Maybe Baby

Welcome to the world, Coretta May Mitchell!

Coretta May Mitchell, born May 31 at 11:08 pm, 7 lbs. 5 oz.

Her magnificent stink-eye

And me, ravishing after 24 hours of labor--ha!

We had a devil of a time bringing this baby into the world, and a devil of a time naming her. I've never written up a birth story before, mostly because it feels like using the bathroom with the door open or something, but all these years later, I sort of wish I remembered more details about my other kids births, so this time it's going down in black and white.

On Saturday May 23, my water broke--there was a short gush, and then nothing else. Optimistically, I waited for labor to kick in--even though it never has before, I hoped this time I would get a real live natural labor. Contractions got harder all day, peaking around 2 pm, which happened to be the start time of the school musical, Legally Blonde Jr., that Aaron had gotten us all tickets to. I waffled about going, but decided we could always leave early if necessary. Well unfortunately, during the play my contractions got progressively further apart. By the time it was over, I wasn't so certain that I was on my way to having a baby after all. We got home around 5 pm, and I decided that getting some rest would be the smartest thing to do either way.

On Sunday morning I woke to another gush of fluid. But no labor. This time, I tried to get things moving all morning, and eventually succeeded in getting some hard contractions going. Once they were 3-5 minutes apart, I drove myself to the hospital. After updating the nurses there on what was happening, they put me in a room without officially admitting me. There I sat for a couple of hours, reading a book and having contractions. They swabbed me for amniotic fluid, but said everything seemed to be fine, so I should go home. I did not want to go home--I wanted to have a baby! But, not being a huge fan of hospitals, I eventually packed up and headed home. That night I did as much exercise/heavy lifting as seemed reasonable before going to bed. On Monday morning (Memorial Day), I woke up totally ready to have a baby--the timing would work perfectly! And only a few minutes after waking up, I had another gush of amniotic fluid plus contractions--everything looked good. I decided to hit the gym again, just to move things along, and by late morning, everything seemed to be moving into gear. I went straight from the gym to the hospital, where they pre-admitted me again and set me up for observation.

*if queasy or wary of losing respect for me by reading things entirely too personal in nature, please skip to the next paragraph* My nurse tested the pad that I'd been wearing to catch leaking fluid, and it came up positive. Then she swabbed me for amniotic fluid on my body, and came up negative. I thought it was strange that she'd even bother with that, but she said they needed a positive test on my body. Whatever. She sat me half-naked on a gross pad thing and told me to cough and otherwise induce additional leaking of fluid. So I did that and she tested the fluid and it was positive, but she still couldn't get a sample on my actual body--something that made perfect sense to me since my cervix was fully lowered and there was not actually anywhere for fluid to pool inside my body. *end of too personal section*

Ultimately, she never could get the exact test results that she wanted, plus she kept leaving for long periods because they were short-staffed because of the holiday, and I finally just picked myself up and went home, annoyed at everyone and everything. The next few days were a mess of emotion and annoyance. My doctor refused to induce me because they had put a new regulation into place that required doctors to wait until 39 weeks before elective inductions and the baby still looked reasonably healthy and my fluid levels were acceptable. I was very uncomfortable, continued to leak amniotic fluid at unexpected moments, but was also feeling pretty humiliated about my apparent inability to produce the proper amount of fluid at the correct time to get them to admit me and do an induction, which I had at that point decided was the only way my body intended to expel the baby--after all, it's how I had all four of my other babies.

 I went to see my doctor, but she was no help--something that didn't especially surprise me. Despite having seen four obstetricians already in the pregnancy (due to insurance changes), I never did make my way to a doctor I liked, but ultimately decided that at baby number five, I was probably the best person to call the shots anyway. If only they had let me! On Thursday I started taking blue and black cohosh to induce labor (they tasted awful), and on Friday I resorted to castor oil, despite hearing all manner of bad things about it. It didn't actually affect me too negatively, and gave me lots of good hard contractions, but nothing fool-proof enough to drag myself back to the hospital again--I felt too humiliated about my previous experiences there already. I talked to my doctor a few more times, and finally she agreed to induce me on Sunday May 31--great timing, since Aaron was putting on his final concert of the year on that day. She wouldn't budge by a single day, no matter what. I was getting pretty freaked out about some kind of infection might happen, besides which, our schedule for the coming week was not at all attractive, with end-of-year events coming up at schools, Aaron dealing with end-of-year logistics at his jobs, etc.

