Birth Story

The basement trolls are officially teenagers.

Lot’s of mom’s blog their ‘birth stories’. Truly lovely stories, that make me close my eyes and imagine balloons falling from the sky as harp playing angels sing Happy Birthday.

Mine…not so much.

Bear with me as I reminisce. Grab a coffee. Or wine.

I assure you there were no balloons. 

I was 36 weeks and 5 days pregnant (read about how much my pregnancy rocked here). At my last OB appointment I was covered with a rash; something called PUPP.  It was awesome. NOT. The doctor looked at me and said he could induce right away, but told me to be prepared they may need some medical attention. Bring it on bitch. Get them OUT!!

First mother fail duly noted.

January 23^rd, 2000

6:30pm: At hospital for pre-induction. I hope my last attempt at landscaping was ok. I’m not sure if it looks like a drunk with scissors attacked me or if I resemble a 70’s porn star.

7:00pm: Doctor arrives to ‘rim’ me. This sounds dirty. Should we ask Dylan to leave? Holy shit! Dude, what are you doing?? I have never been so aware of my cervix in my entire life.

7:15pm: Doctor inserts some sort of gel. I never want to hear the words ‘froggy legs’ or ‘scootch down’ ever again. They tell me I can go home and wait.  Good, I’m hungry.

7:30pm: Let’s get Taco Bell!! Yummy.

8:30pm: Wow, I really need to go to the bathroom.

8:32pm: Hmm, I guess I didn’t need to go. But man, I feel like I could shit my pants. I would definitely not trust a fart right now.

8:39pm: Yup, I really need to use the bathroom.

8:41pm: Weird, I guess not. Oh, well. Weeee, look a left-over burrito…I love me some cold Taco Bell.

8:48pm: Holy shit, I really need to use the washroom. These cramps are hardcore.

9:50pm: Another false alarm. How frustrating. I wonder why Dylan is on the phone to the hospital? Why are you getting my bag in the car? I am NOT in labor. I just need to poop. Every 7 minutes.

10:30pm:  Arrive at hospital and ask for an epidural in the waiting room. The nurse laughs at me. Bitch. If I had my way I would have had that needle in my back when I peed on the stick 7 months ago.

10:50pm: Waiting in assessment room for a real room. I hope the nurse will blame the hovering sour gas and rotten egg smell on Dylan.

Note to self: Do not eat Taco Bell before giving birth. Bad choosing.

11:00pm: Dylan asks me to look at a zit on his forehead. He thinks it’s a tumor and keeps complaining how much it hurts. He tells me he is going to ask the doctor to look at it when he comes back.

I hate him.

11:30pm: Umm, ouch. These contraction things hurt. Perhaps in hindsight I should have attended one of those useless birthing classes. Is there a book I can have a quick skim through? I ask if I can I have an epidural now. They say I have to be more than my current two centimeters dilated. Assholes.

Now I hate my cervix.

12:00am: Dylan is playing with the doctor’s chair, he bends over and turns a dial and the damn thing pops up and hit his head…right on his zit. Great, now he is crying like a baby. Umm, hello?  I have two humans trying to go all Shawshank Redemption from my uterus through my VAGINA!!!!

I question what I ever saw in him. How drunk was I?

12:10am: While bending over to try and fix aforementioned chair, Dylan rips his pants right down the backside. Fatty. He has to call my sister to bring him a new pair of pants. 

I ask the nurse if there is a divorce lawyer on call.

12:30am: Dylan is asleep on the floor. Snoring. Poor muffin must be ever so tired. 

I bet there is something sharp in one of these drawers I could stab him in the eye with.

1:00am: A lovely nurse guides me to a hot shower. In all my naked glory, I sit on a giant exercise ball under the hot water as she rubs my lower back. I ask her to marry me. I assure her it’s legal here. Or it will be soon; we’re a progressive country.

1:30am: I fall off the ball after the nurse leaves and have to press the call button for help. I am now laying on the shower floor begging for the epidural, promising the nurse one of my first-born.

I guarantee her first pick of the litter.  I think she has gone to call child welfare.

1:45am: Back in the room. Dylan is now asleep on my bed. I punch him in the balls and ask him if he is ever panning on having sex with me again. He gets out and apologizes, telling me how much better he feels after a rest.

Jokes on him…I already know the answer to the sex question.

6:00am: Finally admitted to a real room. The doctor arrives to break my water and insert an internal monitor on Baby A’s head. I question how he will get this device on baby’s head as said baby is still inside of me. Did this guy even finish school? And why does he have a knitting needle in his hands? I really don’t think now is the time to finish off your homemade sweater for grandma.

