Fear and Loathing In The Diaper Pail

I became friends with Anise a couple of years ago when Liam and her son Christopher hit it off at pre-preschool. I didn’t know her at all, but she gave me her card and suggested a playdate. “What the hell,” I thought, and invited her, a total stranger, to our house to play. Turns out we hit it off, too, and she’s become a good friend.

In January of 2007, Adam and I started trying to get me pregnant (don’t you hate when couples refer to themselves as a couple as pregnant? I assure you, the man is NOT pregnant). I didn’t tell anyone about it, because as soon as people know you’re trying, they come up to you at every opportunity with a big smile and an expectant, “Sooooooooo?” and then when you tell them you’re not, you get the “oh-how-awkward” smile and the dismissive, “Oh, you will.”

Except I wasn’t. Not in January, not in February, not in March. Not in April or May, either. Or June. Meanwhile, everyone we knew was getting pregnant. My sister-in-law. My cousin. My girlfriend from high school. Another cousin was actively trying. And soon the people we knew who were expecting before we started trying were having their babies. I finally confided to Anise I’d been trying for so long when she announced to me in maybe April that she and her husband had begun trying. So for a couple of months, we commiserated together. While I was becoming more and more frustrated and hopeless, it was good to have someone else to complain to about it, who knew how it felt. Until late June, when for her, it worked. It’s hard not to feel like a jealous, dried-up old reproductive failure when everyone around you seems to be getting pregnant and having babies, but with her, I don’t know why, I felt truly happy for her, without the slightest twinge of envy. I was glad. And it felt good not to feel bad.

The good karma paid off for me, and a couple of weeks later in mid-July I got my own positive EPT. We were going to be pregnant together. So, instead of bitching about how we weren’t getting pregnant, we were bitching about how we were. Anise was way sicker than me, and our playdates for Christopher and Liam became infrequent, because she just couldn’t get out of the house in the mornings.

My pregnancy continued without so much as a hiccup. Completely healthy in every way. But Anise developed gestational diabetes, which she also had had with Christopher. A major problem that develops when a mother has gestational diabetes is that the baby tends to have very large shoulders, which can get stuck during delivery. But Anise worked hard to months to control her diabetes and prepare for a safe delivery. She was assigned to a high-risk OB and eventually had to pull Christopher out of his and Liam’s preschool class, because she had to go to weekly ultrasounds and non-stress tests that coincided with class.

We both discovered we were both having boys again, which made it even more fun. Her boy, to be named Cameron, was due in early- to mid-March, mine, to be named Lucas, on April 1. We began waddling around more, yelling at Liam and Christopher to help clean up so we didn’t have to scoot around on the floor on our butts to pick up toys after playdates, since we couldn’t really bend over.

Her due date came and she was induced and then I didn’t hear from her, which I didn’t think anything of, since you just get so wrapped up in the whole brand-new-baby thing, especially when you already have a little one at home. She was busy, I assumed. And I was busy too. I’d been given a date for a planned cesarean, March 24, and I had to get ready, as well as take care of Liam and get ready for Easter. She called me a few days before my hospital date and told me a story that blew my mind.

During her delivery, Cameron’s shoulder became stuck. And rather than perform an emergency cesarean, her doctor yanked the boy out with such force, his shoulder was dislocated and several nerves were damaged. His arm just hung there limply and he was screaming in pain for hours before anyone noticed there was a severe problem. Their pediatrician informed them that Cameron would probably be handicapped for life and that when he was 3 months old, they could try surgery using nerves from his legs to repair some of the damage, which may or may nor restore function in his arm and hand.

So for three months, they did physical therapy, which their insurance did not cover. Cameron had to have a brace for his shoulder, which eventually healed and his hand, to keep it from curling with atrophy. Then Cameron had his surgery, which took 10 hours, involving general anesthesia and cutting into his legs and neck. Later they learned that two of the nerves had been severed completely, and without the surgery, he would definitely never have been able to use his hand.

Cameron is 4 months old now and he’s out of a cast. His scars are already small and in time will probably be barely noticeable. But the full results of the surgery won’t be known until he is maybe 3 years old.

Meanwhile, Anise is channeling her energies into promoting awareness of this birth injury, which is more common than you would think. She’s trying to set up a support group for families who are going through the same thing and to inform mothers-to-be about working with their doctors to prevent it. She has set up a website and made a video to promote it.

Please take a few moments to view the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opoMJT3hzJE and the website at www.cameronssmile.org. Pass it on to anyone you know who may be dealing with this, and to any expecting mothers you know, especially those at risk for or diagnosed with gestational diabetes. I’ll keep the website linked to my page in the list to your left.

