Ch-ch-ch-changes!

So the past two weeks have been an adventure.

The Gaskell Ball was not a stunning success, but not a total abject failure either.

At the ball with Scott and Jess

It was a feat not to be repeated anytime soon. It turns out, I am not superhuman. I cannot take care of an infant, teach a dance class, host out of town family and make sure they get introduced to others for dancing, pump breast milk privately (due to nursing strike), eat, get myself and Athena dressed for the ball, take money at the door, and dance with friends. It is too much. I managed to accomplish taking care of an infant, pumping, eating bad drive-thru food, taking money at the door, and had one waltz that made it two-thirds of the way around the room. By 11, Athena and I were exhausted. Erik got a ride to our hotel room for the night where two hours later I was still handling the unload car, feed baby, change baby, pump, shower things when he got in. Athena went to sleep around midnight and I followed her an hour later. She slept in til 10, which was a godsend. The only thing that could repair me at that point was a decent night's rest, and save for getting up at 5 to pump again, that's just what I got.

We had dim sum with Scott and Jess the next morning at my favorite dim sum place on Webster. After that, we thought to go for a walk on the beach, then hit the Pinball Museum, but Athena wanted nothing to do with that, so she and I detoured to Julie's and I fed her and relaxed with an iced decaf espresso. This is where she discovered the wonder that is a ceiling fan. She's an easy baby to get along with, but when mom is a tad frayed around the edges, a gloriously fascinating ceiling fan totally made my day.

It is the most amazing thing I've ever seen!

Next we headed to Forbidden Island for my first tasty FI rum drink in a year. We did a swap with Alex and Sherman where Sherman and Erik went for an hour while we watched the girls, then Alex and I followed when they came back. And the Jet Pilot was every bit as delicious as I remember. We wrapped up our day by walking over to Spaghetti Sunday where Scott and Jess got to see what our friends are really like, all gathered together in a small space, noshing, talking, and chasing kids.

On our way to Spaghetti Sunday

Monday and Tuesday were spent in a whirlwind of preparation to return to work and extreme anxiety. I was not in any way ready to go back, but time was up and there was nothing else to be done about it. I had commitments starting Wednesday morning and my partner was heading to Puerto Rico before I got back. It was just time to suck it up and go do it. Tuesday night, I crawled into bed in the guest room before Athena went to sleep and put in my earplugs to try to get some rest before heading to work. Erik was on duty til I got home the next evening.

Wednesday I hauled myself out of bed at an unacceptable hour, quietly fussed around the house to get ready, and loaded up with breast pump bag, computer bag, bottle storage freezer bag, and purse, headed out. I poked my head into our room to see if Erik or Athena were awake. Athena was asleep in her bassinet, but Erik was up, and had been up for hours with a cup of tea and a pile of Kleenex. My jaw dropped. Really? Yeah. He'd been trying to hide that he was getting sick because he figured it would have just freaked me out more, which is not inaccurate. I said, "Well, I guess it is what it is" and skipped kissing him goodbye as I headed off to Stanford. Turns out there was an accident on 280, so it took me over an hour and a half to get to campus. As I loaded up my bags to trek to the Alumni Center for the annual IT Open House (where I would magically transform from new mom to Zimbra and Mobile Device Management expert), I started crying. I was late. Erik was sick. Athena really needed me. This was stupid. And what the hell am I doing? I grabbed my info packet and headed in, then after a few quick hellos, stashed some stuff at my table and shut myself in the bathroom off the kitchen and pumped while handling morning email. At least it was a single-user restroom with a heavy door an a lock and room to drag in a chair, so I sat with the laptop balanced on the sink and machine suctioned onto my boobs. So this was how it was going to be.

Thirty minutes later, I emerged and stashed pump and milk under the table and became the expert. I answered questions about migration to Google and quota and MDM installation and how was the baby and who is she staying with. It was a good mix, and I was certainly in my usual element. But the IT Open House is a marathon. It opens at 10 and closes at 2 and prior years have taught me that I shouldn't expect to have time to even go to the bathroom. This year was no different. I started anxiously watching the clock at about 10 after 1. It had been 3 hours, and Athena usually wants to eat every couple of hours, so this was getting longish. By 2, I was packing up my laptop and running out the door, blowing off colleagues who wanted to chat. Sure, I had to pee, but really, it's bigger than that. In the interim, I'd gotten an email back from the Alumni HR manager and went to find her to get access to the lactation room. I spent the next half hour in a telephone room that is also the gym clothes changing room and the lactation room. At least it had a lock and a desk table, even if it did smell like sweaty gym socks. I ate my lunch, caught up on email again, and tried to regroup a bit. I had a big meeting at 4 and I had to be super professional girl again for a few more hours. I guess there are some folks who come by that naturally - they are their career and it doesn't feel like putting on a costume, but for me, it's a big change of language, carriage, and expression. Step one: keep all insightful analysis (otherwise known as snarky comments) to myself. It's been a few months and I was out of practice, but it was coming back.

So I survived day one. Upon getting home, Erik and Athena were happy to see me. Athena was more than happy to slurp down the boob juice straight from the tap, and I had plenty to share. Erik was exhausted and miserable. We slogged through dinner and off to bed so that we could do it all again tomorrow. And the next day. Oh boy. And the next two days were indeed adventures. Thursday morning I forgot to pick out clothes the night before, so I had to sneak in past the bassinet and pick out an outfit very quietly in the dark. I left for work well before 7 so that I could pick up Athena at 4. Thursday night, Erik's class ends at 10:30. This means I'm on my own from when I pick up Athena from him at Foothill until after my bedtime, but not necessarily after Athena's bedtime. Luckily, she obliged me by going to sleep around 10, and then I scrambled around the house and climbed in myself and got at least mostly asleep before Erik got home at 11. On Friday, I slept a little later and felt fairly confident leaving the house. I pulled in around 8:15 and opened the hatch to find that I had my pump, freezer bag, purse, and no computer bag. Sigh. I managed to wing it for the day with the Windows 7 computer we use for VoIP training. Life went on, and I got some things done, even if it wasn't all I'd planned on.

Normally this would be the end of the week and we'd sigh and say better luck next week and all would be well, but Erik had a meeting on campus at 9 a.m., so he handed me the freshly wakened baby and ran off to Foothill for four hours. When he got home, I sent him off to take a nap and continue recovering from his cold. When my mom called asking about Mother's Day plans and driving to Sac, I just had to say, "Maybe. We can't commit." At the time, I couldn't imagine driving to Sac and back a week later.

The very good news was the Erik's mom was flying in on Monday. She's a godsend.

Athena and Karen with Athena's new hat. Thanks Karen!

She arrived and we all headed to dinner at Aqui. With good food under our belts, we made a big change that has been a long time coming: Athena moved from her bassinet to her crib. We figured with Karen there, we'd see how it went. Athena slept happily through the night, waking just in time for me to nurse her before running off to work. Meanwhile, Karen was up and happy to take Athena, so Erik got some much needed additional rest, which was a welcome birthday treat. At the end of the day, I came home and found the living room neatly tidied up and our laundry folded and Athena happy as a clam even with Erik off to class. Karen made a birthday dinner for Erik of pork ragout and strawberry shortcake.  On Wednesday, everyone shuffled out to have lunch with me at Stanford. We had a little more excitement than planned because Athena's diaper wallet was accidentally left at home. After a little strategizing over lunch, I emailed the Parent-Net list on campus asking if anyone had a spare size 1 or 2 diaper. Luckily, a woman in Gilbert Hall had two spare in her desk, and her son was wearing size 4s now, so she was very happy to let me have them. A quick change and Athena went from lightly fussy to naptime. We took Karen out to see the main quad and then I went back to work. In the evening, Karen babysat Athena and Erik and I got to go see The Avengers (which I'm sure everyone knows is completely awesome). We had Pizza My Heart in the Camera 7 theater in the comfy front row with Kev and Rachel and all was right in the world. Meanwhile, Athena fell asleep hard before we got home and couldn't be roused to have final eats, so we fully expected a middle of the night wake up. I pumped before heading off to bed instead. She'd also fallen asleep without being in her swaddler, so this was her first night without that as well. She slept soundly until 4:30, and I got up and nursed her, then handed her off to Erik to burp and rock back to sleep. She took the slot I normally use to pump overnight, so that was pretty awesome all in all. She slept in til 9 after that.

The next day, Karen was heading home. It was too short a trip, but she left us with two turkey meatloafs and mashed potatoes for dinner on the stove, freshly folded laundry, and a happy, well-napped baby. Athena and I took Karen to the airport and went home to spend our second Thursday evening with Daddy out late and mommy having to go to work in the morning. She once again nodded off for me at a few minutes after 10, not quite making it through her last 2 ounces of milk before all systems shut down. When it's bedtime for this girl, she's out and there is no stopping it. Again, she slept without swaddler in her crib in her room and she woke right at 7 after a full night's sleep. We really do have an amazingly awesome baby.

