I woke up around 7 and after an hour of feeding and an hour of rocking chair time, I was ready for Rich to snuggle our son so I could shower and rally.

Breakfast and a productive Target trip (woo more nursing bras and yoga pants!) led to a trip to the park (two laps around the park and I survived!) and cheeseburgers for lunch. Our little boy slept through all our outings and has been a perfect little snuggle bear this evening.

Ian and I have nursed/grazed in 5-10 minute spurts while rotting our brains watching a marathon of Bridezilla episodes. It’s been awesome. Rich ordered us pizza and delivered it to my recliner. I’m hopeful that Sir Grunts-a-lot will sleep soundly for some large chunks tonight.

So with that I leave you with more precious little boy. You’ll have to just imagine the adorable little cooing noises.

©2009 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

I now have a tiny drunk of my own but today he’s been a mean drunk.

You know those beautiful long fingers he has? They’ve been gripping my nipple with his dagger fingernails that I swear grew since this morning and trying to turn the faucet on my boob to get to the milk. Even once he latches on, he does the angriest nursing routine ever, frowning and grunting and stiff-arming my sternum with one arm while clawing at my side with the other.

Once he’s had his fill and I assume he’ll be content, he just sits in my lap and grunts angrily and frowns at me. He started all of this last night and by 3am we retreated back to the recliner because it was the only way both of us could sleep.

He’s eaten twice as much as he normally does today and in 8 minute spurts where I think he’s done and 5 minutes later he’s demanding another drink from the bartender. God forbid I tell him he’s had enough or maybe I should call him a cab or he should take a nap, he just looks at me like “you’re not the boss of ME,” grunting and gesturing wildly.

This afternoon after a very late lunch Rich said he was going to mow the lawn. I told him I was going to try taking the boy upstairs for a nap. He had been sleeping peacefully in his bucket and I was hoping I could just sneak him out into the bed and cuddle for a bit.

As soon as I got him upstairs he woke right up, demanded a drink, got in a punching match with my chest, farted continually with no remorse and refused to be consoled for an hour while he reminded me of the injustice of his situation. He never actually cries but just grunts angrily and thrashes around. After an hour of all that, I finally got him swaddled up and in my arms (because despite nursing for 45 minutes he refused to sleep lying down). Just then Rich came in from mowing the lawn and asked how my nap was and I just stared at him. Of course the baby was cooing peacefully in my arms for the first time all day.

Thankfully, Christie sent me an email the other day with the heads up that her baby went through a growth spurt between two and three weeks where she was really fussy and ate a ton for a couple of days before she slept non-stop for a day. Had I not had this tidbit of information I would have really worried that this mood change was foreshadowing of things to come. Because if this is not just a growth spurt, I’m putting this little drunk in a 12 step program pronto.

©2009 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

Last week Rich asked, “I wonder when the baby will be happy sleeping on his own and not want to be held” and I replied, “Why would we want to put him down?”

I’ve learned how to type, check my blood sugar, make a sandwich and use the bathroom (that one takes talent) all while holding Ian or nursing him. My biggest time away from him since we got home was going to the post office to buy stamps.

When I was about 39 weeks pregnant I was in the pet store buying dog food. The woman in front of me asked when I was due and after I told her she paused and said, “are you happy being pregnant?”. I wasn’t really sure how to respond to that but told her that my pregnancy was pretty easy and I wasn’t one of those women anxious to get him out of me as soon as possible. I just wanted him to come on his own terms.

She said her baby was a year old now and that she cried the whole last week of her pregnancy because she loved being pregnant and having him in her belly with her all the time. She just wanted to freeze time and not lose any of those feelings. She said it’s still good now that he’s a year old but he’s much more independent and active and … active … and part of her misses just having him to cuddle. And then it was time for her to check out with her kitty litter and she wished me luck and was gone.

Now I’m going through those same feelings. He’s getting a little heavier and his diapers need loosening a bit to make room for all this extra baby and I’m digging in my heels at the passage of time, as futile as that is. It’s only been 15 days but I can’t imagine him not being here and it seems like he’s been a part of us forever. He was all mine on the inside and now he’s out here in the world and I have to share him with other people. More than that, if he’s not around, I’m incredibly lonely. He goes with me everywhere. He’s helped fix his grandaddy’s computer, visited several area restaurants and even had his first therapy appointment this week.

