Getting Down To Business: Update

No baby. Lost rocked, though, so, hey, there was that.

Spent the better part of today at hospital while doctors fussed over size of baby and fact of ongoing contractions that seem to go nowhere. The baby? IS HUGE. Well over nine pounds now and measuring off the chart for length and head size and everything size and very near to the point where they automatically recommend c-section. My doctor, however, is very anti-c-section unless absolutely medically necessary so there was consultation after consultation with other doctors and OBs about whether the fact that my body has been preparing itself slooowly for 'natural' labor is reason enough to wait some more days.

They decided that it is. Wait.

I cried.

Which, embarassing, but still. CANNOT do this. Need this baby out. And would strongly prefer that the 'getting out' not involve my nether regions being torn to shreds by a gargantuan head and general fetal massivosity.

I'm now exhausted and in pain and terrified of staying pregnant while this baby grows and grows and becomes too big to fit out my hoo-ha. And the castor oil? Has done nothing as yet. (Although, for the record? Mixed with a cocktail of cream soda and root beer - don't ask - it doesn't taste all that bad.) NOTHING.

So. Having tried pretty much everything - seriously - that there is to try, all that's left is praying.

Am praying.

Getting Down To Business

Why I have to have this baby this weekend, or else:

1) Because if I have to go through another full day or night of 'false' but nonetheless really f*cking painful labor contractions, I may be compelled to shoot myself in the head, or dope myself to sleep with vodka, and neither of those things would be good for the baby, would they?

2) Because my current daily ratio of sleeping to not-sleeping, given the above, in hours as measured on a 24-hour clock - 2:24.

3) Because once tonight's episode of Lost is over, I'll only have 6 days and 23 hours in which to get this baby out and sorted so that I'm back on schedule to watch the next episode, next week.

4) Because it's my birthday next week, and a) I'd prefer that this child be born at least a few days before or after my own birthday, and I'm not waiting until next weekend (see #'s 1 - 3 above), and b) I'd very much like to have a vodka martini on that day, and not one that is cut with castor oil.

5) Because, have you seen me lately? I am the size of a small dirigible. And if this baby was pushing 8lbs over two weeks ago - even allowing for margins for error - I do not even want to contemplate how big he will be next week.

6) Because I'm ready. We're ready. It's time.

So, having exhausted all other options except Eggplant Parmesan (cooked eggplant being a couple of notches below castor oil on my personal list of stomachable foodstuffs and beverages), I'm pretty certain that I will be quaffing some castor oil within 24 hours of the closing credits scrolling onscreen for tonight's episode of Lost. I am well aware that many of you will regard this as reckless, reckless behaviour, but still: am at wit's end. Must act. Gastrointestinal discomfort, even in the extreme, is, at this point, among the very least of the physical evils that I face, including but not restricted to intermittent but ongoing painful labor and the many-days long stretch of no sleep caused by that labor. Diarrhea? MEH.

Am forging ahead. Hopefully, the next time you hear from me will be from the other side. Otherwise, expect more bitching.

PS -I refuse to confirm or deny any of the name guesses made on my last post, but I will say this: you will know. It may be a one-time only deal, but I will share the name with you. After I share it with him.

My Baby, By Any Other Name...

We've known Sprout's name for a long time. Naming him, in fact, was one of the easier parts of child-preparation for us. It came to us, and it felt right, and that was that. So he has a name, and we - and Wonderbaby - have been referring to him by name for a long time. Which I love, because he's already part of the family, someone we know, someone whose name is included with all of our own when we talk about the future, or when we whisper good wishes to everyone we love at bedtime. I love that Wonderbaby discusses him freely with anyone who asks - I have a baby brudder his name is xxxxxx I love him I gonna share my toys we gonna have CAKE and and and I love him and I kiss him LIKE THIS (blows kiss at mommy's belly) - as though he were already here, which he is, of course, in the most important way, in our hearts.

And I've gotten accustomed to the occasional eyebrow being raised when Wonderbaby utters his name. It's not a strange name - artists and writers and characters of fiction have had this name - but it is a little on the eccentric side, maybe. It's not a name that you hear every day. So, yes, there have been moments when an utterance of his name provokes those arched brows and a politely restrained oh isn't that an unusual name. Which doesn't bother me. It's his name, and I just know that it's perfect for him, even having not yet met him. I just know. It just is.

