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WELCOMING DAVID
It has now been two weeks since David has joined our family. There are so many little things that he does which I want to document daily but between feeding him, working, changing him, and sleeping, I seem to have zero free time to even brush my teeth. But I do think it's important to document these precious days that will go by so quickly. I am open to suggestions on the most efficient way to do that. I will try to do regular updates here soon again and I promise it won't be all about the baby, I just need some consistent sleep first.
When we found out that I was expecting, my doctor calculated my due date to be February 8th. The pregnancy.com website calculated it to be February 5th. When we did the 17-week ultrasound, we were told February 2nd. So when the 2nd and the 5th came and went, I was pretty depressed. As much as I wasn't experiencing the bloating that comes with the ninth month, I was ready for the baby to come out so I could see the creature I'd been carrying around for months.
On Monday, the 7th, we went for our doctor's visit. My doctor was scheduled to leave town on the 12th and if the baby didn't come by then, we were guaranteed to have a different doctor for the birth. One that we never met. So we decided to induce the next night and got an appointment for 7pm. As soon as we left the doctor's office, I felt terrible. Obviously the baby wasn't ready to come and forcing him/her out because I want to have my doctor present sounded so selfish suddenly.
Jake and I spent the next four hours talking about whether we should induce or not. We knew all might go well but we also knew that inducing meant a higher chance of c-section and more drugs for the baby and possibly a much more painful labor. We decided that there were going to be many decisions where we were going to have to put our kid before us and there was no reason not to start now. So we went to bed knowing we were going to call my doctor the next morning and cancel the induction.
At midnight, my water broke. I was sleeping and felt it all oer the bed, it was the weirdest feeling. I called the hospital cause I wasn't sure it was my water. They said to come in and they would let me know. We got to the hospital at 1am and they said my water had indeed broken and I wasn't going anywhere. I was only 2.5cm dilated and normally they don't admit you in the hospital until you are 4cm except for when your water breaks. I asked that we wait as long as possible before they give me medication to induce and was told they could wait six hours. They sent me up to labor and delivery and hooked me up to the machines. The night nurse, Heather Bacon, was awesome and helped us relax. Around 3:30, I told Jake he should sleep just in case it's a long night/day. At that point, my contractions were more regular but still painless. Within an hour, I went from no pain to acute pain. I couldn't breathe or move. On the way to the bathroom, I'd have two contractions, and three more on the way back. Heather came in to check on me and see if I wanted medication and I said not yet.
Another hour later I was in so much pain that I finally woke Jake up. As I was talking to him, Heather came in again and I asked her to check how far along I was. She said I was 5cm and could get an epidural if I wanted. We discussed it for a while and finally at 6am, I got an epidural. Whoever says epidurals hurt must obviously have not experienced labor. I was in so much pain at that point that I felt literally no pain from the epidural and as soon as he put it in, my pain disappeared. It was like a miracle.
An hour after the epidural, I was already 9.5cm so they called my doctor and told me to start pushing. Two hours and fifty minutes later, our little boy was born. The pushing wasn't a huge amount of fun but his head full of hair was very encouraging and helped me push.
All the horror stories I had heard about labor turned out not to be the case for me. The breastfeeding was a bit hard the second day since David didn't want to swallow. But we've got it down now. I had very little to recover from so getting back to normal wasn't a long way. I worked on Monday before David came and we checked out of the hospital on Thursday, Friday morning I was working again. People had told me it would be impossible to work with him at home and so far that hasn't been true either. Thankfully, none of the things I feared came true.
All in all, labor was less painful than 9 months of pregnancy and David is such a peaceful, wonderful baby that we feel blessed and overjoyed every minute of every day.
IT'S A BOY
David - Born: Tuesday, February 8, 2005, 9:51am - 6lbs. 13oz. - 20.5 inches.
Baby, Mommy and Daddy are all doing wonderfully. More unpdates in a few days.
Making Value Judgements
Since the baby still hasn't decided to grace us with his/her presence, I decided to take a long walk yesterday. Walking is supposed to help the baby decide to come and it was a lot more appealing to me than castor oil, which is also supposed to help the baby along.
During my walk, I started thinking about how much time we spend judging people. From the smallest things to the most significant. We spend hours criticizing other people's lives, their clothes, the choices they made for a career or a partner. We criticize their taste in books or music. Their hair color or the way they arranged the furniture. It's almost as if we get off knowing other people's lives aren't as 'good' or 'appropriate' as ours.
I'm not talking about major tragedy here. There are some people who seem to really enjoy that, too. But for the most part, any decent human tends to feel sorry for an individual who is genuinely suffering. I'm talking about people who look down upon others for listening to Britney Spears. Or for reading Sidney Sheldon. Or for wearing certain clothes or shoes. As I was walking around yesterday, I began to wonder what motivates people to judge others that way.
Who decides that one singer is "better" than another? Who decides that being good at math shows a higher level of intelligence than being artistic? Why and where were such conclusions made? Does it make a person feel better to know that their musical taste is "superior" to others'? I truly don't understand why we do this? When did it start feeling good to bash others? It makes me sad that children who are born not knowing any of this will eventually learn and have to adapt to the society in which they are raised.
This is why I ended up leaving my home country and environment. Not only did I not fit in, but I couldn't foresee a situation in which I ever would. Isn't it sad that because everyone has to be the same, we miss the opportunity of learning from each other? The chance to expand our horizons? If I only hung out with other computer programmers, I would have never learned the joy of sign language or graphic design. I may not be nearly as talented in either as some others are but I still get to appreciate them thanks to the people who love them and have opened my eyes.
Even if I didn't care to learn certain things, why can't I let people do what they like to do without making value judgements. Why is it funny to make fun of people's choices? As someone who's been judged a lot in her life, I have decided to be extra careful in making judgements of others. I am going to make a huge effort to watch my value judgements and to stop them. I will listen to myself more and destroy all my stupid preconceived ideas until I instinctively give people the benefit of the doubt and the respect they deserve.
I owe that to the little girl I used to be.
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