Labor Day

In the United States the first Monday in September is traditionally the day when we celebrate work. We call it Labor Day. It is a national holiday and we have the day off so that it is a long weekend. Work in this sense is the kind where we go on a daily basis from 9-5 or whatever your profession’s time frame is.

This year Labor Day meant a little more to me than just work – and the joy of having a three day weekend. It was ironic because I gave birth during this weekend and spent some time in the Labor and Delivery area of my local hospital. Needless to say, my daughter arrived just shy of actual Labor Day so she has a wicked sense of humor like her mom. 

It all started Sunday morning. I woke up feeling fine and feeling a little odd that my baby’s due date came and went. I went to the gym as usual and came home. I was making plans to have brunch with my sister and to go run some errands together. That plan fell short very quickly when I got a very painful cramp that I had not felt during my pregnancy. I told my sister not to worry that it probably was nothing. Until it was something because not even 5 minutes later, I had another cramp and felt the need to go to the bathroom to urinate.

My bathroom visit gave me the visual cue that this was in fact active labor. I came out of the bathroom to announce “Guys, it’s time”. This set the house in a frenzy because my mom had just come over with groceries. When my husband notified her that it was time to go to the hospital, she wasn’t sure what to do with the groceries she had just purchased. She rushed home to put them away.

My main concern, outside of breathing through the contractions was, I need to eat something. I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it through labor without food in my stomach. So my sister ran to get me a bagel and cream cheese because that was the quickest thing that could be prepared and eaten on the way to the hospital.  Once she arrived from the local deli, we were off and my sister spent the night with my dogs. It was very comforting to know they would be in good hands.

We met my mom outside and I tried to talk her out of not coming to the hospital but being a stubborn Italian woman, there was not much I could do to convince her. We jumped in a cab and when we got to the hospital, I proceeded to eat my bagel. We saw the doctor outside the doors and her comment was “Just don’t eat anything you don’t want to see later."

After completing my breakfast, we went up to the Labor and Delivery floor. We registered and proceeded to wait in the triage room. As I was timing my contractions and feeling like I was going to die, the other women in the room were reading books. I kept thinking, they must be getting induced or they are much stronger than me. It was the former. 

My doctor came in to tell us there were no beds available yet as there were many people who decided to give birth that same day.  “Must have something to do with Labor Day and the full moon,” she said. I continued to wait and breathe and finally she came to ask the women waiting if we could jump ahead. Luckily they figured out I was in active labor so they let me go ahead of them. When we finally got set up with an IV and on the fetal monitor, I was 4-5 centimeters dilated. It was painful but I was breathing through it as much as possible. 

Eventually I was moved into my own delivery room and the doctor notified me that I was only at 6-7 centimeters. The pain at this point was excruciating – breathing techniques and digging into the bed weren’t doing very much to help me through the intense and unending contraction. Incredulously I said to the doctor, “That’s it?” At that moment, I asked the nurse for an epidural. She got that going because there was no way I would make it through the next couple centimeters without some pain assistance. 

The anesthesiologists came to administer the epidural which baffled my mom. She was couldn’t understand what they were doing so I explained to her that it was for pain. She was worried about the ramifications. Once I got the epidural, things were definitely better. I could still feel the contractions but not the pain. One side of my body however became completely numb and I couldn’t feel it. I tried to move my leg around to get some circulation going but it wasn’t much help. It was like moving a boulder with a feather. 

I progressed from 7-8 centimeters but then my contractions got weaker. My baby wasn’t yet quite in place to come out. Finally I got to 9 cms but my contractions weren’t any stronger. They decided to give me pitocin – a medicine to make the contractions stronger. But as the contractions got stronger, I was feeling pain on the other side of my body. So the anesthesiologist was called in to give me some more medication.  Apparently this extra medication didn’t make my baby happy and she was stressing out in my stomach. Her vital signs showed a change and she ended up pooping inside of me. 

At that point the doctor came clean and said that I had to start to push because the baby needed to come out. I wasn’t yet at 10 cms but it would have to be done. So delivery began. 

Oh and how could I forget that moments after I got the epidural, I began to vomit incessantly? It seemed like every two minutes whatever was in my stomach decided it didn’t want to be there anymore. The doctor didn't know earlier that her comment about eating would come to fruition. If it weren’t for this, delivery wouldn’t have been so bad. But every time I pushed, I wanted to throw up on the doctor. I’m sure that she has had this happen before but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t just gag on myself or the doctor to try to push.