Still, I avoided telling my mother, because I knew she'd hate it. I knew, because she hated all the boys names that I mentioned to her when Wonderbaby was just a Wonderfetus, gender unknown. "Theodore? Theo? Oh, NO, honey, I don't like that name AT ALL. Not AT ALL." I knew that I would have to preface any announcement of his name with the caveat that she would not like it and that I wouldn't care and that she'd just have to deal, etc, etc, but still. I knew that it would be an uncomfortable conversation. I knew that there would be an awkward silence over the telephone. I knew that she would sigh deeply and maybe issue a protracted hmmmm before saying something to the effect of I don't know, Cath and I suppose that I'll have to get used to it. Which is exactly what she did, yesterday, when I told her.

I'm not crazy about it.

I knew that you wouldn't be.

I just worry... will kids make fun of him? What will you call him for short?

MOM. It's not unusual enough for him to be made fun of just because of that. There are far more unusual boys' names out there. And I don't know what we'll call him for short. It doesn't matter. What matters is that this is his name.

Well... (DEEP SIGH) I suppose that I'll have to get used to it.

Yes. Yes, you will.

What about Theodore? Didn't you want that name before? I've always liked that name...

I love my mother, I really do, and have always valued and admired her naked honesty - she is very nearly constitutionally incapable of withholding her opinion - and I had told myself that I just wouldn't care if she didn't like his name, I had told myself that I knew she wouldn't like it, that I was prepared for her to not like it. But still... there was a moment there, the briefest moment between his name falling from my lips and her reaction to that name, during which I held my breath and willed her to like it. Wished for her to like it, to recognize it as the perfect name, as his name. And so I was deflated when she reacted as I had expected. Disappointed.

Because, as I keep saying, it is his name, his perfect name, and I feel lucky to have found it, just as I felt lucky to have found Wonderbaby's perfect name. So, the larger part of me says that it does not matter what anyone else thinks: I am his mother, and, along with his father, I hold responsibility for his naming, for finding the name that is uniquely his. Only we can recognize that name. It is ours to give to him, his to take from us, his to wear, his to own. Even if he grows up to hate it - which is always a possibility - it will remain his name, his original name, the one that I will whisper in his ear the very moment that he is first placed in my arms and that I will shout from the rooftops at every opportunity thereafter.

But, but... my instructions to my mother - get used to it, you will just have to get used to it - remind me that to some extent a name really is just a name, just a word, something that we get used to, something that grows on us, something that becomes our own because of what we make of it, not because it fell from the sky of ideas like a shooting star into our mother's lap and presented itself as sacred, sacrosanct, perfect. Our boy will be our boy, regardless of his name, regardless of whether we call him Jack or John or Junior or Pilot Inspektor. He will, if our experience with Wonderbaby is anything to go by, have many names, be called many things, be referred to by many terms of endearment. He will be, no doubt, our Prince, our Pirate, our Monster, our Parakeet, our Crunch. And no matter what he is called, he will always be him.

The him that he is, though - the him that he will be - that 'him' has a name, a name that I, we, have given him, a name that we love him by, and will always love him by. His name, his very own name. It is indeed special, and it will be the first word that he hears.

What anybody else thinks of it? Doesn't matter. It's between we and him.

(A question that vexes me, though: DO I TELL THE INTERNETS? I've long wanted to stop calling Wonderbaby 'Wonderbaby' and call her by her real name. And I'd so love to share Sprout's real name. But I've become so accustomed to using pseudonyms, even as I've become less convinced of their protective effect. This, however, is another topic for another day, and something to distract me while I continue suffering through this interminable, unpredictable labor.)

Mama, Me

I had hoped that this Mother's Day would bring me a baby. It didn't, and I was discouraged.

Then I remembered: I already have a baby. I already am a mother. Not that I'd forgotten, but I've been so distracted for the past however many days by this interminable early labor that I've come to define myself almost entirely as a very cranky pregnant woman who will be in said labor forever.

But, always, behind and before and beyond all of that, there is this:


She.


She made me a mother. She has made me the mother that I am.



This Mother's Day is hers.

All my love forever and ever, sweetie.


*(the day's not over yet and it's been the worst contraction day so far, by far, so who knows. Still, I'm reserving my hopes for tomorrow.)