6:10am: Oh I see, so you don’t knit after all and you don’t give a rat’s ass you have to reach through my Fort Knox cervix. With your hand. Monster.

Now I hate him too.

Dylan makes a smart-ass comment about how he hopes the doctor is gentler with his own wife. Oh, he is so funny. I am such a lucky girl. I love him so much.

No, I don’t. I am going to kill him. I’m sure they have epidurals in prison.

8:00am: Here comes the Angel of God, A.K.A: Dr. Epidural. He is so beautiful. I love him and his needle full of gold. Oh sweet relief. I think I peed my pants.

I ask him to marry me.

8:15am: Nurse hooks up some drippy thing to my arm. She tells me it will increase contractions. Meh…whatever. Do what ya gotta do. I can’t feel my ribs. Sleep.

12:00pm: Student doctors come in and ask if they can watch the birth. I wasn’t aware I should be selling circus tickets. I tell them to run as fast as they can and I will even give them a head start. They saunter out the door. Appears I’m not as fast as I used to be.

6:00pm: Doctor tells me I am not dilating and explains sometimes a twin uterus is like overstretched elastic band and just can’t contract properly.

Great, my doctor just called me fat.

Jackass.

7:30pm: I am in line for a C-section. Having then come out of the sunroof does not upset me. I never really thought the words ‘stitches’ and ‘perineum’ should be used in the same sentence anyway. My lady bits get to stay the way they are. Woot! Woot!

Just get them out.

After all, I have cute jeans to put on ASAP.

11:45pm: Wheeled into OR room. The room is so full it appears they have been selling these so-called circus tickets without my consent. I better get some of the profit.

We have wait until after midnight as the doctor wants them born on the same day. Don’t mind me spread out like Christmas dinner on the ice-cold stainless steel table with 500 people staring at my nakedness. These florescent lights are always so flattering.  I’m good. I lost my dignity at 'froggy legs'.

Am I peeing again?

January 25^th, 2000

12:09am: Welcome to the world Olivia Rose.

12:10am: Welcome to the world Peyton Isabelle.

I have never been so in love. There are no words. My heart is bursting.

Happy Birthday Olivia and Peyton.

To be continued….

Xo J

Cheesy Uterus and Dairy Ass

One of my favorite things to look at on my blog statistics is the search terms used to find this blog. Most of them have to do with ‘mom on strike’ or simply my name, but every so often a gem pops up that actually makes me pee my pants laughing.

These are the ones I post on my Facebook fan page for shits and giggles.

Umm…you would already know this if you had given me likey love by clicking the blue button to your right. Just sayin’.

Anyway, this week the term that left me smelling like a hamster cage from laughing too hard was: “shooting dairy out of my ass video”

Yup, that’s right. Google somehow directed the person looking for footage of ice cream ass explosions for whatever reason, (I am not one to judge) to my blog.

And they clicked the link.

Ok, I am judging a bit.

I hope they found what they were looking for, but I can assure you that no matter how hard you search through each and every one of my posts there is NO video of me shooting dairy out of my ass.

You're welcome by the way.

Odd right? Well not as odd as a conversation that ensued afterwards via text with one of my besties.

Friend: I googled the search term and you really are the first dairy ass search return

Me: WTH?? I feel so confused. It doesn’t even make sense.

Friend: I thought I would get animal porn for sure, but nope, its all you.

Me: Google hates me. I really am one step away from porn.

Friend: OMG! Type in ‘My uterus went on strike and decided to make cheese’.

Friend: Number one bitches!

Me: I do love being number one.

Friend: ‘Redneck uterus made cheese for trolls.’ Sadly, you are fourth. But that’s still awesome.

ME: Fourth?? WTH? Assholes.

ME: Also, I’m stuck on why you are obsessed with my uterus making cheese?

Friend: Because it’s funny to type cheese.

Me: Fair enough. And this is why we are friends.

Friend: You are the best google search ever. Try ‘T-Rex stole cheesy uterus for wine trolls’. Weeeeeee!

Me: Are you drink?

Me: Drink?

Me: Damn. DRINK?

Me: Guck

Me: D R U N K.

Me: Eggnog auto correct phone.

Me: Grrrr. I don’t even like eggnog.

Friend: Can eggnog be our safe word?

Me: No. It cannot.

Lessons learned:

1)   I clearly need to evaluate the use of the words ‘cheese’ and ‘uterus’ on my blog.

2)   My friends are AWESOME!!!

Xo J

What’s that? You want to hear more of my odd search terms? Well…go hit the Facebook like button then.

Blackmail for search term laughter. I’m ok with that.

Only good things can happen when you are wearing cowboy hats.
Eggnog.

