The bestest from the bestie

My best friend in the whole wide world who is too far away in SF made this. WOW. Just wow!

Swaddling for idiots and the sleep deprived

sorry i cannot muster to blog more. i am averaging 2 hours of nonconsecutive sleep a night. that's okay though. love this velcro swaddle i was given. fucking brilliant!! Getting tooth fixed tomorrow. Thank G-d!!

Incoherently happy

Baby Fishy has arrived!

The Fish and I are now elated parents to a sweet little boy, born Tuesday the 22nd, 1549 EST, weighing 6 pounds, 5 ounces, 20 inches, full head of red hair (for now) which makes me beyond happy.

The birth was pretty harrowing; two epidurals since the first one didn't take, one panic attack, fully dilated and effaced and then felt pretty zen for 45 minutes of pushing only to discover that my pelvis was too small for his head to fit through, and then a C-section. No one would ever say I have small hips, but I guess it happens to even non-petite folk. Quite possibly the worst and best experience of my life.

The baby is doing great despite some feeding issues for which we are working with some amazing lactation consultants. He has an insufficient latch and weak suck. I am still fully committed to breast feeding, and we are supplementing with formula. We are on a feeding protocol which goes in three hour intervals, though sometimes we stretch it to four if we are super exhausted. It takes us an hour to feed and then we all have two hours to rest. The recovery from the C-section is not fun at all but it is all worth it to look at this goofy face.

Giving birth looking like I smoke meth

I just chipped the lower half of my front fucking tooth. No dentist in this godforsaken fucking town will see me. I go in for an induction at 5am. I look like a meth smoking hillbilly. Seriously this had to just happen. I am not making this up. It just happened.

Keeping it real

I have one cankle. Just one. I tried to take a pic of both feet so you could see the dif but it wouldn't work and I couldn't bend closer. My other foot is swollen but not like this. Btw getting a pedicure tomorrow at noon. I got the blue toe nail polish five weeks ago when they told me I would be going into labor with our baby boy very soon. It has not survived and they were WRONG.

I will not do that again

In my attempt to induce labor naturally I went for acupressure today. Or so I thought. It was actually acupuncture and I found it torturous. When I first met Fish I read a book written by an Army psychologist concerning interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Graib. The gist of the book was that torture doesn't work and results in faulty intel. Well after suffering through a bit of acupuncture today I can firmly say that if I was being tortured I would tell the inflictor anything to get them to stop. Holy hell it hurt so bad. I could barely tolerate having the needles put in. And it wasn't the needles, it was what it was doing to the tendons under the skin. And then after I calmed down she came back and started manipulating the needles, to which I began wailing for her to "Stop it" and grabbed her by her shirt and started tugging. Yep I totally did that. So I spent $55 and who knows if it will work. And honestly if it does I am not even sure I want it to anymore. The idea of an induction sounds better and better, especially because I can get pain meds from the get go.

I have pain issues. Translation I cannot tolerate pain at all. When I get my flu shot I typically have someone hold me down, and even then I wail, flinch and one year I even stamped my foot! When I first tried to have an IUD put in, I kicked my gyno in the head. The procedure was aborted and I came back for the next attempt jacked up on Valium and they tied my feet to the stirrups. I also had my best friend there soothing me. And people said getting an IUD is relatively painless. Yeah fucking right.

I have a theory though why I have absolutely no pain tolerance, and it has been backed up by medical professionals. When I was 10 months old I had a very serious case of spinal meningitis. Back then in 1973 they didn't believe babies felt pain the same way and procedures like a spinal tap were done on me without much anesthesia, which they felt was more dangerous than helpful. I also have practically nonexistent veins and during that horrible bout I had a cut down on my ankle, I can show you my scar, in order to get an IV started. For an endoscopy I was sent to the oncology ward in order for those nurses to get an IV going since they are so good with tough sticks. An anesthesiologist was brought in to start an IV on my hand when I had some scan. I go bananas.

Since that time, doctors do believe that babies feel pain the same as older folk. The theory is that I have damaged neurological pain pathways resulting from those procedures and that is why I cannot tolerate pain. I have gone vasovagal during procedures, kicked the phlebotomist when they are drawing blood, and been told not to come back to the blood bank. Add in years of these experiences and as expected I have major anxiety about medical procedures. I even considered asking for an elective C-section at one point.

So after today's torturous experience, I am beginning think this induction is even more so the right thing. I mean they can sedate me when I start acting like a lunatic. I know that women have literally been doing this since the beginning of time. But those women are not me.

Counting down

It is one week until my due date and my cervix is at a standstill. I have been 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced for 4 weeks! The doc that told me four weeks ago the fishy would be here in 1-3 weeks was not accurate obviously. At my last appointment my doc told me she wants to induce the day after my due date. I was in such a dismayed state I was like okay. Then of course I got home and started second guessing myself. I began to plot how I was going to advocate for letting my body go another week. But of course I started going back and forth on that as well. Bottom line I want a crystal ball that tells me how I will avoid a C-section. Not gonna happen. So time to get analytical.

I asked Fish his opinion which led to quite a fun discussion about our individual problems solving styles. His bottom line was that I should go with my first gut feeling, it is usually right. I had to explain that there truly was no such thing. Never in my life has the path I should take just magically condensed in my gut. Rather I begin to feel anxiety and go on a hunt for every piece of data in order to start weighing my options. He gave me some Army related vignettes; land navigation, mission critical decisions. How do you think I felt about that? Luckily I had a sense of humor that evening and didn't get bent.

