The Day Before
So we've suffered our little detour and now we're back to that Sunday before Eliza was born. After C and I left diner, our bellies happily full, we drove to Park Slope to walk around and look at real estate postings. C believes labor can be started by lots of walking and it was a gorgeous day so I happily agreed to look in the Slope.
"Park Slope is so far," I said. "Might as well live in Jersey."
"It's a great place to be if you have kids," he said. His daughter, now 13, went to the public elementary school when he lived in the Slope with his ex-wife in 1997. "You have the Park, PS (whatever) is great. I mean, we went to some kind of orientation and the woman who ran it said her kids both went to that school and now one was at Harvard and the other was at Stanford or something like that."
"Greaaaaat," I said. These terrifying stories are all too true in New York City. I'm already worried about not producing a superkid. "I think Park Slope is just as expensive as Manhattan these days."
"No, you can get more for your money."
And he proved to be right, at least according to the postings. However, not knowing exactly where the many apartments we saw were located, it's hard to say if we would get more for C's money there. The floor through two bedroom with high ceilings and lots of light might be advertised as Park Slope but in actuality be further out, say in Windsor Terrace. And that puts us out of the elementary school range which is one of the reasons we want the Slope in the first place.
But the apartments looked promising and suddenly I was full of hope for our new life as a threesome. I envisioned a lovely floor-through with lots of light and shiny hardwood floors. Maybe we'd even have a working fireplace. We then walked through the park and compared strollers. We saw more strollers in Prospect Park than dogs which is actually a rarity in New York. I've often said this city is much more dog friendly than baby friendly. Judging by what I see in our elevator, there's more dogs in our building than kids.
After a long leisurely walk in which I did start to feel some rhythmic cramping (maybe this was it! Maybe it would start on it's own!) we got back in the car and drove home. Now it was just a few more hours until we checked into the hospital. Hugely pregnant, we walked to a local French Bistro and had a fabulous dinner.
"Oh any day now," the hostess said when she caught a glimpse of my girth. A waiter came running over to help her pull the table back so I could slide into the booth.
"Get the biggest steak you want," C said.
C, a strict vegetarian, knows I'm anemic and must eat red meat to maintain my iron level. Especially before going to the hospital, I really beefed up on beef. I was distracted by a couple that came in behind C. The man was extremely tall, clad in a sweatshirt and sneakers, and seriously looked like a Pro-bowl football player. The woman wore a sparkley top, very low-cut to expose a spectacular cleavage. I told C it was too bad he wasn't seated where I was. He wasn't getting a great view of women's cleavage these days, at least not at home.
C is the no meat no fish kind of vegetarian but being that there wasn't one option that fit that catered to that kind of diet on the menu, he "went to the dark side" as he calls it and ordered fish. We both ate like it was our own version of the last supper. In a way it was, it was the last meal I would eat slowly and enjoyable until December 17, almost a full month later. People with kids will understand how impossible it is to eat and enjoy a meal once you have a child.
After dinner we came home to a ringing phone and several messages from C's mother. Apparently she thought we wouldn't contact her once there was news and thought calling constantly was a great way to find out information. We turned off our phones, C grabbed my two bags (one for the labor room and one for after) that had been packed now for over a month, got into the car and made the drive to the Upper East Side. Being that it was after 10 on a Sunday night, we had no trouble getting a parking space right outside the hospital. After I reported to the second floor, I was given a clipboard with forms to fill out and we were ushered into a room not much larger than a broom closet. It was extremely hot and I remember the room was so small, there wasn't even a place to put my coat. I was wearing a coat from a short-lived TV show I worked on called "The Jury." The smallest size was always too big for me but in this instance, huge with child, finally the big size did matter.
The room we were in was adjacent to a nurse's aid room and C and I really seemed to be in the way. Finally a resident, a pretty woman with curly blond hair with a name like Jessica came and asked me a few questions. She promised we'd be shown into a room shortly and then disappeared. A sour nurse who spoke broken English arrived about five minutes later to usher us to the room. Closing a curtain to separate myself and C, she asked a few questions and entered them into a computer. Since either she or the computer was having trouble, she asked me several questions more than once. C reappeared and sat in a nearby chair. A nurse came in to stick me with an IV. This was the beginning of my panic attack, the realization that I would be hooked up to machines all night.
"Can I go to the bathroom with this?" I asked, not wanting to ever ask for a bedpan.
The nurse nodded, assuring me she was running a long enough line. After sticking me, which I screamed for (and I will say the IV was maybe the worst part of my "labor"), she then hooked me up to a baby monitor. I would be hooked up to this machine all night long. She showed me how to disconnect and reconnect the monitor for trips to the bathroom. I tried to keep calm for C but inside I was freaking out. I hadn't pictured my labor as much of anything, but I didn't expect to spend the night before it hooked up to machine that would make it impossible for me to sleep. I made stupid jokes, flicked on the TV and watched the last ten minutes of "Grey's Anatomy."
Jessica, the resident returned to insert a suppository that would soften up my cervix and make it "riper" for delivery. C sat in the chair focused on the news as Jessica stuck a thing up my you-know-what. This was probably the beginning of the end of my sex life with C as during this whole process he observed one indignity after another.
C left around one in the morning. He'd been willing to stay but it seemed stupid for him to spend the night in the chair when nothing was expected to happen until morning when my OB arrived to administer the pitocin. He left and suddenly it was just me alone in the room, the tv off, the machines beeping and the faint sound of my baby's hearbeat rattling steadily over the darkness.