So let's see, the past few weeks included:
 - a visit from Erik's brother and sister-in-law
 - Athena's first Gaskell Ball
 - me going back to work
 - Erik becoming full-time daily caregiver
 - a visit from grandma (or Gigi Karen as she prefers to be called)
 - Athena learning to grab for toys
 - Athena moving to her crib
 - Athena sleeping through the night without a swaddler

In my fantasy world, we will have a nice relaxing weekend at home with no major changes or adventures. But then I remember that's never going to happen. The only constant is change.

New Mother Hair

Perhaps like me, you've noticed that a lot of new moms get a short "mom" haircut. Many have speculated that it's just that the moms don't have time to fuss with their hairdo the way they did before having a kid or that they baby is busy grabbing the hair or something like that. I'm here to say that I only wish it were so simple.

What lots of folks don't know is that pregnancy and childbirth has a huge impact on your head of hair. First, during pregnancy, the hormone bath you're generating basically tells the hair on your head to stay put. So that daily set of strands you usually find in the hairbrush or the shower drain just isn't there. This leads to an utterly fabulous mane of thick, luxurious hair while you're pregnant. I for one was feeling unsexy and whale-like, and folks would say, "But your hair looks FABULOUS!" Yeah, great. Somehow it won't go with the little pinup girl outfit I wish I could wear right now, but thanks anyway. Also, at the time, all I could think was how I'd pay for these luscious locks later.

Payback is a bitch. About 3 months after giving birth, that long interrupted signal is turned back on and all those hairs that stayed extra long are now way overdue to commit suicide by leaping from your head, so they start doing it en masse like buffalo running off a cliff. Suddenly, there's hair EVERYWHERE. The bathroom floor is covered soon after it's swept. Erik has made adding Drano to the tub part of the weekly routine. Cleaning out the brush is now a near daily activity rather than a once in a while need. Those little hairs falling down your back and tickling under your shirt? Yeah, now it's several times a day, every day. My sweaters are constantly covered in strands of hair. I combat that by putting my hair up frequently, but it gets tiresome to have it strapped down all the time. The jab and pull of clips and pins haunts my scalp.

But the worst part is the fear of the hair tourniquet. One of the things new parents are warned about is that if you've checked everything else and your baby is still screaming and seems to be in pain, then check their fingers and toes for a piece of hair wrapped tightly round and cutting off the circulation. It hurts, and it's awfully hard to spot. So there you are nursing for say 20 minutes, and during that time, you've dropped maybe a dozen hairs. Athena routinely directs nursing with her hands like a conductor to the orchestra, waving her hand across my chest, over her head, and swooping around for big crescendos and slapping it down to her side before bringing it back up to gently press the breast and out again for the big finale. So those dozen hairs may well be wrapped around her hand. Or skittered down my back. Or in a pile on the floor. Or tucked amongst the folds of her clothes. No matter what, she has to be checked and checked to make sure it doesn't get around her hands or feet, or sucked down her throat for that matter. But sure enough, an hour later when it's time for a diaper change and I carry her off from her playmat or swing or whatnot, as often as not, I'll find one more hair lurking on her clothes or next to her or something. It's relentless. There's always an insidious hair waiting to ruin your day. And the longer the hair, the greater the risk.

I, like many new moms, have started contemplating whether it would just be better to shave my head. Or at least trim back to a little pixie cut. Or give up and go pony tail every day, all day for the next year or so.

I don't know what the answer is. Right now I just wish I could hurry up the whole process. After 3 weeks or so of extreme hair loss, my hair is getting pretty thin and my patience is even thinner. If I could just get back to the normal level of hair loss, it would be fine, but I'm just so very tired of living in a sea of my own shedding.

Three Months Old

Today, Athena is both 13 weeks old and 3 months old. We are taking her to her first Gaskell Ball.

We had a strange week. On Tuesday and Wednesday night, Athena woke up at 3 a.m. and needed a diaper change and food. For a baby who routinely sleeps from 11-7:30 or 9, this was seriously disconcerting. It was made more so since I go back to work on Wednesday, so if this was a major change, I suddenly felt like I didn't have time to deal with it. We spent an hour and a half trying to get her back to sleep on Wednesday, and I just dreaded trying to deal with this daily while going to work and being out of the house for at least 11 hours a day. Meanwhile, on Wednesday I got an email from my partner at work. She has to leave Tuesday to go to Puerto Rico to take care of her parents. Her dad is having hernia surgery and her mom needs adult supervision. This was not paving the road to the gentle return I was looking forward to. She wondered if there was any chance I could come in and get the download this week before she left. Um... yeah. So on Thursday, on far too little sleep, I bundled myself up and headed to the office during Athena's morning nap. I can't believe I'm going to do this every day. At least I'll be insanely busy to keep my mind off of it, right? Jo-Ann and I had a good chat and I'm as ready as I can be. On the way out, I met the new web services teammate, Caryl, and said hi to Sara. I mentioned our last two days adventures in not sleeping and she said two magic words: growth spurt. Of course! She's demanding more food, more often, even overnight. Of course! Being a new parent is a whole lot of  being too close to the joke to see what's really going on. Sure enough, the next day Athena had two loooooong naps and slept through the night normally. Phew! Unfortunately, she also came up with another new trick: refusing the boob. Though obviously hungry right before bed, she wouldn't nurse. An hour of screaming battle commenced, me trying to get her to eat, and her screaming as if being tortured. I'd set her down and try again a few minutes later, but still no joy. Erik got home just as I was getting frustrated and starting to see visions of how bad Thursdays will be for the next two months while he's teaching. I have to go to work extra early that day so that I can leave early to pick her up. Then I have to stay up with her til her bedtime, or until Erik gets home at 11, whichever is first. Considering she usually likes to fall asleep on daddy, this doesn't bode well. Finally, after an hour of refusals, I asked Erik to get a bottle of fresh squeezed from the fridge and feed her while I pumped. I finally got to the shower around midnight and to bed after that, dreading my 3 a.m. hungry baby wake up call. However, she slept through the night til 7:30. Whew!

Yesterday, Erik's brother Scott and his wife Jess arrived from Rhode Island. We took them out to the Japanese Garden and to Aqui for dinner. Then we came back home and told too many tales and sent them back to their hotel in the city. Today they're planning to attend the Gaskell Ball. We'll be sure to introduce them to Fezzis so that they get to dance a bit.

My first day back to work is our annual IT Open House. I'm scheduled to be an email and calendar expert/wizard answering questions as folks walk by, but I suspect I'll get as many questions about the wee miss as anything else. Should be a nice way to start back where I get to see most folks all on one day. Wish me luck!

12 Weeks

Athena reached 12 weeks on Saturday and she spent that day in Disneyland, riding Astro Blasters, watching fireworks, swing dancing at Carnation Plaza, and getting her picture with a Storm Trooper.

Now, folks questioned the sanity of bringing a baby so young to Disneyland. Don't get me wrong - I had serious doubts myself. In fact, on Tuesday, we'd pretty much nixed the idea. So how did we get there? Well, it all starts with our friends being awesome.

Since I was burning all of my vacation for my maternity leave, and since after the first six weeks there's the bit where you have to take 2 weeks of straight vacation before you can continue your maternity leave (It's a weird Stanford rule. I've asked, but there's no answer as to why.), I really wanted to do something fun and vacation-y before going back to work. We'd originally thought of going to Vegas. We figured we could do some baby-friendly things like visit the lions and the aquarium and so forth. It would also be a dry run to try out the girl on a plane before going to Cape Cod around the holidays. Good in theory, but it turns out Vegas is less child-friendly than I'd thought. Many hotels won't even let you walk through with a stroller. So we killed that plan. Then I thought about Disneyland. The last time I was there, I was pregnant and couldn't ride a lot of things. So I researched hotels closest to the gate and figured out options and booked the Tropicana. We could cancel with 48 hours notice. Over the next couple of weeks, it started sounding like less and less of a good idea. But the desire to do SOMETHING before going back to work was really strong, but I couldn't think of anything else that sounded good. I was getting a little sad about it all, but it wouldn't be much fun one of us sitting with the girl and the other going off to ride something, then switching off.

Fast forward to last Wednesday. We pinged Kevin and Rachel about dinner at Aqui and as we were headed there from their place, Cyrus, Athena, and Lorelei strolled up. They said, "Headed to visit the mouse this weekend." We replied that it wasn't looking good. I hadn't been home long enough to cancel the reservation, but we'd pretty much decided against it. Heck, that was part of why we had time for dinner with Kev and Rachel - I wasn't packing for the weekend. We mused, "We decided it wouldn't be much fun unless we invited friends, but it's a little late for that, so unless y'all want to drop everything and run to Disneyland this weekend..." Athena looked at Cyrus and said something to the effect of, "You wanna?" There was some debate over other things on the calendar, but those turned out to be not actually happening. We said we'd be back after dinner to discuss further. We got the text message during dinner saying to come by and discuss details. By noon the next day, they had hotel reservations. I ran through the house packing during Athena's afternoon nap. We got up the next morning, had Athena's usual breakfast, playtime, and second breakfast, which is universally followed by a long nap if we let her. At naptime, we bundled her into the car and away we went!

