I’m not sure if I’m going to blog much (or at all), but I
do post on Instagram, so if you’re one of my blogging buddies and you want to
see my super cute babies, ping me on Instagram (@mmuttreja). My account is private, so I feel more
comfortable posting stuff about the kids there.
I dropped off the face of the earth. I didn’t mean to, but there it is. In mid-August we welcomed Baby Miles. My pregnancy was completely uneventful. I exercised until I was about 38 weeks and
then I just couldn’t do it anymore. But
I think the exercise made a big difference in making the last trimester
bearable. It was hot and I definitely
didn’t love being huge in July and August, especially when chasing after 2 year
old Max on a playground. But I didn’t
have the carpal tunnel or any swelling or any acid reflux this go around. I’m not gonna say I love being pregnant – I do
not. But this pregnancy was a lot easier
and more pleasant than my first one.
I had a scheduled c-section for Miles. I just wasn’t interested in trying for a VBAC
and both my RE and my OB recommended against it given the events surrounding
Max’s birth and the visibility of my internal scar. The other benefit to scheduling the c-section
was that we could arrange for Max’s beloved nanny, E, to come take care of him
while I was in the hospital. E left us
in June to go to grad school, but she came back and stayed in our apartment for
three nights to take care of Max and I think it made a huge difference for all
of us.
The morning I was to head into the hospital, I woke at
3am with what I thought were gas pains.
I had a hard time falling back asleep, and I actually never did. I was just so worried about Max and how he
was going to handle these huge changes.
Around 4am, the gas pain got a little more intense. Around 5am, when I got up to start getting
ready, I started to notice a pattern…. Yup, I was in labor. By the time we headed out to the hospital
around 6am, I was having contractions every 3 to 4 minutes. They were very uncomfortable, but manageable. Man, was I PISSED. This was supposed to be my nice, no labor
pains birth. On the bright side, at
least we know that Miles wanted to come out on that day. At the hospital they hooked me up to a
monitor and confirmed that I was having regular, strong contractions. But I wasn’t dilated at all. After what felt like forever, they finally
got me hooked up to some IV fluids (my doc thought that the labor might have
started because I hadn’t had anything to drink after midnight, as per orders),
and that reduced the pain a little bit.
They do a thing at my hospital now called “gentle
c-section.” This is a silly name, but
the purpose is to provide a few things that make the birth more like a vaginal
birth. We opted to do it. A little before 8, they brought me back into
the OR and the whole situation couldn’t have been more different from the
emergency c I had with Max. Everyone was
calm and in a cheerful mood. Getting the
epidural was a piece of cake and not remotely painful. It did take awhile for me to get sufficiently
numb, but the lead anesthesiologist was like, “I got this,” when I started to
complain about discomfort and a few seconds later I was totally numb. It was a little scary and creepy to think
about what they were doing – not going through labor and multiple hours of
pushing meant that I was more with it and clear headed. I said something to Jeeves about how what
they were doing down there was “gross” and my OB yelled at me, “This is the
miracle of birth, Megan! It’s not gross!” And we all laughed. Then, just as they pulled Miles out, they
dropped the drape down so we could see him (but not see all my gross
guts). It was a beautiful sight, to see
him come right out, umbilical cord still attached, and I’ll never forget
it. They cut the cord, quickly checked
him, and within moments, he was on my chest.
I didn’t get to hold Max while we were in the OR, so this was another
big difference this go around. Poor
Miles really wanted to nurse, but I couldn’t really do it given my position and
the fact that they were putting me back together. As soon as we were back in recovery, I was
able to properly latch him on and he nursed like a sweet little champ.
He weighed in at 8 lbs, and he was long, just like his
brother. From day one, he’s been so
different from Max. Max was the Angry
Whopper. Miles has been a cool
customer. Once again, nursing was a
problem. But I expected it and was able
to have a lactation consultant come in right away. She got me squared away and so, for the most
part, nursing went much better this time.
Miles was sleepy and a bit jaundiced – he never needed to go under the
lights, but he was pretty yellow for awhile and it took some time to work that
out.
Adjusting to having two kids has been…. hard. Miles is almost 8 months old and it’s still
hard. Max actually handled it quite well. I’m pretty into Janet Lansbury and I relied
heavily on her advice for how to help a toddler adjust to a sibling. Watching Max and Miles’s relationship develop
has been a sweet gift. They really,
really like each other. In fact, I’d
venture to say that Max is hands down Miles’s favorite person. Max thinks Miles is pretty great too.
But there are things I didn’t consider. For instance, I assumed that once we got
through the initial adjustment to having another kid around, everything would
be fine with Max. But actually, anytime
Miles conquers a new milestone and becomes more of a person and less of a baby
blob, Max struggles. The great thing is
that Max takes it out on me and Jeeves, and never on Miles. But that doesn’t make it any more fun. For instance, when Miles started eating
solids at 6 months, Max began a 2 week period of snotty boundary testing and
general grumping. Then he adjusted and
things were good for a bit. Last weekend
Miles started to crawl. Cue Max having
tantrums for no discernible reason and throwing toys. In retrospect, this makes perfect sense. It just didn’t occur to me until we had a
second child that the adjustment period is more than the first month or
two. Yesterday’s disaster was that I introduced
Miles to water via a cheapo sippy cup and Max really wanted his own sippy
cup. Sigh.
One especially tricky phase has been sleeping accommodations. We live in a 2 bedroom apartment, and while
we will hopefully move eventually, it’s entirely likely that we will always be
in a 2 bedroom and the boys will have to share.
I think there are a lot of pros to having them share a room. But right now it’s a lot of cons. Max is, as Jeeves said, the Michael Phelps of
sleep. He is a really great sleeper,
Olympic caliber. Once he learned how to
fall asleep on his own, it was smooth sailing.
I had high hopes for Miles – he learned how to fall asleep on his own
with no help and no tears – he just did it.
But unlike Max, who learned how to fall asleep and stay asleep till
morning (or at least get himself back to sleep), Miles tends to wake in the wee
hours. He doesn’t wake up crying, he
talks, burbles, grumbles, and eventually he will either go back to sleep or he
will start crying hard because he wants me to come hold him and nurse him. Sometimes Max sleeps through it, sometimes
not. Conversely, a few times Max woke up
and cried for us and wanted to come sleep in our bed (something he never, ever
wanted before Miles moved into his room).
We’re working it out, but it’s a lot trickier than I anticipated.
Add onto this that Jeeves’s work has never been busier, I
am constantly drowning in laundry and dishes, I am tired, the kids have traded
off being sick all winter long, that I myself was extremely sick in January
with sinus and ear infections, and my own job has become a mix of deadly dull
and aggravating (but also extremely flexible for when the kids are sick which
makes finding a new job seem very unwise), and what you have is a struggling
mom.
Still, getting to do the newborn thing, this
time with a baby who only really cried if he was hungry or had a dirty diaper,
was, dare I say it, kind of fun. And, more importantly, Miles completes us. It feels like he was always in our family, just not physically present until August, and I think we all feel really lucky to have him. But I have to say, I am done with infertility. We are so incredibly lucky that we got to have this family, so incredibly lucky that treatment worked for us. But I'm glad I don't have to go see an RE again.
