Just showing us who's boss

Thirteen days after my due date, I was finally induced at 10am on Saturday. The pitocin was discontinued a couple of hours later and Carter MacLeod Norton was born at 5:12pm. The serious contractions really didn't kick in until noon so things went very quickly (I was in labor for 20 hours with Toddler in Chief). TIC had an opportunity to meet his baby brother before bedtime!

We were discharged just 18 hours later. Our family has gained some valuable hospital management skills. Here are the first pictures.

Now for some rest!

P.S. for those who've asked, MacLeod is a family name - Carter's paternal great-great-great grandmother was Lydia Ann MacLeod. She was born to Scottish immigrants in Prince Edward Island in 1864, joining most of Carter's paternal ancestors who had already been in America since the early 1600s. Carter's maternal side would arrive years later from Germany, Ireland and Italy.

And the days go on

I'm still pregnant--just nine days past due is all. I had a non-stress test today and my doctor said she could let me go until the 16th. My amniotic fluid is borderline...something about me having seven millimeters (whatever that means) and five is the cut-off or something, but the baby is fine for now. Anyway, unfortunately, July 16 is a Sunday and they don't induce on the weekends, so it will have to be Friday or Monday.

I originally said Monday, but we get into problems with airports, etc., with family leaving and arriving on Tuesday. And it would be really sad for Grammy to have been here for three weeks and not ever get to see baby brother or only see him for an hour before leaving, since induction can take 24 hours or so. That said, I guess if I don't go into labor by Friday, I'll have them induce me, which is really frustrating. I just hate the idea of being given and IV and being pumped full of pitocin, which means really intense contractions and the likelihood of an epidural or C-section.

I know it's silly, but having a little bit of control or at least the illusion of control is important to me. After having no control over anything with Toddler in Chief's birth, I want to be in charge of something. I want my body to work like it's supposed to and I want to birth my baby--my way. I know the most important thing is that baby comes out healthy, but I hate feeling like I'm losing control of the situation before I even get into things.

What lies ahead...

As the inevitable approaches--I'm four days past my due date--I try to remember the joys and stresses of having a new baby. I try to remember everything that I have forgotten. Only the odds suggest that our experience first time around will be avoided. So in many ways, this birth will provide many firsts. I don't know the weight of my brand new baby against the top of my stomach. I don't know what it's like to hold my baby and nurse him when he is new. I don't know what a belly button stump looks like, or how to clean one. I never changed a meconium-filled diaper. Many of the firsts we'll experience this time will be firsts indeed, even though this is our second baby.

Then there is a big part of me that is terrified that other things will be wrong. It's like my brain is trying to shield itself from the inevitable pain by convincing myself ahead of time that things are going to be bad. Don't be optimistic. Don't be hopeful. Don't take anything for granted. I'm afraid to have this baby because I'm afraid of having a regular baby. I'm afraid of having a regular baby, only to find out later that he has so many problems. I'm afraid of having a sick baby because I've already been through that and I can't go through that again. Father in Chief says if our baby is sick again, we'll get through it--just like we've gotten through it with Toddler in Chief. I wish I felt that optimistic. I think all of my strength has been used up. I just don't feel capable of doing it again. In some ways I feel bad for this new baby. It's as if all of my energy, all of my hope, all of my optimism is gone. And if I need to pull some of that strength for the challenges that inevitably lie ahead--the challenges of a perfectly healthy, normal baby--it won't be there.

I can only hope that when he is born, all of my fears will disappear because he will be real. He will be perfectly healthy and normal. And I will fall into the rhythms and ebbs and flows of being a parent, of having a newborn, and finding myself in a new and wonderful "normal."

How dare I have another?

For at least the first year of Toddler in Chief's life, I couldn't imagine having another baby. We had been through so much. We were still bruised, still reeling from what we'd been through early on. We were still haunted by what was to come. But after his second surgery, we realized that having another baby was like giving ourselves permission to keep living. Our life didn't end when we had a child with life-threatening health problems. It had just become part of who we are. Even though our experience could never be described as normal, it's the only experience we know; it's our normal. There will always be life before and life after. But that doesn't mean we need to be totally defined by where we've been, what we've seen, the sorrow we've felt, the mourning we've done, the uncertainty we face.

When TIC was in the hospital earlier this year--during one of his darkest days in the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit--one of the nurses asked me, "So, why did you decide to have another?" The tears fell on cue. Her tone suggested that she couldn't believe that we decided to have another, considering things obviously hadn't worked out so well with the first one. I have often suspected that people have wondered that about us--not that it's anyone's business if we decide to have more kids. But especially as I waddled around the hospital for those six weeks, I often felt like I was being judged. And from the tone of that nurse's voice, I apparently was, even as I hovered over the listless body of my three-year-old son.

But why shouldn't TIC have a sibling? Why shouldn't we have the joy of another baby? The joy of a bigger family? Even with all of TIC's problems, he is amazing and I feel honored to get to know him, to spend time with him--even if he drives me crazy occasionally.

A friend is going though the process of having a second baby with a surrogate. She is 44 years old and the surrogate just went through a failed IVF cycle. My friend and her husband were thinking it was getting to be too late to try again because they are in their 40s. But her fears, her hesitations, her concerns about the future reminded me of why we decided to have another baby. We don't know how much time we have on this earth. All we can do is make choices based on where we are right now and what we want for ourselves. When my son was born, I realized that life doesn't come with any kind of guarantees. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for the best life we can build for ourselves, complete with all the ups and downs. Even with all of our downs--and we've had more than our share--the ups, the joys of being a parent to my special kid, far outweigh all that other stuff. Don't get me wrong, that other stuff is real, it's there everyday. But sometimes we forget about it for a few minutes and we live and we laugh and we just are. And it's all worth it.

