A month of maternity leave

I'm still loving maternity leave. I feel so relaxed. I love being able to spend so much time with the kids, and cook dinner every night and putter around the house, and in theory take walks and be out and about during the day (in reality, it's been freezing and I haven't wanted to take the baby out except to walk K back and forth from school).

But after a particularly rough night last week, JW decided to work from home the next day. I overheard him on a call, telling whoever it was about the data that he had assembled, and how fifty metric tons of blah blah blah flowed through something or other, and how he felt that additional data on x, y, and z should inform their analysis but shouldn't be an integral part. He sounded so authoritative. And I started to miss work a little. After all, the whole reason I became a lawyer was that I love being an expert on something and giving people advice. My favorite part of the job is explaining to clients all about legal blah blah blah and x, y, and z, and how we can help them with that. I love being able to guide clients through the legal matters so they can focus on running their businesses. These days, I'm all about nursing and burping and cleaning and cooking. Except for the occasional work email, nobody seeks my advice about anything.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not planning to lose our bet. But maybe I won't be that upset when it's time to go back to work.

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The second kid

I was just reading some of my old blog posts from when K was born. I haven't been posting that much about X because he's a newborn, and all healthy newborns are more or less the same. We haven't seen much evidence of his personality yet, and he doesn't do much. So it's been funny reading all the tiny little details I recorded about K as a newborn. He feeds! He sleeps, poorly! He poops! It's all so new and noteworthy with the first kid.

I understand now why there are always fewer pictures of the second kid. It's not that having a kid is old hat and you don't care as much. It's that you realize you had way too many pictures of the first kid. Here he is at six days old! And here at six days, two hours! And here again at six days, two hours, but from a different angle. Here are twelve more pictures of him that we took twenty minutes later because we changed his outfit after he spat up all over the other one.

I also recorded in detail my experience as a new mom. Again, the details aren't unique, but they are a lot different than this time around. I had a much harder time with K, which looking back, I blame in large part on my difficult C section recovery. At this point last time around, I posted that I still needed pain medication occasionally, wasn't really close to my normal level of activity, and had just managed to take a slower than usual walk around the neighborhood. I also had a lot more anxiety as a first-time mom that I don't have with X. With K, I was always worried that I wasn't doing the right thing. With X, I figure that even though I probably screwed up a lot with K, he turned out just fine, so I should just do whatever I think is best.

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Mom of two milestone

Today was my first car trip with both boys. K and X were due to visit the pediatrician and I managed to load them into the car, get them each examined, get K to pee in a cup, drop K off at school, and get X safely home. All by myself, and on only three hours of sleep! I declare victory. (Even though both destinations were within a one-mile radius of our house. If I had realized in time that it wasn't as freezing cold as I thought, we could have walked instead.)

The combined pediatrician appointment was one unanticipated benefit of having two kids with the same birthday. They'll both be on exactly the same schedules for doctor's appointments and any other age-related requirements.

X was a big hit at school. All K's classmates crowded around to see him. "I like your baby!" said one of the kids to K. Usually X is asleep, so I leave his stroller in the hallway where I can keep an eye on it while I go in to collect K.

K is starting to interact with X a little more, but is still very cautious about touching him. That is totally fine with me. It means I can leave both boys alone for a minute without worrying that K will unintentionally hurt his baby brother. K rarely gets closer than he does in the pictures below, but he does watch over X to make sure he's okay. A couple of times, I've had to run back into the house to grab K's backpack or an extra blanket for X when we're on our way out in the morning. K announces that he will stay outside to protect his baby brother.

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X's birth story

Sunday, February 27th, around 6 p.m., JW came upstairs to see if I could come down for dinner. He found me kneeling on the floor with one leg balanced on top of the bed, typing away furiously. "This job is literally killing me," I sobbed. "My leg keeps cramping up, and I'm supposed to finish this merger agreement ASAP, and I haven't even started the work I'm supposed to have done by tomorrow. I'm 38 weeks pregnant. I've been working nonstop. What is wrong with these people? Can't they have some compassion?" I had a brief fantasy that the leg cramps turned out to be deep vein thrombosis and that the partners who assigned me all that work showed up at my funeral, stricken and vowing to be more humane in the future.

JW, seasoned husband that he is, let me finish my meltdown and asked, "What can I do to help?"

I calmed down a little. "You already are. You've been taking care of K all afternoon and you made dinner. I just have to get through this."