Book of Romance

I have been a bad blogger. Shame on me. This week has been crazy with four basketball practices, three soccer practices, six basketball games, one soccer game and one basketball tryout session. Plus a foster babe and a full time job. This parenting thing is really putting a damper on my social life, writing and wine drinking.

I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.

I have mentioned Dylan here and there in this blog, but haven’t really shared in-depth with you some of the funniest moments in my life with the man I share my life with.

Truth be told, I have not ‘gone there yet’ for one reason.

It’s not that I am worried about displaying or mocking Dylan and our marriage to the world. Come on now, it’s me. I’m not the kinda gal whose afraid to serve it up on a silver platter to you with all the glorious details.

It’s because our marriage could be a freaking blog of its own.

I don’t know where to start.

I am not going to make fun of Dylan today, rather turn it on myself after a thought provoking conversation we had the other night. Yes, over a bottle of wine. I get super smartical and deep when I am one glass in. I could solve the world’s problems. If only I could remember the next day what we talked about. I should learn to write that shit down. Oooh…in a list. I’m totally adding that to my to-do list.

The hot topic de jour was about chivalry and romance. Is the art of chivalry dead and what impact has the feminist movement had on men’s perception of women?

I know, deep right?

Anyways it was very boring and truth be told I lost interest very quickly.  I started to think about other things as I nodded my head and stopped paying attention. I began imagining T-Rex’s trying to do the Macarena and if…..ah hell, now I can’t  remember. I didn’t write it down.

But our conversation did make me think about romance, or lack thereof in our marriage. Let me be clear, this is in no way on Dylan’s part. It’s me. I suck at being soft and fuzzy and I do not have a romantic bone in my body.

Dylan is über romantic. Some say I am lucky. Usually it makes me roll my eyes and gag.

Dylan brought me two dozen roses when the girls were born. One dozen to mark each of their births. I got mad at the waste of money and questioned how ludicrous the price must have been in freaking January. Dude, those things just die and go in the garbage.

Trash is not romantic.

I have learned not to send Dylan to the corner store for ANTHING. Seriously, the man could fill a grocery cart at a gas station. Once I asked him to pick up some cough drops; he came home with one of each kind in stock. As he presented them to me like a chest of jewels, he explained that he didn’t know what kind I wanted, so he bought one of each. He was so proud of himself. You can imagine how annoyed I was.

There are things Dylan does for me that I do adore and I do not think these acts of love takes the giant strides of feminism back 100 years. He does not make me feel like less of a person because I own a vagina, but rather keeps the art of chivalry alive and well in our relationship.

Dylan brings me a cup of coffee in bed every morning.  If there is not enough cream for two cups in the morning, he will give it to me without a blink of an eye. He will warm up my blanket in the dryer before I get into bed on cold nights. My man orders nachos when we eat out, even though he doesn’t like them but knows they are my favorite pub food. He gives me his jacket when it’s cold, fills my car with gas before I have to leave for work and my heart skips a beat whenever I see a little blue box with a white ribbon.

He has also learned that vacuuming is foreplay.

It’s the little things. He makes me feel special.

Dylan has a fictitious ‘romantic log book’ he keeps to record the miraculous moments in our marriage when I shock the shit out of him and do something, well romantic.

The book is 13 years old.

He is on page one.

1) Jessica layered my sauce and spaghetti tonight. That was nice. She even added cheese.

2) Jessica called me “honey” today. And she didn’t mean bee vomit.

3) Jessica gave me a spontaneous hug today in the kitchen. I wondered if she was about to give me bad news or had bought a new car.

4) Jessica popped my zit tonight. Even though I didn’t want her to and I screamed like a schoolgirl, she claimed she was ‘helping’ me and insisted I should consider this an act of romance and write it down.

Yup…that’s it.

I had a friend urge me to ‘push my own envelope’ and do something romantic. One of the suggestions was to write love notes on the bathroom mirror. My first question was,  “Umm, whose gonna clean that up?”

I decided one morning to give it a go.

I noticed whiskers in the sink as I was brushing my teeth, so I took an old eyeliner and wrote on the mirror:

Confucius Say: Man who leaves whiskers in the sink makes for angry wife and lonely nights.

Then I sent a text message asking him to clean the mirror.

I told my friend about my great-big-giant romantic gesture. She shook her head and told me I missed the point.

Whatever. I owned it! Check and Mate!

I do keep a memory box of all the letters and cards Dylan has given me over the years as well as the movie tickets from our first date and other random mementos. Umm…hello, that right there makes me romantic right? Usually I would just throw that shit out. Clutter. I must really love him to be that mushy.

Put that in your book jackass!

The most romantic thing Dylan does? He fills my wine glass. That’s right, I have myself a wine bitch.

