So, yeah, now, I’m at BlogHer, likely streaking or soiling myself or some combination thereof, and I asked my friend Badass Geek to take over for me. It’s rare I con someone into beg someone have someone agree because I have annoyed them to death to do a guest post for me.

In the same magical vein, I asked The Daver to do another post and he’s all “what about” and I’ll all “I don’t know.” I put the likelihood of him doing it around 27%. Because that is how The Daver rolls.

—

‘What’s this?’ my younger sister asked.

My family and I were settling into our hotel room while on vacation somewhere in Pennsylvania. My older sister was listening to her portable CD player and didn’t hear the question. My dad was out getting ice or something from the vending machine, and my mother was in the bathroom washing up. Being the only one left to pay any attention to her, I looked up see what she was referring to.

She was sitting on the side of the bed, the drawer to the nightstand open. In her hands was a teal-colored foil wrapper. Even from where I sat on the other side of the room, I could see the words ‘Latex’, ‘Spermicidal’, and ‘Ribbed For Pleasure’ printed on it.

Dear Lord, I thought to myself. This is going to be interesting.

‘I think you better ask Mom about that,’ I said evasively.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Hey, Mom?’

‘Yeah?’ she called back from inside the bathroom.

‘I found something in the nightstand, and I’m not sure what it is.’

There was a heavy pause then. As a parent, I imagine that if there is one question you hope never to hear when staying at a cheap hotel, it is this one. The mind races with all the possibilities as to what it could be, and odds are, as you turn to see the object in question, you pray that you remembered to pack that commercial-sized bottle of Purell.

My mother emerged from the bathroom. She locked her eyes on the object in my sisters hand, and her eyes widened. Trying to keep her voice steady, she asked, ‘Where did you get that?’

‘I found it in the nightstand next to the Bible,’ my sister said. ‘What is it?’

Those Gideon’s are kinkier than I imagined them to be. I looked over to my mother to see her mouth opening and closing, at a complete and utter loss for words.

My sister could not have sounded more innocent. ‘It says it’s a latex condom. What’s a condom?’

My mother cleared her throat. ‘Well, it’s something that married couples use when’ they don’t want to have a baby.’ She walked briskly over to my sister and snatched it out of her hands.

‘How does it work?’

Oh, God. Please don’t give her the Birds And The Bees talk right here in front of me.

‘Well,’ my mother grasped for words. ‘Why don’t you ask me that when we get home.’ She glanced sideways at me. ‘I’ll tell you all about it then.’

My mother promptly wrapped the unused rubber in a tissue and threw it in the trash. ‘Now, go wash your hands in the bathroom.’

‘Why?’ my sister wanted to know.

‘Just go do it!’ my mother snapped. She looked at me with an expression that seemed to promise injury or death if I said anything about what had just made it’s way into the trashcan. She didn’t have anything to worry about, though. The last thing I want to talk about with my mother in earshot is condoms.

—

I hope you have a good time at BlogHer, Aunt Becky. May there be no condoms in your nightstand.

Pretty much every time anyone asks me what I want or what turns me on (which is a surprisingly frequent occurrence for someone who is not yet a Penthouse Pet. Notice I said YET.) I have a stock answer: sleep. I want more sleep. If there was a 12 Step for Sleepaholics Anonymous I would probably have to join. Maybe I could actually NAP there.

Sleep, like my precious 6 pack abs, is a dwindling commodity around here as you might have guessed by my menagerie and The Sausages. Any moment of the day, someone or somebody wants something from me. I’m used to it by now, although, like anything else, it has it’s days where I want to pull what’s left of my postpartum hair from my head and run down the street naked and screaming about dingoes and my baby.

With the addition of each child, my sleep issues have gotten worse. And once my glandular issues (I HAVE GLANDULAR ISSUES, PEOPLE!!) were solved and the Synthroid was happily on board, I suddenly found that I had developed that tried and true, suicide-inducing insomnia. This happened to occur right as I got pregnant with Alex, and this was before I knew that pregnant ladies could take Benedryl, so I spent all of his pregnancy sleeping horribly. I’d fall asleep only to flit in and out of the land of nod all night.

WARNING! WARNING! IF YOU HAVE A NEW BABY AND IT IS YOUR FIRST BABY DO NOT READ WHAT FOLLOWS. LET ME DIRECT YOU HERE.

Alex was born and the issues deepened. Not only did he not sleep through the night until he was a over a year, he was still UP every 1-3 hours during this year. I nearly lost what was left of my addled mind. (insert joke here about how someone who calls herself “Your Aunt Becky” can maintain that she was EVER sane) I hallucinated, I hurt myself unintentionally, I was afraid to drive, lest I crash into something while I nodded off at a stop light, I got into a fist-fight with Daver, I fantasized about being institutionalized.

It.Was.Torture.

Every time I was able to fall asleep, Alex would wake up, which is comical for a couple moments until you remember that this is a method of torture the soldiers used on POW. I have no doubts of it’s efficacy.

To make matters worse, I got so agitated that even the nights Alex DID sleep for 6 glorious hours at a stretch, I couldn’t sleep. Pair-a-docks indeed.

Alex has since been squared away and I take a lovely combo of meds to insure that I go to and stay asleep, which is certainly not something of which I am proud, but with 3 kids, I don’t quite have the luxury to evacuate my bowels alone, let alone find an hour to nap.

(pointless aside time! BONUS!!

When I finally went to the doctor about these persistent and kind of frightening headaches I’ve been having for the past 4-5 months, he asked if I could lie down when I got one. I laughed until I cried. Then DAVE laughed until he cried, because, seriously, doc, do you write your own jokes?! I’ll make sure to try the salmon and I *always* tip my waitress)

Amelia has decided that sleep is for (and I quote) “fucking pansies” and doesn’t care to partaketh in such pointless activities now that she’s realized what a cool place the world is. And while I see her point–I do–the world is a much HAPPIER place for everyone when baby naps.

But no.

I don’t remember–or give much of a shit–or two shits–or even three shits–if this is some sort of developmental thing, because knowing it’s a developmental thing that most babies grow out of until said baby is old enough for Benedryl, doesn’t exactly fucking help you a whole lot. I lost faith in the term “most” as it applies to children, oh, I don’t know, about 8 years ago?

Either way, Miss Mimi is not sleeping. Dave is bearing the brunt of the overnight stuff because he is not only awesome but amazing too (and he knows that once I get up with her, I’m up for a good couple of hours afterwards and although this does not directly affect him, me whining, pissing and moaning incessantly about it later does) and I have to deal with the juggling act of two small ones.

One of whom is my Alex, who would, most days, like to crawl back up in the old uterus (it’s not UTER-YOU, Mom, it’s UTER-US!) and stretch out in there and the other is my precious daughter. Who now, just like her mother, wakes up from a dead sleep when a frog in Siberia farts or a raccoon in the Catskills considers walking on some crunchy leaves.

(Alex was the same way)

This really becomes a problem because we have stupidly never installed a soundproof room which, after these two babies, would have been wiser than the velcro wall we installed instead.

My house is loud. It just is.

Alex has a voice that could shear glass into nifty seascapes, my dogs bark whenever someone thinks about walking past my house, the phone is always ringing, kids are always banging through, recklessly slamming doors, my cats yodel from different vantage points about the house, and well, if you can’t sleep for shit anyway, you’re effing screwed.

As frustrating as it is sometimes after I’ve carefully put my daughter to sleep through a combination of bottles, swaddling, bouncing and/or patting and binkies, and I get her upstairs and she bolts upright, looking at me mischievously as if to say “yeah RIGHT, Mom. Nice freaking try!” I feel sorry for her. If she’s anything like me, she’s going to discover the wonders of pharmaceuticals early and learn to punch people who tell her to try warm milk.

Either that, or I am going to have to surgically implant her somewhere on my body. Then at least, I could have my hands back. So that I can, you know, pick my nose and check for dirty diapers.

The important stuff.