Less than an hour of delivery, my little cookie was born and as the doctor stitched me up, my husband took a million pictures. My mom nearly passed out from all the blood she had seen come out of me and especially from seeing the placenta being delivered. I am not sure how she didn’t throw up herself but her face said it all. For a few days after giving birth, my mom couldn’t stop saying how much blood I had lost. I told her that she probably lost just as much but she retorted “Yeah but I didn’t see it.” I had to give her credit – those screens must have been a good thing. I could see a lot of what was happening in the plastic visor that covered my doctor’s face. 

It is a wonder how so many women go through this type of work on a daily basis. Somehow we labor and deliver babies all over the world every minute of every day. Not only do we celebrate mothers on Mother’s day but we should also honor them on Labor Day as well.

No Comment

I am a big believer of the adage ‘if you have nothing nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.’ I admit that I don’t always follow this rule.  For the majority of the cases, I find it’s easier to just keep my mouth closed than deal with the trouble of voicing the comments scrolling through my brain. Most of the time the thoughts in my brain are not so nice so it’s why it’s best for me to restrain and contain myself. 

Not everyone believes the same things I do. I often find that people say whatever comes to their mind and they don’t filter in any way. This pisses me off because when people do this, what they say is usually incredibly offensive and I’d like to put them in their place. But as I said, I find it doesn’t help things if you have nothing nice to say. So I keep my mouth shut. 

A couple of weeks ago as I walked out of my local Starbucks after getting my morning fix, a woman said to me “What were you due yesterday?” – referring to my pregnant stomach. I was going to let it go. I kept telling myself to just let it be. But it really got to me so I said “Why the hell is it your problem?”  She closed her mouth shut and turned her head away from me.

 I felt excellent! Sometimes there just isn’t anything as satisfying as making someone else close their mouth. I know she didn’t expect me to say anything. Normally I wouldn’t have uttered a single syllable. But I felt compelled to give my opinion – call it pregnancy hormones or whatever. I swear that I was practically skipping all the way to the subway. I know it’s bad of me to gloat but I can’t help it. 

Every so often I still see this woman around and she hasn’t said a word to me and she better not. I seriously cannot be held responsible for the next doozy that comes out of my mouth if she does say something. Just goes to show you, there is definitely a lot of value in holding your tongue but there are moments when it’s important to speak your mind. It’s just a question of which battles you are willing to fight.

Mirror Image

I’ve been doing a lot of pre-natal yoga while I’ve been pregnant. It has been incredibly helpful in loosening up the very tight muscles that come with pregnancy. It has also helped temporarily relieve my back pain from last year that made a happy reappearance through these pregnancy months. 

The best part of yoga is that it’s relaxing. I have always found it to be calming but never more so than now. Just holding positions and letting muscles stretch is soooooo nice. 

Up until a couple of weeks ago, I was feeling very energized during each class. Then I noticed something that wasn’t so apparent before. My belly!  It wasn’t as if it didn’t exist prior to my discovery; it just didn’t look so big. It kept haunting me during this particular class. I felt like this crazy rubbery creature that had three enormous bubbles on its body – my head, my belly and my butt. 

I  seriously wondered why this was bugging me so much and I realized that it had to do with the how the substitute teacher set up the class. Our regular instructor never made us face the mirrors. She must have somehow known that would be bothersome to very emotional women. She conducted class  so that we always faced the bare walls. However in this class, we were constantly looking at the mirrors. 

I’m not one who walks around in general peering at myself in any reflection. I don’t believe in doing that for a number of reasons:

1)      My hair usually looks a mess and I don’t like to be reminded of it. Ignorance is bliss for a reason.

2)      I usually look tired and don’t like to be reminded of it. Again bliss in ignorance.

3)      I think it’s vain to always look at oneself in a reflection. I like to accept myself for who I am and what I look like at the moment – an occasional glance is fine but I see many people fawning over themselves for minutes in a reflection. I think that behavior is unhealthy.

It was definitely disconcerting because I usually don’t feel bad about the way I look. Most people would probably say that I look like I never care. Generally speaking, I am very low maintenance.   It was the first time in recent memory where it really dug a hole in my brain. After it dawned on me that I wasn’t an enormous globe, I felt better.  I decided to continue to keep the mirror reflections to a minimum so that I wouldn’t judge myself or have a baby body moment. Now if I walk passed a mirror or reflection, I don’t feel as bad because I know this is just temporary.

Why Husbands Do What They Do

The title of this blog will probably give tons of married women hope but I wouldn’t invest too much into it. I am going to write about a couple incidents that have happened to my husband in my presence that now explain why he never listens to me. 