Now, I know we are getting totally spoiled by our baby. She achieved new heights on this trip, exceeding all of my expectations. I figured this would be a long, tortured trip with many many stops and lots of crying. I figured there was some chance we'd give up and turn around. Instead, she slept til Coalinga, so we had a leisurely lunch at Denny's. We bundled back into the car and headed on. She fell right back to sleep. We blew past my next planned stop at Buttonwillow. Then we went over the Grapevine. She woke up around Castaic. We sat in the back and read books and played with her pinwheel. I figured we'd stop as soon as she got fussy or we hit traffic. Though it was 5 p.m., the traffic didn't get us til the big I-5/10/60 junction. Athena was still being easily entertained, so we rerouted down 710 to 91. About 25 miles short of the destination, Athena started melting down. I fed her a bottle, figuring we'd just cope with spit-up and burp her when we got there. She sucked it down and we made it and she burped all on her own. We arrived and got unloaded and her properly fed and then debated what next. After a bit of back and forth, we decided to head on into the park.

We made our way to the new Jolly Holiday Cafe for dinner. We had some of the best food we'd ever enjoyed in the park - a hot roast beef sandwich and a fabulous caprese sandwich. And by fabulous, I mean we had it again for lunch the next day. It was reasonably priced (same as I'd expect to pay anywhere around here) and really fresh and well made with fabulous balsamic vinegar.  Then we watched the fireworks. We weren't sure how that would go, but there we were having dinner and Athena was snoozing. She slept through most of it. When she did wake up, she stretched and then watched the pretty lights in the sky. To close the night, we took her on the carousel, then walked back to go to bed.

The next morning we caught up to the Lendvays and figured out the mystery of a stroller pass. Turns out, for the four of us, you can get two fast passes, then get a stroller pass and get everyone through a ride pretty quickly. We ended up doubling down on fast passes, getting a pair for Indy and a pair for Space Mountain, but we never got around to Space Mountain on Saturday. We did get to go on Star Tours too. I was initially disappointed when we had Naboo as the planet, complete with Gungans, but there was a great effect with a sea monster grabbing the ship that made it all worth while. While Athena and I waited for for the boys to go through, she saw some storm troopers out for photos. We ran over and got pictures.

Aw... baby's first brush with the Empire.

This probably means I'm a bad parent, but I LOVE this photo.

Isn't he just too dreamy!

In general, we expected to have a slow day of lots of shows and not a lot of rides. Luckily, the girls are actually allowed on quite a few things (including Astro Blasters!) and we enjoyed the warm spring day. We enjoyed Dole Whip in the Tiki Room and rode Indy while Lorelei napped. As the day turned to evening and the temperature dropped, we opted to head back to the room for a change of clothes and freshening up. Returning to the park, we made our way to Carnation Plaza for swing dancing with Stompy Jones. Athena LOVED this.

Lights and people and music! My favorites!

First, Erik and I had a little turn on the floor with her in her Baby Bjorn. Then we took up watching while I fed her. Erik bumped into someone who said, "Wait! I know you. You go to Gaskell. What are you doing here?" She was visiting a friend in L.A., but promised to see us at Gaskell next weekend. Erik took a turn burping the girl and I managed to get a few photos of her as she watched the dancers. Lights, music, and people moving - this describes Athena's favorite things so she was rapt. The Lendvays opted to call it a night, so to close our evening, Erik and I walked over to Pirates. Athena started fussing just as we got on the boat, but as soon as we went over the first drop, she smiled like this was the best thing ever. My little thrill seeker! I couldn't help but laugh at her. I'd actually worried about her being really upset about the drops, but much like fast turns and freeway speeds, she loves a wild ride. We both laughed long and hard as she grinned madly after the second drop. She spent the rest of the ride nursing and then we trundled back to the hotel to settle in at her normal bedtime. She slept just like she does at home and woke up just before 9 a.m., whereupon we immediately informed her that she is the Best Baby Ever.

By 11 a.m. we were back in the park. We caught up to Cyrus and Athena at the Animation Studio in DCA. Lorelei was enchanted with the lobby. (I can't blame her - it's my favorite place in DCA too!) Then we all went to Turtle Talk with Crush. Athena and Cyrus had never seen it before, so even they were totally amazed. As we rounded the corner, it was just 10 minutes til Aladdin started, so we grabbed some great seats in the Mezzanine and watched the show. Athena spent much of it nursing quietly. Then we headed over to the wharf for lunch and then walked down the renovated boardwalk and put the boys on Soarin' Over California while Athena and I swapped tales of pregnancy, motherhood, and it's incumbent crazy-making side-effects. Prior to pregnancy, I'd had things I attributed to hormonal mood swings, but pregnancy and post-partum life set an entirely new standard for understanding that my opinions are not really my own and good golly can I cry at the smallest things! We caught up to the boys and hit Space Mountain before splitting up again so that the Lendvays could freshen up. Erik, Athena, and I hit Astro Blasters and due to a well-timed pause where Erik was right in front of Zurg, be broke the 999,999+ mark and became a Galactic Hero.

Upon the Lendvays' return, we got a great group photo, then rode the Storybook Canals and Small World before heading back to Pirates and getting dinner at the French Market (where they serve a lovely veggie gratin that you simply must refer to as "the pasta" or their staff get very confused). We listened to the end of Fantasmic and watched the fireworks. The Lendvays headed out since they had an early morning drive, and Erik and I switched off for one more ride on Space Mountain.

Small Athena on Small World

The next day after a quick stroll down Main Street, we piled back into the car and headed home. We opted to take 101 since there's still construction on I-5 northbound. We stopped for gas and lunch in Oxnard just as Athena woke from her morning nap, then stopped again for bathroom and coffee in Paso Robles as Athena roused once more. Leaving there, we ran out of formula and pumped breast milk, so we figured we'd have to stop again at Target to pick some up, but Athena snoozed all the way home, and even let us unpack the car before stirring. She really is the best baby ever.

The trip was just what I needed. We proved Athena can travel. We broke out of our current routine and she rolled with it. We put her into our world and she soaked it up and seemed happy to play along. And I got to coast along on Space Mountain, which always makes me happy as can be.

11 Weeks

Just a quick update this week, mostly about today.

Erik got up and helped out the Pryanksters dancing today. I stayed home and felt like a confident mom. I was spot on with Athena's rhythm today. I managed to keep her entertained and fed and calm nearly all day. I made Karen's beef stew, did several house chores, had her spend a bit of time in a baby carrier (which she's none too fond of as yet), met the neighbor and her six month old son, and generally had a lovely day. When Erik got home, I ran off to Ray's birthday party outing to see Cabin in the Woods. The movie was totally awesome and well worth seeing. (It's at once a completely standard horror movie and yet at the same time absolutely anything but a standard horror movie. Plus, it's darned funny.) Afterwards, we all went to Tomatina for dinner. After four hours absence, I came home and Athena was very ready for some more boob time. She dove at it, never really giving me a second glance. At first I thought that this was a similar experience to the one I have with my car. As much as I sometimes think my car loves me as it cheerfully beeps and unlocks as I pull a door handle, it reminds me that this isn't so on any occasion where I fail to have my purse in hand where the magical key fob is stored. After Athena drank her fill and pulled away, I said, "Hi baby girl." And she looked up at me with the biggest grin. Yeah, it's different. She loves me. It's going to be really hard to go back to work and leave her every day.

10 Weeks + Athena's First Easter

This week was not all fluffy bunnies and unicorns. Athena's fussy time is midafternoon. The timing varies daily, but it makes doing things in the afternoon a challenge, but it's also the most likely time we'll be out doing something. Add to this a propensity to spit-up and it can make for long days. On Wednesday, this meant inconsolable crying on a walk and lunch with the Moms group, then more crying in Moms group, then more fussy and crying and spitting up when we got home. Eventually, I just gave up on making dinner with the girls.

Friday we thought we'd try to take her to Friday Night Waltz, but a Friday afternoon was fussy and spitty-uppy, and when she spit up on me again around 8 p.m. (requiring clothing changes for both me and her), I decided that Erik was right and this was not the week to take her out. Instead, it was time for pajamas rather than a new outfit for going out.