So, Internet, did you hear? There’s this big ass conference this weekend about blogging (dude. How lame does THAT sound? SHUT UP) and it’s in Chicago and at least 103% of the Internet is going. I won’t dare say it’s name, lest I annoy everyone more than they already are, but let’s just say it rhymes with “FlogHer.”

But I’m going, in fact, because I am Super Becky Overachiever, I am going down to the city on Wednesday night so that I can peel myself out of bed the following morning to go to this Ford-Motor-Car thingy. I’m not really sure what it is, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s very James-Bondy and I might be doing death-defying stunts and saving the planet from peril. I’ll be like Jack Bauer, WITH A (floppy) VAGINA.

You’ll be happy to say that “you knew me when.” Hell, maybe you can even raffle off the comments I leave on your blog for big ca$h money! Rock. Music!

Or maybe, just maybe, we’re forming focus groups to discuss What Women Want In A Car, which is not nearly as Double O Aunt Becky as I thought. Like at all. THIS is why I need someone to read the fine print FOR me, since I am obviously not capable of it whatsoever. But whatever, it should be fun as hell. Even if I’m doing the opposite of fighting The Terrorists.

What I cannot believe is that for the first time in 4 years, I am going to go away for 3 nights. 3! whole! nights! without my children. I plan to spend the time either blitzed out and drooling in bed–alone–or running around like a previously caged beast.

[excruciatingly pointless details redacted for boringness]

Let’s just leave this at this: I haven’t been out of the house without my kids for an extended period of time in 3 years. This will change soon either way, because I plan to either get a double stroller and force my wee beasties in it, or become independently wealthy, whichever comes first.

(I figure the wealth will, no doubt, buy me some Wild Baby Handlers)

This means that since I quit my last job as a nurse case manager 3 years ago, I haven’t been required to be in public for any length of time. Sure, I do go out and about, but only for short periods of time, and always with a purpose.

While other people may be afraid of not having anyone to talk to or eating alone or maybe they’re afraid of a gigantic gaggle of women (shit, right?) all in one place, I’m afraid I might soil myself. Or streak. Or soil myself while streaking.

It’s been so long since I’ve been in public, what if I can’t remember not to pick people up and gnaw on their necks while blowing raspberries? Or what if I check to make sure YOU haven’t pooped your pants by popping a finger down your crack and looking for the telltale smudgey pooness? Or worse: what if I just bend down and smell your ass?

WHAT THEN, INTERNET?

What if I have gotten so used to being with small kids that I try to cut up your steak or try and airplane your mashed potatoes into your mouth? What if I nag you to put your cup away and finish your drink?

Maybe I should take some sage advice given to me on Facebook and just roofie the hell out of myself and take to bed for 3 days. Then I couldn’t shame myself in a room full of bloggers who could happily report on my misdeeds for days. Which, wouldn’t you?

I would.

(also: completely unrelated segue leading to pictures of my babies, if listening to an a cappella version of “Don’t Stop Believin'” is wrong, Internet, I don’t want to be right)

Turn off the fucking Journey, Mom. This is child abuse!

Oh, and maybe you want to see who *I* am so that you can properly identify me and run like hell, lest I come over and nom your ears?

(whispered voice-over from guy with indiscriminate European accent: “so, we’ve cornered the Aunt Becky in her natural habitat. Here, let’s ply her with vodka and cupcakes. QUICK, NOW INJECT THE SEDATIVE! WHEW, that was a close one! Wild Aunt Becky’s should be approached with care.”)

Except I’m fatter now. Also: will not be wearing my wedding dress. I am saving it to wear to my BFF Pashmina’s wedding. Because wedding dress = something you wear to a wedding, right?

RIGHT?

I was thinking about it sort of sadly as I perused the stacks of new and hip clothes at H & M on Saturday (also I thought about this: when the fuck did the 80’s come back in style?) that I haven’t worn my Real Clothes–the ones I’d had for years–since 2006. After I’d gotten pregnant with Alex on my birthday (so THAT’s the way it is in my family)(also: guess what *I* got for my birthday that year?)(answer: a fetus) in 2006, as I turned 26, I almost immediately began to gain weight.

I’d fallen into the I’ll eat everything I can think of because it’s good for the preschus bay-bee trap when I’d had Ben, and it took me years to beat those 60 pounds off. So when I got pregnant with Alex, I was bound and determined to gain the recommended whatever it is. I was exactly what I weighed when I got pregnant with Ben as when I got pregnant with Alex, and it was on the high end of normal for my BMI (lest you take from this that I have been skinny since I was 15) (because I haven’t), so I was shocked at my week 9 visit when I’d gained 9 pounds.

It was shocking because I’d been barfy the whole time and not really eating and Jesus H, !9! pounds! THAT’S A TON OF LBS for someone who isn’t eating.

So yeah, the elastic band trick through the pants laughed in my sad, fat face and I immediately had to buy some maternity pants. I know plenty of people who can easily squeeze themselves into their old clothes for months, but since I carry my extra weight in my belly when I’m thin, it’s just freaking more uncomfortable when I’m pregnant. And since so many things about pregnancy are uncomfortable, why not eliminate what you can when you can?

(especially when you cannot eat either hot dogs OR soft cheeses) (assholes)

Anyway, I digress.

I’d lost all but 15 pounds of Alex weight when I got pregnant with Amelia, and piled 60ish pounds on top of that. The result is not pretty. I’ve tried the Alli, which, even with the oily ass-butter, didn’t help. I tried cutting out fast food, cupcakes and butter as food groups, and still nothing. I knew I was going to be fat for BlogHer and while I wasn’t happy about it, I thought at least a couple of pounds might budge.

Not yet, ickle grasshopper. It doesn’t appear that my body has gotten the message to drop these pesky pounds, and so fat I will be. Diet and exercise, just as an FYI, don’t ALWAYS work.

I considered calling in fat to the conference, but since I already paid for my tickets and got self-absorbed enough to have business cards made, I figured I probably was stuck going. Besides, skipping an event because you’re fat? Kinda pathetic, yo.

So there I was, in H & M trying to find anything that might fit. I got discouraged enough looking at the legwarmers and oversized shirts that I left for greener (read: fatter) pastures. I did end up finding pants, and I will tell you that I actually cried when I saw the size.

It’s going to take awhile to get these pounds to consider budging, and I guess that’s okay, even though maybe I should take up a Little Debbie Habit since I already look like I have one. I’ve found a way to work exercise into my schedule next month, once Ben is done with swimming lessons, and I’m probably going to try Weight Watchers again, after the conference just so I feel like I’m doing SOMETHING to combat this.

And decided that I’m (mostly) done apologizing for being heavier. Done. I’ll get the weight off, but in the meantime, I’m not going to shove myself into ill-fitting clothes. No, I’m going to do things that will make myself feel pretty: I’ll go tanning, get my hairs did, buy some freaking clothes. Why not celebrate what I’ve got right now?

But I celebrated last night. Not the loss of pounds, but the removal of clothes from my closet. Anything I hated, anything that wasn’t going to fit anytime soon, all that stuff, most of my maternity clothes, into bags. I filled up three garbage bags and I celebrated. The same way I celebrated when it rained in the wee hours of my birthday: I feel like I’m wiping the slate clean and starting again.

Last year on my birthday, when I was all pregnant and spotty and hormonal I remember hoping and praying that this year would be better and hahaha! 28 has been the hardest of my life so far. There’s obviously no guarantee that 29 will be any better because most of what happens is stuff I have no control over anyway, like that song about Jesus and the Wheel goes.

But I’m taking this all as a Good Omen. I’ll probably eat my words along with my humble pie slathered in ketchup because this is what I usually do, but for now, I feel lighter.

Come on up here and sit on your Aunt Becky’s lap and tell her, what do you find to be Good Omens?

————

I think I am going to make a separate page for the Amelia stories, which, by the way, thank you for reading and being kind about. I read up on the therapy for PTSD and apparently, talking about it rather than keeping it inside, you’re supposed to talk about it. And after I received the first bill from the therapist, I’m all “dude, I’m just going to tell the Internet. That’s free-er and stuff.”