And I’m sure at some point he’ll want to stay home or be embarrassed to be seen with his mother. At some point before that I imagine I’ll be desperate to get away from him for even just an hour. But right now, I can’t get enough of him.

We’re off to bed soon to snuggle and snack, so I’ll leave you with a rare photo of me allowing someone else to hold him. He and Rich are my two favorite things in the world, so this photo is pretty much all I need.

©2009 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

Really, I can’t complain. My belly appears a lot flatter than that normally because I’ve found I actually tighten my stomach muscles most of the time without thinking about it. This picture was in the middle of me telling Rich, “this is me not sucking in at all.” And with my rack having doubled in size, I’m easily passing that test of my belly not protruding further than my boobs do.

I’m pretty active most days, though I think today was my body playing catch up from the previous week. I slept from 7:30pm last night until 11:30am today, waking up only long enough to feed the boy and never leaving the bed except to pee a few times. I think I needed that.

My crotch still aches but it’s pretty manageable with Motrin throughout the day. I have to remind myself to give things more time to heal. Oh, and I should just remove the hand mirrors from the bathrooms until another month from now. I’m worrying that everything is going to heal back where it should but staring at it isn’t going to make it heal faster or better. We’ll just cross that gynecological bridge when we get there.

I never really realized how much my breasts were going to take on a life of their own. When I go do my doctor’s appointment I expect them to ask about me, my baby and my breasts to make sure all of us are doing okay. Since the baby and I seem to be doing pretty well, all things considered, my breasts really are the only thing that could be considered temperamental from day to day or hour to hour. But you really can’t beat this whole “I can make food at a moment’s notice” thing. It really saves on space in the diaper bag.

I’m happy to report the modified bassinet is working well. I still may want to raise it another two inches or so, but it’s worlds better than the original.

I’ve only had a few weepy moments here and there and they were short-lived. Most of those could be attributed to fatigue. But I just can’t say enough how much physical contact with the baby makes that easier. Holding him is better than Prozac.

We’ll see how I fare next week once Rich is back in the office. But I’m hoping some structure and a few simple outings will keep me from going stir crazy. If nothing else, I have a blog post each day to compose.

©2009 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

We actually chose your middle name first. Your father and I had gone back and forth about using family names versus unique names, with his family tending to throw all the relatives’ names in a hat and choose from that versus ours trying to find new ones.

Jacob was a good middle name for us to choose for you. I’ve always liked the name, having only known one Jacob in high school and he seemed like a nice guy. It’s your uncle Lee’s middle name. It was your great uncle Jay’s name as well as your great-grandfather’s name.

Having started with that, it helped us narrow down a first name that went well with Jacob. Your Grandaddy Powell thought that having a middle name of Jacob really limited the choices for a first name. This is the same man, though, who was picking names like Ebert, Barry and Alvin as your first name so let’s take that with a grain of salt. Grandaddy Powell even filibustered at length in the hospital waiting room about how awful Jacob is as a middle name, undaunted by your Uncle Lee telling him that was his middle name. You’ll get used to things like that from your grandaddy.

We thought about Bruce after Bruce Campbell, but didn’t want to give you the initials BJ. When you’re a little bit older, you’ll understand why that’s funny. I wanted to name you Warren after Warren Ellis but after saying it several times it didn’t seem to go well with our last name.

Felix was a contender (after Felix Unger) for a while but never really stuck. I also petitioned hard for Finley but for some reason your father was against the name Finn as a nickname. Nolan was in the short list for a bit but never really wowed us.

The short list of names as we headed to the hospital was Sam, Henry or Ian.

Sam could have been short for Samuel or Samson. I liked Samson better but combined with the S in Stryker it was just out of control. And it didn’t seem fair to give you a standard nickname that everyone would assume was short for Samuel and have it be short for something much less common (see people named Sam that’s short for Samwise). Samuel gained popularity with the badassness that is Samuel L Jackson. But as we kept saying Sam Stryker over and over, it sounded more and more like a comic book character’s alter ego (Peter Parker, Lois Lane, Bruce Banner, Clark Kent … you get the idea).