Thanks!

Dude. I got hit on today at the grocery store … when I was with the baby. What a loser. It was totally disturbing. He was all like, “What a cute baby!” and then he says, “I mean, I’m a man, I can’t think babies are cute.” So he says in a fake deep voice, “What a cute baby.” And then he even SLUGS ME IN THE ARM, laughing like we’re sharing this hilarious joke. Christ.

You know what sucks about being hit on when you’re married? You only get hit on by the loseriest losers. Because no decent guy goes up to a married woman with an infant in a pumpkin seat. No, the only men who will hit on you are these total asshats. Like, yeah, you with the menthols and the manpris. You’re the one I’d give it all up for. Douchebag.

Being hit on by dudes like that don’t make you feel all that appealing, either. It’s not like you walk away thinking, “You still got it, sister!” No, you walk away thinking, “THAT’S all I can get? THAT’S the guy who hits on me? Kill me now.” It’s not like you’ll ever be mulling over the Yukon Golds with the diaper bag slipping off your shoulder when the handsome 30-something chief of pediatric cardiology from your city’s most prestigious teaching hospital casually asks if, after a hard day of saving babies and walking on water, he might please buy you a drink sometime with some of his many hundreds of thousands of dollars. “Oh no,” you blush, lashes batting demurely. “I couldn’t possibly. You see, I’m married.” “Oh,” he replies, obviously crushed. “Lucky bastard.” No. That NEVER happens.

Or perhaps I’m shopping at the wrong grocery store.

Classic baby moment this morning. I feed Lucas, he spends some time watching Sesame Street with me and Liam. I put him down for a nap, I go take a shower, refill my coffee, do some dishes. He wakes up, so I go in and he’s all happy and smiley. I change him out of his pajamas into a nice little sunsuit with a dinosaur on it. “There!” I say. “All handsome!” And he spits up all over it.

I like to think I’m the kind of parent who abides by my word on most issues. When I say there’ll be a time-out, there’s a time-out. When I say I’ll take the toy away if you don’t stop swinging it around the room, the toy gets taken away. Likewise, when I say there will be a treat for something good, I don’t renege.

In our efforts to get Liam into underpants by the time preschool starts in August, I’ve implemented the common child-rearing tactic known as bribery. When Liam sits on the potty, he gets a small bit of candy, which I let him pick out himself at the grocery store. His reward candy of choice is Dots. When he actually goes, he gets a small packet of his favorite candy, Gummi Savers.

This strategy was working for awhile. Liam could make himself poo, even when he didn’t have to. He’d MAKE something come out, just for the candy. I was worried about his butt. Liam also knew he wasn’t supposed to wet his underpants. He knew he was supposed to sit on the potty, but it seems he didnt know how to make himself go. The result was that I’d sit him on the pot, nothing would happen, he’d get some candy for his efforts and five minutes later I’d be wringing out Spider-Man undies and socks under the sink.

Finally, in this past week, Liam has gotten the hang of making himself pee. He has also learned to beat the system. He’d hop on the pot for like, 17 seconds, and say, “Candy!” He wasn’t even trying! So yesterday morning, after this blatant disregard for the honor system, I went back on my word. I changed the rules. I announced, “From now on, candy only if you go!” And I put him in underpants.

A couple of times he’d tell me he had to pee, only to try his same old trick. “No,” I’d cheerfully say. “Candy only if you go!” Even though it was only 7 a.m., I plied him with Kool-Aid (which I don’t necessarily care for, but I’m not philosophically opposed to him drinking it, like soda, and besides, desperate times call for desperate measures). And after I suggested he sit and try, he succeeded in voluntarily peeing. “Woo hoo!” I praised. “Way to go! Let me get you some CANDY!!!”

And with that, he got the message. That kid peed SEVEN TIMES by 11 in the morning. He was racking up candy left and right. He had Dots and Gummi Savers and Three Musketeers and peanut butter Hershey’s Kisses.

I put him in a diaper for his nap, which he did wet, but the rest of the day he was in the same pair of underpants. Same for today. I put him in a Pull-Up (useless for all but the most seriously-in-training) when we went out and did our errands and when we came back home it was wet. But the rest of the day he’s been in underpants and he says when he’s going to pee and sits himself down. If he hasn’t gone in 45 minutes, I suggest he try and he usually can make something happen.

