Moving On...with Big Daddy by my side

Now that the ultrasound is over I've started focusing on other things. I wish I could say that one of those things was the nursery, but we're not going to talk about that. We are still on hold for the time being.

I hadn't planned to start thinking anymore about my birth plan just yet, but I stumbled upon the pregnancy section on divine caroline Saturday and I started thinking. The Muffin was in her room for naptime and I was doing my usual 30 minutes on the computer before folding laundry or taking a nap myself, and it just happened. I read and read and read and read and decided to interrupt Big Daddy's game of computer chess so that we/I could talk about "The Big Day". When I told him my plans he laughed. Then he looked at me and realized that I was serious and said he thought that sounded fine if it would make me happy. I told him that I was having second thoughts about the baby having to come out and it would really make me happy if he could give birth to our Baby-to-be and any future Babies-to-be. Then I went on about everything I want and don't want to happen and I reminded him that he'll be there the entire time (as in you cannot leave the floor to eat lunch and will have to have someone bring you food and you will eat in front of me even though I'm NPO, thankyouverymuch) and that I can't do any of it if he doesn't suppport me. He vowed his support and I'm sure that somewhere in his mind he was imagining playing chess on his laptop while I'm laboring. No matter what, the baby will come out.

Then, I started thinking about the hospital stay and all of the things that I want (like a cute hospital gown that I saw on Etsy). We had such a great experience last time (after the crash c-section) but there were times when Big Daddy could have done a better job. 1) He slept. When I was on morphine and couldn't sleep the first night, he slept. 2) He slept. After I was able to get out of bed with help, there was that time that he was sleeping, Muff was crying and I couldn't reach her and he slept through it all. I finally was able to hit his chair with the bedside table and wake him up. It seems that he had forgotten that my throat was sore from being intubated and couldn't really talk that loud and had no way of waking him up. 3) His sense of humor. It really needs to go on vacaton this time. Around 48 hours after Muff's birth he purposely made me laugh so hard that I thought I would die...and he thought it was funny. I didn't have to laugh all that hard to feel like I was dying, but he didn't have to make the hilarious comment that he made. Even worse, when I asked him to leave the room so that I could try to compose myself, he sent the lactation nurse in because I "was crying"...as if he didn't know why! She came in thinking that I asked him to leave for some unknown reason and was completely surprised when I told her that he had purposely made me laugh and that I thought my insides were coming out and that was the reason I was crying.

To make a long story short, I'm thinking about labor and delivery of getting a doula to replace my Big Daddy.

Oh, I kid. He had his good moments too! 1) When our midwife, Peggy, was asking about how we wanted things to happen he passionately told her of his desire to "catch the baby". 2)When he was paged back to our L&D suite and he tried to look calm and reassuring while I was having contractions while standing on my head with Peg's hand up my private area. I remember she was explaining to him what had happened, what they were doing and what was going to happen with the crash c-section. 3) I remember the day after The Muffin was born and I looked through all of the pictures that were on our camera. That's when I really realized that he had missed the actual delivery too. I saw those first pictures of Muff coming out and then being held up to the window so that Big Daddy and my mom could see her and then the ones that he had taken in the nursery and then the ones that the nurses had taken of him sitting in the rocking chair holding our baby and grinning like he was so happy. 4) When I first (remember) talking to Peggy on the morning after the birth she told me more details about what had happened. I promised her that I would never want to have another baby and Big Daddy agreed with me and told me that one was all we really needed anyway. 5)Then I remember him taking 15 pictures of her in her little hospital bassinet all swaddled and content and how proud he was of our sweet little Miracle.

I guess he's not that bad after all, but he's no doula.