I really wanted to name you Henry. As we headed to the hospital, I was nearly convinced that’s the name we would be coming home with. As I was getting my nails done during early labor, my nail tech even said as much. But again, we were more in love with the nickname than the name. I wanted to name you Henry after Henry Rollins. Unfortunately, Mr. Rollins is really the only Henry that fits that image and he’s not the first Henry that folks think of. We both liked the nickname of Hank, though, and Hank Stryker sounded like a fine dude to hang out with. Think of all the other fine Hanks in the world. Hank Williams, Hank Azaria, Hank McCoy (Beast from the X-Men). But then there is Hank Hill from King of the Hill and while lying in the hospital recovering from having you, that TV show came on the air and Henry/Hank was no longer in the running.

So that left Ian. It’s not crazy common, but it’s not like naming you Jayvion (ranked 977 on the Social Security web site of names for 2008). There are also many fine Ians out there. Ian MacKaye is the lead singer for Fugazi (and best friends with Henry Rollins). Ian McKellen was Gandolf the White in the Lord of the Rings. Ian Fleming wrote all the James Bond novels.

And then there was one of the few Ians I knew personally. Ian was the first boy who ever asked me to be his girlfriend. We were in the 8th grade. He actually wrote out the question on a piece of paper decorated with drawings of the Giger’s alien and those little green planets from the cover of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. He wrote the note and had his best friend Richard hand it to me after science class.

But if you think your mother is an overthinker and worrier now, you should have seen me at age 12. I carried that note around for two days worrying over what I should say. I really liked Ian but I’d never had a boyfriend before and wasn’t sure what all the serious implications would be. So I told him no but that I’d still like to be his friend. And unwittingly at only 12 years old, I broke a boy’s heart. I’ve regretted it ever since.

Ian and I did remain friends for years. He bought me my first Dead Milkmen tape for my birthday. He still drew lots of pictures for me. He eventually went on to art school after high school, but I lost track of him after that.

So while you’re not named after any of those Ians in particular, you are certainly in good company. And I’ll be there when your heart gets broken. And if you become famous, I’ll always be your first fan.

Love,
Momma

©2009 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

When we first came home with Ian, I tried sleeping in the bed. Since he was nursing 347 times a night and I still had fresh stitches in my crotch, sitting up and lying down was getting to be a bit of a drag. So after a day or two of that we switched and I slept in my recliner downstairs (LOVE that recliner! Best pregnancy purchase ever!) and Rich slept on the sofa in the living room with me. That way I could lean back to nearly flat to sleep with Ian and then just sit up in the chair to feed him. If I fell asleep he couldn’t fall out of the chair or off of me so it was comforting.

But after a few days, I started to miss my husband way over on the other side of the living room. And Ian was getting more of a solid schedule of only needing to nurse every two to three hours versus constantly through the night so I had a better chance of getting solid sleep. So we decided to head back to the bedroom as a family.

The only problem was where to put the baby. I wanted him in the bed with us, preferably in contact with me. I’ve found that holding him or touching him or being very close to him does great things for fending off any hormonal depression I may have. But Rich was concerned that one of us would smoosh him in our sleep. So while the baby and I were getting better sleep, poor Rich wasn’t getting hardly any because he was convinced every noise he heard was the baby suffocating.

So for now, we’re going to experiment with my modified bassinet. I raised the mattress up on the Arm’s Reach co-sleeper to be nearly bed height and I’ve given up my nightstand. We’ll try this out tonight and see how it goes. I’d still prefer him on me but we get plenty of snuggle time during nursing and I’d like Rich to be able to sleep as well. Wish us luck tonight!

©2009 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

So I went back to the hospital today to sign for my medical records and drop off a few much-deserved thank you cards. My OB Dr. D had unfortunately gone home early after pulling an all nighter the night before so I missed her, but was able to chat with a few of the nurses and promised to bring the boy back for another visit next week. My fetal diagnostic nurse was there and super excited to see our beautiful son. And I was able to get to the front desk of the maternity ward to deliver thank you cards to my delivering doctor and nurse which they hopefully will receive this evening when they get to work (more soon on all they did to deserve those as I chronicle this birth).