I spent mere moments yesterday, in between ordering The Daver to shave my legs and to feed me grapes while fanning me with a ficus branch (read: shoving my gaping maw with cupcakes and reading trashy books while getting my arms gnawed on my a certain baby of mine), working on the next installment of Proof That Aunt Becky Has Feelings, and I was going to put it up today. It’s done, after all, and it’s just sitting there in my draft folder, edited and reedited (a rarity, I’m sure. You may want to mark on a calendar that I wrote a post AND EDITED IT this one time).

But I’m leaving it there, all alone in my drafts, for now. Not because it’s not good or not powerful, but because I don’t feel like being depressing today. The story ends happily, we all know this–although we’re not sure how neurologically Amelia will be affected yet; nor do we care–and I’ve told you the worst of what happened. I’ll probably throw it up tomorrow or the next day, then I’ll make a separate page or something to put the story together, because you know what? I gain nothing by keeping silent. My dignity (for once) is not on the line here.

No, today I wanted to something even more rare than talking about being afraid and scared and all that good boo-yang, today I wanted to publicly tell The Internet how much my life fracking rules.

See, I know it’s not in vogue to shriek it from the rafters that I’m the luckiest bitch I know. I should, instead, complain about summer vacation and how it’s crimping my Big Pimpin’ lifestyle, or maybe whine about Alex’s sleep schedule and that Amelia would kind of like it if I surgically attached her somehow to my body. Or maybe I could bitch about how Daver can’t seem to manage putting his dirty dishes INTO the dishwasher, instead, he assumes the magical fairies will sprinkle their sparkly dust around and the plates will magically float into the dishwasher.

But yesterday, as I sat with my big butt wearing a groove into my couch cushions, my daughter perched on my lap swaddled like a caterpillar in her pink camo swaddler, intently watching her brothers, who were chasing each other about the house, screaming ebulliently and (no joke) throwing these large beach balls at each other. It was some sort of game they were playing, Amelia wriggled this way and that, expressing her joy through her pumping extremities and the occasional squawk of pure ecstasy (no, not The Good Drug. No illegal drugs until she’s AT LEAST 12)(this is a joke)(put down the phone to DCFS, people).

The screams bore into my head like a drill bit, and although listening to them was making my headache so bad that my eyes began to water, I was so happy. This is my life. THIS. All this: the chaos, the dog pee on the (white. WHITE!) carpet, the toys strewn about the floor, bruising the bottoms of my feet. The pure joy that only kids can express so easily. The messiness, the imperfections, the sleeplessness and the bliss. All of it. It’s mine.

Never in a million billion years the place I ever saw myself. Not even close to the swinging swinger lifestyle, dripping with diamonds and distain, sex on the kitchen table and perfectly arranged coffee table books. Shit, I can’t even go to the store on a whim right now, let alone jet off to France for the weekend or even promise to make it to a local party.

But it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. It’s not where I’d ever have guessed I’d be, and Aunt Becky circa 1998 would have rolled her eyes dramatically and threatened to run off with the Peace Corp if you’d told her where she’d end up. But, in the immortal words of The Bearded God Garcia, “Once in awhile you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right.”

Because this is exactly where I belong: raising kids, writing a crappy blog and a couple of books, making good friends and the requisite handful of enemies. And it’s why I might maybe have gotten a bit misty-eyed when I saw all your birthday wishes here, on Twitter and on Facebook (we should be BFF! Your updates are hysterical on there). Maybe. Or maybe it’s just allergies.

And then I see this brilliance one of my friends put together, after I tell Twitter (jokingly) that I’m going to make and wear shirts that say “I’m Friends With Aunt Becky.” Then my OTHER friend tells me she’s going to make a shirt that says “Aunt Becky is my Gnomie,” and my face would be on a gnome’s body. And then I full on cried, I was laughing so hard.

And then maybe I said, “I love you man, to The Internet” and told them to keep this talk of feelings and shit between us.

God knows why, but today Becky told me that what she really wanted for her birthday was for me to write a guest post on MommyWantsVodka. I think she felt bad for me when she saw me notice her ogling a handbag with more more digits in the price than my car payment and turn ashen. And if I, pale as I am, turn more white, you know it’s serious.

Anyhow, she informed me in her Aunt Becky way (the not-so-subtle drip-drip method: “You’re going to post on my blog right? Tomorrow?… Hey Daver, how’s my blog post coming? Are you done with it yet?”) that I would be writing something for her birthday. It had to be something good, an explanation to Her Internets of how I put up with savor every moment of being married to the talented and dead sexy Aunt Becky. ( She’s not MY Aunt Becky, that’d be creepy, she’s just Becky to me. AND still Rock-n-Roll to me, too. AND only a woman. AND more than a woman. ) So here we are. It’s my turn to raise the roof off the mutha, to tell it like it really is…

…and I don’t know what to say.

I mean, there are tons of things to say; I have never known anyone who has made a more positive impact on my life. I am healthier because she made me see the doc. I am successful at work because I have her support at home, and I have wonderful children because she’s my teammate in raising them the way we think is best. She drives me crazy, and I drive her crazy, but if either of us is upset at the other we’re both misesrable about it until we work it out. Despite all the books and advice and people wondering about what makes a relationship work, we just…work. It’s refreshing not to need to think about it too much.

Way back when, I was single, with an apartment in the city, and she was commuting from the far Western ‘burbs to be at her clinicals by 6am. We went on a date, and that night I offered for her to stay at my apartment the night before clinicals so she could get an extra couple hours of sleep. I think at the time I just thought I was being nice, she was a friend of a friend and needed a hand, right? But as I look back I realize that I really just wanted an excuse to see her again, and deep down I already knew she was special to me.

It’s just…something about her. And honestly, you guys know already what it is, because you keep coming back here and reading her writings, laughing along and getting that feeling that she’s right there with ya. ‘Cause, well, she is. Her blog is a reflection of who she is, who we are; we’re not afraid to laugh at ourselves and we think our kids are the best and there’s very little in life that can’t be made better with a good laugh, some good music, and maybe a little vodka to take the edge off.

So, Happy Birthday, baby. One more year of living with your Sausages, being married to your Daver, thanks for being you and putting up with us, making us laugh, and putting us first. We may not always tell you, but you make us who we are, and that makes us pretty damn great.

I’d better close this out now. Becky’s hovering, telling me that maybe SHE should just write the damn thing for me, because I’m too slow. I told her that I was already over 600 words and she told me that was “decent”, with a smirk like it was decent for a moron with a hangover. I laughed and gave her the finger.

Welcome to our family.

What follows is not a birth story. What follows is what came after that.

And my warning to you, o! Internet, my Internet is this: what follows will probably be kind of boring. It may be self-indulgent and whiny. At times it may make no sense to you why I felt a certain way or why I still feel this way. What follows is probably never going to win me any blog awards or any new friends and I am okay with this.

Like anything else I’ve ever written–even the most banal of blog posts–I am writing it because I can’t not.

It must be told.

————–

My pregnancy with Amelia was not exactly a planned one. It wasn’t unplanned though, it just was. I hadn’t been back on birth control since Alex was born in March of 2007 and by May of 2008 I was pregnant for the third month in a row. The previous months had been marked by the hormonal roller coaster of back-to-back miscarriages, so when that pink line popped up for the third month in a row, it was almost by rote that I called Dave at work, told him the news and warned him not to get too excited.

Instead of immediately miscarrying, the pregnancy seemed to stick. Until about Week 6, when I began to spot. Having never seen a drop of blood with either of the boys, I immediately assumed the worst and prepared for the next miscarriage by calling the OB for another shot of Rho-gam.

(let me whine pointlessly for a moment and say this: I am pretty certain that they inject Rho-gam with a straw from McDonald’s. I have had 3 babies–one sans working epidural–and I swear, that stupid shot is always the worst part)

My heart was pretty heavy as we made our way to the OB’s the following morning and to add insult to injury, I was still nauseous as hell and bawling like an annoying small child. I’m sure the entire waiting room appreciated my sniffling and hiccuping. Alas, it was my turn to go back, and after giving about 4 gallons of blood (rough estimate) and determining that the bleeding had stopped and my cervix was tightly shut, I was sent for an ultrasound at another office.

