Emmy Math

I take no credit for this. The Good Doctor and Emmy just emerged from the car one day and she could add. Then they came out of the bathroom and she could subtract. I think it's pretty decent for a 2.75 year old, but what do I know? I got rejected from Stanford.

But as a friend recently told me (not about herself) "As for child prodigies, I think most people don't realize that the extremely gifted are just another flavor of "special needs," so I wouldn't really wish that onto a kid as they tend to be outcasts." I trust her. She was accepted into Stanford and graduated too.

P.S. Math makes me want to poo too.

Husband Hall of Fame

Inducted this weekend: The Good Doctor.

Awarded for: Above and Beyond Husbandly Duties

Special Merit Earned for: Accomplishing major feat while keeping pregnant wife completely in the dark

Dude planned a SURPRISE baby shower by hijacking my phone in the early morning hours and emailing my friend and colleague Liza 7 times for additional contacts. That's what happens when the cell phone charger is on your husband's side of the bed.

He'd been telling me for a week we were going to Maggiano's for a lunch date with some of his friends. I wasn't super jazzed because for some reason I loved Maggiano's the first 2 times I went there, then I had a mediocre pasta and decided I never wanted to go back. Ever. Plus, some of his friends are really boring. So it was going to be a wifely duty to hang out and make small talk and hope that the calamari and seafood linguini put me in a good carbo coma for the afternoon. 37 week pregnant women have small wishes. 

I urged him to ask his friends to meet at Yard House instead. We recently had an NBC Investigative Unit team dinner there and it was a really good experience. The team investigated at least 12 of their 120 beers on tap. I am the type of person who will eat toasted crumpets with ricotta cheese every day for breakfast for 2 years so when I find something I like, I exhaust it. I went to the Yard House after my team dinner for lunch with a friend and I thought we should introduce The Good Doctor's friends to it since it was basically next door to Maggiano's and I would at least enjoy the food if not the conversation. I'm kidding. I love his friends. They are all so...nice. Again, not kidding.  I know, I'm not getting a Wife Hall of Fame ceremony any time soon.

Anyway, he's telling me he thinks they already made reservations and it's kid friendly and they really like that place, so I sigh and say, "Fine. But I hate that place. I'm never going there again." Totally overdramatic and actually, it's really not a bad place. I just wasn't feeling it.

So Saturday comes, we're on the way there, and he says, "Hey, I changed it, we're going to Yard House."

By then I'd actually mentally prepared for the pasta so I was like, "Oh. OK. I was planning to just get the seafood pasta. I'm not in the mood for Yard House." 

He was like, Can you be any more annoying, WOMAN? "Oh, well, that's where we are meeting because I thought you'd like it better." You crazy pregnant lady.

Hey, getting into the Husband Hall of Fame requires a lot of sacrifice. Not many men have this kind of dedication, patience, and wherewithal. Or raw sexual charisma.

So we get there, and right before I walk in, I get a VIP phone call pertaining to a nightmare ID theft situation we are going through. I want to just head in and finish the conversation but he wants to wait outside until I'm off the phone. We get inside a few minutes later, park the stroller, and walk toward a table. 

The first thing I see: his Aunt Tina's curly brown hair. I'm like, "Hey, your aunt Tina is here!" Then I see his his grandma and I'm like, "Wow--they're in the South Bay today!" Not totally unusual because Tina has a house down here. Then I see some of my friends and finally all my synapses fire together and I realize...they're here for a party! For me! And it's because of my husband!

I look at him like, "Are you serious right now?" in a tone totally from Shit Girls Say and I start tearing up like a crybaby. 

It was just so unexpected, so not discussed or authorized, and a complete, utter surprise. He pulled it off and I had zero idea. Even with the two random times I picked up his phone when my mom was calling and she sounded all flustered and weird mumbling about how she needed Brian to help her with her "um uh phone but nevermind, I'll call back later."

It really meant so much to me to have my girlfriends and family come out for a lunch to celebrate our impending arrival. And I didn't even have to play a single baby shower game or have people guess the circumference of my belly.

The fact The Good Doctor put this party together in a week and a day makes me think procrastination is preferable when it comes to things like this. Just BAM--we're having a shindig, can you come?

Take note husbands: works pretty well and can earn you a spot in the Husband Hall of Fame. And it's forever. Like when you've been elected president. They can never take that away from you.

37 Weeks

"Mommy, your belly looks like an ORANGE!"

2.75 year olds will keep it real no matter what.

How is this natural? I'm 139 pounds. Our doctor estimates Babius is about 5.5 pounds. Do the math and that means at least 32 pounds is made of Chips Ahoy cookies, Doritos, and Round Table pizza. The good news is that Babius is full term so this extra time is helping her crisp up nicely.

In the meantime, I look forward to seeing my toes again in a few months. This much belly makes my self pedicures impossible. Or picking anything up from a seated position.

