The grandparents have gone home and Daddy has gone back to work. The adventure of having three boys under four now begins. The door closes on my husband (after he gives me a look that says simultaneously ‘good luck’ and ‘this may be the last time I see you alive’). Oddly enough, though there are now more people in my house, I feel more lonely being by myself with my boys than before. Up to this point I had back up. If I couldn’t break free to kiss away some tears or deliver a sippy cup of milk to a parched toddler, there was always someone nearby who could do the job. Now it’s all up to me. From experience I know that when multiple babies are crying, someone has to be the second one (or now the third) to have his needs addressed. Luckily, the feeling of loneliness is fleeting. The kids remind me all too quickly that there is work to be done. Once I get back into the routine of feeding times and refereeing round after round of who gets to play with the new Spider-Man toy, there’s no time for self-pity.
The new kid in town is adjusting just fine to life on The Outside, miraculously sleeping through all the noise in the house like a champ. He is behaving like a normal baby, making his stay in the NICU a distant memory. The one thing we have to remind us of his early issues is his daily treatment of an asthma medication. We pop a little turtle mask on his face three times a day and hook him up to a nebulizer (which my husband and I flat out refuse to stop calling a deneuralizer). My other boys have pretty much accepted his existence. He’s only once been hit in the head with a flying object, but given how often things get thrown in this house that is nothing short of a miracle.
My next challenge will be ridding myself of extraneous bulges, not an easy task when sleep deprivation has me craving carbs like a heroin addict. And I currently have an obsession with Golden Oreos that may only be curable by death. My husband insists that I look just fine, but I’m not buying it. I’ve told him I feel like Daphne from Frasier. Niles was so enamored with her that he never noticed that she gained a hundred pounds. My husband wasn’t exactly thrilled about being compared with Niles Crane.
Sometimes I frankly miss being pregnant. When you’re pregnant, an extra thirty pounds is no big deal. You have that big, round belly announcing to world, “So what if I’m carrying extra weight. I’m creating LIFE here!” No one looks at a pregnant woman and says, “Maybe you should put down the cake, ma’am.” First of all, never try to take cake from a pregnant woman and second, the belly gives you permission to enjoy cake without frowning glances. In fact, people often encourage it. The minute the baby is born, however, you no longer enjoy guilt free eating. And if you don’t actually have the baby in your arms, you look like just another overweight American, too lazy to put down the Ring Dings and step on a treadmill. Carrying a few extra pounds wouldn’t be so terrible if I had enough expendable income to have a full, flattering wardrobe in every size I may need before losing the weight. Alas, being far too cheap to shop in multiple sizes, I’ve opted to wear only what I currently own. However, you can only make yoga apparel look fashionable so long before people begin to wonder if you actually know how to operate a zipper.
Frustratingly, I know that if I had the time to make it to the gym every day, I’d be back in my regular clothes in no time. Having little humans to care for, however, makes the job a bit more difficult. Right now, any extra energy I have goes toward merely trying to stay awake long enough to have a grown-up conversation with my husband. I remind myself that the only reason the likes of Heidi Klum and Jessica Alba get thin so quickly is because they have staff. As a mere mortal, I’ll have to wait until more free time materializes (or I win the lottery, whichever comes first). In the meantime, I’ll just have to settle for starting a 12-step program to rid myself of that Oreo habit.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Disaster Flick
As the nurses took my baby boy to the nursery for his first bath, we looked out the window to the snow beyond and remembered after all the excitement of the baby that we were in the middle of a snow emergency. Snowmageddon. Howling winds blew the freezing snow into drifts several feet tall. The streets were deserted as everyone was trapped inside. When my nurse returned, I remembered I hadn't eaten for over eight hours. The nurse told us food in the hospital was scarce since supply trucks hadn't been able to get in or out for over 24 hours. She'd see what she could do. There might be some sandwiches left in the nurses' lounge. I'll take what I can get, I told her over the rumbling of my empty stomach. She returned with one of the sandwich plates the cafeteria had sent up for employees unable to leave. I was supremely grateful. I offered to split the sandwich and chips with my husband, but he declined. Good thing, because I devoured the food and was still a little hungry afterward. He took a trip to the vending machine for his meal: Doritos and peanut M&Ms.
There was a giddy camaraderie amongst the patients and staff common to those who find themselves thrown together in extraordinary circumstances. Our nurse and doctor had already been in the hospital for two days with no hope of going home for at least another 24 hours. Suddenly we felt as though we'd been cast in a disaster flick with a title like BLIZZARD! or AVALANCHE! A couple finds themselves stranded at a hospital as the snow storm rages. Will they survive?