But there were good things too. She's regularly sleeping from around 11 p.m. til just before 9 a.m. This is fabulous. Then, when she wakes up, I turn over and give her morning greetings. She smiles back with a big goofy grin. I release her arms from her swaddle and she stretches and waves them about with glee, directing her morning thoughts. This usually lasts for 10-20 minutes before she starts to squirm a bit more and it's time to change her diaper and get some food in her belly. Now that Erik's morning class is done, this means that I press go on the coffee machine on the way through the kitchen, and he lounges in bed for another 15 minutes, then puts together my morning cup of coffee and sets it down next to where I'm nursing Athena. It's a morning routine I'm going to savor for the time I have left. I've got less than a month til I'm back to work, and that fills me with a certain dread and anxiety. It will have to work somehow, but right now, I'm not quite sure how to be sole food source, work 40+ hours a week, commute 10 hours a week, and sleep something near 8 hours a night. The math just doesn't work when it's only a 24 hour day.

We also started contemplating future housing this week. Sometime in the next five years, we need to relocate to a better school district. Fundamentally, we can do that, or pay for private school, and private school doesn't build equity, so if we're going to be in pain financially, a house is a better investment than private school. We talked with our favorite mortgage broker and figured out what we could conceivably afford and started looking at what that would buy near better schools. The take-away message was Save Save Save for the next down payment. It seems like I'm always saving for a down payment for a house. Meanwhile, browsing real estate listings is fun and we triangulated a bit on what we really value in a home. We spent a bit of time on Saturday touring some Open Houses. We've got a good idea of what we want. Now it's time to save up for it.

This morning, Athena got her first Easter basket from the magical wild foxes... er... bunny. Full of wonderful things including a Peter Rabbit board book, a bunny sippy cup, the required hollow chocolate bunny, a pinwheel, and a Darth Vader plush toy. No really! Look!

 

Easter basket is awesome!

 

Darth is my new friend.

 

But I LOVE the pinwheel!

 

  

Leeloo thinks it's pretty cool too.  

We spent the afternoon at CKP Manor having Easter brunch, catching up with friends, and enjoying the lovely weather. Now Athena is asleep on Erik's shoulder, so it's time for us to go to bed.

Two Months Old

Athena is two months old today and is currently napping in her swing before we head off to New Moms Group in Mountain View.

This week we learned that vaccines are hard. Friday she had her two month appointment where she weighed in at 9 pounds, 8 ounces. She's just shy of 22 inches long and is generally developing in all the right ways for a happy, healthy baby. She's strong. She coos. She smiles. She stretches these big full body stretches down to the tips of her toes when she wakes up in the morning.  She got three shots and an oral vaccine. This led to four days of diarrhea and two days of sad, achy baby. Some infant Tylenol helped with the aches, and some extra laundry is the only other real consequence. She's back to being a happy baby. Sunday night she went to her first Spaghetti Sunday at Josh and Magenta's house. There was another baby there who was only 1 month old, and I remember her being like that, but she's very different now. She is very engaged in her environment. While changing her diaper, she noticed the mylar balloon floating above her and reached out to swat at it a bit. I'm totally going to buy her a balloon to play with. Meanwhile, Kai is still the sweetest little boy ever. He kept helping her reach it and then kissed her gently.


After Moms Group today (yeah, it's been hours. Welcome to my baby life.), we went to see Rachel so that she could play with her new camera. She fell asleep *just* as we got off the freeway, so I drove around a bit, looking at properties in the neighborhood. In an ideal world, Erik would get a full-time, tenure-track position at Foothill College and we'd be able to magically afford a house that magically became available next down to the Fox/Lendvay collective. This weekend, a house on Valcartier was open. It was a 2 minute walk from their places, so we all walked over, just to see. And once again, I'm reminded of what a million dollars will buy in the area. Sigh. Don't get me wrong - it's more house than we need, but it's older, needs some updates, and reminds me a lot of the neighborhood I grew up in before my parents got divorced. It's not my idea of a million dollar house, and in Sacramento it would go for about $200k. But, it did get us to thinking. We talked to our financial advisor and we're going to talk to our favorite mortgage broker and see what we can reasonably afford going forward in the 1-3 year time frame, and what we need to save to make it possible. I picked up a few flyers as I drove and Athena slept and got an idea of what is nearby. I went over one wrong bump in the road though, and naptime was over. Off to Fox Hollow for photos!

Athena was being shy with her smiles, but she's still adorable. Rachel's new camera (Nikon D800) got a workout while we tried to coax her to smile.

I'm off to run through the shower. Athena sleeps about 8 hours every night. Just don't try to convince her to do it before 11 p.m. She's a night-owl like her mama!

7 Weeks

Athena hit 7 weeks on Saturday. We spent the day around the house, then headed out to the Stanford Ceili St. Patrick's Day dance. It was wonderful in so many ways. First there's the part where a couple of years ago, this little blue haired girl named Danya wanted to learn more ceili, so she encouraged Bob and I to help her get a group started. In the concrete common room of the new design building, we started teaching a few folks to dance. Several of those faces from the first summer were still there, plus friends I've danced with for the last 18 years, plus a dozen musicians, plus newer dancers, plus folks trying it for the first time. At one point, there were at least 80 people there. From the most humble beginnings, we've built something wonderful.

Second, Erik and I worked together beautifully to keep Athena happy and fed. Also, she got her first waltzes. I held her in my right arm, bundled up in her swaddle to keep her warm in a room that was comfortably cool for sweaty dancers. My left arm on my partner's shoulder, we waltzed around the room and she looked entranced. First I danced with Jing, and then later with Erik. At the end of the night, we came home, fed her once more, and put her to bed. She slept for her normal 7 hours, woke briefly to eat and change diapers, then slept for another 3 hours. She is seriously a truly awesome baby. Third, Kat, Jordan, and Elinor came down from Sacramento for the ceili and stayed the night. Elinor is adorable. It's wonderful watching friends I've known so long bloom and grow, now as parents. We made a slightly ill-fated journey across San Jose with two strollers and a pregnant lady, planning to walk 20 blocks in weather that was threatening to rain to try the Flames restaurant. For better or worse, they have have bottomless mimosas on Saturdays and Sundays til 2, and they border SJSU. The place was packed. So we waited a bit, then checked into other options, heading off to Old Spaghetti Factory, as they said they had no wait. We got there and waited half an hour before giving up and going across the street to Sonoma Chicken Coop. On the plus side, Sonoma Chicken Coop was lovely and none of else felt remotely bad about the calories as we'd walked far further than planned. On the way back, with Jordan and I a few strides ahead of our partners, both of us pushing strollers, Jordan says to me, "All those years ago, who thought we'd be here." I said, "Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing." If you'd told me that a lovely Sunday afternoon activity would be pushing baby strollers around downtown San Jose, I'd have told you you were cracked. And yet...

For Christmas, Erik got me "three months of housekeeping," and after researching our various options, today was the first day of housekeeping. Now, I've had cleaners here on occasion for little 2 hour blasts. I also tend to keep things fairly tidy on my own. But after over 3 hours of cleaning, this place is CLEAN. The little cart that holds our laundry soap had dust and spills collected over time. It's now spotlessly white and clean. The area under the kitchen sink had everything pulled out and wiped down. The bed had everything pulled out and swept and vacuumed underneath. It's magnificent. And better yet, she'll be back in two weeks to keep it up. On the one hand, I could get seriously used to this. On the other hand, I now see projects I've put off for so long and I don't think, "after I get through the basic maintenance." Instead, I think, "hey, maybe I'll tackle this one today." I suspect I'll willingly pay for the next three months. After that, we'll be starting to pay for daycare, so we may have to go back to our own cleaning, but this may be the little luxury I fight to save going forward. We'll see.

And finally, Athena is smiling consistently now when she's happy.

 

Sometimes it's while I'm changing her diaper and telling her a story. Sometimes it's when she's nursing and she looks up at me. Sometimes it's when she first wakes up and sees me there. Sometimes it's in the car when I'm sitting next to her in the back seat making silly faces or telling her a story. Whenever it happens, however it happens, it's just magical. For so long, I only got feedback when I did something that was unacceptable. Now, she lets me know when I'm doing something she likes. I can't limit the world to only the stuff she likes, but it's awfully nice to know that she sure seems to like me and like Erik. It certainly goes a long way when you're doing the 10th load of laundry this week after stripping out of pajamas covered in spit-up one more time. 

Grumble

Google asked me to upgrade Blogger, and now line breaks and other things are not being retained. I shall endeavor to fix this, but in the meantime, GRRRR. (Because I have so much free time to fiddle with formatting twice these days!)

St. Patrick's Day!

