This icon is me freaking out about my seedling.
Samantha Lily Mallory
June 27, 2007 @ 11:11 PM
6lbs 9.6 oz (why can't us freaks ever switch to metric?!)
I have a daughter. This squealing thing, sometimes calm, sometimes red-faced crying, always looking around for those two familiar faces. I've never been so excited for something to poop so bad since I had an obstructed bowel one time.
What it's like to be a parent, you can't imagine till you are one. Or maybe it's different for the people who didn't expect kids or didn't want them, or see the child from the moment it's born as an obstacle to their own happiness. The kind of people who bottle feed by choice (not necessity), because it's soooo inconvenient for the mother, and worse for the father who has to and might never decide to step up and say "I am the responsible person. I WILL support my family."
What it's like to have a child is you find out that something has defined your relationship for forty weeks (or more, like in our case), even though you think without the baby-to-come, you could both be happy (if you're the kind of people, like us, who screwed up with sex and ended up surprised that the day you see a little blue cross or whatever could be the happiest day of your life with so many more to come.). And yeah, you could be happy, but now you have something to start communicating about even if you don't like each other very much. And if you're like us, your relationship might have been ruined up until that very moment, where breakup was inevitable , you were just waiting for the other to find a different place to live.
So the blue cross (or whatever) comes, and you know for the last ten years of your life this is what you've always wanted - but maybe not with her. Your joy could be individual, or you could, like us, look at each other and realise nothing in the world is ever going to keep you from feeling your love for this other person, not because now you have to be together, but because suddenly everything you thought was important just really isn't anymore. Not worth fighting over. Definitely worth learning how to talk to one another. Live with one another.
By twenty weeks the baby can have a chance to survive if need be. Now you know it's coming and you know that hopefully by now your relationship could have handled the loss if thats what had happened. You know even if you never try again, hopefully, this is all the love you'll ever want in a lifetime. But baby's coming. And you wait until it stops being fun; until you're yelling at your unborn sternly, promising spankings as soon as it's out for putting a woman through this kind of slow suffering. I fear cancer patients aren't as uncomfortable as pregnant women, the difference is they don't have anything to look forward to while the parasite grows within them.
That's what it is after all, a parasite. without thought or care or love, this thing will take what it needs and kill you to get it even though it wants to keep you alive as long as possible. It feels like a dick thing to say that children don't really love their parents. They need them, but there's no love there. A baby doesn't consider your feelings about diaper changes, or will EVER apologise for how bad it was, even when they start going through the same thing with their own parasites.
What's worse, you lose faith that modern medicine is any good, especially during third-trimester cervical exams (you're like, WHY do they have to do this again?). But believe it. A thousand years ago we didn't need this stuff to have baby's. Who knows why (maybe women were tougher?).
A thousand years ago my baby would have been dead the moment she was born.
As her heart rate dropped to fifty, seemingly the entire hospital staff rushed into our room, first to manhandle my woman, then to break her waters with a hook, then to put probes in every place you never wanted them, and all you can do through all this pain she's going through is hold her head (cuz the nurses and doctors don't need to go anywhere near her head. It's not the end of her they're concerned about) and pretend you know what's going on, what she's going through, and anchor her to your heart with your eyes while she cries and rips yours through your stomach. But this is not the worst pain.
It gets calmer with drugs. And trust me, you WANT the drugs. Fuck you if you think you're too tough. Trust me, you're partner can't possibly respect you more at this moment. If he's anything like me. If he's not, he's a dick, and you're better off alone.
The drugs don't help with the baby though. Believe me, it'll decide to come out the more you set fire to it's house and drain it's hot tub. If you didn't want to see it before, you might, like us, change your mind as you wonder what the thing that is worth all this trouble looks like. After an hour or two, I'll tell you - it looks like a lumpy pile of flesh-mush. Especially if, like us, your baby has a cord twice wrapped around her neck and doesn't breathe on her own.