That’s true love. I am one lucky girl.

xo J

Behold the miracle, we are holding hands:)

Twitchy Uterus? Lay down, the feeling will pass.

Thirteen years ago I was very pregnant and very miserable. I measured 52 inches around my waist. I could not touch my hands in front of my belly. I could not drive a car because I could not reach the steering wheel. I had to sit sideways at the dinner table to try and get food in my mouth. Usually I was unsuccessful as most of the food landed on the eclipse that had replaced my midsection, so it is beyond me how I gained over 75 pounds.

That’s right…I was a whole lotta gal. Please don’t say, “But Jess, you were having twins” Dude, they were just over 5 pounds each. Minus the placentas and some blood volume and the rest was ALL me. I remember looking in the mirror and thinking how great my ass looked, but in reality when you are comparing an apple to a watermelon of course the apple looks small. It’s all relative. In reality my ass was in no way great, cute, small or comparable to an apple. Trust me.

When I see a pregnant woman, my uterus twitches and I can feel my ovaries shooting out eggs like a machine gun.  I force myself to remember how horrific it was and that I was the worst pregnant person. EVER.

Then the feeling passes.

I see these itty bitty women with their cute designer jeans and fashionable baby bumps and wonder how they do it. How do they look so good? ‘Baby by Chanel’ my ass. I was not glowing. I was not happy mom to be. I was a bitchy baby condominium complex and couldn’t wait for them to be out. Stretch marks covered me like a road map to hell, my offensively huge boobs rested just under my chin and the inability to landscape beyond the 'cut and pray' method left me less than jovial. I truly cannot believe Dylan stuck around.

Poor guy, every time I was hungry he ate too. Except when I thought I was starving, I would take one bite and be done. Oooh, am I stuffed!

Dylan however, would finish his meal…and mine, only to have the entire scenario repeated in one hour. He gained a ‘little’ weight. Then his breathing annoyed me. And his chewing.

A girlfriend took me maternity clothes shopping when I was about 15 weeks pregnant. We still did not know there were two of them in there and after trying on some less than fashion forward clothing; I loudly announced I didn’t think I would need maternity clothes after all. Other women in the store shot me dirty looks, others smiled sympathetically. Whatever, I was going to be one of those women who barely showed and who would look so super cute in baggy overalls. Yes I said overalls, it was ‘the thing’ and I was cool. Turns out, not only did I need maternity clothes, but perhaps would have been better off shopping at Moo-Moo’s R Us and I should have invested in some better shoes as my Birkenstocks could no longer hold in my fat Freddy Flintstone feet in the dead of a Canadian winter.

Yes, I also just said Birkenstocks. Zip it.

The same girlfriend that took me maternity clothes shopping was with me when I packed my hospital bag. I couldn’t understand why she was laughing, like pee her pants laughing, when I packed my size 4 pre-preggo pants to wear home from the hospital.  I finally understood her laughter when after they were born I felt my stomach in a panic and demanded they had forgotten one in there. Umm, hello why do I still look 6 months pregnant? It appears you forgot a human inside of me…can you get on that please? I have cute jeans to wear home. 

I wore maternity clothes for a good 9 months. Hell, I still pull them out for big dinners…them my eatin’ pants.

But as I reminisce 13 years later I realize I would do it all again in a heartbeat. What we go through as mother’s turns our bodies into badges of honor. For crying out loud, I built humans. Really, what am I going to do in my life that is bigger or more important than that? 

What? I won the Nobel Peace Prize? Just send it in the mail, I am busy adding eyelashes to the fully functioning eyeballs I whipped up yesterday morning. I promise I will put it on the shelf next to the picture of the PERSON I assembled.

Seriously, what other time in your life will you wake up and be able to have a to-do list that includes:

·      Grocery shop

·      Car oil change

·      Build human brain

·      Pay bills

·      Turn vegetables into pumping heart.

In ten short days, I will be the mother of teenagers. Official teenagers. They are so excited it’s like the second coming of Christ around here.

It is a right of passage. For them and for me. For me because I can celebrate I haven't killed them yet, but mostly for them as they look toward the future ahead of them filled with endless possibilities.

My pregnancy from hell was worth every second for my beloved basement trolls. Although I need to admit to you all that most days I have no idea what I am doing now. Sometimes it still feels like I am playing house or caught in the middle of a twisted TV drama.

Quiet on the set. Take 500000, and action…

When I hear them calling me over and over again,

Mom. Mommy. Mother.

I often catch myself looking around thinking, “Geesh, where is that kids mother?”

Oh shit, that’s me. I am the mom.

I have the stretch marks and empty wine bottles to prove it.

xoJ