I know I should be napping, but...

My little desk calendar still shows the page for April 14/15. It represents the last weekend before I knew when/that Audrey would join us. I've refrained from setting it to the right date up until now, because I wanted to jot down thoughts before about this whole experience before "moving on."

In no particular order:

My fantastic co-parent, husband, and all-around great guy:
Ken has taken to fatherhood like a duck to water. I love watching him with Audrey, and he's been of such strength and comfort to me. Over our years together, I've marveled that my love for him continues to swell -- and, this has been yet another experience that makes me fall in love with him all over again and even more.

Birth
You know how in movies and even in a lot of "birth stories" or birth videos the proud and emotional mother can't wait to hold and touch her baby upon birth? Yeah, that wasn't me so much.

I learned while in the hospital and going through a variety of as-yet-never-experienced bouts of pain, that I become Uncontrollable Shaky Woman big-time. I've had this response to pain, and to a lesser extent to stressful/exciting/enervating situations, for as far back as I can remember. A few years ago, I fell out of our ceiling in our Austin house - resulting in what turned out to be torn ligaments in my left ankle - and, it took a good 10-15 minutes to "come back into my body" while lying post-fall on the floor in "bombs-exploding-in-my-ankles" pain.

So, while in the OR for the C-section, the anesthetic applied to the bottom 2/3rd of my body rendered it numb and immobile. My top 1/3rd didn't get the memo. I shook so hard and relentlessly that they thankfully strapped my left arm down onto the table, where Ken held my shaky hand, and Tonya (our midwife) literally held my right arm down with her own two hands.

During the procedure, I remember saying to myself over and over again, 'Everything's good. I'm good. I'm good. Things are good. Good, good, good. I can do this, I can do this, I can do this.' Then I noticed the surgical draping that rose up over my head and obscured my view of what was being cut open on the other side. The angle of it reminded me of a being in a tent. So, I babbled on about being in camp. "I'm in camp, and everything's great. Good, good, good." Then the anesthesiologist, Dr. Dudley (no, I'm not kidding), chimed in about his two daughters and their camp experiences. He was very chatty.

I'm being unexpectedly cut open; my upper body threatens to lift itself off the operating gurney, and I'm talking camp experiences with a stranger I'd only met about 35 minutes ago. Surreal.

After Audrey was pulled out of me - which felt a little bit like a big, bloppy deflation even through the anesthetic, I heard the sounds of the OR staff cleaning her up, exclaiming how pretty she was, that she was "pinking up" great, etc. Yay! I also starting feeling the glimmer of "I don't feel so hot."

"Do you wanna hold the baby?"

God, no. I wouldn't trust myself holding a nerf football right now. Shaky Mother Tosses Newborn Like Hail-Mary Touchdown Pass. I kissed Audrey's face right next to mine and said, "I'm going to be sick." Then I threw up.

Touching, no?

I never thought it possible to projectile vomit from a completely prone position on my back, but there you have it, Georgia.

Breastfeeding
In the hospital, Audrey latched on right away. I felt relieved that she successfully made "the chomp" so naturally, and that I actually had something come out of my breasts to nourish her.

Given this auspicious beginning, I was ill-prepared for the upheaving emotional drama that followed. Combine post-delivery, major-surgery pain with post-natal hormonal fluxes; throw in a hefty dash of rug-burned, blistered nipples; fold in sage advice from myriad nurses on methods to improve "the latch," and so forth; blend vigorously with the unforeseen need to have at least one additional, if not two additional arms to deal with errant flailing infant arms, correct tongue position, correct "fish lip" puckering needed to suckle whole areola, not just tip of nipple - all this while attempting each latch, and you have a recipe for Questioning One's Sanity and Natural Affinity For Motherhood.

I swear, at every single attempt/feeding over the course of about 5 days, I careened from "Success! I can do this!" to "New complication - God, I hurt everywhere - I can't do this and recover from this surgery at the same time - will my milk ever come in? (it came in four days post-delivery instead of the average three days...) Maybe something is wrong. Maybe I can't do anything "natural." I wanted birth to be "natural," and look how that turned out. - Maybe this is a SIGN that we should just resort to formula? - WHICH END IS UP ANYMORE?

Time to cry inconsolably at bathroom vanity. On sofa in middle of night. At changing table while looking for signs of pee and poop in our little Sweetpea's diaper.

Thankfully, we seem to have survived the storm. Nipple shields saved my sanity (for the time being - Ha Ha) and the condition of my skin on my areolas.

I can't believe I'm writing about the condition of my girl-parts like this on a blog; but, there you have it.

Well, I could go on with a Faulkner-esque stream of more thoughts, but I really should grab that nap now.