This year I'm taking a light approach to St. Patrick's Day and attending/hosting only one event. Crazy talk, I know! But, if you want to dance ceili, this is the place to be. If you want to meet the baby, this is your big opportunity as it's likely her grand debut on the dance scene. Hell, even if you just want to listen to Irish music while drinking a beer and complaining about a celebrating St. Patrick's Day, sure, whatever floats your boat. But this is the place to do it:

Stanford Ceili's 2nd Annual St. Patricks Day Ceili!
Saturday, 2012 March 17,
8-11pm Graduate Community Center (GCC) Havana Room
750 Escondido Road, Stanford, CA 94305
http://g.co/maps/tm3g3

Stanford Ceili celebrates St. Patrick's Day with a night of Irish ceili dancing! EVERYONE is welcome. Whether you did step dancing as a child or danced with local groups in Alameda or Berkeley or have never tried Irish dance before, there’s something for everyone. This is a great opportunity to dance or try it for the first time in a fun and festive atmosphere. We’ll be dancing easy dances taught on the spot, dances for those who’ve been learning with us weekly, and rounding out the night with waltzes. If you can walk, you can enjoy dancing with us! Now with live music!

This year, the band is led by Dave Price and Anselm Engle. Additional musicians welcome! Bring your instrument and join in. We want EVERYONE to celebrate St. Patrick's Day!

Snacks and drinks provided; hot meals and more next door at Ray's Grill: http://www.yelp.com/biz/rays-grill-stanford

For more information on Stanford Ceili, you can check out our website, at http://ceili.stanford.edu/ 

And as usual, we’re dancing every Tuesday from 7-9 p.m. New participants are always welcome and lessons are always free! See the web site for more information: http://ceili.stanford.edu.

Hope to dance with you soon!

Six Weeks

Athena is sound asleep. After eating all day for the past four days, she's woken up just long enough to eat today, then goes back to sleep for several hours. This is her 6-week growth spurt I was warned about. Just when I felt like I'd fallen into an abyss where every waking moment was spent feeding the girl, I finally got a few hours free this morning to do wild and crazy things like dye my hair and finish entering my tax data online. I'm just going to say right now that this was at once really pretty awesome and also sort of bizarre how far my standards have shifted in such a short amount of time. Oh the wild and crazy life of the new parent!

I went to a New Mothers group at El Camino hospital this week and once again feel intensely grateful for my easy journey to pregnancy, my very active and healthy (if sometimes painful) pregnancy, my relatively easy and totally satisfying delivery, my wonderful husband who seems to think this is as much his responsibility as mine, and our amazing baby girl. We've had it so good compared to so many others. She eats well, sleeps well, and her only real issue seems to be a propensity to spit up.

Breastfeeding has gone really well and I'm supplementing as needed with formula, which isn't very often. Well, except the past few days when she's wanted to eat for 12 hours a day, and let's just say that eventually the taps run dry and the flesh needs a break. At those moments, 2 ounces of formula is my favorite thing in the whole world. Meanwhile, in the last week, she's also learned how to get her hand to her mouth. I suspect she'll soon be sucking her thumb, but right now, it's usually her whole fist. She's even occasionally worked her left hand out of her swaddle and I've woken to the sound of her slurping on her hand.

Athena has the most determined frown. There are times when she looks at me like I've just done the dumbest thing in the whole world. That's when I see my face reflected in her little furrowed brow. She's also working toward a real smile. It's not consistent yet, but sometimes she looks up and just beams. Of course, then I do something really stupid like unfasten her diaper and let her get cold, and well, furrowed brow says I'm an idiot. I went to my postpartum ob/gyn appointment this week and got the all clear to go on with the rest of my life. We talked birth control and almost made a big misstep. The NuvaRing is just not suitable for breastfeeding moms, which is a bummer as it's definitely my favorite method. However, seriously impaired breast milk production, plus estrogen passing to the breast milk causing jaundice and enlarged breasts in the baby was a whole world of bad idea. We're back to the drawing board on that topic for now while I decide on whether or not to do a pill or an IUD or what. Erik said, "Seems like it would be awfully nice for the guys to have an option here that wouldn't screw up the breast feeding." Ya think?

Meanwhile, the U.S. seems to have gone crazy over birth control, what with Rush Limbaugh calling anyone who wants to use the pill a slut. States are passing laws requiring an ultrasound before an abortion and fighting laws requiring health plans to cover birth control and I'm just wondering what century we're in. Just so we're clear, if there's one thing that's made me more pro-choice, it's being pregnant and having a baby. That was the single most life-threatening thing I've done in my life so far, and it's certainly not anything you should be forced to do if you don't want to. Just read up on preeclampsia and tell me pregnancy isn't risky. And let's not even talk about the pain that still keeps me from sleeping on my left hip. I fear I've done something semi-permanent to it in this process. I'm still hoping that exercise will fix it eventually. We'll see.

Speaking of exercise, I did manage to get out a week ago and go to both Irish Ceili at Stanford and Friday Night Waltz. It felt so good. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my body was relatively cooperative. I didn't get winded while dancing and I didn't find myself sore the next day. Yay! My big accomplishment this week was to make it to the thrift store to get some new tops and dresses that accommodate breast feeding. Stretchy necklines and v-necks will be the height of fashion for me for the next year. The sleepy baby stirs. Time to go be a food source to my favorite little parasite.

Three weeks and counting...

Erik took Athena this morning while I lounged in bed and read a book uninterrupted for over an hour, followed by a lovely late lunch out at La Pinata with Erik and Athena, followed by lounging with a sleepy baby on my lap while watching Warehouse 13. Not a bad way to celebrate our first three weeks.

So this baby thing is going pretty darned well. Athena Eleanor is an easy baby to get along with for a large percentage of the time. Just don't ask her to change clothes, because sleeves are the tools of the devil. From the first days home, she would surprise me by sleeping for four hours uninterrupted. Sometimes it's five hours. I never expected to be this well-rested, but we get one longish stretch a night, followed by another 2-3 hour stretch, and I'm feeling much less strung out than I expected. Sleep is a magical tool.

She's also taken to breastfeeding like a champ. We had some problems at first with her being too sleepy to eat much, and before the milk really came in, she got really hungry. It was a bleak night when I sat up with her from 2-6 a.m., her inconsolable because she was hungry, me unable to do much about it, and the propaganda saying, "colostrum is all the baby needs for the first few days." Well screw that. Baby was hungry and thirsty and unhappy and Similac and Enfamil had both sent us sample formula which I was now very grateful to have in the closet. Erik's alarm went off at 6 and I asked him to put some together for her and I'd feed it to her with a syringe. A milliliter later, she'd gone from inconsolable to sleeping soundly. Sure, I'd just contaminated my perfect baby with the evils of formula, but she was happy and that's all that really matters. And during the course of the next day or so, my milk arrived and this became a non-issue.

There I was, Erik at work and I'm trying to figure out how to pump (to encourage that milk supply), but really needing a third arm. You're supposed to somehow be able to hold two cones perfectly centered on each breast, then press a button on the machine, then adjust the suction with another button on the machine. And oh by the way, this is having never done this before because this is not something you can practice in advance. While trying to figure this out, I got a text from Rachel asking if I needed any help. Yes! Oh yes please! She came by, pressed the buttons for me, and took photos of Athena. It's amazing what she can capture. I'm consistently amazed at her skill and vision.

We lived our first week at home day by day. Tuesday evening, Alex and Sherman stopped by. We went to Kaiser on Wednesday for a weigh-in and nursing check and she hadn't gained back enough weight yet, so they wanted to see her again on Friday.  Wednesday evening, Fred, Malaya, and Mira came by, officially kicking off our food train. On Friday, I was amazed at how much better I felt as I trudged back across the parking lot at Kaiser. Athena had gained four ounces in 2 days, which is well above the 1/2 to 1 ounce expectation. They pronounced us good and told us we needn't come back til her first pediatric visit next week. We'd made it to the weekend, and Erik's mom was due to arrive on Tuesday evening.

Erik doesn't get maternity leave right now as it's not really like he can just bail on his class. He gets 2 "personal days" to take off during the year, so he used one of those to stay with us in the hospital on the Monday after she arrived, but it was straight back to work for him, Monday through Thursday with a class (lab) starting at 8 a.m. We've settled into a nice routine of me staying up with the girl til she's ready to sleep, and him sleeping. Then I get up when she rouses, nurse again, and go back to sleep with her. Then I get up in the late morning with her again. If Athena needs extra support or I need an extra pair of hands, then I wake Erik, but mostly, he's gotten some half-way decent sleep most days. Then there are the exception days.

Sometimes she's not a perfect angel. Sometimes she utterly refuses to sleep. After hours of nursing, feeding from pumped, and sometimes even formula to supplement, she won't relax and let go. Swinging won't tempt her to sleepytime. The bassinet is clearly a torture chamber. And inevitably, just as she starts drifting off, we hear the tell-tale blast of poop on diaper, inevitably starting the cycle all over again as she's stripped down to too chilly to enable the diaper change and reassembled. Those are the hard nights. But most of the time, so long as she's warm and well-fed, she goes to sleep sometime between 1 and 2 a.m.