The minute the tech inserted the camera up my pooter–after insisting The Daver stay in the waiting room, which, hello awkward–I saw it. She cast her pixilated, gummy bear heart on me and I was in love. I breathed a huge sigh of relief, went home and gorged on some Flavor-Ice. The following morning, the OB grimly called to inform me that my progesterone was somewhere in the single digits. This is, apparently, very bad.

So for the next twelve weeks, I was instructed to unceremoniously shove bullet shaped suppositories up the old lady bits twice a day, which trust me, as they melt, is like sitting in a pile of waxy spooge all day long. What I’m trying to say is that it was very, very pleasant.

But whatever, a little leaky vagina I could handle. The spotting continued on and off until I realized that perhaps I didn’t need to scratch the surface of my poor cervix with the suppository, and then it stopped for good. Everything was calm. Well, as calm as living with a monkey wearing a toddler suit can be, while your spouse is off fighting financial battles all day (and night) long during a huge crash in the markets.

(Lengthy boring aside #1: did I mention that The Daver is in finance? And that he had just accepted a position to become a manager when I fell knocked-up? Because yeah. The timing was awesome.)

(Lengthy boring aside #2: I feel I also must add here to give some additional information to those who haven’t been anxiously reading and rereading my (boring) archives and committing every one of my trite posts to memory. I don’t do pregnancy well. I get awful, crippling anxiety and mind-numbing depression while I cook my babies. It’s called prepartum depression. It’s very serious and it’s very real.)

But life trucked on for us all, the markets slowly sinking and Nat (my eldest’s biological father) coming by to predict the end of days every week or two. He’d take some time off in between to chastise my choice of, well, anything: car, house, lawnmower, you name it, he’d judge it loudly. Is it any wonder my trolls don’t bug me much?)

Anyhow. Moving along.

My 18 week ultrasound revealed not much at all. Baby looked like it might maybe kind of have a vagina of her own, but I was chastised by pretty much the entire office staff for “coming in too early.” I had a repeat US at 22 weeks which revealed that my daughter indeed had a vagina, a perfect heart and a perfect brain.

Obviously. She is my daughter after all.

Internet, I am telling you that when the tech told me that I was having a daughter of my own, I shed real tears. Despite my rocky relationship with my mother, I’d wanted a daughter so badly that I could taste it, but I just knew I was destined to be a mother of boys. Forever The Queen of the Sausages. I never thought I could possibly be lucky enough to have a daughter.

And yet, there she was, a blobby mess that I could ascertain very little from, although I was quickly pointed out the 3 lines (a.k.a. “the cheeseburger”) which signified that she was without penis. I couldn’t have been happier.

My very own daughter.

I was lucky enough to have a daughter.

Amelia.

My daughter.

Words cannot possibly describe the joy I still feel when I say that.

I have a daughter.

Part I.

The rest of my pregnancy went as smoothly as a pregnancy can for me. I reveled in my daughter rolling this way and that, I shopped for any number of teeny frilly dresses–while trying desperately to avoid the hootchie momma stuff–and began to stimulate the economy one pink thing at a time. I was as happy as I can be during pregnancy, my appointments showed me gaining my standard metric fuck-ton of weight.

Somewhere around week 37, I noticed after we’d come home from a lovely day of shopping–sans small children (this is what made it extra special)–that my entire lower half had ballooned into Michelin Man territory. My upper-half remained as fat as it was beforehand, but my lower half was bordering on ridiculous. It was Sunday and I was marginally alarmed by the sudden gain of at least 20 lbs, so I called my OB. They were shockingly unconcerned.

I looked like I was wearing exactly one half of a fat suit.

The following day, I noticed that the swelling was now bordering on Stay-Puft marshmallow status (replete with pasty whiteness. This was January in the Midwest), and the OB was now concerned. Off to the hospital, we trudged, for a NST and unnamed other tests.

What followed was a brilliant comedy of errors which involved busy doctors, dropping platelets, consults with specialists, living in a broom closet for three days and eventually an amniocentesis. I’m saving you from the most tedious story ever, but let me tell you that this was fucking Providence if I’ve seen it.

After our awful experience there we vowed to have our daughter at the OTHER local hospital. Where we’d had Alex, but not where we’d planned to expel Amelia. An excellent move we never could have expected.

Providence, Serendipity (wait, wasn’t that some shit-balls movie?), Fate, whatever you call it had a hand in things right there.

A week or so after I ripped the IV tubing from my arm and waddled indignantly through the L & D lobby on my way home, I had to go back to the doctor. The swelling–even in January–was so bad that I could only fit into this absurdly large pair of Daver’s slippers I’d been meaning to toss. I’d been meaning to toss them, you see Internet, because they reeked. They were also crusty and awful, but it’s all I could stuff my poor feet into, so off we went.

Two days later, on Wednesday January 28, my daughter was scheduled to make her debut with the aide of some a long hook and an IV drip of Pitocin. All of my babies have been induced, and while I’d been sort of looking forward to going into labor naturally, with the other two kids at home and the fact that I now felt like death AND was spilling some proteins, I figured safety for both of us was paramount. I could always watch a romantic comedy if I wanted to relive what “going into labor” was like.

You know they never lie in the movies, right? Or on The Internet? EVERYTHING on The Internet is true.

We had one full day to prepare all that we needed to bring another baby home, because somehow when you’ve reached number three and have run out of bedrooms with which to put said child, nursery preparation is pretty minimal. Besides, Alex had just grown out of most of what I really needed and so it wasn’t a stretch to pull it all back out.

My daughter would sleep in our bedroom with us until the boys could move in together, so there was no shopping for coordinated basket covers for the nursery, nor were we trying to match the knobs from the dresser we didn’t have to the light switch cover. It was sort of anti-climactic, but after having done it twice before, I was pretty pleased to just wash the scads of tiny pink clothes.

(Pointless aside #1: I keep mixing up my underwear with Amelia’s clothes in the wash. That feels kind of wrong, although not because I dress her in leather, lace crotchless panties, but because my own undies are–for the moment–large, pink and could probably double as a sail for a boat in a pinch)

Wednesday January 28th, we awoke at some ungodly hour (like 5:00 AM! Which is a time I should never, ever be awake because I am 100% allergic to mornings) and it was still dark out. Inky dark. And snowing. I remember waddling to the car after blowing kisses sadly to Alex’s door–he was still asleep–and finding the thick flakes of snow swirling about to be a Good Omen. I’d heard somewhere that rain on the day of something important was supposedly a good thing, and it being nearly February in Chicago, rain was more apt to be snow.

We drove to the hospital in silence just as we had before. While having #3 isn’t nearly as scary as having #1 or even #2, I’m not sure what pleasant conversation is when you’re both acutely aware that once you leave the hospital, nothing is ever going to be the same again. In the face of this, what is there to say?

Really.

Each of us were lost in our thoughts as we stopped for gas–and breakfast for Daver as I was too afraid I’d never eat at Dunkin’ Donuts should I see it coming back out a little later in a slightly *ahem* different form–the snow and the blackness and the wind seemed to make it a magical, magical morning. I can’t describe it well enough to do it justice. The radio was, for once, playing perfect music, the big fat flakes would make a satisfying splat against the windows, and in the dark then, it looked as though we were flying through that old screen saver.

Certainly if I know what that screen saver is, you must too. (no, not the flying toaster one).

After managing to hit not one but two trains, my stomach clenching and unclenching in knots as I tried to remember just what labor feels like and how scared I should be about the pain. I’m not hugely averse to pain (don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t turn me on or anything) (unless maybe it’s to someone I hate) (and that’s just a maybe) but even within 20 months, I had completely forgotten how it felt.

