the melancholeric

It bothers me that Kimmy Schmidt, who was born in 1985, makes comedic references that make sense for someone born in the 70's. Sometimes I think the whole world is in denial that kids born in the 80's are grown-ups. And surprise: we were too young to see John Hughes films when they debuted.

Now the green blade rises from the buried grain. Wheat that in the dark earth many days has lain. Love lives again that with the dead has been. Love is come again like wheat arising green!

Hibernating until this horrible news story goes away. :(

I'm sitting in my rocking chair with a quilt and a baby that fell asleep nursing. I have a steaming cup of coffee. I can hear my husband in the kitchen making pancakes, playing Bach's cello suites. A moment ago he came into the room and dropped some chocolate chips into my hungry mouth. It is spring, and the sun is out, and it is a quiet morning. And this morning the hectic and sometimes helpless feelings of new parenthood feel distant to me. This is a good morning.

Henry was born on 3/4 at 3:47 am by emergency c-section. He weighed…wait for it…10 lbs, 1 oz! And is 22” long. I labored for almost 24 hours and got to about 6 cm when Henry started having an extremely elevated heart rate (like, twice what it should have been) with arrhythmia for no discernible reason. We stalled as long as we could trying to get him back to a normal level/rhythm, but in the end we needed the emergency c-section because he couldn’t be under that amount of stress any longer. The team who did the section was fantastic. I felt that Henry and I were both well cared for, and even though I was planning a minimal-intervention, med-free labor, I am 100% happy with how it turned out. I feel like it was absolutely the right decision, especially given Henry’s size and the fact that he had the cord wrapped around his neck twice. When he was delivered, his heart fixed itself immediately, but they found he had two pockets of air in his chest cavity. So that’s why he spent the first day in the NICU for monitoring. Subsequent x-rays have shown that the pockets are shrinking on their own, so we got to have Henry in our room with us today--yay!

I just want to go into labor. Is that so much to ask?

So I spent an uneventful afternoon at the hospital yesterday. I thought I was leaking amniotic fluid, so they admitted me for a swab and then kept me there for four hours. The swab came back negative, but while I was there they had me strapped to monitors and apparently I was having regular, weak contractions the whole time but I didn't start to notice them until closer to the end. Just uncomfortable, not painful contractions. In the end, my midwife checked me and I was not at all dilated, so husband and I went home and ate Chinese food and watched TV. Still having annoying contractions today that were really uncomfortable during church with all the sitting and standing. Feeling vulnerable and emotional and wanting to be taken care of. My poor husband now looks at me like a ticking time bomb, even though this could go on for weeks.

Simultaneously impatient for baby to arrive and hoping he'll stay put a little longer. My doula is out of town this week, and my midwife is out of town next week...I would prefer they both be there for the birth. I've been having backaches and cramping off and on for the last few days. The car seat is installed and my bag is (mostly) packed. Waiting is hard.

My gramps died a few hours ago. Thankfully the hospice team had been there the day before and he had been given pain medication to make him comfortable. When I die, I hope it’s like him: at 95, in my sleep, surrounded by family. His wife, my grandma, died in June, right before we found out we were expecting. It’s funny how life and death coincide.

I think we’re going to have to spill the beans on the baby’s name to my family a bit early. We’ve been keeping it a secret--partly because it’s just fun to have a surprise, and partly because we wanted to avoid getting negative feedback. The name we chose (Henry) is my great-grandfather’s name, and it hasn’t been used again by anyone in the family before us. Henry was my gramps’s dad, and he was my dad’s favorite grandfather. My gramps is 95 and in the nursing home, and he has been so sweetly interested in my pregnancy. Very recently he’s taken a bad turn, and his doctors have said it’s time to call in hospice care. I don’t think he’ll make it to the baby’s birth--my due date is 4 weeks away. I was really looking forward to surprising Gramps with the baby’s name. He’ll be very pleased to know we named him after his father. I think I’ll send him a card and tell him the name that way, but my dad will have to read it to him and the cat will be out of the bag. I think worth it, though. I also need to think about whether or not we would attempt to attend the funeral if he passes before the baby comes. It’s a 5 hour drive back home, and I’m very hesitant to travel this close to my due date. I would be sad if I couldn’t be there, but maybe we could send an arrangement as a way to be there in spirit.

Six more weeks. I am not ready to experience labor, but I am so ready to stop being pregnant.