On our first trip to Paris together, my husband was meeting up with his best friend who lived there at the time. We also met said best friend’s girlfriend for the first time. The moment after we arrived we had lunch with both of them at a restaurant on the Champs Elysees. It was delicious and we overdid it. We took to walking the city afterwards so that we could digest our enormous meal and so that my husband could become acquainted with the sites as well. We made our way from the Champs Elysees all the way to the Latin Quarter. My husband spent most of the time talking and catching up with his best friend while I got to know the girlfriend. 

As we crossed over into the Latin Quarter from in front of Notre Dame, I called out to my husband to ask him a question. In trying to pay attention to me, he didn’t notice an enormous pile of doggie doo in the street so he stepped in it. This made me laugh for quite some time because he was very frustrated by this situation. The girlfriend mentioned that this was normal in Paris and was considered good luck. My husband didn’t really want to hear this. I kept laughing at the whole thing because I had been through this myself. I also had never seen my husband so upset in all the time we were married. But his upset behavior was more comical than scary. 

On another occasion my husband and his friend were walking in front of me while I was taking in the sites and enjoying myself. I called out to him again for some reason that I can’t remember now. He just narrowly missed stepping in another pile of puppy poo and again, I couldn’t stop laughing. I’m not about shadenfreude. It was more my husband’s facial expressions that made me crack up. They were so childlike in frustration and yet totally ridiculous that I couldn’t control my laughter.  My husband said at that time, “see what happens when I listen to you?” It should have been a warning but I never thought about it as anything other than a funny situation. 

Back in NYC, we had another encounter with canine excrement; this time he didn’t miss. Now that I think back on it, this explains a lot of why he never listens to me. If the consequence of listening to me is his shoes get soiled, then I know what he’d rather avoid. It took me a while to learn this important lesson but now I know. 

So married women out there, think really deeply on some kind of situations that created patterns when you tried to talk to your husband or get his attention. You may find yourself in the same situation as I am in now – a husband that refuses to listen to me because he’s afraid of getting smelly shoes.

Role Models

Growing up people always asked me who my role model was. At an early age I was obsessed with gymnastics so Mary Lou Retton was my idol. I wanted to be just like her with the short hair and the big smile bouncing all over the gym. 

As I grew older and literature and writing became my passion, I began to find inspiration from other writers. I really aspired to be like Joyce Carol Oates but there was no way I could keep up with her prolific writing so that kind of fell to the wayside. I still enjoy her writing but I don’t idolize it as much as I used to. I respect her imagination and the ability that she has to put out about 4 books  a year. But I know I can’t do that so I don’t bother. 

I also really liked Batgirl and Sabrina from Charlie’s Angels. They were smart girls who were pretty and led mysterious lives. So I looked up to them but as I got into my gymnastics phase, they went away like a passing fad. 

Now that I am older, I can’t say I have a role model. I find it very hard to admire people in the same way that I did as a kid. I don’t look up to them and want to be them as much as respect where they are and how they got there. 

Recently though I’ve begun to wonder what the point of having a role model is. With the news of Lance Armstrong’s decision to not pursue the doping charges, I kept thinking ‘what is the point of even admiring a person?’ Yes, we are all human and we make mistakes but people really thought the world of him. I even thought he was incredibly courageous in battling cancer and coming back to the cycling world and making such a big statement. I wasn’t as upset about the recent news but I know other people who were very influenced by him. With his doping charges along with some of the other winners of the Tour de France, I began to wonder what the point of the sport is anymore. 21 days of riding intensely insane routes only to be found taking some kind of endurance enhancing drug? What’s the point? 

I also thought about so many track and field stars who fly across the finish line only to be found taking steroids. How disappointing is that to some child who wants to do the same thing? They see their god striped of their medals and banned from the sport – what is the motivation to keep trying? I know you have to look within yourself for the inspiration and the drive but when everyone around you just wants to get a cut of the paycheck, how do you keep your integrity? 

It’s sad to me that the types of people I looked up to as a kid no longer mean anything to me. They’ve lost their value and meaning. And it’s sad that this younger generation really has no one to give them that energy to strive to be the greatest. No one but their inherent beings, which isn’t too bad when you think about it. It should always be about you making your own goals and attaining them. It’s just sad that role models don’t seem to exist anymore and that kids of today probably won’t look back as fondly on any particular person as I did when I was a kid. I guess it’s probably better since mine have all been forgotten and they can look towards something better to become the greatest.