"Park Slope is so far," I said. "Might as well live in Jersey."
"It's a great place to be if you have kids," he said. His daughter, now 13, went to the public elementary school when he lived in the Slope with his ex-wife in 1997. "You have the Park, PS (whatever) is great. I mean, we went to some kind of orientation and the woman who ran it said her kids both went to that school and now one was at Harvard and the other was at Stanford or something like that."
"Greaaaaat," I said. These terrifying stories are all too true in New York City. I'm already worried about not producing a superkid. "I think Park Slope is just as expensive as Manhattan these days."
"No, you can get more for your money."
And he proved to be right, at least according to the postings. However, not knowing exactly where the many apartments we saw were located, it's hard to say if we would get more for C's money there. The floor through two bedroom with high ceilings and lots of light might be advertised as Park Slope but in actuality be further out, say in Windsor Terrace. And that puts us out of the elementary school range which is one of the reasons we want the Slope in the first place.
But the apartments looked promising and suddenly I was full of hope for our new life as a threesome. I envisioned a lovely floor-through with lots of light and shiny hardwood floors. Maybe we'd even have a working fireplace. We then walked through the park and compared strollers. We saw more strollers in Prospect Park than dogs which is actually a rarity in New York. I've often said this city is much more dog friendly than baby friendly. Judging by what I see in our elevator, there's more dogs in our building than kids.
After a long leisurely walk in which I did start to feel some rhythmic cramping (maybe this was it! Maybe it would start on it's own!) we got back in the car and drove home. Now it was just a few more hours until we checked into the hospital. Hugely pregnant, we walked to a local French Bistro and had a fabulous dinner.
"Oh any day now," the hostess said when she caught a glimpse of my girth. A waiter came running over to help her pull the table back so I could slide into the booth.
"Get the biggest steak you want," C said.
C, a strict vegetarian, knows I'm anemic and must eat red meat to maintain my iron level. Especially before going to the hospital, I really beefed up on beef. I was distracted by a couple that came in behind C. The man was extremely tall, clad in a sweatshirt and sneakers, and seriously looked like a Pro-bowl football player. The woman wore a sparkley top, very low-cut to expose a spectacular cleavage. I told C it was too bad he wasn't seated where I was. He wasn't getting a great view of women's cleavage these days, at least not at home.
C is the no meat no fish kind of vegetarian but being that there wasn't one option that fit that catered to that kind of diet on the menu, he "went to the dark side" as he calls it and ordered fish. We both ate like it was our own version of the last supper. In a way it was, it was the last meal I would eat slowly and enjoyable until December 17, almost a full month later. People with kids will understand how impossible it is to eat and enjoy a meal once you have a child.
After dinner we came home to a ringing phone and several messages from C's mother. Apparently she thought we wouldn't contact her once there was news and thought calling constantly was a great way to find out information. We turned off our phones, C grabbed my two bags (one for the labor room and one for after) that had been packed now for over a month, got into the car and made the drive to the Upper East Side. Being that it was after 10 on a Sunday night, we had no trouble getting a parking space right outside the hospital. After I reported to the second floor, I was given a clipboard with forms to fill out and we were ushered into a room not much larger than a broom closet. It was extremely hot and I remember the room was so small, there wasn't even a place to put my coat. I was wearing a coat from a short-lived TV show I worked on called "The Jury." The smallest size was always too big for me but in this instance, huge with child, finally the big size did matter.
The room we were in was adjacent to a nurse's aid room and C and I really seemed to be in the way. Finally a resident, a pretty woman with curly blond hair with a name like Jessica came and asked me a few questions. She promised we'd be shown into a room shortly and then disappeared. A sour nurse who spoke broken English arrived about five minutes later to usher us to the room. Closing a curtain to separate myself and C, she asked a few questions and entered them into a computer. Since either she or the computer was having trouble, she asked me several questions more than once. C reappeared and sat in a nearby chair. A nurse came in to stick me with an IV. This was the beginning of my panic attack, the realization that I would be hooked up to machines all night.
"Can I go to the bathroom with this?" I asked, not wanting to ever ask for a bedpan.
The nurse nodded, assuring me she was running a long enough line. After sticking me, which I screamed for (and I will say the IV was maybe the worst part of my "labor"), she then hooked me up to a baby monitor. I would be hooked up to this machine all night long. She showed me how to disconnect and reconnect the monitor for trips to the bathroom. I tried to keep calm for C but inside I was freaking out. I hadn't pictured my labor as much of anything, but I didn't expect to spend the night before it hooked up to machine that would make it impossible for me to sleep. I made stupid jokes, flicked on the TV and watched the last ten minutes of "Grey's Anatomy."
Jessica, the resident returned to insert a suppository that would soften up my cervix and make it "riper" for delivery. C sat in the chair focused on the news as Jessica stuck a thing up my you-know-what. This was probably the beginning of the end of my sex life with C as during this whole process he observed one indignity after another.
C left around one in the morning. He'd been willing to stay but it seemed stupid for him to spend the night in the chair when nothing was expected to happen until morning when my OB arrived to administer the pitocin. He left and suddenly it was just me alone in the room, the tv off, the machines beeping and the faint sound of my baby's hearbeat rattling steadily over the darkness.
posted by Litgirl Mama at 7:51 PM
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