The weeks after

It seems like a lifetime ago when I would write--almost daily. My day wasn't complete until I sat down and shared some introspection with the world. It was so important to me, to my identity as an invisible at-home parent. It mattered. When I wrote I wasn't invisible anymore. I would sit bleary-eyed at the computer until late at night when the only sound was the tapping of my fingers against the keyboard and the ticking of the Einstein clock above my head.

Then my kid needed surgery--yet again. I could barely write. I could barely sleep. I could barely eat. Those are all bad things for a parent. Those are all really bad things for a pregnant parent.

Now we're on the other side of that harrowing experience, and I'm trying to remember who I am, who I was before we went into that storm. And it seems that I've come out a different person. I'm not just a woman or a mother or caretaker or a friend or a wife. I'm someone who watched my son nearly die. I'm someone who cried for hours every day. I'm someone who felt pain so deeply that it hurt to eat, to drink, to wait, to breathe. I watched my son crawl back from the edge. I watched the staff draw blood from his neck, rip tubes from his chest, be so weak that he didn't have the strength to hold up his head or lift his arms. He wouldn't look at us, talk to us, ask us for help or tell us when he was hurt. He wouldn't smile or laugh. He barely cried. He was stoic. He was sad. And there was so little we could do besides be there with him and try to comfort him. During those five-and-a-half weeks his body was transformed. After surgery, he was swollen, so bloated. Then he started to disintegrate, losing nearly 20 percent of his body weight. And now he's so small, so skinny, so boney, so different. He has been cut and poked on every part of his body. He has scars on his arms and legs and wrists and chest and stomach and neck.

I was scared to feel optimistic. I was afraid to love him completely, as if my body was trying to shield itself from more hurt, from what seemed inevitable. So many times my brain was trying to capture the essence of what we were going through. Even when it seemed that things were getting better, they often got worse again. My mind kept focusing on life after death. I'd always thought about those words as if it was for the person who had died. The journey they would take after they died. But those words seemed to take on a new life during those weeks. My mind was thinking about my life, my husband's life, my unborn child's life after the death of my son.

We are so grateful that we have him home now, even if he is smaller than before. He's alive and we have been given the gift of getting to know him more as he grows. Writing no longer sustains me. Those weeks in the hospital were so raw, so physical, so present. My writing is so abstract, so sedentary, so transparent, so insignificant.

TIC doing better; MIC not so much...

We finally celebrated TIC's third birthday today--just seven weeks late. From a cardiac perspective, he's doing great. Unfortunately, his lymphatic system isn't healed and he's back on a non-fat diet for another month. As for me, I'm 34 weeks pregnant and I fell down the stairs last night and broke my left foot. As if my life wasn't exciting enough. Now I'm on crutches and practically useless as a caretaker. Ugh. Actually, at this point, we're not sure if my foot is broken or just sprained...we didn't get an x-ray. But I'll either be on crutches for two weeks or five weeks. At least I didn't fall on my belly and go into labor.

Day 27 in the hospital

My three-year-old son Riley had his third open heart surgery on March 23rd and he's still in the UCSF pediatric cardiac intensive care unit. Fortunately, Father in Chief, Grampy, and I are all taking turns with the overnight shifts. That schedule allows FIC and I a chance to sleep in our own bed every third night or so, even if we don't actually feel refreshed in the morning--we're just too emotionally and mentally exhausted to have a night of sleep perk us up.

It's been a frightening ride but we're on the road to recovery. We don't know how much longer we'll be here: maybe a week, maybe months. But we're grateful that our little guy is alive and we're desperately looking forward to having our old lives back (and our own beds). We've already celebrated two birthdays in the hospital (FIC's and Riley's) and are hoping there won't be a third (the next one would be the birth of our second son--due July 2). Follow the progress on Riley's blog.

*Much of this was lifted from FIC's blog... too tired to organize my own thoughts.

Toddler in Chief heads to hospital

This blog will be on hiatus while my almost-three-year-old son R heads to the hospital for his third open-heart operation. Thursday will include a 10+ hour day at the hospital for a cardiac catheterization and other tests in preparation for surgery, which is set for March 9. If you are interested in regular updates regarding R's health, please visit R's blog often.

Oh! Baby: Breaking the gender-stereotype mold

Even when our babies are too small to know the difference between blue and pink and boy versus girl, we are already--consciously or unconsciously--steering them in one direction or another. Girls are typically surrounded by frilly and pink; boys are surrounded by blue and trucks and trains. Kids barely have a chance to explore their own likes and interests before being told that dolls aren't for boys and tools aren't for girls. Whether this steering happens at home or at school, it's inevitable. I'm doing my best to let Toddler in Chief be who he wants to be, but even then, I've made some mistakes. Breaking away from 30+ years of my own biases and experiences is a hard mold to break.

Gravy train nears its final stop

As fabulous as my super flexible part-time writing gig has been, Oh! has decided to not renew our contracts. From what I know, they are shutting the whole thing down. Or at least they decided to not pay for their content any longer. Or at least they decided to not pay for my super content any longer ;-) The juice debate is set to end mid-March.

I'm definitely bummed because it's been a great writing experience, complete with deadlines. Still, it will be a proud addition to my stagnating resume, and came complete with a sweet monthly paycheck. But I'm also a little relieved because TIC is about to go into the hospital for several weeks, which could make focusing on my writing and meeting those deadlines a little tricky (I could have totally done it though).

The good news is that I feel completely encouraged because I've proven to myself that my brain is still fully functional, even though I've been mostly removed from the workforce for the past three years. Perhaps I'll be motivated to get out there to drum up some new work after TIC is home and fully recovered. Without fully ripping off Bob the Builder: Can I do it? Yes I can!