We went in at midnight to get Pitocin started, hoping to have a baby by 7 or 8 am--an average labor for me. However, the nurse started the Pitocin at the minimal levels and would only raise it every 15-30 minutes or so (and since Aaron and I kept falling asleep, we failed to keep her on schedule), so by morning, no real labor had even started. We got a new nurse then, and she started cranking it up, plus my doctor finally came in and broke my water, so by about noon I was in real labor. Unfortunately, Aaron had to leave at 2, and we felt like we were cutting it too close. So we decided to bring down the Pitocin levels for a bit so Aaron could go downtown to take care of pre-concert prep and conduct his 5 pm concert.

Everyone ready for the concert (while I'm laboring away at the hospital)

After that it was just the nurses and me. Luckily I had a great nurse through that period, and she really let me call the shots. At about 3 got an epidural and I told my nurse to crank it back up. The contractions slowly started back up, but they seemed less powerful--probably because I had already worn my uterus out. Aaron got back to the hospital at around 8, just as we were hitting full-throttle. Things were still going, just slower than in my other labors, probably due to both uterine exhaustion and the long gap between pregnancies. Still, by about 10:30 I was fully dilated and ready to push. My epidural was wearing off, however, particularly on one side. I decided to let it go, partly because I had the strange desire to have a more natural childbirth experience, pain and all, this time around--the contractions were never too terrible, and I was curious about how delivery felt. At 11:08, I got to find out. Delivery is horrible! It didn't take me long to push her out, but those few minutes were the worst ever! She stalled with her face half-out, and the cord was wrapped around her neck, and then there were the shoulders and the rest of the body and then the placenta after that--each complete with a full package of horrific pain.

Immediately after she was born, they set her on my chest (even though I had asked them to wait), but I could hardly look at her--I was still birthing a placenta complete with an extra lobe, thank you very much! Aaron was amazing, and fell in love with her instantly as they cleaned her up and got her ready for me. Once I was ready, a few minutes later, they brought her to me, and I could hardly believe how beautiful and real she was--somehow I do not  fully equate the awfulness of pregnancy with an actual adorable little baby, so getting her in my arms was just thrilling. She cracked me up right off the bat as I brought her in to breast-feed--she gave me the worst stink-eye imaginable, as if to say "you want me to eat that???" Still, she caught on reasonably quickly, and aside from the usual annoyances of hospital life, we got off to a good start, enjoying a blissful couple of days just relaxing and enjoying each other.

There was, however, additional trouble to come, about which I will write an entirely separate post.

What matters most is that our Maybe Baby, the one that we talked about off and on for years without ever really planning for, is here. She's not Thilda May Swenson Mitchell, as I had planned to name her, or Clara Mae Mitchell, as Aaron made a super-strong pitch for--even ganging up with the kids on me; she's Coretta May Mitchell, and we all love, love, love her to pieces.

Asher's Birthday Interview, age 14

What is your favorite color?
 -Blue
What is your favorite food?
 -In-n-Out hamburgers
What is your favorite thing to wear?
 -Um, clothes
 What is your favorite thing to do?
 -Skateboard and go to the beach
If you could buy anything in the whole world you wanted, what would it be?
 -A skateboard
What are you good at?
 -Basketball
What job would you like when you grow up?
 -Architect
Where are you going to live when you grow up?
 -Southern California
What games do you like to play?
 -Basketball and soccer
What was your favorite thing about being 13?
 -Learning to skate
What is your favorite thing about being 14?
 -High school is better than middle school, getting better at talking to people

And Now We Wait . . .

Though most of my month of May was spent sitting around wishing to be un-pregnant, there were some other people around here who managed to have a nice time. Okay, maybe less "nice" than just "not terrible." I will confess that I was not especially enjoyable to be around (after the baby was born, each of the kids individually let me know that not only were they happy to have a little sister, they were also happy to have me not-pregnant). Since there were probably more incidents that are better left unremembered than otherwise, this should be a pretty short post!

Mother's Day! I needed a boost, and I got it from my awesome kids and husband.

All the kids sang The Star-Spangled Banner with Aaron at a Padres game! How cool is that? And we scored awesome Padres hoodies as a gate-gift besides!

Sera got to take her dad with her to LEGOLAND for a field trip, and had a great time sharing him with her friends.

Addy got to sing Carmina Burana with the San Diego Symphony with Kurt-David Masur conducting! She did a great job, and we all enjoyed getting to watch the concert (the children's choir portion was treble only, so Asher wasn't able to sing). The San Diego Union Tribune printed a great review, including the following paragraph: "Masur was aided in no small measure by the orchestra’s best efforts, including a career evening for timpanist Ryan J. Dilisi, who was the motor in music’s most supercharged moments; an alert, consistent showing by the San Diego Master Chorale; a well-trained San Diego Children’s Choir that was as fearless as Masur; and a communicative solo trio of baritone Tyler Duncan, tenor Ryan Belongie and soprano Celena Shafer." You can read the rest of the review here.