After getting fussed at by the woman at “Patient Information Services” (that’s what they call the medical records department now) for bringing the boy with me to the hospital while she has a cold, she did print out a copy of all my records from my stay. For being such a thick packet of paper it is surprisingly sparse on the details of my birth experience. I did find out I was officially on an epidural from 23:35 Wednesday night to 06:44 Thursday morning, but nothing says what the dosages were during that time and I know for a fact they turned it off around 3am. I had to Google what it meant for me to have macrosomia since it sounded serious – apparently that’s medicalese for “big baby”. Other notes include:

“Patient requests natural TOL (trial of labor?) despite Bishop score of 2 and fetal macrosomia. Patient preference is no Pitocin, saline lock on the IV, doula in the room, and not to remain in bed during trial of labor. Patient has been offered a C/S (c-section?) in the past and today, but requests TOL prior to C/S.”

I also learned that I had “bilateral 2nd degree sulcal tears repaired with 2.0 vicryl” which translates to “shredded crotch”, but it doesn’t detail all the lengths and care the doctor went to putting me back together.

The records told me that Ian’s Apgar score was 5 at one minute and 7 at five minutes, something no one told me while we were there.

What’s odd is that nothing says what time I was given Pitocin and what the increments were changed to over the evening. I’m not sure if this is because they didn’t give me all the records or if they literally don’t log all that. I lean towards the latter since it says I only had 30mL of mineral oil and I know for a fact they must have dumped at least a gallon on me to keep me from tearing more than I did.

All of this goes to show that if you want to know what happens to you when you’re at the hospital, it’s up to you to log it yourself. I look forward to reading the notes our doula took for us as she wrote down the name of every doctor and nurse we spoke to as well as all the medications I was given and when. It was still very worthwhile to get all the records, but they certainly only tell part of the story. I’ll be curious to see if there are more details somewhere else that my OB will have when I see her in a few weeks.

©2009 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

With no further ado, I present this month’s entries. I’m happy to see how we’re all faring as grown ups out in the world.

SuziCate’s Digging in the Dirt
First, let me say that SuziCate has been a writing MACHINE lately. She went back and did all the previous LOLs and continues to write great stuff online. She started out as one of those “hair cutter ladies” I wanted to be but has since moved on to another job I think would be fun to have.

Gina’s When I grow up
My first grade teacher was also named Mrs. Wiggins and she was awesome! As for getting to where we want to be in life, thankfully it takes us our whole life to get there so there’s still plenty of time left.

Wil’s When I grow up
I find it really funny that Wil’s list of potential dream jobs is not far off from my own (perhaps minus the helicopter pilot one). I love languages too and pick them up fast so always thought it would be cool to be a translator or something like that. Maybe there are more jobs than we realize that involve translating.

Deb’s When I grow up …
Ah yes, just like Communication Studies there are worse unused majors to have than Sociology. We always said that Sociology was the highest paying major at Virginia Tech, but that was just because the football players picked it and went on to the NFL. I am too sensitive of a soul for social work, but I admire anyone who can do it. And maybe you’ll get to bake your bread yet.

Megan’s Writer: When I grow up
Megan reminds me that what we are when we grow up is not necessarily what we get a regular paycheck for doing.

Ben’s What I Didn’t Want to Be
I married and lived many years with a man with ADHD and it was like the third person in our marriage in many ways, so I can empathize with what Ben says about not wanting to be that person. But just like diabetes is a part of any relationship I have, we make the best of it and in many ways it gives us a lot of our gifts too.

Kim’s What I Wanted to Be
I would have never guessed that Kim would one day be a nurse if you had asked me 15 years ago. And yet here she is well on that path. And for all the reasons she says, I think it’s a terrific decision. That and fashion design is kinda out (but love that drawing!).

JBarbie’s Unconditional
This entry of course speaks to a recent soft spot in my heart as I embark on this journey of motherhood. Seeing the joy in my own mother’s face now at 71 years old as she finally gets to be a grandma, I can see how this is a job that won’t ever go away. Despite all the cliches it’s a job you never truly quit until the day you die.

Kaylyn Pippin’s Reckless Abandonment
I can’t imagine all that Kaylyn has gone through but it really does make me smile to see how she’s gotten to where she is now. It may not seem like a success on paper, but we know it’s really the greatest success she’s had thus far. Go team!

Karal’s Somebody
Unlike me, Karal wanted to be an astronaut and an archaeologist as a kid. And I’m so proud of her for all the digging and star gazing she’s done lately.

And my own Would you like fries or a hosted server with that?