Contractions

I never really felt them with the first birth experience. I went in for a regular OB check up on a Friday and because I had "low fluids" in my uterus, they admitted me right then and there, induced me, and Emmy was born two days later on Sunday.

During the labor, I felt a lot of low back pressure. It was like a wave of pressure that came on, then went away. It was exhausting but not particularly painful. Eventually I got the epidural just so I could get a break and get some sleep. But I never felt any super severe labor pains, at least not the kind that have women screaming and punching their husbands in the face the way you see on TV. 

Cut to Saturday night, about 11:30PM. The Good Doctor is exhausted after pulling off a huge surprise* and putting himself firmly in the Husband Hall of Fame. I am tired too, but for some reason, my legs are all restless and I can't get to sleep. I start thinking the my BBQ rib dinner wants to come back into the world in chewed up liquid form.

Then I start feeling this small cramp slowly building across my abdomen. It's like when you throw a paper towel on a spill and you see the liquid seeping across the paper, slowly but steadily. That's how the pain spreads. At first I thought it was food poisoning, because I was also feeling pretty nauseated.

But the cramp went away, and I thought I'd keep those ribs down after all. Not so much. Every 5-15 minutes, those cramps came back. On a pain scale, anywhere from a 5-8 out of 10. They aren't sharp quick pains, but pains that build into a crescendo, and then slowly retreat. Worse than sharp pains because there's that prelude, then the climax, then the lingering pain until they finally dissipate. Like someone slowly wringing the water out of a wash cloth, squeezing out every drop, unwrapping it, and wringing it out again. And your uterus is the wash cloth.

And you don't know when they're going to come again or how long they'd stick around. Sometimes 30 seconds, other times 90 seconds. I know because I counted. The Good Doctor is conked out. But after I get up and go to the bathroom 5 times to either pee or prepare to barf, he's like, "What's going on?" I say I have stomach pain. Which, in retrospect, is wrong. I tell him I don't know if it's food poisoning or labor pains. 

He's wide awake at the mention of labor pains. So am I. Because we have NOTHING READY. I haven't packed a "go bag," I've completely forgotten everything I ever read about labor, and most importantly, we haven't taken our maternity photos yet. This baby can NOT come out right now. 

But everything else decides to come out at 12:30AM. Isn't that a pretty picture?

At least we got that out of the way. By now I'm exhausted, feeling empty, and realizing that contraction pain does not eff around. It doesn't drop hints or casually mention, "Hey, you know, I was thinking..." It's in your face like a honey badger taking down a cobra. Labor pains don't give a shit.

I think 10 minutes into feeling those cramps and realizing THIS is what contractions feel like, I said, "I think I'm gonna get the epidural." Dr. Smug loved reminding me about that the next morning because up until now, I've been saying I wanted to "see how things go" and "try to do it naturally if possible" and "if your Aunt Tina did it twice, I can at least do it once" and all those other annoying things people say when they've never actually felt a serious contraction. 

I'm now going to eat those words and wash them down with a nice cold glass of Fentanyl. With my husband nodding "I told you so" til the last drop.

We stayed home because we weren't anywhere near the 5-1-1 rule. Contractions 5 minutes apart, lasting 1 minute, for 1 hour. That's the golden rule for going to the hospital. And did I also mention we haven't taken our maternity photos with Emmy and the belly yet? Baby must not come out before that photo shoot.

The best part of the night was when he had to sneak into the guest room to retrieve some socks for our "go bag" that we were hastily trying to assemble at 1AM. His brother happened to be our guest this weekend and here's The Good Doctor, sliding open a squeaky closet door and blindly reaching for my fuzzy socks. Nothing like telling your houseguest, "Are you awake? Mike? Mike? I'm not sure, but Vicky might be in labor," to help him get a good night's sleep.

He also told me he "grabbed an extra bra" too. Turns out that bra would fit around my thigh right about now. My cups runneth so far over I relegated all of my regular undergarments to the guest room closet. My current 37 week pregnancy boobs would laugh maniacally at any attempt to be harnessed by that tiny scrap of padded magenta fabric.

In any case, we still don't have a fully packed go bag. But we've washed a bunch of baby blankets and clothes so that at least our newborn won't have to come home naked. 

*Blog post on that coming soon.

Emmy's First Dentist Visit

I know I said it was dumb to be proud of a toddler. I have eaten those words so many times over I'm as huge as a house. A big fat pregnant house. Emmy was a little shining star at her first visit to the dentist this week. It happened to be a day The Good Doctor was post-call so we showed up like two unemployed parents in the middle of the morning to hold our daughter's hand and obsessively video tape her first dental exam. 

She did not like "Mr. Thirsty," the little suctioning vacuum, so she had to manually rinse and spit, but other than that, she aced the visit.

 And the Terminator shades were just the piece de resistance.