We talked about how I should start pushing back at work. I agreed, but pointed out that I had no way of knowing K would be sick all week when I accepted the assignments I had been working on all weekend.  Then JW made a rookie mistake. "We know you'll probably be overdue, so --" I glared at him. "You don't know that!" "But your OB said --" "She doesn't know either!" He apologized and retreated back downstairs.

At around eleven that night, I closed my laptop. I still hadn't started my major assignment that was supposed to be done the next day and had spent about ten minutes preparing for my Monday lunch presentation instead of the 3-4 hours I had planned, but I couldn't stay awake much longer. During my pre-bedtime shower, I made a decision. Instead of working right up until my water broke, I'd start my maternity leave the day before my due date and relax, get the baby's room done, finally get that prenatal massage I had been wanting all through my pregnancy, maybe persuade JW to meet me in Boston for a lunch date. That meant I'd only have a week and a half of work left! I could handle that. We'd schedule the C section for March 14th, Pi Day, like we had talked about. Feeling much more cheerful, I went to tell JW my plan. "Okay," he replied, "but it sounds like you're assuming you'll be overdue? When I said that, you seemed... um... upset." "I know. I didn't want to hear that," I said. "But you're right, realistically it looks like I'll be overdue again since the baby is still so high up and I'm only a centimeter dilated."

At 4 a.m., I woke up. I just have to pee, I thought to myself. My water didn't break. With K I had a flood. This is just a trickle. I just have to go to the bathroom.

Usually in the middle of the night, I go to the bathroom without turning the lights on. This time, just before cleaning up, I turned on the lights. There was blood in the toilet and in my underwear. Not just "bloody show." More like a period.

I called my OB and apologized for waking her in the middle of the night. "I'm wide awake," she said. "I just delivered three babies in three hours." She told me to come in to the hospital.

I woke up JW and told him that I was bleeding but not in pain, and that I needed to go to the hospital. But unlike last time, we had a sleeping toddler in the next room. I wasn't having contractions yet and knew they would spend a while monitoring me before anything else happened, so I decided that JW should stay home with K and I would drive myself. My husband elected not to argue with me. He went outside and brushed snow off the car while I threw some clothes in an overnight bag and emailed work to let them know I wouldn't be in. Then he came in to help me out to the car. When I started slipping on the ice, it occurred to me that this was a bad idea. We called a cab instead. The cab driver (the second one, after the first cab arrived, honked once, and immediately drove away) made no comment on the hugely pregnant woman in his car being rushed to the hospital, and instead chatted about the weather. When I arrived, the lobby was completely empty and I wandered around for a while before remembering how to get to the labor and delivery wing.

I spent the next hour or so strapped to a fetal monitor in the exam room. I sat around, read my book, and texted reassuring messages to JW. My OB said the baby seemed perfectly fine and I didn't appear to be in active labor yet but was still bleeding a little, so she wanted me to be admitted for additional monitoring. I got moved to a delivery room and settled in, first giving JW a call to let him know that everything was fine and that he could take his time dropping off K at school before meeting me at the hospital.

Once in the delivery room, I started feeling happy. I changed into my robe and slippers. Then I sat on the bed and did nothing for a few minutes. Just enjoyed being by myself in a quiet room with nobody demanding my attention and nothing to do but sit there. "I am on maternity leave!" I said to myself.

Then the phone rang. I'm not sure why I picked it up. It was a client who has a habit of calling me on my cell. "I tried your office," he said. "Where are you?" "I'm in the hospital." "Are you delivering?" he asked. "Not right this minute. Is there something you need?" "I'm in the hospital, too!" he replied. He explained that he had been injured in an accident. Delaware annual reports and franchise taxes were due the next day. "If YOU'RE in the hospital, and I'M in the hospital, who's going to do my filing?" he complained. A nurse walked in just in time to hear me say, "Our paralegal should be able to file that for you." She raised an eyebrow. "Are you still working?" she asked. "Not anymore," I said, hanging up.

JW arrived after dropping K off at school. "This is happening today, huh?" he asked. "Looks like it," I replied. "So what's this kid's name?" JW thought for a minute. "X?" "Okay. X."

A few minutes later, my OB came in and explained our options. The baby still had a strong heartbeat, but since I was leaking blood and amniotic fluid she said my choices were either to be induced or to have a C section. A friend had recently told me a horror story about attempting a VBAC and having to be induced, and I remembered getting induced last time and how horrible it felt. But I hated the idea of choosing to get my abs sliced open. My OB explained that while a C section would always remain an option up until the end, getting induced was routine in this situation. I remembered that part of the reason I had such a bad experience last time was that I refused pain medication for so long. So I agreed and got hooked up to an IV.