On Tuesday, Erik's mom arrived. She'd originally planned for a shorter stay, but the moment Athena was born, she went to reschedule her flight to arrive earlier. Erik's mom is pretty cool. She's a fountain of energy and reminds me a lot of my grandmother when she was her age. On her first day, she cleaned our bathroom. The next day she vacuumed. The next day she dusted. Then she did laundry. Meanwhile, she cooked yummy turkey meatloaf and loved holding the baby. I shuffled around and got a few things done and it was great. We took Athena out to Trader Joe's and Target on Thursday. She likes her car seat so she slept like an angel the whole time. We even walked from the TJ's all the way down to the Target at the far end of the shopping center and back, me enjoying stretching my legs, and Athena sleeping in her carseat on stroller. On Saturday, Erik's stepdad, Rich, also arrived from Cape Cod. My Grandmother was having a birthday, so my mom drove her and grandpa down for birthday lunch with her great-granddaughter. Karen (Erik's mom) made us stuffed chicken with roasted veggies and rice with spinach salad and ciabatta. I baked a berry/peach pie on Friday (since my grandmother shares my lack of love for cake). After lunch, we all shuffled over to Kevin and Rachel's place for a quick photo shoot because my mom wanted to capture the four generations in a photo.

Sunday, we tried to walk over to Naglee Garage for brunch, but got a late start and arrived about 45 minutes before they were due to close and found that they were actually out of food early. We regrouped and headed to dim sum at Dynasty instead. Karen and Rich had never done dim sum, so that was a new experience for them. Once again, Athena sleep peacefully in her carseat perched on the stroller. After lunch, we came back and took care of Athena's needs, and eventually made it back out for a stroll around the Japanese Garden in San Jose and finished the day with meatloaf sliders and various other leftovers.

Karen and Rich were heading home Tuesday morning, so we had a lovely lunch of Thai Pepper and dinner of burritos, and with one last bottle of breast milk, Karen said her teary goodbyes to her first grandchild. We expect she'll be back before too long.

So, after the whirlwind of the first two weeks, we made it through the rest of the next week one day at a time. Friends brought us food, so we never went hungry. We did more laundry than seems possible. Having a child is clearly the least eco-friendly thing I've ever done as we are also keeping the house at 72 degrees for Athena's sake. Our hands are dry from so much handwashing of bottles and breast pump and from keeping our hands washed so frequently. Erik came down with a cold, but neither Athena nor I got it. Hopefully she inherits my immune system because I tend to dodge most of the bugs that hit everyone else. Luckily, this cold didn't get too bad, but we learned that Athena's least favorite sound is Daddy's cough. Erik spent most of the week sleeping in the guest room so that when he woke up coughing, he would neither wake her nor manage to cough in her face or mine. By the weekend, we were ready for a fairly mellow time, save for missing our annual trip to Dundracon. As our friends converged in San Ramon, we sat on the sofa watching Warehouse 13.

In general, I like to prepare for upcoming challenges. I prepared for sleep deprivation, no showers, cold food, screaming baby, and being covered in spit-up. Sure, a lot of that has happened, but not with the frequency I expected, and I've managed to get a shower every day so far. I have no idea how people do this as a single parent (or with twins). Without Erik to hand her off to, I'd be drowning, but he's a willing participant and so far, this just isn't as bad as I was prepared for. By setting my expectations low, I've managed to feel like I'm doing alright with this whole thing.  Life is weird and very different (she says as she types while pumping her breasts), but it's not overwhelming. And there are other things that I expected to be far harder. A week after giving birth, I felt pretty good so long as I kept up on ibuprofen. And two weeks after giving birth, the weirdest thing of all was that I'd lost all my pregnancy weight gain. After all the water drained from my legs, suddenly, I was 30 pounds lighter. Of course, though I'm currently about a pound less than when I started this process, I wouldn't say that weight is anything like the weight I had before. My legs look positively skinny now and my middle is squishy and stretched, and that speaks to a lot of loss of muscle mass as I've been sitting on my butt for two months straight. No Irish dance. No polkas. No climbing the stairs of the Clark Center. I'm an awfully flabby 30 pounds lighter. We'll fix that. And maybe, just maybe, I can peel off another 10 pounds and get to my goal weight from before this adventure began. I'm certainly a lot closer than I expected to be at this point. I've climbed up the attic last week to swap the clothes in my closet. Suddenly v-neck shirts with stretch are significantly more valuable than all other clothes as they work for breastfeeding. All the turtlenecks have been banished til next winter.

This weekend, I plan on missing the Gaskell Ball. I'm sending Erik to teach the class and host the ball, but Athena's immune system is just too immature to face 200-300 people in a room during cold and flu season. Hopefully I'll get a trip out to Friday Night Waltz the following week to make up for it (as I'm dying to learn the Peanut Butter Jelly Time dance). Word is, she needs to be kept out of crowded places for the first six to eight weeks, but after that, expect us to be back. Lord knows I need the exercise.

Delivering Athena

The baby is asleep in her bassinet. The in-laws are out getting dinner at El Sabroso. I've just had a fruity rum drink. All is right in the world.

Let's back up a bit shall we?

Two weeks ago, in a nearly cinematic quality event, Miss Athena Eleanor Woodbury arrived. I was making matzo ball soup, having given up on having a baby especially soon, planning to hit Friday Night Waltz later that evening, when suddenly my water broke. They tell you that it won't be like the movies. There won't be a sudden gush. There won't be a puddle.  But she had other ideas. She was still riding high (relatively) and when things gave out, she didn't plug the leak, and suddenly, my underwear, my tights, my pants, and the floor were covered in amniotic fluid. I waddled over to the toilet and told Erik to call Kaiser. Just a little freaked out, but ready. She was due officially on January 26th according to Kaiser, had been given a January 23rd due date by my OB/GYN, but was predicted for January 27th on the internet. It was the evening of Friday, January 27th, and things were kicking off. On the plus side, if she held out til 8 a.m., my OB/GYN would be on duty at Kaiser. Calling Kaiser led to a recommendation to be in around 9ish, depending on how things were going. I decided to take it easy, take a shower, get into some fresh clothes, wash the now saturated clothes, finish the episode of Warehouse 13 we were watching, and saunter in to the hospital around 9:30.

Meanwhile, the contractions that had been "Braxton-Hicks" style contractions were indeed getting stronger. Still, it was less bad than a bad menstrual cycle. They shuffled me into an observation room, asked me to pee in a cup, and took my blood pressure. Unfortunately, it was high, and the urine sample had +1 protein. This combination leads to folks being concerned about pre-eclampsia. They wanted to start me on a magnesium sulfate IV. They wanted to get a better sample though before proceeding. So, we moved on into a labor and delivery room since I had most assuredly broken my water and this all had to happen sooner rather than later. Meanwhile, contractions were coming quickly and getting more painful. By 1 a.m., I was no longer feeling especially patient and asked them to check how far along I was. The disappointing answer was, "About 4 cm." Oh god. Okay. So, all hope of super-speedy like Mom's delivery went out the door. I said, "I want drugs." We started with a little Fentenyl. That wasn't much help. Then the CRNA came to give me an epidural. That's when things went wrong. She wanted to raise the bed up to about four feet high, wanted me to bend over with my feet dangling and my arms forward, and then arch my back while sitting on the very edge of the bed. I was having real trouble doing what she asked because my belly was pushing against my thighs in the position she wanted. I asked to pull my legs out of the way. She said no. I tried putting my hands behind me to push down and get some leverage. That was unacceptable. I tried putting my feet on Erik's thighs. Nope, not okay. I tried bending over as hard as I could, but that wasn't good enough. Eventually, I was in tears, and she said, "Well, you know this is totally optional. If you can't do this, then you don't have to." She was impatient. I was frustrated. I'd watched videos online to get prepared for this, and all of them had the woman on her side. I asked about changing to that position and she said that I might end up paralyzed. Um... okay... So we sent her away, and I figured I'd practice the position she wanted and try to figure out how to do it and eventually it'd work out or I'd get through the rest of labor the old fashioned way and I wouldn't need it. We spent the next two hours struggling with a TENS unit, Fentenyl, and natural childbirth methods. The contractions were coming every two minutes and lasting for a minute, so there was very little time to rest and figure things out. Erik pressed into my hips, which gave enough relief to not completely fall apart, but I couldn't imagine us doing this for another 10-20 hours.

Luckily, our nurse, Catherine, was a saint. She spoke to the attending doc about the situation at some point in between helping me practice positions, helping me calm down and stop crying, and providing Fentenyl every hour or so. She explicitly said that she wanted me to be more comfortable by the time she left for the day. The attending stopped by and suggested getting another anesthetist, the attending anesthetist in fact. Catherine said that if she were doing this, Jason, the attending, would be the person she'd want. So they called him down and he came in and worked magic. I asked if I could put my knee up to make room for my belly. "No problem." I asked if I could put my foot on Erik for a little leverage. "Sure. That's fine." He spent a lot of time reassuring me that I was not doing it horribly wrong and that he was not going to paralyze me and that I was not going to mess him up as he did this. About this time, I realized what a bitch the other anesthetist had been. We should have told her to take a hike right off the bat and get someone in there who knows how to do their job. Oh well. Doesn't matter. What did end up happening was that Jason made it all better, and I was exhausted. It was nearly 6 a.m., and suddenly, the wracking pain of the last few hours was gone. I was asleep in no time at all.

