Q is our New Orleans Baby.  Goose is our Hurricane Baby.  Olive is our Blog Baby.

I suppose you could say that I got knocked up by my love affair with social media.  Maguire and I had finally decided that we were done having children.  Two was plenty.  We were done.  Then I went to the BlissDom October 2008 conference in Nashville and slept in a room with Alli Worthington’s baby boy.  I knew I was in trouble when I heard myself insisting that I definitely didn’t want a baby.  Repeatedly.  To no one in particular.

The lady doth protest too much.

By the time I arrived at the BlissDom February 2009 conference, I was already two weeks pregnant.  Unbeknownst to me, as I slept in a room with Alli’s baby again and whispered to him how I had so surely resisted his baby temptations.

All total, Olive has attended in-utero three blog conferences between BlissDom, BlogHer, and Type-A Mom.  Shortly before she was born, I quipped that I wouldn’t be surprised if she came out with a tagline attached.

The Type-A Mom conference was the ultimate blending of my social media life and my real life.  Alli threw me a hand-me-down baby shower, attended by so many of our online friends.  I was showered with pink and glitter and polka dots, all of which had once adorned the lives of our friends and their own children. 

That is what made it so meaningful:  I was able to hold in my hands a bit of the tangible, from the hands of those that exist in a part of my life that is very much intangible.

Why do our relationships with the people we know online mean so much to us?  Why do we care so much about these people that we’ve never met or rarely met or may never meet?  Where do the lines between our online lives and our real lives blur?  When do we stop making the distinction between “online friend” and “IRL friend”?

I have stopped making that distinction with dozens of the friends I’ve met online and not only for those that I have proceeded to meet “In Real Life.”  They have become part of my real life because my social media life has become part of my real life.

I arrived at the hospital to deliver Olive with a Nokia E71 phone that would enable me to tweet with my friends during labor.  A phone that was given to me by Nokia when I met them at the BlogHer conference in Chicago this year.

A phone that I am madly in love with, in part because of its easy learning curve (I’d never used twitter from a phone before) and fabulous applications (Gravity Twitter app is to die for) and in part because it is the one thing that has staved off feelings of isolation in the middle of the night and during the long nursing hours, trapped in the house.  It’s allowed me to twitter my way out of cross-eyed insanity, I promise.

I arrived at the hospital armed with a Friends of Maddie NICU family support pack.  When the head administrator of the hospital, a friend of our family, came in to meet Olive and see how we were doing, I handed him the bag and told him Maddie’s story.  I told him about Heather Spohr and how we met online, about our work together on the Overcoming Adversity channel of Blog Nosh Magazine, and about our bonding over a post of mine that she read while her daughter Maddie was in the NICU.  Unbelievably, he told me that his daughter reads my blog and he promised to deliver the Friends of Maddie bag to the NICU himself.

Just like that, the lines between my social media life and my real life blurred right into the lives of another family in the hospital.

I arrived at the hospital with you in tow.

Something intangible became very tangible.

As I write this, our community is praying for another Blog Nosh Magazine editor, our beloved Anissa Mayhew.  She suffered a stroke on November 17…  my eighth wedding anniversary.  Ah, the lines.  They blur.

Twitter has been abuzz with #prayersforanissa.  We pray, each of us in our own way.  We check in, we share stories, we talk about Anissa’s boobs…  because we know she’d want it that way, while we all wait for news of her progress.  While we pray for an end to the bad news this year.  Anissa is one of my favorite people.  Vibrant, hilarious, and deeply considerate.  I fiercely adore her.

People on the periphery of our community wonder at our passion and our compassion.  They marvel at our mobilization and poignant loyalty.  They wonder what it would take to blur their own lines.

We celebrate together.  We pray together.  We play together.  We hope together.

Thanks to social media, we rarely have to experience anything alone, if we so choose to blur our lines.

Thanks to social media, I have a rare opportunity to blur my lines with you right now:

In celebration of the birth of our daughter, Olive, the custom announcement and stationery company Tiny Prints is delivering our baby announcement/ holiday card to you! 

A precious piece of our life, delivered from our hearts directly into your hands.  A bit of the intangible made tangible.

All you have to do to receive Olive’s birth announcement and our family’s holiday card is visit http://bit.ly/velveteenbaby and enter your mailing address.  It’s our real family announcement, so no “online” names from us this time.  In fact, Olive’s real name was first suggested by a friend of mine on twitter.  Ah, those lines. 

