Aimee - when's your sprog-day*(S)?

Bwah! Em's birthday is November 30 - on her due date. 2 weeks between her and Iris. How funny.

I went into labor the morning of the 29th. Spent the day shopping and doing laundry. Went to hospital around 10:30 that night. They put in the pitocin drip, I held out on my epidural until 7cm and then promptly slept for 6 hours. I woke up around 10:30am on the 30th and said, "I need to push." - I slept through active labor and transition. Started pushing around 11:30am and around 1:30-1:45pm, Em started to go into distress, my blood pressure bottomed out and off we went to the OR. She was born at 2:20pm. She was average - 7lbs, 5ozs - but she went in with her chin tucked into her chest and got stuck. Doctors had to pull her up and then out. Joe thought they were doing that old saw the girl in half trick.

That 9 months after Valentine's Day week to be born makes for some awesome people. Just ask me or my sister.

I slept on a board for the sway back and have slight kyphoscoliosis that didn't bother me much as a gymnast (I suspect because I was more flexible and the correction was easier) but after I fractured my neck in college I've been always off kilter and that shows in my yoga and Pilates. My rolling like a ball looks more like rolling like a Roomba.

Doctors had to pull her up and then out. Joe thought they were doing that old saw the girl in half trick.

((Aimee & Em)) OUCH.

heh. All your novembers r belong to us! Awesome.

Where did you hide the body?

under his degree from Asshat University.

We can haz all Nvmbrs?

We're gonna time the next one for May or June so that my sister and my mom will be done with work for summer and can come help. I'd also like for them to be in the OR with me. I hope I can have 3 people.

:: passes Sparky ibuprofen through the internets ::

I had a doula who was also a massage therapist, so that I could keep my back from turning into cement. she was amazing - and stayed the entire time. Including, unexpectedly, coming into the OR. So, for that magic moment when they hand baby to DH, and you're left staring at the ceiling, she came over and talked to me. That was really nice. Then she came back the next day and massaged my feet and shoulders. Got me off the nasty OR stuff really fast. Charged us all of, um - $400. For basically three days. We made a donation to her organization and I did a huge website for her later.

When we were planning Em's birth, Joe and I had very different ideas.

I wanted a doula and a midwife and to have a water birth.

Joe wanted the hospital and machines that go "ping".

Sometimes, I suspect he willed the c-section onto to me to show me he was right.

I have told my husband that on the slim chance I should ever be pregnant my wardrobe shall consist of t-shirts imprinted with the following instructions for the doctors and my signature: "Please administer painkillers early and often."

Cut a hole in the back and write: "Place Drugs Here" with an arrow pointing to your spine.

It occurs that with all of the sprogging we seem to be doing around here, maybe we should have a birthing/parenting thread.

Not that I proposing it, mind you.

A doctor once informed me that women lose blood every month and, since I'm a vegetarian, I'm not eating blood to replace it, and so I won't be able to have kids. (I was 15 or so at the time, and a bit too startled to counter with, "Um, India?") This was the same doctor who told me that my pain was entirely psychosomatic before he examined me.