Birthing Advice to Anne

My good friend Anne is about to have a baby in the next few days. Here was my advice to her:

Have a plan for the stuff you cannot plan for. My experience is that shit happens very quickly and the doctors are going to want you to do what they say. You need to know if you want the epidural and that they need to stick you not too early but not too late. You want pitocin? We didn't know we did with Anne, but they said, we are going to give you this to help with the labor and we said, "Duh, sure." If things go south, you need your husband to be able to side with you on what you'd like to do, like keep trying to push or bail and C section. We had two very good experiences, except with the epidural that freaked miss sally out worse the second time.

It will all go too quickly. Take photos. Not of the event but leading up to and at the hospital. Let both sets of parents know ahead of time if you want them around in the room or whatever. They will understand, but you should lay that crap out now just so everyone knows if they are welcome to stare at your vagina.

Just remember that people have been having babies for a very, very long time and that means absolutely nothing when it's you.

Take care and best of luck.

I think this is a HolyJuan post. Sorry. Love you.

Doug

PS If you are breast feeding, it is the single most frustrating thing in the world. Keep at it. Don't feel bad if it doesn't work out but don't give up too quickly. You should send me a photo of your boobs so that I can see if everything looks right.

Congratulations Karen and Chris!!

Congratulations go out to Karen and Chris on the birth of their third child, Colin Michael. Anymore, when someone begins to relate a birth story, I quickly pull out several small pieces of scotch tape and adhere my eyeballs in the down position to keep them from rolling back in my head. Everyone’s got a birth story that can be summed up in four sentences, but most drag it out to Aeneid proportions.

Fortunately, Chris is a man a very few words and Karen is the model of efficiency. Here is their birth story in his words:
• Karen's water breaks at 2am in the morning
• Arrive at birth center at 3am
• 1 hour and 4 heavy pushes later, Colin Michael is born at 4:04am
• Home for breakfast and introductions to his brothers at 7:30am

That’s right folks… from water breaking back to home: Five and one half hours. I guess the hospital makes you wait for a minimum of two hours and they ensure that the baby is feeding.

But that’s not what this story is about. This story is about this photo:


You tell me, who looks worse for the wear? I guess Chris was a bit inconvenienced being woken up so early in the morning so I can understand why he looks like shit. Karen, though she would never believe me, looks stunning.