While you are there, you can grab a fabulous discount code for Velveteen Mind readers, courtesy of Tiny Prints as my featured holiday sponsor.  As a former stationery store manager in New Orleans and lifelong stationery fanatic, I very deliberately chose to work with Tiny Prints for their quality (touch the cards. end of story.), attention to detail and service (oy, I could spend four days browsing designs), and authentic engagement and interest in our community.  From their announcement: 

To celebrate the holiday season, Tiny Prints is offering Megan's readers a special discount on items such as our holiday photo cards, Christmas greetings & party invitations. The timing couldn't be better with the recent launch of our new mailing service. Let us address and mail your cards…  Shop now to enjoy free standard US shipping PLUS $10 off holiday card orders of $75 or more OR $30 off holiday card orders of $149 or more using the coupon code VELVETEEN09.

The custom design of our card is a surprise, so I can’t wait for you to receive it!  Seriously, Olive spit up all over her pretty little gown while I was taking her photo with her brothers, which they thought was hilarious and I thought just made me want to take a nap…  so you gotta see it and tell me that it was worth making everyone look clean awake cute!

By the way, the mailing service?  These people are speaking my language.  I can’t tell you how many boxes of unmailed holiday cards I have right now.  Actually, I can.  6.  Going back to 2005.  Yeah.  But I can’t help myself because I love sending and receiving cards in the mail!

In fact, I would adore seeing your own holiday cards this year, if you are willing to share.  I love any chance to show my husband how cute my “online” friends are, as  I think he still secretly thinks you are all Dungeons & Dragons players dressed in wizard outfits.  Um, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Send your own holiday cards (truly, I’d love it!) to:

Megan Jordan
PO Box 6516
Gulfport, MS  39506

And while you are addressing cards, I can think of one other blogger’s family that would probably love to hold a bit of the tangible from you, too… 

Friends of Anissa have set up a PO Box to receive cards and any help that you may have to offer.  You can simply send a card of support, your own family’s holiday greeting just so they can see some smiling faces, or you can slip in a gift card, as her family could use all of the help they can get.  Check out the list of gift cards that will help them through the next few weeks and months, otherwise you can drop a bit of your heart to:

Anissa Mayhew Family
860 Johnson Ferry Road 140-184
Atlanta, GA 30342

We may never be able to fully explain why the relationships we make through social media come to mean so much to us, but they do.  I see many of my online friends more often than my college friends.   Hell, I see many of you three times a year or more, which is honestly three times more often than I see much of my extended family.

My mom was the first to refer to Olive as our “blog baby.”  I thought it sounded silly, but I’ve truly come to think of her as my “Velveteen Baby,”  as my friends referred to her in their tweets before and after she was born.

Celebrate her birth with us (including you college friends and extended family I so rarely see) and add your address to receive her birth announcement and our holiday card…  Allow us to share our joy with you. 

Blur the lines that attempt to divide us.

My boundaries are permeable.  Reach out and I’ll deliver a piece of myself into your hands.  Always.

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During labor, there is a small window of time in which a woman can receive an epidural to alleviate her pain.  Once you have progressed beyond that window, however, an epidural is no longer an option.  Regardless of how much pain you are in or how sure you are that you won't be able to push that baby out without some kind of supernatural medical help, the last call at the Epidural Bar occurs somewhere around 6 cm or so...

I contend that the window should reopen shortly after the new mother is forced to leave against her will discharged from the hospital.  Say, around 3 weeks postpartum. 

In other words, I'll take an epidural now, thank you.  Straight up. 
This mama is exhausted.

Nearly one month ago, our daughter was born.  Olive is beautiful and serene, watchful and bossy.  We adore her.  I am awake 20+ hours each day with her (and no, that doesn't mean she sleeps 4 hours straight each night. har har.), so I feel I am well-qualified to say that she is fabulous and worth every second of effort that bringing her into this world took.

As expected, Olive's labor went incredibly well, though not entirely to plan.  Any little girl worth her spice would certainly see to spoiling her mother's plans right out of the gate. 
Without further ado, Olive's birth story...

One week of contractions.  One week!  After one week of contractions every ten minutes, all of which I had to be mindful of thanks to a sketchy combination of a positive Group B Strep result paired with a history of rapid labors that would not allow for enough time for antibiotics to treat the GBS, I was more than ready for active labor to begin.  My "get thee to the hospital" cue was the first sign of pain or contractions five minutes apart, with or without pain.

3 a.m. on Monday, October 19, and we get that cue. 