The first few hours, my contractions became more regular and intense, but I could handle them. By afternoon, I asked for the epidural. Ah, sweet pain relief. Still, by the middle of the night I was exhausted and kept having to turn up the epidural. Early in the morning, my OB asked if I was ready to push. She said I was about eight and a half centimeters dilated and that the baby was still fairly high up, but had moved down enough that I should be able to push him out. She gave me a pep talk about how up until now, I had to endure what was happening to me, but now it was up to me to work hard and push this baby out. It was actually a relief to be doing something active instead of lying there waiting for a contraction. I discussed pushing in detail here, but after about two and a half hours of intense work, including twenty minutes of screaming in agony while pushing out the baby's head and shoulders, our baby was born!

I didn't get to see him immediately, except in the mirrors. Our OB said that the umbilical cord had been wrapped twice around his neck and that he was "more stunned than she expected". In retrospect, I should have realized this was a very bad thing, considering how measured my OB is with her words. Later we learned that he had been blue and unresponsive, and had an Apgar score of 2 a minute after birth. You get a 1 for having a pulse. I was so relieved when after a few minutes, we heard him cry. Thank goodness, five minutes after birth, his Apgar score went up to 8. He was taken away to the nursery for initial tests and for warming before we got to see him again.

The nurses kept congratulating me on having a successful VBAC. "You were amazing. You made it look easy," said the nurse who was with me through the pushing phase. "Most people are so worried about not having a C section that they tense up and can't go through with it." I didn't realize it was an accomplishment. My OB made it sound like it wasn't uncommon and that even though a C section would remain a possibility at any point, there was no reason I couldn't have a successful VBAC as long as the baby and my body cooperated.

Over the next few days, X got poked, prodded, and snipped in various ways. X's body temperature was low and he needed additional warming time. He was born tongue-tied, with his tongue attached to the bottom of his mouth by tissue that a doctor snipped on his second day alive. He had a heart murmur that the doctors decided wasn't a problem after additional testing and an EKG. He was also jaundiced and the pediatrician wanted to keep him in the hospital for light treatment, but said we could take him home and try to flush out his system with lots of fluids before coming back the next day for another test. After a day of nonstop feeding and an anxious lab test at the hospital, we got to keep him.

I was having my own problems recovering, which I've already mentioned. I won't go into them again here. As awful as it was to have my bladder stop working for over a week, three weeks after giving birth I feel about 90% back to normal and have lost about 20 pounds. Can't complain about that.

And now we're home and I feel so lucky that we are both healthy and all this is behind us. After X was born, I think my first words were, "Our baby!" and then "I am never doing this again."

(Compare and contrast: K's birth story.)

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Maternity leave

Oh maternity leave, I love you so. I want to wrap you up and give you a big kiss.

I think I'm having a better time with X than I did with K for two reasons. First, I have learned to put the baby down. I used to hold K and let him sleep on top of me all the time. He'd be understandably cranky when I tried to move him and got really hard to put down on his own. I take the occasional nap with X, but he's mostly swaddled and sleeping by himself, leaving me free to do things like shower and cook.

The second reason is that being on leave has made me realize how incredibly stressful my job is. Whether I'm busy or not, I'm constantly on call. I have literally had days where I sat around all day with nothing to do and billed zero hours from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., ended up staying late and missing K's bedtime because of an emergency assignment that came in at 6, checked my email before going to bed at 11 and found additional work that needed to be completed "before the end of the night", and then checked again at 6 a.m. only to find an urgent assignment waiting for me that needed to be completed ASAP. All of that melted away the moment I headed to the hospital. I was so happy waiting in the hospital room that morning even though I knew I was headed for either induction or a C section, neither of which I had wanted. I was happy because I knew I was done. No more worrying about being hit with a sudden demand out of nowhere. No more waking up at 4 a.m. making a mental checklist of what needed to be done and wondering if I should be checking my email.

When I realized that X's early arrival meant that a six-month leave would have me back at work for all of September, my very favorite month, I asked JW if he would mind if I stretched out my leave for one more month. He snorted. "Sure, whatever you want." "Why did you say it like that?" "I know you," he said. "You're not going to last all six months. You'll be begging to go back to work early." We made a bet. If JW wins, our family gets a couple of extra months of my salary. If I win, I get extra time off. Either way, not bad.