Asher and Emerson were able to attend a Fathers and Sons campout that featured, among other things, a zip-line. It was Aaron's first chance to test-run the new 3-room tent he recently got for our family, and it was apparently a great success and the envy of all the other campers.

The kids were stuck at home kind of a lot, so they made their friends come to them.

And finally, there was an absolutely amazing baby shower held for me--I can't even express how grateful I am for the wonderful friends who planned and executed it, nor the wonderful people who attended and made it one of the most memorable evenings of my life. It was themed "Oh the Places You'll Go!" and included the most gorgeous array of international foods and decorations. I have honestly never even been involved in such a lovely event, let alone been at the center of it.

 And now we await the final event!

Birth and Rebirth

It took long enough, but sometime in April, this whole "having a baby" thing started to get real. For one thing, scarves stopped doing the trick for disguising my belly, which meant that I had to confess to other people besides my family that yes, in fact, I was expecting (and no, I wasn't really flying completely under the radar before that, but it was close enough that I was still able to convince myself). Once that happened, all the stops came out. The kids started fawning over every baby they saw in the store, at church, walking down the street . . . anywhere and everywhere. They are very excited!

On the other hand, there is still a lot of work to prepare to have a baby after eight years! We don't have any baby clothes or baby accessories left. Long gone are the pack-n-plays, car seats, swings, and strollers that ruled our lives for so long, and I find myself reluctant to reinvest in them for just one baby. I scoured a yard sale or two when a neighborhood yard sale took place, coming home with a cute swing and a lightweight stroller, but we're still going to need to scrap together a crib, a pack-n-play, and a car seat before we bring our little treasure home.

Our life did have another dimension, however, and I tried my very best to keep pretending that I didn't feel pregnant (ha! I definitely did) and carry on as normal. We had a lovely Easter week this year, including taking the Easter photos that have become something of a tradition with me. Since Easter Sunday fell on General Conference weekend this year, it worked out especially nicely that Aaron was playing at Calvary Lutheran--not only did it allow us to get gussied up in our Easter finery for the Sunday service (I thought myself rather clever in having the boys rather than the girls wear the Easter hats this year), but we also were able to attend a Good Friday service that was compelling and beautiful and something we hadn't had the chance to be a part of before. I played again this year for the Lent services that took place on Wednesday evenings in the weeks between Ash Wednesday and Easter, so the Good Friday and Easter Sunday services were a lovely culmination to that--particularly since I took one of our kids with me to each of the Lent services during March. There was a dramatization of the crucifixion at the Good Friday service that was very moving--there were seven candles representing the seven last words of Christ, each put out as the events of the crucifixion were depicted. The Easter service was chock-full of jubilant, joyous music, culminating in a sing-in performance of the Hallelujah Chorus, which it was wonderful to be a part of. Afterward, we spent the afternoon with the same friends as last year, at a lovely party with fantastic food and a clever Easter egg hunt for the kids.

Emerson and Sera were especially exceptional students this month, and were both honored at the end of their school term for their accomplishments, Emerson in mathematics, and Sera in citizenship. I have enjoyed teaching art in each of their classes so much, and executed probably the final projects for each of their classes this month. Asher and Addy both participated in track and field this season, bringing home ribbons for various events in their meets. Asher especially put his excellent jumping skills to use in the high jump, and Addy found herself pulling ahead in running events including the 200 m. dash and hurdles. Though the meets were hot, it was fun to see my kids carrying on in sports I have always loved.

We also visited Carlsbad's famed Flower Fields one Saturday (though sadly sans Asher, who was on a campout), and enjoyed the beautiful weather and views we are spoiled with in this gorgeous town. We've gotten a fair bit of rain (though not nearly enough to compensate for the terrible state of drought the area has been in), and it has been beautiful to see everything greening up and blossoming around us. Our other Saturdays have been spent pretty close to home, with visits to the pool being my one respite from my bitter enemy, gravity. As nervous as I am about having a baby again--it's been a long time--the one unhateful thing I can say about pregnancy is that it prepares you for the stress of having a baby by reminding you that it simply must be better than carrying another human around inside your body. As I have said probably a thousand times, I will never understand why it's not yet possible for humans to just lay eggs--we've invented the internet for heaven's sake!