but a thriving baby who will one day be an adult, contributing  his/her assets to a world that is in need of compassion and justice.

July 9

When the Politician’s Wife Mom had the highest possible blood pressure with out breaking the stethoscope and feet swollen the size of small countries, a decision was made to induce labour. 

Now she may have been uppity but she was no whiner or complainer so when she told myself and the Mom-of-the-Twins on the Way what she went through during delivery, we believed her. 

It seems the birthing process was a horror show, as the drugs administered in the early morning to induce labour did not do their job, so more was added, then more added, then more added, you get the picture. 

Meanwhile her Ob/Gyn, a bit of a player, flirting with the Moms in Waiting, went home, and told the nurses not to call me “when” but call me  “if”.  Very comforting message for a  first time Mom-In-Waiting who had little idea of what would happen going in to labour, and now not sure if she is ever going to be out of labour, as the compiled drugs racked her body with waves of pain. 

All thoughts of natural childbirth, all those hours of practicing breathing taught at Prenatal Classes were forgotten as she strived to hang on.  The nurses would check her dilation, try to encourage her, just an other thirty minutes and then just another thirty minutes, you are doing a great job.  And then, as slow as it had been, some where in the wee hours of dawn of the next day, it ended in a flash, no thanks to her doctor, who slid in the door, just in time to catch her beautiful baby girl slip out without a lick of help from her Ob/Gyn.

Since labour had been induced at 38 weeks, her baby jaundiced and had to stay at the hospital after her Mom was discharged, as is often the case. There she was, a bouncing Baby Girl, in the Special Care Nursery under the blue/green lights, her eyes covered, with only a diaper on, in order to break down the bilirubin. All the moms I met during my hospital stays, came to visit me in early September, along with a nanny for the Politician’s Baby and of course … all the Babies born. Now we could celebrate happy endings. I wonder what and where they are today, don’t you, Wonder Boy?

All’s well that ends well… 

July 4 (Cont’d)…

There was also a young Russian Mom who had been bed ridden since about her third month because of the threat of miscarriage. She couldn’t leave her room so I dropped in once a day to cheer her on… just can’t help myself …I was Head Cheerleader for three years in High School. I was lucky to have a variety of great Mom’s that from every country and continent and I not only liked them, I admired their strength and saw how alike we all were in our fight to have a full term healthy baby.

The hospital was in an Italian part of the city so I met up with many of them as well … but my favorite was the Italian Mom with Wedding Pictures.  It was extremely important that we would all know, just a year ago when she married the love of her life, she was a normal weight.  Pregnancy had reeked havoc she wailed – just look at her, as round as she was tall.  She had to admit, she had contributed, routinely making her hubby go out in the middle of the night to get her Double Bacon Whoppers with a side of Large Onion Rings (sometimes it was fries) and a chocolate milkshake.  Oh, and she couldn’t count the gallons of ice cream she had unwittingly downed.  Of course it was not her fault – who would have thought a teeny tiny baby could cause such cravings, she asked to any one who would listen.  As her audience of Mom’s In Waiting commiserated, trotting out horror stories of their own cravings, I mean spiritly thought, if you eat like a piggie, good chance you’ll end up looking like a piggie.

Now me, I’ve always had a sweet tooth.  Strangely enough after you came on Board that changed – now I liked salty snacks like chips and crickly cracks (cheetos) as your Grampsey (a name you chose for him) would say.  But midnight cravings? Nah! Only one time and it wasn’t a craving, more like a big old rat gnawing at my stomach lining.  It was the night we had moved, back in December when I had packed and unpacked, ran up and down the stairs, then down the stairs and up the stairs, not pausing to eat, catch my breath or even give thought to such basic needs to keep my body going. 

I had fallen to bed in a stupor to wake up to the gnawing – that’s what I forgot to do… eat… I thought.  I went downstairs, all the while hearing Dr. D.’s warnings in my ears, “When you are pregnant weight is easy to gain, hard to loose”.  I opened the fridge that resembled Mother Hubbard’s cupboard so I settled for two slices of toast with a slice of processed cheese.  In no time the rat was fed and left the same way he came. 

So I guess, we been blessed with avoiding all those cravings but some skeptical part of me doesn’t want to blame the hormones as much as the weakness of the other Moms In Waiting. Being born a critical Virgo is such a drag for those around me.