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Free association and vitamins

Walking back home after dropping K off at daycare, I thought how nice it was to be outside on a warm, sunny day, the first one in many months. Finally, I'd be able to coax K outside more often. He could use some Vitamin D. Which reminded me that I'd forgotten about his vitamins for the past two days. He loves to take them because they're gummy vitamins. I used to hate taking my vitamins. My parents used to put them right in my mouth to make sure I ate them. When they decided to rearrange our bedroom much later, they were not happy to find a year's worth of sticky vitamins in the space between the bed and the wall.

When I'm losing my patience with K, I should remember that vitamin-spitting little girl who always frowned for pictures and hid when company came to visit.

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The other baby

What we lack in originality, we make up for in cuteness.

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The executive type

My parents drove up from New York on the boys' birthday to see the baby and to bring K some birthday presents. They stayed for less than a day. This weekend they got a closer look at X. My father declared that he had an executive look about him. "What do you mean?" I asked. "K had a sweet look when he was a baby, but X is the executive type." "Why, because he frowns all the time, like me?" My father just shrugged and repeated that X was the executive type.

Later, during a diaper change, X started peeing everywhere. "This is the fourth time he's done this to me!" I exclaimed, trying in vain to contain the fountain. "It took K two months to get me!" Then X started POOPING everywhere, still with his diaper off. Bright orange poop, all over his clothes, all over the changing table, all over his blanket. "See," said my father, nodding wisely. "The executive type."

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K and his little brother

K is still adjusting to the baby. He is mostly indifferent to X, although he does go look at him once in a while, and to please us he'll occasionally volunteer, "I like the baby." He hasn't done or said anything negative toward X, other than complaining about how loudly X yells during diaper changes.

Mostly, I think K sees his little brother as competition for Mommy attention. He was always a Mama's boy but he has been extra-clingy lately. I wish we had started much earlier having JW be equally responsible for certain parts of K's daily routine, like giving him a bath and putting him to bed. K makes a huge fuss if I'm not available to do those things, and also wants me to pick him up from school and hold his hand while he eats dinner. (Pickup and dinner used to be JW's domain.) But the baby still needs to be fed on demand and I'm so exhausted. Anyway, I'll give K the extra attention he needs and hope he gets over it, and in a few weeks X should be on more of a predictable schedule so I can plan a little better.

At least K's initial reaction seems to have passed. He started lying all the time, and not in a cute way. After getting the parental smackdown four or five times in a row (it's unusual for him to take that long to get the message and correct his behavior) he seems to have stopped the sneakiness. He was also trying a little too hard to make sure we still like him. Like if we laughed at one of his jokes, he'd tell it over and over, and by the end when we'd given up even pretending we thought it was still funny, he'd still be fake-laughing with an anxious look on his face. The grandparents have been here for the past few days and having them to play with him and pay attention to him has helped a lot.

X is becoming more alert and has his eyes open more lately. As he becomes more interactive, I'm hoping K will come around.

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Childbirth and recovery: C section versus vaginal birth

My bladder is slowly starting to function again. Hallelujah!

I was catheterized for a week following X's birth. Do you know how it feels to have plastic tubes sticking out of your nether regions for a week, when said nether regions already feel raw and swollen? It is not fun. I went to the doctor earlier this week to have the catheter removed. I was terrified that I would need it reinserted, and spent most of the day yesterday sitting on the toilet and praying for something to come out. I think I'm in the clear now, but I'm still not all the way back to normal.

Other side effects from X's birth:
- 2nd degree tear that needed to be stitched up. Surprisingly, not such a big deal.
- Itchy rash from the neck down. The OB says it is PUPP and prescribed a strong hyrdocortisone cream, which somehow seemed to make it worse, and allergy medicine which she advised not to start taking until my pee problems are resolved.
- Horrible feeling on my left side that the OB says is likely muscle strain from pushing. Mostly gone now, but flares up when I'm really tired.
- General feeling every time I stand up that my insides are swollen and/or about to fall out.

All that aside, I really can't complain too much. Recovery hasn't been easy, but it's been far less painful and inconvenient than my C section recovery. I'm getting around pretty well only eight days after giving birth, while with the C section I was still sleeping on the couch because I was physically unable to get in and out of bed. And I'm well enough to take care of K and to handle his daily routine, which was the point of this whole exercise. (That's right, K, I pushed this enormous baby out of a tiny hole for your benefit. Happy birthday, here is your vaginally delivered brother.)