As I detailed in my birth plan, my goal was to have as natural a birth as possible.  Armed with Lamaze birth techniques, I felt confident that I could attempt a medication-free delivery, if not a medication-free start to labor.  I’m not very natural-living-minded in the rest of my life, but when it comes to my babies, I try to go as hard-core as I can manage.  I feel it offsets my dependence on nachos and Diet Coke quite nicely.

Once admitted and sure that we would be leaving with a baby girl that day, we started the antibiotic IV drip to treat the GBS and then decided to take it slow until my OB arrived for an otherwise-scheduled C-section.  My primary goal was to avoid using Pitocin to induce labor for as long as possible.  Since my labor had begun naturally, though not progressing as rapidly as my first two births, it looked like it would be used to augment labor, at most.

I used the time before my OB arrived to get to know the Labor and Delivery staff at Memorial Hospital.  I fell particularly in love with a nurse named Hazel.  A Lamaze instructor for 14 years, she understood my concerns and goals and assured me that she had no problem expressing any dissenting opinions in front of my doctor if I asked.  Although she didn’t see the harm in using Pitocin, she knew I wanted to put it off for as long as possible and try everything else first. 

Hazel would prove to be a key contributor to my confidence throughout Olive’s birth, due in large part to my knowing what questions to ask of her and feeling comfortable “conspiring” with her.  I respected her and, in turn, she made me feel as though she simultaneously respected my goals and the doctor’s opinion.  I can’t stress enough the power of feeling you can trust your support team, even if you’ve just met them. 

Pssst, Memorial, this is where you give Hazel a raise.

Approximately an hour of on-and-off negotiations followed the arrival of my OB, resulting in a compromise:  We would hold off on the Pitocin but I would allow him to break my water.  If I didn’t progress on my own from there, he would start a Pitocin drip at a low level and then back off if it looked like I could take it from there.  Deal.

Right after my OB broke my water, this is me tweeting to you:

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{I’d like to point out at this point that I was severely swollen the last few weeks of my pregnancy and usually have an identifiable chin.  Thank you.}

Directly after that video, I hopped out of bed and proceeded to walk.  And walk.  And rock.  And sway.  And then walk some more.  Unfortunately, by the time my OB checked again, I hadn’t progressed enough and we were nearing the end of my antibiotic run. 

At that point, I agreed to accept a low-level Pitocin drip.  Could I have refused both breaking my water and the Pitocin?  Absolutely.  But people, after a week of frustrating contractions and more time spent in a Labor/ Delivery suite than with both my first two births combined, I was growing impatient and excited to see my daughter.  So I gave.  Plain and simple. 

As it turns out, Pitocin works to augment contractions.  Huh.

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That video was me on Pitocin set on Level 4.  I made Hazel assure me that she was following my OB’s instruction for setting it on a low level, but was surprised at how quickly it kicked in.  The breathing you see me doing in the video is Lamaze appropriate for me during the first phase of labor.  Basically deep, controlled breathing.  Enough to give me focus and not complain a bunch.  The rocking?  Just wait.  I’ll about rock myself off the bed soon enough.

Later, Hazel returned and I noticed her fiddling with the Pitocin drip.  She turned to walk away and I saw that she had increased the drip to an 8.  My reaction was a full on “Oh no you di’int!” and then haranguing her about promising to keep it on a low level.  Her response?  “Girl, it’s on an 8…  out of 199!”  Yeah, I thought it was out of a 10.

Love you, Hazel.

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I was in roughly phase 2 of labor during that last video.  Just enough pain to get a little, um, snippy with my husband about his coaching.  During that more active labor, I am still breathing in a relatively controlled manner, but I need random breath counts called out to keep me distracted from the pain and focused on the breathing.  In short, your coach calls out a random number between 1 and 5, you breath out that number and then exhale a cleansing breath to indicate you are ready for the next number.  It sounds deceptively simple, but it is just complicated enough during contractions to distract you from pain, which further helps you to relax between contractions because you haven’t worn yourself out and worked yourself up.

The trick is random.  If I can tell that you are relying on a pattern, well, it gets ugly:

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Well.  Hm.  Love you, Maguire.

Finally, we get to the truly active labor of phase 3.  During this phase, contractions are right on top of each other and the Lamaze breathing technique of calling random breath counts is the only thing holding me together.  My breathing is fierce and fast but focused.  Lamaze kept me from flailing off the bed in search of an epidural, though I’m pretty sure I was outside of that “epidural window” at this point.  This is where I silently begin making promises to God and setting little “just make it through x” goals for myself.  As in, “If I’m at a 6 when they check me next, I’ll stay.  If not, I’m out of here.”  Really rational stuff.