I was unsure how many folks would be inspired to write for this month’s theme, but yet again you all have impressed me with your enthusiasm.

And I say this each time but all the entries were fantastic! I have, however, chosen Ben as this month’s winner because he covered an interesting topic of what we don’t want to be when we grow up (and I have great empathy for his challenges having watched my ex-husband struggle).

Ben will receive a gift card for a month of World of Warcraft, because while it’s a horrible distraction it’s also a great way to stay in touch with friends.

Stay tuned for next month’s topic very soon. I’m going to try my hand at NaBloPoMo again this year and post every day this month. But since my son is awake now and hungry, it may literally only be one hand at a time.

©2009 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

As I became a teenager, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to be. My parents always focused on getting an education that would gain me some marketable skill that would allow me to always have a job. Ever the pragmatics, they focused on jobs like accountants or engineers. Someone would always need their taxes done or a bridge built. People don’t need to pay for poems to be written for them.

The year I graduated college was the same year Mom got breast cancer and Dad lost his job. It was a rough year for all of us. I only applied to two schools – Old Dominion University and Virginia Tech, with the idea that I could live at home if need be and both were less expensive state schools. I find it ironic that I do so much writing now when I never had to write a single college entrance essay.

I started out as an engineering major until I actually took engineering classes. Oh, how I loathed those classes. I loved math, even calculus, but suddenly vector geometry and linear algebra weren’t really doing it for me anymore. After my first semester, I quickly changed over to Communication Studies, much to my father’s dismay. I think he was convinced I would get that childhood dream of working at McDonald’s after all. I remember him saying on the phone, “what does a communications major even do anyways?”

But fate smiled on me. I took incredibly easy classes that I was really good at. I finished my degree in three years versus four. I was able to work at least 20 hours a week in the library in addition to my coursework because it wasn’t a strain. And that work in the library got me my first full time job, which led to my second full time job where I am today.

I’m not sure if people focus anymore on a particular occupation they want to be. I took those classes having no idea what I would do with them. I could have gone into journalism, but I’m not sure my heart would have been in it. I maybe could have become a speech writer but again, not sure if that would have really wowed me. And I’m not sure they have a college major for what I do now.

What I do now is about as close as I can get to my dream job and still make a living at it. I get to do technical things like help maintain web and database servers and write complicated queries for statistics. I get to talk to educated, genuine, kind-hearted librarians on a regular basis with a passion for learning and information sharing. I get to wear yoga pants to work. I have a pretty high level of control over my own work environment and policies so I’m not mired in bullshit. I have the flexibility to work from home if need be for random issues but a fine office to come into the majority of the time (I hate working from home). I can’t remember the last time I wore panty hose for work.

But more important than all of those perks, I do a job where I feel like my talents are put to the best use. I do things in my job that I’m not sure any of the other employees could do but that come naturally to me. It’s the best of all possible worlds, to feel appreciated for who I am. I use my powers of empathy and humor and troubleshooting and organization for Good and not Evil. And I’ve had a lot of practice in how to be a parent just from problem solving issues in my work environment. Everyone wants a pat on the head and to feel like they belong and their voice is heard.

I’m in the midst of the longest break from work I’ve ever had in my life, and we’re barely at the beginning of week three of maternity leave. Work and I need this break to rekindle the romance of why we chose each other. I’d still like to be a writer one day, but that might have to wait until after we’ve won the lottery (which we don’t even play). And really, I don’t think I’d enjoy being a full-time writer since it involves a lot of alone time with a keyboard and that would slowly drive me insane.

So while I’m not sure that a true “dream job” exists, my gig is pretty good. My mother told me once years ago that Confucius says if you love your job, you’ll never work another day in your life. I think about that all the time, particularly when faced with frustration. Really, I have just taken it to mean that no matter what I do, make sure it’s something that I am passionate about or else it will never last.

©2009 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

The short version is that after 49 hours of labor (23 at home and 26 in the hospital) we finally got to meet our beautiful baby boy on Thursday, October 22, 2009 at 6:14am. His name is Ian Jacob Stryker. He was 8lb 12 oz at birth and 22 inches long. He is absolutely perfect.

Everyone is healthy, happy and home. I’m not sure I’ve put him down for more than five minutes since we came home. I can’t imagine life without him.

More soon!

©2009 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.