I barely remember pulling up the valet and handing off the keys as I was too busy peeling myself off the car seat and waddling into the hospital. We were checked into a room immediately and met one of the most cheerful nurses on the planet, which was a huge bonus as Dave and I were both terrified. And when we are both nervous or scared, our initial reaction is to open our mouths and talk. We flappity-flap-flap-jaw about nothing, anything, everything.

I guess it’s better than crapping your pants or explosively farting. That would make other people MUCH more uncomfortable, because how can you ignore THAT white elephant?

Soon I was instructed to change into a gown and nothing else as the nurse clucked over my poor legs which burned and ached from the addition of all those extra pounds of water. The tissues within screamed and cried as I tried to pull off my socks in vain. Dave eventually had to pull them off for me.

I settled into the bed, ate a couple crackers and then we were off. The IV ran slowly, dripping saline into that chamber, the line patent and waiting for the doctor to order the bags of Pitocin from the pharmacy. I considered Twittering, maybe I actually did, just to do something that felt normal and took my mind off of what was about to happen.

Dave flitted about the room, nervous as a bird, putting away this or that, arranging and rearranging the various things we’d brought while I lay there in bed, nervously watching the minutes tick past one after an ever-loving other. The doctor ambled in, broke my bag of waters–which, I have to say, is a REALLY discomfiting feeling–and pronounced it beautiful and clear. No meconium. The baby wasn’t in distress. The pit was added to the IV and we were off!

I had hoped to actually move about the room before the contractions got too terrible so that I could urge the baby out and use gravity on my side, rather than lay flat on one side of my back. But Amelia wasn’t really ready to be hatched, her head still pretty high in my body and not engaged into my pelvis. The risk of cord prolapse was great enough (broken bag of waters + floating baby) that I opted to lay there, willing my daughter out with my will of steel.

Labor? Hurts. It hurts a lot. I lasted a couple of hours, breathing through them, tears coursing down my face, although I wasn’t actually crying them. They were just plopping out of my eyes, and I only noticed because Dave occasionally wiped them away. I’d planned to Twitter, if for no other reason than I wanted to feel like I was connected to something outside of that room, but I was petrified. Even through the pain, I was so, so scared.

Maybe 4 hours into my labor, I got my epidural. It’s just like any other one I’ve gotten (I got a bonus 3! different! ones! with Ben, so I can handle it.), feels weird, not entirely pleasant, like your body knows something is going where it’s not supposed to, and then, WHOMP! Your legs are gone. Lifeless and tingly at the same time. It’s not a pleasant feeling by any means.

For an hour or so, I laid there, trying to watch TV but completely unable to focus on what was playing, so afraid. Just overcome with fear. I’m not one to talk about “my feelings” very often, and I don’t even know that Dave knew that I was so full of fear and dread that I could barely breathe.

And wait, what was THAT? It was…a contraction? Okay, yeah, the monitor says I’m having one OUCH! *pant, pant, pant* WEIRD. And wait, ANOTHER ONE? *pant, pant, pant* okay, wait, I thought I had an epidural.

I did have an epidural, I knew, because my legs were like two life-sized facsimiles of legs, as dead as tree-stumps, and yet still there, warm and heavy. I couldn’t shift easily from side to side as my hips were similarly numb, but that was it. It hadn’t taken past my hips.

I know I always like to use the “make God laugh; tell him your plans” quote when I talk about kids, especially when talking to parents-to-be, not because I’m being unkind in any way (I know. A shock), but because for all the planning, all the carefully executed plans, things just never go that way. I don’t mean to sound pessimistic or unnecessarily cruel, just honest.

I’d planned for as many narcotics as possible as soon as possible and here I was, 5 cm dilated and 100% effaced, half numb, a sort of centaur of pain. So be it. I could have had them replace the epidural, but I just didn’t care. I could handle it. I’d done it before.

(Pointless rambly aside: when laboring with Ben, the doctor turned off the epidural completely when I had to push. It was like going from 0 to 11 in a couple minutes. He was a nice man, eh?)

The transition from 5 cm to 10 took about 15 minutes, and after demonstrating my excellent ability to push for the nurse, she turned white and called the doctor immediately. Oh yeah, I’m a rock-tastic pusher.

I staved off the urge to push, and the fear I’d been feeling before amplified just like I was an ant in the sun who had wandered into the path of a large magnifying glass. I was petrified to the core, my cells screaming in fear. I cried and I cried and I cried like a little bitch to poor The Daver, “I’m so scared. I’m so scared. What if there’s something wrong with the baby? I’m so scared.”

Over and over and over, like an awful broken record. I couldn’t stop myself. Couldn’t be rational. I’d say it was the effects of being in transitional labor (the last time, I’d tried to order Dave to go home as he’d spent my labor on the couch in the room, sleeping off a migraine and I.was.pissed.) and maybe that’s all it was, but I was a wreck going into this phase of labor.

The doctor came scurrying in, gowned up quickly, and raised the bed up so far off the ground I felt like a circus performer with my crotch as the main attraction in the spotlight. Normally, I’d have cracked a joke, but I was shaking with fear, cowering and weeping openly.

On the doctor’s orders, I began to push. I knew the baby was positioned badly–for the life of me I cannot recall how–and as I pushed, the doctor wrangled my poor crotch everywhichway. I was thankful the epidural was on as I saw my hips shimmying and shaking with each push. Ben had been a forceps baby, Alex slid out with a couple pushes, and it looked like my last was as stuck as my first.

I didn’t have a lot of time to think about it, as they had me pushing every time I caught a breath. I always hear those ladies on A Baby Story screaming as they give birth, and I don’t get it. I’ve never screamed. And trust me, I’m a loud-ass bitch, so I’d imagine that if anyone would scream, it’d be me.

I opened my eyes from squinching them tightly shut through my pushing and what I saw alarmed me, my normally pasty husband was ashen, the doctor looked concerned and the nurse looked alarmed. Not exactly encouraging.

“Becky,” my doctor said, her voice squeaking with either effort or emotion, “there’s something wrong with your baby’s head.”

I was already hysterical by the time the doctor told me that my daughter had something wrong with her head, and as she instructed the nurse to call neonatology stat, just like that, my daughter flopped her way into the world at 4:28 PM on Wednesday January 28, 2009.

Furiously.

“Is she okay, is she alive, is she okay, please tell me she’s okay, oh my god, oh my god, is she okay, oh my god, oh my god, my poor baby, is she okay?, is she dead, make her breathe, is she dead, oh my god!” I couldn’t stop the hysterical babble, my voice rising until it was as shrill as a harpy.

“I don’t know, Rebecca, neonatology is coming to check her out” my OB said over my wails. Then she held up my squirming daughter.

My first thought was that I’d somehow given birth to a statue–I can still see her in my mind’s eye–bathed in the glow of the spotlight, dark hair matted down–as she was covered head to cheesy toe in vernix caseosa, and once they’d rubbed that off of her, she was pink and pissed the hell off.

I couldn’t tell you who cried louder–me or her–but I know that mine was the more mournful of the two. I figured that I’d used up all my good luck netting a wonderful The Daver and having two healthy boys. How could I possibly be lucky enough to have another whole healthy baby? I’d spent my whole pregnancy thinking just that: I couldn’t dodge the bullet again.

Apparently, when they hit the emergency button and order neonatology up to visit a patient, it means that the medical equivalent of a marching band swarms your room. So, there I was, suspended in midair (my doctor liked to deliver babies standing up) (her standing, not me) (because that would be very awkward) (especially if I pooed on her head) stuck being stitched up, spotlight still trained onto my vagina when a parade of people entered my room. Like extras from a movie set.

Even more upset, I moaned and cried and delivered my placenta, crying more violently than I thought possible, my ugly grey gown now dripping with the tears I’d been weeping steadily. I could barely breathe, the snot poured liberally out of my nose, and without the Daver to wipe it, it just pooled there on my face.