At this moment you watch the doctors take your baby, who is medically dead, and run off to the other side of the room before either of you saw what she looked like, or even got to touch her. They're doing their job. Now you do yours. There's a placenta to deliver, which is the last thing you care about in the world because you want baby to be okay, but you have to be there for each other while the doctor sews the mother up. The worst sound I've ever heard is the sound of scissors cutting flesh. So do your kegels cuz it helps.
It takes forever for either of you to to calm down, and all thoughts are on baby. The nurse who told you she was fine didn't bring a video tape for proof.
So you go down the hall and there she is behind, like, twenty feet of glass trying to fight for her life with a doctor you have to trust more than you trust yourself in any situation. And they'll let you see her if you've been a nice person about all this. But they won 't let you touch her. Not for twelve more hours.
Everything you wanted, the way it should have gone - fuck it all. Whatever has to happen, let that baby have a chance. That's what it's like to be a parent.
If, like us, your baby is not royalty but a monster, love that monster more than anything and even if she grows up to hate you, you'll believe that she feels that having had every opportunity to believe and feel otherwise. Don't raise your voice without love in it, don't ever touch her without hugging her, too.
Sam. Samantha. Our Sam. Our baby. We have a baby.
When we put her on her back, she turns to her side and tucks her fists under her cheek. If she turns too far, her elbow crosses over, and she can push herself up off her stomach onto her back again. She's only four DAYS old. Every time I look at her when she's sleeping in the crook of my shoulder, her face twitches ten different ways that are all so identifying. Sometimes she raises one eyebrow like The Rock. But every time I fall asleep or turn away, I come back and she's already older, and the moment when she was only this small passes and keeps going on into the next, and I feel a bigger joy at each of those moments - and fear - but a sadness that this has to pass for her to become whatever person she wants to be; so I realise that I'm sad, because I'm going to mourn today when it's tomorrow.
*************Pictures to come.****************
PS - I proposed to her today so we're getting married. She expected it sometime, but not today, and she certainly didn't expect a ring cuz we're so poor. The ring is a family heirloom my mom said I could give her. And, we're VERY happy.
June 27, 2007 @ 11:11 PM
6lbs 9.6 oz (why can't us freaks ever switch to metric?!)
I have a daughter. This squealing thing, sometimes calm, sometimes red-faced crying, always looking around for those two familiar faces. I've never been so excited for something to poop so bad since I had an obstructed bowel one time.
What it's like to be a parent, you can't imagine till you are one. Or maybe it's different for the people who didn't expect kids or didn't want them, or see the child from the moment it's born as an obstacle to their own happiness. The kind of people who bottle feed by choice (not necessity), because it's soooo inconvenient for the mother, and worse for the father who has to and might never decide to step up and say "I am the responsible person. I WILL support my family."
What it's like to have a child is you find out that something has defined your relationship for forty weeks (or more, like in our case), even though you think without the baby-to-come, you could both be happy (if you're the kind of people, like us, who screwed up with sex and ended up surprised that the day you see a little blue cross or whatever could be the happiest day of your life with so many more to come.). And yeah, you could be happy, but now you have something to start communicating about even if you don't like each other very much. And if you're like us, your relationship might have been ruined up until that very moment, where breakup was inevitable , you were just waiting for the other to find a different place to live.
So the blue cross (or whatever) comes, and you know for the last ten years of your life this is what you've always wanted - but maybe not with her. Your joy could be individual, or you could, like us, look at each other and realise nothing in the world is ever going to keep you from feeling your love for this other person, not because now you have to be together, but because suddenly everything you thought was important just really isn't anymore. Not worth fighting over. Definitely worth learning how to talk to one another. Live with one another.
By twenty weeks the baby can have a chance to survive if need be. Now you know it's coming and you know that hopefully by now your relationship could have handled the loss if thats what had happened. You know even if you never try again, hopefully, this is all the love you'll ever want in a lifetime. But baby's coming. And you wait until it stops being fun; until you're yelling at your unborn sternly, promising spankings as soon as it's out for putting a woman through this kind of slow suffering. I fear cancer patients aren't as uncomfortable as pregnant women, the difference is they don't have anything to look forward to while the parasite grows within them.