July 2

We are in a semi private room with a revolving door, in the hospital.  Not for you and me, Baby but for the Moms who come in to have their healthy baby and head home.  There is a definite pattern, I have found.  The bed beside us is empty, then a baby gets born… always in the middle of the night… which means the new Mom is delivered to the room by 1:am, given her baby to feed, and fussed over because Baby is not latching and the nurses are sure the Mom is doing something wrong – ah, the blame on Mom’s for their children’s behavior starts at the breast, I have found out. Finally Baby is fed, family members leave, lights out by 4:am, just as the sun is starting to rise in the east.  We try to fall back to sleep and are just about there, when the overhead lights flood the room. It is 6:am already – time for the vampires to stick you and me with more needles, trying to cajole blood out of a stone, it would seem.

By now, your condition has a name – you are a “Small to Date Baby”…because of our Placenta Previa…  That means every morning we are weighed.  Not being one to step on the scales at home, I am shocked to find out I weigh 112lbs.  Last time Dr. D.. weighed me I was over 120 Lbs…, I thought.  I realized I was dropping weight in other places as my tummy grew, but eight pounds, huh?  Every day it seemed I dropped a few more ounces, as my arms and legs became sticks.  Early on in the pregnancy, Dr. D. railed against me gaining too much weight.  Later on I questioned Dr. D., when I did not seem to be gaining as much as my sisters who ‘had been there, done that’. As the opposite scenario presented itself, he largely ignored, no… I would say he embraced it and declared I would have no trouble getting back to my normal pre-pregnancy weight of 104 lbs. Other Mom’s with eclampsia had the opposite problem, gaining weight on a daily basis, as their extremities ballooned and they could no longer bend down to tie their shoe laces. Wonder what their doctors counselled?

July 4

What an array of Mom’s  In Waiting we have met in a few days, by walking the halls and going to the Meet and Greet Room.  Two very interesting Yuppie Mommies shared a semi private. The Politician’s Wife Mom had both eclampsia and her nose in the air.  It was a second marriage for the her husband…a politician… the second family and he had as much time for her as he had for his first family, I suspect.  Be careful the row you hoe.

The Politician’s Wife Mom would talk to immigrant Mom’s in the hallway and Meet and Greet Rooms but she let me know she wasn’t sharing a room with them. She would pay for a private room before she submitted to that! Hhhmmm! Interesting optics for a politician’s wife! Her room mate, Mom of the Later in Life Twins, (apparently fertility drugs worked for her)… although a Yuppie and in agreement  when in the company of the Politician’s wife could change her mind and deny believing it ever, when the Politician’s Wife Mom left the hospital… (Cont’d on Part 13B)

June 5

Today at work, as three of us stood around discussing an employee that is giving the gears to his plant supervisor,  when a piece of paper floats to the floor.  We all dived to get it but being competitive, I got there first.  Jose, (having heard Spanish since conception, while I was at work – naturally  you learned to speak it with an unheard of ease),  the Head Supervisor started to laugh.  What does it say about the rest of them and their reflexes when at 35 weeks pregnant, you and I beat them all fair and square?  But hey, I am the Office Manager, I am supposed to be fast.  What does an Office Manager do, you ask?  Worry, worry, worry – about the employees we hire, the sales we make, the purchasing of supplies, the financial statements and don’t forget, the delivery of the toilet paper. We gotta be fast… or the whole plant is in perpetual chaos.

June 14

Your Aunt Who Taught Me Most the Things I Know and your Grandma gave us a Baby shower today, with all my sisters and many Gaspesian friends (remember that land of ice and snow we visited in May) and relatives attending.  Also Oma, Aunt Ria (your Dad’s eldest sister) and surprise, surprise Aunt Makaikai (Mother of our Runaway Princess) came also.  Oma gave you a beautiful afghan she knit herself in shades of pink, blue, green and yellow, trimmed in white.  Grandma gave us a little pink Rudolph blanket your Great Aunt Millie and Great Uncle Eve had given me, thirty one years back, on my first Christmas, with a touching poem of passing it on to you, Baby.   My family had bought us a rocking chair which we plan to put to good use.  Grandparents and Babies and Rocking Chairs – that is what the world needs more of.  My Aunt Millie as well as my friends and relatives gave us a boat load of little tiny sleepers, outfits, rattles, toys, blankets, hooded towels and every possible little thing a baby needs to make it in this world of ours.  You are so treasured already.  The clock is ticking.

June 30

Today is our last day at work – I will have a couple of weeks to anticipate your safe arrival since your are not due until July 13– did you know that day is your Aunt Catholic Girls Starts Much Too Late’s birthday – she’d be thrilled if you arrived then or do you suppose you could hold off a day and be born on Grampa’s birthday, July 14? Knowing me…well…I am always (mostly) on time…but I need your participation too. Bring.It.On.Baby!