We were informed that we would have to spend the night in our Labor & Delivery room since none of the ladies who were to be discharged that day could actually leave. No biggie, the Labor & Delivery rooms are larger (and the fold out couch much more accommodating for a tall husband). The biggest question of the day, however, was: When will I ever get my milkshake and bacon cheeseburger? Tragically, not for several days, it turned out. There was no getting in or out of the hospital for at least another day. The cafeteria resumed sending out trays to patients, but could only send out a smaller amount of food than usual. Though it wasn’t the grand spread I’d hoped for, the eggs and sausage link on my first breakfast tray were perfectly lovely for someone who felt like she’d just spent the previous day lumberjacking. The trays, however, grew smaller and smaller as the days went on. My last breakfast at the hospital was one small pancake and a cup of milk. And the vending machine my husband used for every meal had taken on a post-Apocalyptic form: barren, with one small bag of trail mix dangling uselessly from the hook.
Once we finally found our way over to the maternity ward we learned that the supply problem wasn’t limited to food. The ward was running low on all sorts of basic necessities. My nurse handed me a few pairs of highly fashionable disposable mesh underwear and told me to hold on them as they were the last few pairs to be had. I began to wonder only partly in jest if I should start hoarding supplies to trade with other women in the ward: a box of bendy straws in exchange for a few packets of sugar or a box of tissues to exchange for some lime Jell-O. Since our room was the closest to the ward’s kitchen, we could have wielded great power over our fellow in-mates with some well-chosen contraband. Alas, our focus was elsewhere.
A few hours after our new prince was born we discovered that he was struggling to breathe and needed to be admitted to the NICU. When the woman I recognized as a nurse practitioner from the NICU walked in looking grave my heart sank. The problem-free hopes I’d had for delivery were dashed. So the dwindling food supply was quickly forgotten as we spent most of our stay by the side of our little one, now hooked up to an alarming number of tubes and wires.
We were discharged from the hospital with heavy hearts. Our homecoming celebration would have to wait. My husband pulled the car to the front of the hospital as I waited in my wheelchair. There were other mommies around me, carrying their newborns home with them and I started to cry. With one backward glance, I felt the sting of loneliness at leaving behind the tiny being who had been with me since the moment his existence began. Not only was he not physically with me, I’d have to wait who knew how long before I could actually hold him in my arms again. We drove home through the snow-covered streets, something we’d end up doing countless times before we were finally able to bring our little boy home.
There was a giddy camaraderie amongst the patients and staff common to those who find themselves thrown together in extraordinary circumstances. Our nurse and doctor had already been in the hospital for two days with no hope of going home for at least another 24 hours. Suddenly we felt as though we'd been cast in a disaster flick with a title like BLIZZARD! or AVALANCHE! A couple finds themselves stranded at a hospital as the snow storm rages. Will they survive?
We were informed that we would have to spend the night in our Labor & Delivery room since none of the ladies who were to be discharged that day could actually leave. No biggie, the Labor & Delivery rooms are larger (and the fold out couch much more accommodating for a tall husband). The biggest question of the day, however, was: When will I ever get my milkshake and bacon cheeseburger? Tragically, not for several days, it turned out. There was no getting in or out of the hospital for at least another day. The cafeteria resumed sending out trays to patients, but could only send out a smaller amount of food than usual. Though it wasn’t the grand spread I’d hoped for, the eggs and sausage link on my first breakfast tray were perfectly lovely for someone who felt like she’d just spent the previous day lumberjacking. The trays, however, grew smaller and smaller as the days went on. My last breakfast at the hospital was one small pancake and a cup of milk. And the vending machine my husband used for every meal had taken on a post-Apocalyptic form: barren, with one small bag of trail mix dangling uselessly from the hook.
Once we finally found our way over to the maternity ward we learned that the supply problem wasn’t limited to food. The ward was running low on all sorts of basic necessities. My nurse handed me a few pairs of highly fashionable disposable mesh underwear and told me to hold on them as they were the last few pairs to be had. I began to wonder only partly in jest if I should start hoarding supplies to trade with other women in the ward: a box of bendy straws in exchange for a few packets of sugar or a box of tissues to exchange for some lime Jell-O. Since our room was the closest to the ward’s kitchen, we could have wielded great power over our fellow in-mates with some well-chosen contraband. Alas, our focus was elsewhere.
A few hours after our new prince was born we discovered that he was struggling to breathe and needed to be admitted to the NICU. When the woman I recognized as a nurse practitioner from the NICU walked in looking grave my heart sank. The problem-free hopes I’d had for delivery were dashed. So the dwindling food supply was quickly forgotten as we spent most of our stay by the side of our little one, now hooked up to an alarming number of tubes and wires.
We were discharged from the hospital with heavy hearts. Our homecoming celebration would have to wait. My husband pulled the car to the front of the hospital as I waited in my wheelchair. There were other mommies around me, carrying their newborns home with them and I started to cry. With one backward glance, I felt the sting of loneliness at leaving behind the tiny being who had been with me since the moment his existence began. Not only was he not physically with me, I’d have to wait who knew how long before I could actually hold him in my arms again. We drove home through the snow-covered streets, something we’d end up doing countless times before we were finally able to bring our little boy home.
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