So we’re making progress! He’s not all the way there yet and he hasn’t dropped a deuce today, which I’m not looking forward to, but he’s getting the hang of it for sure and I know better than to get all confident and make predictions, as that’s the quickest way to get the Parenthood Gods to laugh right in your stupid, amateur face, but I’m really thinking he’ll probably, most likely, if everything goes well, be potty trained here pretty soon. Hopefully. I think. Maybe.

So have you heard the news? I’m not nice.

Yesterday I was feeding Lucas and Liam was whining about wanting me to come “make his blanket flat” and I told him no, that he’d have to do it himself or wait until I was done with the baby and he walks away, repeating to no one in particular, “Mommy’s not nice. Mommy’s not nice. Mommy’s not nice.”

Yep, that’s me. Just a big ol’ jackass.

I may or may not add to this list, but whatever I do, it doesn’t matter much because you, dear reader, couldn’t possibly care less. It’s one of those Important Only To Mom things. Adam and I were watching Family Guy last night and a guy whipped out his wallet to another guy and said, “I love children! Wanna see pictures of my kids?” and then starts slapping the guy in the face with it until he started bleeding. It was hilarious. This sort of post is like that.

Liam thinks Spongebob Squarepants is a piece of cheese.

Liam pronounces the word “meteor” as “meatyhorn”.

Lucas is 8 weeks old and SIXTEEN pounds.

More to come, if I can get up enough energy and time to A. remember them and B. write them down.

God, whoever said, “One kid is a hobby; two is a job” was right. And I say that with an infant who pretty much just sits there. I’m really still only chasing after one.

Lucas is a good boy. Good-natured, likes to smile. But he’s gassy. So very, very gassy. And a gassy baby is an unhappy baby. He’s on soy formula, because milk formulas made him constipated (NOTE: a constipated baby is an even unhappier baby). But now he’s just this gas bomb. I’m telling you, we could eat beans straight from a Mexican latrine all day and just blame it on him.

Still, he’s easy. He doesnt complain about anything (except gas). He doesnt roll over or crawl or get into anything. He doesnt whine and he doesnt defy me. Babies are easy. Toddlers are HARD.

At any rate, I’m so burned out on kids today, I dont even want to talk about them. I want a margarita and a Full-Moon Fish Sandwich while sitting near the open-air doors at Sloppy Joes down in old Cayo Hueso. Bone Island, yo. I’m talkin’ KEY WEST, my homies. I also want to show you my clematis.

I’m a clematis fan. Love them. I have four clematis plants, three of which are new and nothing to write home about. But THIS one is my baby. This will be its third summer. The first one I got one measly flower. Last summer I got maybe four, somewhat less measly flowers. This year …

BA-DOW!!

I’m just so pleased.

So I know it’s not a big, grand announcement, but I’m tired and I’m headed straight back to bed after this, while I can get some Zs before Liam gets up from his nap. Hopefully.

Lucas Alexander was born March 24 at 9:02 a.m. He was 9 lbs, 3 oz. and 21 inches long. He’s the spittin’ image of his big brother and he’s got a sweet disposition. His only vice is sleepin’ all day and partyin’ all night, so he’s slowly killing his old man, who walks around like the living dead. I’m deflating day by day and I’ve lost 20 pounds in this past week and a half.

MORNING OF:

A FEW HOURS LATER:

WITH BIG BROTHER LIAM:

CHILLIN’ ON SOME POST-OP ICE CHIPS:

If you’ve noticed a change in the tides or phases of the moon lately … it’s me. Sorry about that. I have developed a significant gravitational pull and several small satellites now orbit around me. I also have a decent-sized colony of tiny, parasitic fish that swim near me wherever I go, cleaning off barnacles and algae.

You wanna hear something totally gross?

I can feel the baby’s shoulders digging into my hip bones when I sit down. It’s so disgusting. They feel all round and pointy at the same time.

When you’re pregnant, your doctor measures the size of your belly from the top of your uterus to the bottom in centimeters to determine whether the baby is growing at an approriate rate. The number of centimeters corresponds roughly with the number of weeks you are pregnant. For instance, if you are 34 weeks pregnant, then your belly should measure about 34 centimeters.

I’m 37 weeks pregnant (I prefer to say, “In my 38th week,” because it sounds further along) and yesterday my belly measured SMALLER than it did last week because the baby is so far down and to the back. My docor said his head is “on the launching pad,” by which she must mean my bladder. He’s all kneading on my organs and sticking his bony little shoulders into my pelvis. Blech. I’m going to go lie down now, so my belly is sideways on the bed, and not cramming up my innards.

 12 days, y’all. Recognize.