By 10 a.m., we'd had a good rest and we figured we should check in with the staff. I'd been expecting to see Dr. Nguyen any time, but he hadn't popped in. Turns out, they were all waiting for us to wake up and say we were ready. He'd just been called in for a delivery, but should be out in the next 30-45 minutes. Okay, we'll wait. Unfortunately, 45 minutes stretched to two hours. When he arrived, we found what was expected - that labor had slowed with the epidural. He prescribed a little Pitocin to speed things along. I had been pretty set against Pitocin, but with the epidural, it just didn't matter as much. Things got moving again, and within a few hours, we were ready to go.

I don't know why, but when they told me the average length for the pushing phase was two hours, I just felt like I'd been slapped with a fish. Two hours? Really? I can't do this for two hours!!! So, I didn't. I did it for just about one hour. With Dr. Nguyen and a resident, Dr. Vivian Lei (no, really), delivering the little space alien at 5:18 p.m. on January 28th. They then sewed up my second degree tear (not so bad, but not great), I was once again intensely grateful for the epidural. I have been dutifully following Magenta's advice to "don't look" ever since. Eventually, weeks from now, I'll look at what is going on down there, but for right now, we just rinse, blot, and apply a new pad and don't look. It'll all be fine. Women do this all the time.

Meanwhile, there was this amazing, perfect little baby girl lying on my chest. She wasn't all gross. She wasn't shaped like a space alien. She wasn't red and wrinkly. She wasn't freaky and weird. She was looking at me, wondering what the hell just happened, and why was it so comparatively bright and cold. But really, mere minutes after delivery, she looked like a baby rather than what I'd been told to expect. She sat with me for an hour and a half before I gave her up to be weighed and measured and vaccinated and checked. She was perfect. She scored a 9 on both APGAR tests. She was 7 pounds, 12 ounces and 20 inches long. And with the sole exception of the unfortunate anesthetist, the whole experience had gone swimmingly well. The staff were amazing and I felt well-cared for and like I could have had any birth experience I'd wanted.

After a while, we called Kevin and Rachel and had them come by with our pending dinner order. After months of avoiding deli meats and sprouts, a sandwich from Erik's Deli Cafe was at the top of my list. They came by, bringing me a bucket of Diet Coke to go with it, and took a few pictures of our wee miss in her freshly minted glory. Then we moved across the hall just in time for my mom to arrive from Sacramento. Eventually, we settled in for the night with a little girl who wasn't ready to sleep just yet. She'd had an exciting day and just wanted to look around and be held. 

Weeks ago, Erik turned to me in bed and said, "I'm thinking Athena Eleanor." I said, "That's funny. I'm thinking Eleanor Athena." With a shrug and little else said, we knew we were close to deciding on a name. When she arrived, she was the picture of a fully-formed and somewhat magical creature. I decided that I'd gotten the One-Child Compromise, and gotten my wish for a girl, so if all Erik wanted was Athena as a first name rather than the middle name, then he could win that one. So, she became Athena Eleanor Woodbury the very next morning.

Netflix

Oh Netflix, how do you manage to keep blowing so many opportunities?

There was a button for a free Bonus disc on our page this week. We've been burning through the discs, so figured, sure, we'll tap that in a day or two. Then it disappeared. It didn't say that there was a time limit on the button. It just said to click it and it would send the next disc in queue. But when I went to do it, it was gone. So you like teasing your customers?

Then I thought, hey, I'm bored and we've cleaned out the Tivo (for once in forever), so maybe this is the time to add Netflix streaming back to my account. Then Erik found out I'd never actually seen Die Hard. I thought, "Well, if it's on Netflix streaming, then I can watch that while he's at work one of these days. I'll check." Turns out, it will tell me whether or not they have it on disc, but there's no magic button that says, "Watch it now - Add streaming to your account!" Seemed like rather a missed opportunity. I mentioned this to Erik and he said, "Well maybe if you sign out you can see if it's available or not." Turns out, nope, they only tell you a few select things and won't let you see what's available on disc vs. on demand without an account.

So I decided to go ahead and call Netflix. This was destined to be one of those awkward conversations. So were you teasing me with that bonus disc thing? Yeah, um, sorry, it was a limited time offer. Did you see the email a month ago? No, I saw the button on my queue. Yeah. So, about what's available on demand, how do I tell? Oh, I can call and ask? Really? Or I can sign up and take my chances. Um... yeah. I stopped short of asking the real question - so do you actually have a marketing department? How are they this incompetent? Because really, it's been since last July that y'all have been doing an epic job of blowing a lot of consumer good will. First you reduced what was available on streaming, then announced a big price increase a few weeks later. Then the spin-off. Then the not spin-off. I just heard that your stock was doing much better today after you announced that you've stopped bleeding customers and started adding them again. Seriously, you've got this market sewn up, and yet... I mean, you watched Blockbuster and Hollywood Video piss it all away. Don't be like them!

38 Weeks and Counting

Let me just back up a smidge here. As usual, Dickens + work = total exhaustion by the end of the run. This year was nothing different, but add a growing pregnancy, and the amount of functionality left over at the end of any given day is something in the negative range. To be fair, my office desk chair was my personal torture device. An hour and a half sitting there could swell up my feet and legs and put my hips  in enough pain that I was done for the day, but I have to do it for 8+ hours a day, four days a week during the run. That was a bad way to go to begin with. Days at Dickens were oddly comparatively easy. I'd be up and moving about frequently, sitting briefly, and wearing my boots that helped keep my feet closer to normal sized.

Additionally, every year a certain amount of things are planned to be accomplished each month, and it seems like every year, the list of things planned for December doesn't well take into account that the university is closed for 2 weeks of that month. This means that getting everything done before winter closure requires heroic efforts at the best of times. I was also trying to get my partner Jo-Ann (and the half-dozen project managers who she'll be working with) ready for my leave. About 10 days before close, they decided they could get the carpets in our offices replaced over the holiday, but that to do so, we'd have to pack up everything in our drawers or on our desks and store them in an empty office. This was pretty much the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I could ~almost~ get it all done with only a few late nights, except that I needed to save most of a business day to pack my office while 35 weeks pregnant.

Now my manager had been experiencing some stress, and she was concerned that I wasn't getting my partner and the PMs sufficiently ready for my leave. About 2 weeks before close when she kind of freaked out, I asked for specific suggestions on what else I could do to make her more comfortable and Jo-Ann more ready. (Meanwhile, I confirmed with Jo-Ann that she felt like she was pretty ready.) I got two action items, which I handled over the next week. Then we met again about four days before close. She spent 90 minutes of our 30 minute meeting telling me that 1. I'd done a rotten job of prepping Jo-Ann,  2. I wasn't behaving like a lead, and 3. it was too late and there was nothing that could be done to fix it now. Also, performance evaluations were due the week before I was planning to return, so that was another issue that she'd just deal with. Now, at the best of times, this would've been a very stressful conversations. At 35 weeks pregnant and exhausted from Dickens season, this led to me going out behind the building afterwards to call my husband and cry. A lot. This was not my best day ever. Once I'd pulled it together, I went back in and finished the items on my to-do list, then ran an hour late to my breast-feeding class, and spent most of the rest of that class quietly trying to stop crying again. If there was one thing I thought I was good at right now, it was my job. I've been doing it for 10 years and this I have down. Breast-feeding I may totally blunder through. How the hell do I work a breast pump? How do I handle all the bags and bottles and whatnot? How do I do this at work and keep up with my job? And seriously, how do I get a human from the inside to the outside of my body through a 10 cm hole that didn't exist a few hours earlier?!

So that was the low point. Dinner consisted of several ounces of New York Super Fudge Chunk.

But, I survived the week and managed to avoid another conversation with my manager. I finished the Zimbra 7 videos I was working on and got them signed off. On Friday I packed my office. On Friday night, I felt really really bad. Every time I stood up, I had a contraction. I tried drinking water. Still happened. I tried eating dinner. Still happened. I tried lying down. Still happened. I tried showering. Still happened. Eventually, by 9 p.m. I gave up and went to bed. My body said it was done and I let it be right.

Then there was the last weekend of Dickens. It went swimmingly well. It also meant Gaskell, which now that we're committee members we can't just skip. I sent Erik and Jessica to teach the class, and ducked out after my second lead shift to check us into the hotel. This led to a moment of "maybe I'll just take a little nap..." and 2 hours later I headed back to Dickens to finish the day much refreshed. Then I worked the door at Gaskell with my feet up most of the time and let people drop by and chat with me. It was actually lovely. We headed back to the hotel at the end of the night, and got a decent night's sleep before trekking the 3 miles into the last day of fair. We had a lovely and insanely crowded final day and I got one final turn with my King of Kings/Lord of Lords card, and many many complements from friends who were resetting their standards of what could be done at 8 months pregnant.