With all the decisions we have been faced with during our first year of marriage, we have certainly learned a lot about each other. So despite him being 5 pages from the end of his novel he put it down and we began crunching data, between him making pretend choking gestures and me saying remember you love me! It came down to this, if I push the induction to 41 weeks I lose out on some benefits of having the induction at 40 weeks. And if I push to 41 weeks there is no guarantee that I will actually avoid a C-section. So why not take the benefits and get on with it? So today if I do not spontaneously go into labor I will submit (yep that is how I feel) to being induced on the 22nd for the following benefits:

*18 days post birth of coverage between Fish's paternity leave and my fab mother-in-law visiting.
*7 days of just Fish and I with the baby figuring it out
*More time to recover if G-d willing I am summoned to CA for a job interview
*The baby will be full term (according to both our due date calculations!)

In the meantime I will continue with all my holistic methods to induce labor; herbs, sex, nipple stimulation and acupressure. Let see how long it takes for me to second guess myself.

Where we sit today

To say we have gone round and round about the our ETS situation is too put it mildly. The new dinner table rules have been helpful. Our stress level has gone down and our enjoyment of meal togetherness has gone up. A few more key pieces of data have come in and our bottom line has become clearer. It comes down to this, we cannot return to California with our life being a house of cards. But, our ultimate goals and desires involve returning to California.

Our research yielded the following data:

Fish's schooling:
We found out that despite Fish having lots of units earned from previous schooling and military service, in fact only 3 semester credits will go towards his degree. That means he is basically starting from scratch with his undergraduate degree. And then add onto that a year or so for a teaching credential. Five years. Ouch that hurt. The Post 9/11 GI Bill affords 36 months of BAH (living stipend) and is not provided during months where school is in recess. So roughly we are looking at 9 out of 12 months of BAH during the best of scenarios.

Unemployment Insurance:
My unemployment insurance could last until May 2012. Or not. If the unemployment rate in California falls below 10% it is gone. It is currently sitting at 12.5%. While it is doubtful it would drop overnight, it is not a sure thing.

Health Insurance:
Fish could join the reserves, even for just a year, and we would be able to have health insurance.

Bottom line:
If I do not have a job, we are facing the possibility that we will not be able to support ourselves. Even if Fish brings in other income. Realistically given the hiring cycle for my career field, I should be hired by mid-July. Come mid-July and I do not have a job what are we to do?

Re-enlistment?
Yep we had that discussion. And let me tell you what a circle-jerk of misinformation that was. It started with, yeah you can totally do a one-year extension and you can decide mid-July. We thought, great, this will give us a back-up plan and some breathing room. Not a bad option. Then we found out it wasn't an option, but maybe re-enlistment for one year was. Okay. Nope not an option. At this point we have been told we would need to re-enlist for two years, with the possibility of a PCS, which of course mean deployment. This ripped us both to shreds on many levels. Postponing our return one year was salty but palatable. Two years, what bitter pill is putting it mildly. I literally teared up talking to a friend about this. And Fish understandably so brought up that would put him at 10 years of service, would he really want to get out then?

So the wheels kept turning in my head. I tried to get myself off the details and get back to the big picture. The big picture is that we want to ETS and start the next phase of our life in California. Fish wants to go to school. I need and want to work. How can we make those things happen? How could we use our data in our favor? How could we use our family strengths for good? Our details we realized were limiting. We were focusing on the one private university that Fish had been accepted to. And while this school was fantastic, it limited where we could live and where I could consequently job search. And since he was so far from his degree, was there such a rush to start attending there after all? Maybe our return to California and immediately setting up our life as we wanted was going to be less linear. Perhaps simply getting back to California was the goal. With that in mind, perhaps finding a job somewhere in Southern California and Fish starting school at a community college and starting to knock out those general education requirements would be an excellent start? It would get us closer to our final goal. Re-enlisting should be a decision made because we want to continue to serve, not that we simply want to survive. It would be a step away from our ultimate goals.

So at this point, we are getting some final data about re-enlistment and if we could indeed make the decision mid-July, if need be. I am broadening my job search. I am breathing a bit easier. Now if I could just push out the Fishy, I would surely be a bit distracted from all this. Two more weeks until the due date, 3 weeks until an induction. Not much longer.

New Dinner Time Rules

Tonight I instituted new dinner table rules. You see dinner time has always been one of Fish and I's favorite together activities. I like to cook yummy meals, we sit down without distractions, have our time, and then he cleans up! However, the past few months more times than not the dinner table conversation has been taken over by our ETS/PCS conversation. It has often ruined a good meal and even worse the rest of the evening.

The stakes right now are so high. The variables so many. The control so minimal. It is wearing on us both individually and as a couple. But putting our heads in the sand is just not an option. Putting our heads together, is easier said than done, and does not always bring out the best. I would not go as far as to blog that we are butting heads, but we are both letting the stress and anxiety get the better of us. Throw in pregnancy hormones and new parent jitters, and it just has not been a good trajectory. I found myself missing my husband, missing us, missing that sacred time of the day.

So tonight over a ground turkey loaf and some steamed broccoli I proclaimed new rules. No more talking about this ETS/PCS situation as I made dinner, as we sat down to eat dinner, as Fish cleaned up. If Fish wanted to surf the internet about snakes while I cooked, he would, no more researching options and completing things on the Honey-Do list. While we ate dinner, we would talk to each other about anything but this thing. While he cleaned, I would not fret and instead take some downtime for myself.

Things are far from resolved. We feel as if our life is a house of cards on our worst days. But, but we are going to figure this out. We will come up with a plan that is best for our family and honors each person's needs as best we can. We will not allow us to become a train wreck. We just, we must preserve us, as this thing works itself out. Just as we are being purposeful about our future, we will also be purposeful about our present. Let the new rules rule.