That's what it is after all, a parasite. without thought or care or love, this thing will take what it needs and kill you to get it even though it wants to keep you alive as long as possible. It feels like a dick thing to say that children don't really love their parents. They need them, but there's no love there. A baby doesn't consider your feelings about diaper changes, or will EVER apologise for how bad it was, even when they start going through the same thing with their own parasites.
What's worse, you lose faith that modern medicine is any good, especially during third-trimester cervical exams (you're like, WHY do they have to do this again?). But believe it. A thousand years ago we didn't need this stuff to have baby's. Who knows why (maybe women were tougher?).
A thousand years ago my baby would have been dead the moment she was born.
As her heart rate dropped to fifty, seemingly the entire hospital staff rushed into our room, first to manhandle my woman, then to break her waters with a hook, then to put probes in every place you never wanted them, and all you can do through all this pain she's going through is hold her head (cuz the nurses and doctors don't need to go anywhere near her head. It's not the end of her they're concerned about) and pretend you know what's going on, what she's going through, and anchor her to your heart with your eyes while she cries and rips yours through your stomach. But this is not the worst pain.
It gets calmer with drugs. And trust me, you WANT the drugs. Fuck you if you think you're too tough. Trust me, you're partner can't possibly respect you more at this moment. If he's anything like me. If he's not, he's a dick, and you're better off alone.
The drugs don't help with the baby though. Believe me, it'll decide to come out the more you set fire to it's house and drain it's hot tub. If you didn't want to see it before, you might, like us, change your mind as you wonder what the thing that is worth all this trouble looks like. After an hour or two, I'll tell you - it looks like a lumpy pile of flesh-mush. Especially if, like us, your baby has a cord twice wrapped around her neck and doesn't breathe on her own.
At this moment you watch the doctors take your baby, who is medically dead, and run off to the other side of the room before either of you saw what she looked like, or even got to touch her. They're doing their job. Now you do yours. There's a placenta to deliver, which is the last thing you care about in the world because you want baby to be okay, but you have to be there for each other while the doctor sews the mother up. The worst sound I've ever heard is the sound of scissors cutting flesh. So do your kegels cuz it helps.
It takes forever for either of you to to calm down, and all thoughts are on baby. The nurse who told you she was fine didn't bring a video tape for proof.
So you go down the hall and there she is behind, like, twenty feet of glass trying to fight for her life with a doctor you have to trust more than you trust yourself in any situation. And they'll let you see her if you've been a nice person about all this. But they won 't let you touch her. Not for twelve more hours.
Everything you wanted, the way it should have gone - fuck it all. Whatever has to happen, let that baby have a chance. That's what it's like to be a parent.
If, like us, your baby is not royalty but a monster, love that monster more than anything and even if she grows up to hate you, you'll believe that she feels that having had every opportunity to believe and feel otherwise. Don't raise your voice without love in it, don't ever touch her without hugging her, too.
Sam. Samantha. Our Sam. Our baby. We have a baby.
When we put her on her back, she turns to her side and tucks her fists under her cheek. If she turns too far, her elbow crosses over, and she can push herself up off her stomach onto her back again. She's only four DAYS old. Every time I look at her when she's sleeping in the crook of my shoulder, her face twitches ten different ways that are all so identifying. Sometimes she raises one eyebrow like The Rock. But every time I fall asleep or turn away, I come back and she's already older, and the moment when she was only this small passes and keeps going on into the next, and I feel a bigger joy at each of those moments - and fear - but a sadness that this has to pass for her to become whatever person she wants to be; so I realise that I'm sad, because I'm going to mourn today when it's tomorrow.
*************Pictures to come.****************
PS - I proposed to her today so we're getting married. She expected it sometime, but not today, and she certainly didn't expect a ring cuz we're so poor. The ring is a family heirloom my mom said I could give her. And, we're VERY happy.