Dave was obviously where he should be–with his daughter–and had my OB not been eye to eye with my crotch I’d have wobbled my still-numb legs over to join him. I’d have clawed my still-working upper body toward her if I had to, but I could sort of see her over the OB’s head. Pink, pissed off, and hugely fat. Over the din, I could hear Dave trying to reassure me, “Oh Becky, you have got to see her thighs! She has THUNDER thighs!”

It was the most normal part of this whole fucked up situation.

The neonatology team swarmed where my daughter was furiously screaming her ever-loving head off, oblivious to the cacophony of cries in the room. They assessed her and after a couple of minutes, decided that it was probably just a fatty cyst on her head. But, to err on the side of caution, they would order a CT scan of her head the following day, so that the pediatric radiologist could take a gander at her noggin.

And just like that *BAM* the room emptied.

Like the water drained from the bathtub in one loud glut.

All of a sudden it was so quiet, so still. I was stitched back into one piece and lowered to a respectable height, my doctor bid us farewell, and neonatology nodded their capped heads at us as they left. Seemingly unconcerned. It was just The Daver, my nurse, and my daughter left. She begged off too, so that she could give us a chance to bond, and Dave gingerly brought me over my daughter.

I was still shaking head to tow, be it from the precipitous drop in hormones or the trauma that had been Amelia’s birth, and I begged him to stay close. Just in case I dropped her. As I managed to wrangle to gown down, I nursed her and as I did, I examined my new child. My sweet cinnamon girl.

She was the spitting image of Alexander, whom I missed so painfully that I actually ached, although her fingers were longer and more elegant, and her hair was dark black and matted to her head. Her eyes were open and she regarded me with these luminous green eyes which seemed to say, “hey, so you’re my mother, okay.” I was enchanted with her pureness, her loveliness. The daughter I’d always wanted was finally here.

And still The Fear. I tentatively pulled up the hat which had been pulled down over her ears, terrified of what I might see. Sure enough, right along the posterior fontanelle, there was a mass, a solid, pliable mass maybe an inch in diameter that I palpated gently with my fingers. I was reassured that this did not seem to cause her any distress as she still stared at me while I began to quietly weep into her blanket.

It was either a fatty tumor or it was something Very, Very Bad.

I’d read about neural tube defects in nursing school–always the annoying overachiever–so I knew that they could occur anywhere along the former neural tube. Typically, they’d occur lower, on the spinal cord, where they’d cause spina bifida, and while I knew that they could happen anywhere along the spinal column, I had no name for what it was called if it were to occur on the skull. But I remembered it technically be a neural tube defect on her brain and the pit of fear in my stomach grew.

The obligatory phone calls were made in short clipped bursts–by Daver as I couldn’t handle trying to talk to anyone yet–and we were prepped to go up to the Mother/Baby unit. As we rolled past the rooms with happy, seemingly carefree families, I was green with envy. I’d wanted shiny pink balloons and huge bouquets of overflowing roses and cala lilies and flowers and visitors and Vicodin, and an epidural that worked, and I wanted to play “Eye of the Tiger” when I delivered, and I wanted to enjoy my time as a new mother one last fucking time.

But my daughter; something was wrong with her. I couldn’t celebrate when there was something wrong with my daughter.

I steeled myself for our visitors as best as I could, wiping the snot from my nose and trying to ice my nearly-swollen-shut eyeballs so that I looked presentable for my dad, my eldest, my sister-in-law and my friend Ashley. They poured in and I tried to make small talk with them all, choking down the dinner they’d thoughtfully brought me which tasted like sand, and tried not to cry. I showed off my daughter and they ooh’d and ahh’d appropriately and I felt like a fraud.

They each knew that she had something wrong with her head, but I’m not sure whether they were trying to put on a happy face or they were just clueless as to how bad this could be. Above their chatter, all I could hear was a constant buzzing. I later identified this as panic.

Even with the aid of an Ambien and a Vicodin, the mix of which should have knocked me on my ass after the labor and delivery I’d had, I couldn’t sleep. I struggle with insomnia on my best days, and on my worst, well, I am a wreck. I tried to toss and turn and nothing, I couldn’t sleep. Or I could sleep lightly, only to wake up when a squirrel farted in Siberia or a raccoon somewhere in the mountains of Egypt broke a branch (are there raccoons in Egypt?)(or mountains, for that matter?).

Dave, seemingly oblivious, and always the one to assume the best in any situation, snored away, not even stirring when I lobbed condiments at him to get him to stop fucking snoring.

(condiments inexplicably included peanut butter)

(as an insomniac, there is very little as awful as having to sit there and listen to other people loudly sleep when you cannot)

I was almost happy when the breakfast cart rolled in because then I could stop pretending to be asleep. The morning passed as sort of a blur to me, although I can distinctly recall removing my own IV port and not letting a soul touch my daughter. I was like a momma lion protecting my baby and if push had come to shove, I probably would have bitten someone had they gotten too close.

Somewhere around 1PM, radiology came by to escort my daughter to her CT Scan. Dave, always the wonderful father, went with, leaving me alone in a room. Shitting my pants scared and all alone. I felt like a shaking bird with a broken wing, stranded and alone. I think I pounded out a bare bones blog post and read and reread my comments just so I felt a little less alone. Bet you didn’t think how much it mattered to hear from you, but it did.

It was my lifeline.

After something like 38 hours, Dave and Amelia were back, Dave beaming ear to ear. He’d gotten the impression that whomever was looking at the stills of my daughter’s head hadn’t seen anything terribly noteworthy.

For the first time in over 24 hours, I relaxed. My jaw unclenched, my fingers uncurled and my shoulders loosened. I began to think of things like “when we go home” and “I wonder how many Vicodin I can score from the doc” rather than, “is my baby going to die?” or the ever popular “is this REALLY how it all ends?”

I nursed and nursed my daughter, stroking her pimply cheek and murmuring to her that we’d get hats and wigs and we’d make bumps awesome, and that it didn’t matter if she had a little lump, she was so beautiful, and hey, there were always ponytails.

The phone rang, and somehow I disconnected this event with the one before it–the CT scan–and I watched Dave go ashen as he listened. He sputtered out that the NICU was coming and the pediatric neurologist was coming to see her and there was something wrong with our daughter. Something really wrong. We didn’t know what–no one, apparently, tells you shit in the hospital–but it was bad.

In another flurry of activity, the NICU came up to take my daughter from me.

They peeled her out of my arms one white knuckle at a time, and as the left the room I was scared to hear this howl, this wolf-like guttural howl. It sounded like a lion who’d been backed into the corner to die. Or a coyote mournfully begging someone, anyone in the still night to respond. I’d never heard anything so eerie in my life, and my entire body broke out into goosebumps. It was so feral.

It took me several minutes of listening to it before I realized that the noise was coming from inside of me. I was howling as they rolled my tiny daughter away from me. I was making a noise I didn’t even know humans could make. My head buzzed as though a hive of bees had taken over where my brain had formerly been and I shook.

And I howled. I screamed and I howled.

Dave was sitting there, a shell at the foot of my bed, wracked with sobs. I’ve never seen him cry like that before or since and I hope like hell I never have to see that again. We held each other and we sobbed and we howled and we wailed, like two wolves, crying for their dead cub.

I hope I never have to make that noise again. Hell, I hope that I never hear that noise again.

We were clinging to each other like two drowning souls.

My postpartum nurse marched into the room after our daughter had departed. An old battle ax of a lady, obviously well seasoned and not interested in the moaning and carrying on that was taking place.

But this was our daughter and no one had told us anything whatsoever and we were scared shitless. The bump could have contained the meaning of life or Jimmy Hoffa’s body–we simply didn’t know. We wouldn’t know what it was for over a month.

We watched her being wheeled away and a small part of us died right there.

My nurse very obviously didn’t care for my hysteria as she began scold. “I needed to get myself together for my daughter.” Because I “had to be strong for her now.” The sentiment is fine, sure, but you have to understand–because you know the outcome now and you know that she is fine and babbling in her saucer into a set of measuring spoons and it’s so easy to look back onto someone else’s story and say, Jesus wept, she overreacted, and probably I did, but we didn’t know anything.