And then it was break. Winter closure at Stanford is terribly civilized. Yes, there was a frantic hunt for Christmas presents. Yes, there was a trip to Sacramento for the usual family Christmas events. There was also lots of sleeping in and one day where I never left the house and never changed out of my slippers. This is a truly magical thing. I would never plan a vacation like this, but having it happen on an enforced basis is really good for me. We went to the movies. We went out with friends. We went to parties. We played video games. We prepped baby things. We lounged in bed and read. We played Ticket to Ride on the iPhone. We had a truly lovely time. And for the first time in months, my hips felt really pretty good. During the second week, I went to my 36 week prenatal appointment and got my disability paperwork from the doc. Prior to break, prior to bad scenes with my manager, it seemed a little silly to take weeks off BEFORE the baby arrived, but who was I to argue? Now, at 36 weeks, having unwound for a week, I knew it really was the exact right thing. My office chair was a torture device and I needed to get away from it if the little alien was going to make it to term. So, I went back for 3 whole days and left with three weeks until my due date.

On that Friday, I thought, "So wow, I'm legally disabled. I don't feel different from yesterday. Ha ha." Now, I should know better than to call out the karma fairy. On Saturday we had an awesome baby shower. I feel incredibly loved by my friends. On Sunday, we went through the stuff from the shower and some hand-me-downs and lets just say that our little girl will never go naked. She has so many clothes. (She does however need some more diapers ASAP. Amazon Prime to the rescue!) She also has adorable toys, books, and decor. Where we're going to keep it all is another issue. Ah well. Life goes on and everyone figures this out.

On Sunday night, I felt a bit... off. By 2 a.m., I needed to throw up. By 4 a.m. that task had been thoroughly accomplished. Back in bed, I warned Erik that our plans for the day were likely off. He headed off to the first day of class. I headed back to the toilet to bond some more. We were becoming very close. Food poisoning seemed the likely culprit. A call to Kaiser suggested that as long as I was able to keep some fluids coming and not running a fever, that I could just ride this out. At around 1, I made a mad dash for the bathroom and didn't make it. Erik got home just in time to clean that up for me as I crawled back to bed. Unfortunately, I wasn't done and by evening I was dehydrated and feverish. Another call to Kaiser got me sent to Labor and Delivery. We arrived a little before 10 and they promptly started an IV and gave me some Tylenol and anti-nausea meds. 1 liter of saline later and I went from a 130 heartrate to a much more normal rate. The wee miss experienced a similar drop. They sent us home around 3 in a much improved condition. We'd previously wished for a tour of Kaiser L&D, and now we'd had it. Careful what you wish for eh?

Tuesday was also spent in bed. Wednesday was almost functional. By Thursday, I was feeling mostly okay and tried catching up on stuff around the house. There had been a plan for things to accomplish this week. My plan was smashed to tiny pieces. Still, I could accomplish the maternity photo shoot with Rachel, put off from the originally planned Monday time. But in this process of being sick and being a poor host, the space alien had dropped into a lower orbit and now pretty much nothing fits. A fashion crisis ensued, but really, I should just have faith in Rachel. She can work wonders with her camera and I'm so grateful to have her to capture us and make us all look amazing and gorgeous. I finally pulled it together and headed over and she made beautiful magic.

See:

The set is found here.

So here we are, less than 2 weeks til the due date, and still trying to convince the wee miss day by day that she wants to stay put for as long as possible. We'll see how that goes. Each day we tell her she can't come today because of some important thing - Christyn's graduation/birthday party, we need to wash the car seat cover, friends visiting on Monday, theater tickets on Tuesday... there's a list. And so far, she's cheerfully obliged. We're still hoping to make it to 1/23/12 for totally silly reasons. (Plus, she could be a zwiefacher. Plus it's the first day of the Dragon Chinese year.)

31 Weeks - The Kickoff to Dickens

So let's just say that going in, I knew the Dickens thing would be ambitious. However, after 1 day, I'm feeling great! I danced. I called. I led sets. By late afternoon, I was thinking, "Geez, maybe we *could* do this next year with the right set up."

Yeah, yeah, crazy talk. I'll get over it.

But really, feeling great! And now luxuriating in our hotel room. This year, the fair arranged for an awesome participant discount on rooms at the Radisson just 3 miles from the Cow Palace. It was nice to be fed by 9, showered, by 9:30, and lounging in bed watching Once Upon a Time on Tivo To Go for an hour.

It may not go this well the rest of the weekend. It may not go this well in future weeks. But right now, I'm getting merrily kicked by a happy little girl while lounging in a King sized bed and my alarm isn't set to go off til 8:30 tomorrow. Usually, we wake at 7 to get to fair on time. This is going to be so awesome.

So yeah, I look ridiculous. At 5 foot 1 inch, 31 weeks pregnant is Very Obviously Pregnant. But favorite dance partners have waltzed and mazurka'd with me and the biggest difference is that my boots are hard to get on in the morning even though I'm not wearing a corset. Erik is helpful with that. On the plus side, the boots seem to help keep my feet from swelling so badly.

I noticed a wallflower this afternoon standing behind the chairs who promptly professed two left feet, and I said, "Ah, well we do specialize in fixing that here." And he gave me permission to try. We waltzed and then I handed him off to Miss Bodeswell for the Duke of Kent and then caught sight of him dancing again nearly an hour later. Super-Fezzi Powers = still got 'em.

Another Weekend Headed Towards the Future

Do you ever have those moments where you realize you've agreed to do something kind of crazy? For me, it was as I was sitting at home Saturday morning, missing my husband (who was off rocking his presentation at the American Chemical Society conference in Pasadena), with my feet up, trying to drain my swollen ankles. I'd agreed to teach Cathleen's Dance 3 class from 1:30-2:30 at Dickens workshops and I was planning to teach Bohemian National Polka. This was all well and good, save that, 1. my ankles and feet were harboring the 3 1/2 pounds I'd gained in one day, 2. I'd never taught BNP before, 3. Richard usually teaches it in 2 hours and I only have 1, and 4. Oh for Pete's sake, I'm 7 1/2 months pregnant and I'm about to teach others to do pivots with someone who is over a foot taller than me. Can this even work???

But, I got there, I taught the class, I handed out Richard's notes, I got many compliments from the students, and an inquiry from one as to whether or not I'd be teaching anything else during workshops because he liked my teaching style. Aw shucks!

During Fezzi rehearsal, we blasted through a whole pile of set dances, now having danced everything at least once during workshops. Then I grabbed dinner with John and Rebecca and Alex, Sherman, Cordelia, and Chris for Becky's birthday. We tried the Mexican place near where Nona's used to be, and all wished we were at Nona's.

On the way back from Pacifica, I jaunted through Home Depot to pick up paint for the next day's adventure: painting the baby's room.  Earlier in the week, I'd planned to go buy the blended paint+primer that came highly recommended from friends, but they recommended the Home Depot variety. I had a Lowe's color picked out. So a trip through both, and I found a Home Depot color that was the tiniest bit different, and suddenly I wanted to paint a test wall again. I laughed at myself and reflected on the Radiolab episode on Choice and brought home my samples and splashed them up on the wall Saturday morning. Now confident in my selection, I headed back to Home Depot and grabbed 2 gallons of "Brilliant Sea" in Behr Premium Plus Ultra Paint + Primer, plus a gallon of white for the ceiling. Then I proceeded to San Jose airport to reclaim my husband.

The next morning, Athena came over and put her years of interior paint experience to work. She's a master, having put herself through school with painting interiors. First she caulked a seam between the ceiling and walls. Then Erik rolled paint on while she cut in the edges. After the first coat on everything (including the ceiling), we broke for a lunch of burritos from El Sabroso. Then we finished up the second coat around 5.

 

It came out just gorgeous! And it matches the baby's linens perfectly.

We sent Athena on her way with many many thanks and then collapsed on the sofa. I ordered a baby crib and a dresser/changing table. They should arrive this week and we'll assemble over the next few weeks. Luckily, the 2 p.m. burrito lasted us so we skipped dinner. After getting through various emails and other electronic chores, we enjoyed an episode of Supernatural, and then I was hoping for a little dab of ice cream, but we were out of New York Super Fudge Chunk. Erik volunteered to run to the store. I realized though that I also needed gas in my car, so I started thinking about going myself, but then he said he could just take my car and do that too. I looked down at the sleeping Leeloo in my arms and handed him my credit card for gas. 

So there I was, reveling in just how good I have it, with a sleeping kitty in my arms, Pepper curled up at my side, a husband out running my errands, and a baby kicking me from the inside, with a freshly painted baby's room among the accomplishments for the weekend. Yep. It doesn't get much better than this.