Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Thanks, day twenty seven

Reason #876 why Nora is a terrible mother:

“WARNING” – “Never use on a raised surface. Never use as a car seat or bath seat. Designed for floor level use only. Never leave your baby unattended as the seat is not designed to be totally restrictive and may not prevent release of your baby in the event of vigorous movement.”

More about the Bumbo voluntary recall. Which is not for the seats themselves, but so they can add the warning label. I still think the Bumbo is wonderful.


Today is the anniversary of the day I went into labor. This day last year, around 2am the contractions started. They stayed irregular and early-labor like until about midday. I remember checking my email and puttering around savoring the regularness of labor, how a part of normal life it seemed, and how joyful and constructive the contractions felt. Then after lunch sometime it turned into a back labor, and the contractions were suspiciously still irregular, between two and fifteen minutes apart. It got hurtier and hurtier (this may be one of the more spectacular understatements of mine in recent memory). Jeff ran out of space on the sheet they gave him to log the contractions. The hospital didn't want us because it was too "early" and the weather was terrible. Our doula arrived that evening with some magic pressure point that made the back contractions on notch less unbearable. I went into a time warp and didn't realize that from one contraction to the next a whole day had passed and still I was not having a labor with any kind of pattern. Night came, along with a nasty storm:

- A storm that dumped as much as 2 feet of snow on some parts of Washington state turned freeways and city streets into icy gridlock and left thousands of people without power.

The snowfall was capping off a month of heavy rain in Seattle - which was edging closer to a wettest-single-month record. As of 10 p.m. Monday, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where official measurements are kept, had received 15.26 inches of precipitation - just .07 inches short of the 15.33 inches recorded in downtown Seattle in December 1933.

So that's what I was doing a year ago. Still wouldn't meet bubba for two more days, though...

***

Today I am thankful for the flood of memories that is helping me remember birthing my baby, and for our wonderful who drove through the ice and snow to be with me.

7 comments:

She She said...

I tried to post a comment earlier, and I think I lost it in the ether so I'll try again.

First of all, thanks for sharing your labor story. I love labor and birth stories. And happy birthday to Bubba in a couple of days! The first one is a big one.

About the seat on the table: Our oldest fell off the countertop when he was two (he's almost seven now and none the worse for it). He passed out briefly so we brought him to the hospital. After we told the ER physician what had happened, the first thing out of her mouth was, "What was he doing on the counter?" Thanks. Now just fix him and be quiet. Geesh.

I think we have the same table, btw, with a couple of groovy matching chairs.

Mrs. G. said...

I'm now going to refer to this as the Whopping Cornbread Bubba Storm of '06...this has a nice ring

Stacey said...

Oh wow...you went in to labor during THAT storm. Crazy and scary!

Oh and I'm sure I got some horrible parenting moments that will surely make you feel like a saint ;)

TwoSquareMeals said...

Oooh, I love a good birth story!

Melanie said...

Love, love, love the Bumbo.

And you can count me as a member of the Bad Mother Club: http://tinyurl.com/34jgp2

Reading about your back labor made my own back ache in sympathy. Back labor sucks rocks.

Tania said...

The first time I tried putting my daughter in a Bumbo, she did the back-arch immediately. I was right there to catch her, but it was a counter-top event. We never tried it again.

I get anxious when I hear labor/snow storm stories. Too scary.

Anonymous said...

Well, you've got to admit... the kid has great timing! That was quite a storm!