We thought that she was going to die.

I didn’t appreciate this attitude–I banned her from the room after this interaction–from my nurse in the slightest.

We could have used compassion and reassurance, maybe a hug, not being snapped at that I needed to shut my stupid whore mouth. She insisted that we wait 20 minutes before we went down to be with our child, an arbitrary number; a cruel imposition. The NICU wouldn’t have cared what state we were in. But it is was it was.

Another nurse, a kinder one, who must have heard the verbal slapping we were being handed wheeled in a wheelchair for me so that we could go visit our daughter. I’d just given birth, and although I could have given a shit about the number of stitches or the horrible pain I was in, I was still very, very weak. My eyes were nearly slits in my face, obscured by my swollen orbits, and my face was shiny and raw from being furiously scrubbed with hospital issue tissues.

I hyperventilated and wept on our way down, through some secret set of hidden elevators to what I thought was the basement of the hospital, keeping my face down and away from the other patients, who stared, gaping openly and thanking GOD that it wasn’t them. Rightly so.

I gripped the teeny sock–a lone sock that had fallen off Amelia’s foot earlier and I’d randomly stuck into my gown–like it were a life vest, the last thing I had that connected me to my daughter.

We were buzzed in from an unseen source as we approached the innocent looking white door that would bring us to our daughter, now a patient of the secret place, the land of tears.

I’m not a stranger to NICU’s and I happen to find the tiny babies, the preemies absolutely adorable rather than frightening, and the wall of constant sound–the vents humming, the monitors alarming and beeping intermittently and the quiet swish of the staff, moving purposefully from patient to nursing station and back again–doesn’t bother me like it does some. But this was our daughter and, well, no one expects that their child will end up there.

After scrubbing in, we went to see our daughter, who lay now completely naked under what I always called “The French Fry Warmer” hooked up to a zillion monitors, in the area directly next to the nurses station.

This was The Bad Room to be in, as anyone who has spent any time in an ICU knows, because it is RIGHT next to the nurses station. Which means they are keeping an extra close eye on whomever is there. Comforting if the patient is very ill, frightening if you still don’t know which way is up.

I cried into my gown as the other parents looked up at us, nodding in kind of a ‘hey, you too? Fucking sucks’ sort of way. Because your kid is in the NICU and that’s completely fucked up. What else can you say? It’s not like any of us expected to be there. I tried to be quiet with my sobs, and I got a couple of ghosts of half smiles from other parents who sat vigil next to their own babies.

I saw when I gingerly moved from the wheelchair into the rocking chair crammed into that tiny room with a curtain instead of a door, that someone, some kind soul had made several signs for Amelia, to add some cheer to her room. One said “Amelia” next to a red block letter ‘A’ and the other had some sort of Minnie Mouse also with an “Amelia” right there.

For some reason, this unexpected act of gentle kindness made me cry harder.

Just like all of the amazing emails and comments that you guys sent me. I know full-well all the nasty shit the Internet can do to people, but I will never, ever, ever be able to put into words how much it helped to know that people who didn’t even know us were praying for us. I cannot thank you enough for every single comment, email, anything you did for us. Every time I talk about this, every single thing you say to me, every time someone pops up to say something supportive about this, I am so grateful for each and every one of you.

Sitting here, reliving this and having so many of you reliving it with me, there are no words for how much it helps. I am showing you my secret heart, warts and all, and you are here.

Thank you. I am humbled by you.

Hear my prayer, hear my prayer, hear my prayer, please God, hear my prayer.

I saw the monitors and instinctively checked them as I approached my daughter, getting a sunbath underneath the warmer. Her stats were picture perfect, I noticed, breathing a little more easily, and I made my way slowly to her bedside where she was sleeping peacefully.

I slogged my own soggy bottom from the wheelchair onto the nifty rocker that was shoved into that tiny room; barely a room, more like a closet. She was sandwiched in between to babies who I could hear misbehaving on either side. “Misbehaving” is, of course, a nice way of saying that these babies weren’t doing well and their monitors were alerting their nurses as such. Most of the NICU, I noted as I was wheeled past, always the nurse, was full of Feeders and Growers.

This is a fanciful way, always evoking a pleasant garden of freshly hatched babies, of saying that these were babies who were finishing their gestation outside of the womb. The babies surrounding Amelia were probably in a little worse shape, although with the sensitivity of the monitors, hearing them frequently beep means relatively little, until you see the staff go running.

Of the other babies whom I could see cooking away merrily in their incubators–like I said before, I find preemies adorable–Amelia was the biggest, fattest, and likely the only term baby there. According to her room placement, though, she was thought to be one of the most ill.

Hear my prayer, hear my prayer, hear my prayer, please God, hear my prayer.

My ass was firmly planted now onto the chair, and I held Amelia’s lone sock as a talisman, hoping it would ward off the Bad News. I was preparing to nurse my daughter again, just waiting for our nurse to come and help me sort through the tangle of wires my daughter was attached to.

Our–Amelia’s–nurse walked in and introduced herself to The Daver and I. While he had recovered more easily and was no longer tearful, I was still weeping. A mixture of sleep deprivation, intense stress, and the drop in post-partum hormones made for a Messy Aunt Becky.

(Boring aside time! I realize that I keep going over and over how I was crying, and so that you do not believe that I am the whiny baby that I appear to be, I’ll have you know that I rarely cry. A couple times a year I might quickly tear up after a particularly brutal House, MD but generally, I’m not tearful. Or flappable. Or a flapper, either. Whatever)

I handed off the box of kleenex that had been pressed onto my lap as we left Mother/Baby and my daughter was brought back to me, hooked up to so many wires that she looked like an electrical outlet. The nurse stood there, kindly, talking to us, but not revealing much of anything at all. I imagine it’s because they didn’t know for sure, but not knowing anything wasn’t exactly comforting, by any stretch.

I begged the nurse to have the neonatologist on staff come and speak with us, since the pediatric neurosurgeon was busily operating on someone’s head somewhere other than the NICU. It’s probably good I didn’t know where he was, lest I have stalked him down. Knowing something–but not specifically what–is wrong with your child is a pure hell I can’t wish on anyone.

Hear my prayer, hear my prayer, hear my prayer, please God, hear my prayer.

The neonatologist–the same one from the previous day (has it REALLY not even been 24 hours since she was born?)–came over to us, and told us that there was a “bright spot” on Amelia’s CT Scan. I had no fucking clue what that meant and he didn’t follow it up with much, although I did see his lips move, I couldn’t understand anything he was saying. I guess that’s panic for you.

After the doctor left, the nurse came back in to ask if we’d wanted to see the chaplain; to have Amelia meet the chaplain. Now, I’m not super-religious, I feel I must add, but I’ve always, ALWAYS found immense comfort in men and women of the church. And since we’d gotten absolutely no comfort from anywhere but ourselves (and my friends in the computer, whom I adore), I was pleased to meet the chaplain.

She was amazing. Just. Incredible. Of the entire coming month, it was her words, her warmth and compassion that I kept coming back to. She blessed my daughter. My daughter was blessed.

And she was so, so blessed.

Hear my prayer, hear my prayer, hear my prayer, please God, hear my prayer.

We sat there in the NICU for quite a spell, after everyone left, it was just the three of us. Time in the ICU is timeless. You look at a clock and it could be 4 AM or 4 PM, there are no extraneous clues to tell you what part of the day you’re living through. Besides hell.

But soon enough, I had to go upstairs so that I could change my undergarments and ready myself to see my boys. My sister-in-law was bringing my boys to come see me, and I had to put on my Poker Face. Which, given the raw, chapped and bleeding state of my cheeks, was going to be damn near impossible.

Back up in my room, I saw that I’d gotten some flowers and a basket from two of my lovely internet (slash) real life friends, and it made me cry. Then again, I think the package of saltines that had been ruthlessly thrown on the floor the night before might have made me cry. I wasn’t in a Good Place.