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That was my last contraction before we prepared for me to begin pushing.  Ah, the beauty of the phase known as Transition.  Ouch.  Once again, I’d like to point out the importance of trusting your support team and getting to know your nurses, if possible.  This is also where I continue my love affair with Hazel: 

Directly after that last contraction, I called Hazel to come check me for progress again.  Not only had Hazel been the only nurse to check me throughout labor, creating a comforting sense of consistency, but she paid attention to what I was telling her, not just what she was seeing for herself.  She knew that I went fast once I reached a certain point in labor and kept my OB apprised of my progress.  At lunch, Hazel came in to let me know that she had kept my OB updated enough that he had chosen to come to the hospital during his lunch break and take a nap in the lounge.  Just in case.

The feeling of reassurance that provided was outstanding, particularly given the fact that Goose was delivered by some wet dude in scrubs that was pulled out of the showers at the last possible second.

After the contraction in the video above, Hazel came in to check me and brought my OB with her…  fully decked out in scrubs and ready to deliver my baby girl.  Although I was only 7 cm dilated, they felt they could stretch me to 10 cm, as they saw I was ready to push.  No kidding.  I was going to start pushing one way or another.

Unlike Q, who took 4 or 5 pushes and was right there when I started pushing, and Goose, who took one push and was more or less on his way to our house on his own by the time I started pushing, Olive was still very high when I felt the urge to push.  It was as though I had to access a whole new set of muscles in order to identify where she was.  As a result, my usual near-silent delivery became something of a riot house event.  Lots of belligerent hooting and hollering, let me tell you.

Girls.  I swear.

But.  How sweet.

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No, Olive’s delivery didn’t go quite as planned (that’s her real name you hear us calling her--  Olive is her online name), but it was delicious and I was proud that I was able to do it as naturally as possible.  Yes, it hurt like hell.  No, they weren’t handing out awards for delivering babies without pain medication.  But for me, it was perfect.  I was able to feel every moment of her delivery in a very different and much more specific way than I expected.  It was beyond my expectations.

She is beyond our expectations.

I’d like to take one last opportunity to thank the featured sponsor of Velveteen Mind this month, Lamaze International.  I would have used the Lamaze birth method whether they had reached out to me or not, but working with them made the experience that much more enjoyable and enhanced my confidence immeasurably. 

You don’t have to plan for a natural delivery in order to use Lamaze.  You don’t have to try out the breathing techniques you see me use in these videos.  Lamaze doesn’t have to be an all or nothing approach, which is fabulous in this age of increasingly common interventions.  No, not all doctors and nursing staffs are as accommodating and not everyone has access to midwives or doulas.  Therefore, I recommend that you simply check out the Lamaze International materials online and seek out a birthing class through your hospital or birthing center.  There is so much to gain from the Lamaze birth approach as a whole that you are sure to find even one small aspect that will help you.

Additionally, as evidenced by my story, your support team and birthing facility can make all the difference.  We love Memorial Hospital, but choosing it took research.  Lamaze International offers a birth survey to help aid mothers in finding the right birth environments and caregivers for them, which I encourage you to check out.

The bottom line for me is the importance of confidence.  Confidence in my body and in my own ability to deliver my baby in the most healthy manner possible is what made my experience beautiful.  Yes, it hurt, but I was not afraid of the pain.  I understood what the pain meant because I could identify what was causing it.  My confidence and self-awareness was the result of education.  Education in the form of the Lamaze birth class I took when I had Q, the birth books I read when I had Goose, and the refresher training I had with Lamaze for Olive.

I was able to let go of my fear and just be.

And now?  Now I be tired.  ;)  Which brings me back to my theory that although I passed on an epidural during labor, I genuinely believe it is only fair that one be made available to me now.  Because whew.  Sleep deprivation is used as torture for a reason.

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Little Wonders - Rob Thomas

*In celebration of our daughter’s birth and in thanks for all of your love and support, those are our kids’ real names in the photos above.  Please don’t mention them in the comments, as I’d still like Google to think we named our children Q, Goose, and Olive.

Truly, thank you for all of your kindness and encouragement.  Not to mention your patience, as I’ve been very busy kissing those precious cheeks above the last couple of weeks.  Detailed birth story to come…  just as soon as I sleep more than 3 hours in a row.  Whew!  ;) 

In the meantime, everyone is healthy and happy and hilarious.  What more can we ask for, other than more time to breathe in those babies! 

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