If you thought it was poop.....?

My son, Mason was playing outside today, with what was minimal supervision at best. I must interject right here, that I have a patio area that is roughly 200 square feet and surrounded by walls on all sides and 5.5 foot gates that lock, so it is really secure, and with the door open I can hear everything.

So, when I heard him chanting "Ucky poop, ucky poop," I got very, very scared.

Turns out, it wasn't poop, it was a snail. Which of course, begs the question, if you thought it was poop, why would you pick it up?

God only knows where he found it, there is nothing in the patio area that would be the least bit appetizing to a snail, but I decided to look at it as a lucky learning opportunity.

Now, my son, is only 22 months, and I think that he is pretty darn smart. Is he more advanced than other kids his age? who knows, but he is really quick when it comes to learning new facts. (Maybe one day he can be like his mother, full of useless trivial information.)

So, I started naming the anatomy of the snail, in simple words he could understand of course, and he was repeating them back to me. We got some cabbage so that I could show him where the snails mouth was, and he giggled at the site of the snail chomping away on the leafy greens.

It was pretty amazing to see just how interested he was in learning about the snail. I think a lot of people underestimate how much 2 year olds can understand. I "teach" him like this all the time. He now knows the kinds of flowers that humming birds eat from, how bees make honey, and that different apes and monkeys have different names (for example orangutans, lemurs, gorillas, chimps). Does he fully grasp what all of it means, probably not, but it is giving him a good foundation for understanding. And, I would be lying if I said that it doesn't make me super proud to hear him telling others all the fun facts that he knows.

He knows all of his colors, including silver, all of his shapes (even octagon), green means go, red means stop, and so much more. He amazes me daily. I am truly blessed to be his mommy.

Hopefully, we will always have this much fun learning together.

Labor (part II)

Has it really been over a month since I posted? Sorry for the delay, though I am sure that no one was on the edge of their seats waiting for the rest of my labor story. Take heart, this last part is a lot shorter than the first part.

Anyway, where did I leave off? Oh yeah, I was resolved to do it all natural, vomit and all.

So, I get back into my breathing. I realized that the great attitude that I had all through my pregnancy did not have to disappear just because I was barfing and things weren't going exactly as planned.

Time passes. I barf, I walk a little, I sit in the bottom of the shower with the hot water running on me, I change rooms, I breathe! I even manage to doze off a few times.

Time is very strange when you are in labor. It is like time is crawling, fast-forwarding, and warping all at the same time. At one point the nurse told me what time it was, but the numbers meant nothing - I really could not make it make sense.

Finally, I got to the pushing stage of labor. Okay, here it is I thought, just a couple more hours, maximum, and then I get to see my baby's face.

I was very proud of myself - I got through first stage labor, now I was gonna push this baby out! I could see the light at the end of the tunnel (I hope some one will appreciate this very sick pun!).

Now ladies, if you have had children, you know the indignities you suffer at the hands of well-meaning medical professionals. Enter the midwife.

For those of you who have not had children, let me drop some knowledge on you - the pushing stage of labor is pretty uncomfortable. I am not trying to be facetious, I just don't like using the word "pain" for labor. I have experienced physical pain much worse than labor in my life.

Back to the point though, during the pushing stage the last thing that you want is some super happy midwife or nurse sticking her hand up your hoo-haa to check and make sure that you are properly dilated. Oh, by the way, did I mention that they do this WHILE you are having a contraction and having to push with all of your might. Yeah, lovely!

"You are fully dilated, but there is just a little bit of a lip of your cervix stuck. Let me see if I can.....yup.....push it out....... of the way."

Cervix pushed out of the way - here we go.........(time, approximately 11:30 am). Too bad my mom won't make it in time for the birth, she has at least 4-5 more hours on the road before she can make it here.

After a while of pushing, I get checked again. Mason was at a -1 station (sorry for not explaining what that is for those of you who don't know, I am trying my best to keep it short).

Let me re-iterate here, time passes strangely when you are in labor. I was just minding my own business, pushing when I had contractions, getting trough them like a trooper, when all of the sudden, I look up, and there is my mom.

Yup, at this point I had been pushing for about 4 1/2 hours. Surely, I must almost be done.

"Michelle, your baby is still at a minus 1 station, I am afraid that your contractions may not be quite strong enough to properly push your baby out. What I want to do is insert a sensor into your uterus to make sure that they are strong enough and regular enough to do the job."

Long story short (too late!), in goes the sensor, and my contractions are off the charts strong. Not only that, I was having contractions that were lasting five minutes or more. Really long, strong contractions, and he still didn't move.

At this point my husband was a wreck. The midwife and the nurses told him that we needed to start considering other options. I insisted on pushing just a little while longer. Finally, at about 8:00 pm, the midwife checks me again, and I will never forget the words she said.

"Has he moved at all?" I asked

"Not one iota."

Approximately 9 hours of pushing, and he had not moved one iota. I looked at my husband, and he hunted down the doctor and we decided that a c-section was our only option.

It was pretty hilarious when the doctor came in because he had to give me all these disclaimers about the surgery - what could go wrong, something about accidentally cutting vital tubes in my body or perforating my intestines, blah blah blah, I wasn't really listening..."Just get him out of me, please. Anything you cut just sew it up when you're done." Come on - I had a baby literally STUCK inside my body and I had been pushing for forever!

The rest is history - stopped pushing, projectile vomited all over the hallway on the way to surgery (that was pretty cool), got a needle in my spine (not so cool), lost all feeling from the chest down (kinda cool), didn't get to be the first to see my son's face (un-cool), my husband was the first face that Mason saw when he opened his eyes (beyond cool!), got morphine (waaaaayyyy cool), got something to help me relax (cooooooooooool), got to finally see my beautiful baby boy and kiss his sweet face (AMAZING).

Re-cap: 24 hours of labor (15 hours of first stage + 9 hours of pushing) all without a drop of pain medicine in my system, was knocked down but I kept my spirits up, barfed all over that maternity ward, fell deeply in love with my wonderful hubby all over again, and got to meet my wonderful boy for the first time. All-in-all, it was a great day!