My sons came in a bit after I’d gotten sort of cleaned up–and by cleaned up, I mean, changed my icepack and brushed my teeth–and I don’t remember much about seeing them. I held Alex very, very close as Ben showed me some pictures he’d colored of Amelia. Ben knew his sister was sick, but Alex had no idea what a “sister” was, let alone what being “sick” meant. I held them and pretended to be as normal as I could until I got the call from the NICU. I needed to go down and nurse my daughter.

Talk about being torn into 2 pieces. I bid farewell to my youngest son–my eldest just wanted to get home and I couldn’t find fault with that–who screamed and cried and yowled “Mooommmmyyy” as he was led away to the elevators that would dump them into the outside world. As for me, I found my way back to the super-stealthy-ninja elevators to take me to that innocuous door, the one that should have had some flashing lights and a nifty “This Is Not An Exit” sign above it, and I cried.

I missed my other children so terribly and I was so, so worried about my new child; I felt so torn. Like I was walking the line between two worlds, and not doing a very good job living in either.

I said the same prayer over and over, begging God to let her live, even if she was retarded and her IQ was 43 and she was ugly and had to live at home for the rest of her life, just let my baby girl live. I didn’t care what was wrong with her, so long as she made it out alive. I begged God to take me, instead, I’d had 28 wonderful years on the planet already, and she was less than 24 hours old. Certainly, I’d give my life to save her in a moment.

Hear my prayer, hear my prayer, hear my prayer. Please God, hear my prayer.

After scrubbing the top 50 layers of skin from my arm and signing a reasonable facsimile of my name, I dashed over as quickly as I could to see my girl. There she was, still perfect stats, thrashing about, looking for something to eat. In the time I’d been gone, however brief it was, shift change had occurred, and we’d gotten a new nurse.

When she came in to assess my daughter and saw me weeping softly into her blanket as we rocked back and forth, back and forth violently in that rocker, for the first time in a day, someone asked me what was wrong. I explained that I didn’t know if my daughter would live or die; that no one had told us what could be wrong with her, what that bump COULD be, why she had to be in the NICU, nothing.

She looked pretty aghast that we’d been told nothing, and for the first time, someone tried to reassure us. She apologized that the neonatologist wouldn’t be in until the following morning–some crazy ass brain surgery was goin’ down–and I remember leaving the NICU several hours later slightly less burdened.

Hear my prayer, hear my prayer, hear my prayer. Please God, hear my prayer.

That night, we ordered a pizza and tried to relax in my somber room, trying to let go of some of The Fear. I didn’t feel much like celebrating anything, so no balloons, no stuffed animals, no signs that I had just given birth. I could have been on any floor, in any room in the hospital. There was no joy there.

The nurse brought me my Ambien, and the NICU had called to tell me that they would bring my daughter up to nurse every 2 hours (the NICU runs like clockwork. It’s no wonder that new parents struggle to care for their NICU graduate when they get home. Seriously, it’s a well-oiled machine). I turned on the sound machine to blast white noise over The Daver’s snores, and waited, trying to fall asleep. Unsurprisingly to no one, least of all me, I couldn’t get anywhere close to sleep that night. This made the tally of nights without real sleep at 3.

I was about to lose it.

Somewhere around 4 AM, after someone had ruthlessly barged into my room to empty the wastebasket or something, waking me from the lightest of light sleep, I began to panic. I’d sent Dave down to the NICU to sit with our daughter in the vain hope that having him at her side would set my mind free, so I was alone. The panic that had been a constant dull buzzing had morphed into something much more sinister and I knew what was about to happen.

Frantically, I paged the nurses station because I knew I needed help. I explained as carefully as I could that I was about to have a panic attack and that I needed my nurse NOW. My nurse came in, I don’t remember what she did, but she didn’t want to call my doctors because they would be rounding in a couple of hours and I could ask for something for my anxiety then.

Which, hi, that helps.

(this was, I need to tell you, a totally different nurse than my dayside one)

She told me to “relax” and then left. I tried to “relax” which was as useful as punching myself in the face with a hammer, and soon enough I put a call back into the nurses station, begging, pleading for them to call my doctor. I was panicking so badly that I quickly inventoried all that I had in my room that might help with this. The best I could come up with was a bottle of Scope.

I didn’t end up drinking it, but I did call the NICU and beg Dave to come back up (he was unaware that something was wrong with me, more than whatever is NORMALLY wrong with me) and some other nurse took pity on me and called my doctor, who prescribed me an Ativan. A swarm of people all happened to come into my room at the same time: a partner in my OB practice who looked terrified by me but discharged me, a nurse with that beautiful pill, a tech to get my vitals, and my sweet husband, who was trying to reassure me.

It sounds, in retelling this, that they were all there to help, but it wasn’t really like that. Dave and the nurse were trying to calm me down, but the tech, the doctor and whomever was washing the floor just were doing their jobs. With spectacularly bad timing.

Ativan on board now, I was trying to gulp some calming breaths and stave off the panic which was doing none of us any good. They’d turned off the lights, and covered my still-swollen body with fresh sheets, cleaned off the bedside table and turned on the white noise machine. It had to be about 7:30 AM.

Finally, I began to relax and beat the panic away, if only slightly. Dave held my hand and told me over and over and over again that my daughter was just fine, she was perfect, she was wonderful, she’d done great overnight, she was beautiful, she was going to be just fine. It was soothing to hear, but what would have been MORE soothing? Having her bassinet next to my bed where it belonged instead of three floors below.

As I always tell Ben, “You can’t always get what you want,” and I got what I needed. I was finally coming down, although I was still weeping, panicked, and out of my mind with fear.

Then (dun, dun, DUN), the absolute worst person to show up did. (no, not Nat).

Lactation services.

(Pithy aside time: I never got Ben to nurse, ever, but I went to lactavist after lactivist, learning pretty much all I ever could care to know about breastfeeding. THEN, I worked OB long enough to teach many, MANY women to nurse their babies. Hell, I’m sure I could give YOU some tips, if you wanted. After that, I had Alex, who nursed constantly. I am no stranger to the boobies, the holds, the implements of torture, the creams, the bras, the lotions, the pumps, the storage bags, the supplements. While most of parenting is a guess-n-check thing, I’ve pretty much gotten nursing down)

So Lactation Services showed up, because they say they’ll come by every day you’re in the hospital with a new baby, and they do. It’s awesome for people who need help because breastfeeding is nowhere NEAR as easy as it looks on those weird Lamaze videos.

(also: why are people in the Lamaze videos always naked?)

But I didn’t need help. And when she showed up and saw me shaking in bed, being held by my husband while the nurse clucked around me like a mother hen, lights off, white noise blaring, she should have excused herself. But no.

No.

She introduced herself perkily and asked me how breastfeeding was going, and I answered that it was fine. Which really, was kinder than the situation warranted. I’m kind of an emotional cripple, honestly, but had I walked in on this hornet’s nest of a room, I’d have promptly left.

I expected this to be enough for her, but no, she followed that up with, “Do you have any concerns about breastfeeding?” Wrong question, dipshit. Time, place, all that.

“You know what?” I snarled, “I’m MUCH MORE concerned that my baby is going to die than if I have proper latch, okay?”

Again, she could have gracefully bid be farewell. But no. She kept on keeping on.

“Well, what about your concerns with BREASTFEEDING?” She asked, just not getting it.

I responded with, “Look, if she’s dead, I’m not going to give a FUCK about colostrum, okay? Please!” I began to sob heavily again.

It was then that Dave told her to get the fuck out of our room, and in my mind’s eye I see him leading her to the door forcefully, but I’m not sure if that’s how it went.

Finally, with a DO NOT DISTURB sign on my door, I slept for a few hours.

I awoke when The Daver bounded in and announced, “the neurosurgeon ordered an MRI! And he’s really nice! And not concerned! He thinks it’s an encephalocele! It’s a piece of brain or something that’s herniated out! We can go home after the MRI! And follow up with the results next week! Oh, I wish you’d met him. He was so, so nice.”

And just like that, we went from critical to discharged in less than 36 hours.