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August 25, 2004 Feels like August 24th never happened since I wasn't here typing at the computer all day. Somehow, that is always the measure and confirmation of a day for me. Anything else is just odd, between the cracks time. Eric and I left out around 5:15am, a good bit later than he wanted, but hey, *I* wasn't the one banging on the snooze button. I got sick (of course) on the trip down and the trip up, even after I drove part of the way. NOT a good start to the day. Eric got all flustered because we couldn't find the hospital and was yelling at me to call 411 and get an address (which revealed we were about 5 minutes away from it). I was glad to get out of the car and send him on his way to work, smugly thinking if he hadn't laid his ass in the bed for an extra half hour, he wouldn't have been so pissy about the time it was taking to get there. I have to grab my superiority perks where I can get them. When I got upstairs, Valerie was just getting settled into the Labor and Delivery room. Josh was antsy, but said he wasn't. Valerie was eager to not be pregnant any more. I was surprised when the doc came in around 7:30 and immediately popped her membranes. Since she was still 3 days from her actual due date, taking the induction to that "point of no return" seemed kind of definitive. Poor girl. They had a terrible time getting her IV in and had to stick her about 4 times. Finally got that in and about an hour later, the pitocin started to roll. Because she'd had a cesarean section before, they had to go slowly with the induction to avoid uterine rupture. When I was Lamaze instructor, there was no way a woman having a VBAC would get an induction OR an epidural, so times have definitely changed! Her contractions didn't really get going until around 10:30am and then although they were pretty intense, they were less than a minute long. Around 5cm, she told the nurse she wanted an epidural and I was surprised that anesthesia was there in less than 15 minutes. It took them a couple of tries and about a half hour to get the epidural in place. That went even worse than the IV insertion. Because they epidural was not going well at first, they gave her some Nubaine in her IV to relax her, which ended up making her itch all over and vomit. After some Fentenol took effect, she felt better, but was really groggy, so with the epidural in place, she ended up napping for awhile. Valerie's mother, brother, the brother's girlfriend and a guy who lives at their house were all there, in addition to me, Valerie and Josh, so the room was completely packed with people I didn't know. A little later, Valerie's friend, Tabitha, showed up with Valerie and Josh's daughters, who are 3 and 4, so then the room was even more packed. You can imagine how I fared with that. I took a lot of breaks (the food in the cafeteria was as awful as always) and tried to read but kept falling asleep. Around 4:00pm, Eric showed up and I was really glad to see him. The epidural started to wear off around 5:00pm and Valerie was feeling some pressure, so they checked her. She was 8 and about 15 minutes later, the doctor came in and said she was 9 and he was going to try to stretch the cervical lip back. Valerie pushed like a champ and although she (I commend her for this) asked a few people to leave the room, Eric and I got to stay. Eric was the expert filmographer and was busy with Valerie's mom's video camera, getting awesome footage of the whole birth. The little girls were very excited to see their brother being born. Aidan was born at 5:50pm (a long day for all of us) and weighed 7 pounds, 11 ounces. He looks almost exactly like Josh did as a baby. He is a Virgo with Aquarius rising and a Sagittarius moon. (Yikes!) :) Mom and baby are both doing well and Josh is over the moon. We left out about an hour after Aidan was born and headed home. It felt like it took forever to get home and I got sick all over again on the way up. I do have to say that this hospital, Sutter Memorial Hospital in Sacramento, is the best Labor and Delivery facility I have EVER seen in a hospital. I had three of my last four children at home and Delena was born in a birthing center. In the twenty years I taught Lamaze classes, I never came upon a hospital where I could comfortably say, "Yep, I'd deliver here." I can say that about the hospital where I was yesterday. The staff was invariably wonderful, the doctor was very laid back and relaxed (did NOT do an episiotomy) and I have never, ever seen a better L&D unit. Cheers and thanks to them all. Today is pretty much sucking so far. I hope it gets better. Gotta find a way to make it get better. I needed about 3 hours more sleep than I got and my kids are being all psychotic. David does a great job watching them and they love being with him, but the change in routine threw them off, I think. I'm irritable because they're being loud and omnipresent. Nathan leaves for school in about an hour and I'm eager for that. Delena was dragging her butt a bit this morning and I'm glad she actually made it to the bus stop in time. Dylan is wailing in agony at a video game that is evidently kicking his ass and Nathan is screaming into a toy microphone that reverberates. Excellent. I just talked him into a magnadoodle. I had an egg sandwich and the protein is working its little amino acids magic on me to help mellow me out. Protein = good. The house isn't bad, so I should be able to get by with a cursory cleaning and a relaxing day. Pork roast is thawing for dinner tonight. After Nathan takes off on the bus, I'm going to try and meditate my headache away and get things back into perspective in my head. With every trip "down the hill," I am reminded why I never go "down the hill." The trip is long and grueling and it takes a LOT to make it worth the process of getting sick and traveling for an hour and a half one way. I've gotten to the point that even the trip to Diamond Springs (40 minutes) takes a lot out of me. By the time I get down there, I'm so nauseated and fried from the ride that it's hard to have fun, not to mention knowing that I'm going to have to make the drive back UP again. It's a good thing I love it here because I'm going to be spending a lot of time here, especially in a few months when the snows come. It's already very chilly in the mornings, in the low 50's, and has been cooling off in the day quite a bit as well. We haven't run the air conditioning in days and days. I'm still trying to pull some rain to us, which sometimes take a while. I miss rain. Another (ongoing) project has popped up again. Since my mother died in January 2003, I've been working on integrating all of my photos and hers into albums, which is taking forever. I did a lot of sorting and collages last year and just pulled out all of the boxes of albums and photos again. It's going to be quite a project, but I think it's going to be calming and centering for me. Plus, I'll have the satisfaction of knowing that it's finally done. I love Peter MacNicol (Alan Birch from "Chicago Hope" and somebody from "Ally McBeal"). I've come to appreciate what an amazing actor he is. Oooh! I had another sex dream! I think my last one was the Kratt brothers, if I remember right. I'm renown for NOT having sex dreams, which is interesting considering that I'm a hormonal clusterfuck lately. This one was Ryan O'Neill. I was having good sex with someone, looked up and asked, "Just a second, aren't you Ryan O'Neill?" He paused in his activities, said, "Why yes I am!" I asked, "Is it going to bother you if I am more enthusiastic about this now that I know you are Ryan O'Neill?" He said, "Not at all" and that was the end of my dream. Only I would interrupt great sex to card my partner. *sigh* See you soon, in a much more rested and sane mindset. Go make happy sounds somewhere. I'll be listening. Love,
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