My conclusion is that vaginal birth is a grab bag -- the side effects and the amount of time they linger is totally unpredictable, with some women winning the lottery and returning to normal within days, others having persistent and painful conditions resulting from childbirth, and most women in between but probably closer to the former. With a C section, you get a predictable, but severe, injury that takes a lot of time, pain, and effort for recovery. I also had permanent changes to my body that I don't think happen with a vaginal birth (stomach pouch). All in all, I would say that with respect to recovery, vaginal birth wins. Compared to K's newborn days, when I remember being kind of miserable, X's newborn days seem so peaceful. I think a big part of that is the difficulty of recovering from major surgery while adjusting to a new baby in the house.

For actual childbirth, though, C sections have it all over vaginal birth. You lie there, doctors remove the baby. No pain (until after, then watch out), no trauma for baby (except the inevitable trauma of leaving the womb). After having done both, I really do not understand why some women prize vaginal birth so highly that feel they "failed" if they ended up with a cesarean. Hours and hours of labor, followed by the extreme physical exertion of pushing, and then the above-mentioned unpredictable side effects plus lots of stress on baby. Honestly? While I did feel proud of myself at the end, and glad that I wouldn't have to go through the weeks of painful C section recovery, my VBAC was not a pleasant experience. Physically, it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.

On pushing: In all my reading about labor and delivery, I never came across a good description of pushing. When it came time, my only real reference point was sitcom births where the doctor says, "It's time to push," and the mom gives three loud shrieks and less than a minute later, out comes the baby. So I was terrified when my OB said that as a first-time mom (vaginally speaking), I could expect to push for one to three hours. Three hours of screaming in agony? It turned that the first two hours of pushing the baby down the birth canal were physically demanding, but not painful. The last twenty minutes or so of actually pushing the baby out were when I screamed in agony, just as loudly as any sitcom mom. The actual process of pushing is this: you wait for a contraction, and then you hook your hands under your thighs and pull your legs up and apart while taking a deep breath. While holding the breath, you push as hard and as long as you can, as if you're trying to expel a bowel movement the size of your head. You want a strong and sustained push, at least ten seconds. Then you let go and do it again. You can get three or four pushes out of each contraction. When the baby finally comes out, I cannot describe to you the bizarre sensation of feeling a human person sliding out of your body. That is definitely something you will never experience with a C section.

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The Bosom Buddy

X still has his eyes closed most of the time. Without being close enough to hear and smell us, he couldn't pick his family members out of a lineup. He's not alert enough yet to notice or care when we come near (except when he's hungry). But there is one part of the family that he loves. Actually, two. They are each about the size of his head and when they come near, he reaches out his arms and opens his mouth to greet them. And he nestles his head into them for a warm nap after a meal.

Which gives me an idea for a new baby product. People are always giving babies stuffed bears. But what newborn has ever seen a bear? My idea is for a stuffed toy shaped like something most newborns know and love. Unfortunately, the "My Breast Friend" name is taken, but the manufacturer could acquire the rights to the name "Bosom Buddy". I predict that after being made fun of on talk shows, the product would fly off the shelves, thanks to its two target demographics: attachment parents conflicted about their full-time work schedules, and alpha moms buying the product as gifts for their formula-feeding frenemies. But it would disappear just as quickly a few months later, following public furor over the poorly conceived "Bosom Buddy Deluxe", which at the touch of a button would dispense formula out of the nipple.

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Food source

Like most babies, X loves to be held. It soothes him. Unless I'm the one holding him. I doubt he recognizes my face yet, but as soon as he catches a whiff of me he wakes up and starts smacking his lips and rooting around madly, making "feed me" noises with increasing urgency, even if he's just eaten.

Last night I woke up around 1:30 a.m., expecting him to awake any minute for a feeding. When he was still asleep at 2, I unswaddled him and got him ready for nursing. He roused a little bit and took a few half-hearted pulls, then settled his head on my breast and started to snore.

I took advantage of his deep sleep to get some snuggles in, since I can't during the day. I gathered him into a bundle and placed him on my chest so I could kiss the top of his silky head. We stayed like that for a few minutes.

Then I felt a tiny lick on my chest.

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Our new baby

Introducing Baby X, born March 1st, 2011 at 8:45 a.m.

X had a slightly rocky start, but is doing just fine now. At five days old, X is still like a baby bird. He is nearly always either sleeping, nursing, or rotating his head from side to side with his mouth open and eyes closed, making soft squawking noises to indicate that he is hungry.

X, due March 11, was about two weeks early. His big brother, due February 15, was two weeks late. They both ended up surprising us and arriving on March 1st, exactly four years apart. Here are all the presents K got for his birthday.

I have been hiding from the world during my recovery and have had my laptop and phone turned off, so this is all I can muster for now. I'll be back with details.

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