Baby J will be one month old on Monday – did I mention I gave birth? – and what follows is an account, to the best of my recollection, of the day leading up to his birth. Gentlemen, be warned – I use girly words like “cervix” and “discharge” in this entry.

I had a “routine” non-stress test and appointment scheduled with my obstetrician for the morning of December 1st, at 39 weeks pregnant. Non-stress tests, in general, aren’t really routine, and in my case I was having them done twice weekly because my blood pressure had been creeping higher than my OB would have liked in the final weeks of my pregnancy. But there was nothing unusual about about my test that morning. Two monitors were placed on my belly – one to monitor my uterus for any contractions and one to monitor the baby’s heartbeat – and I reclined in a chair while the monitors recorded hardly any contractions and the expected temporary rise of the baby’s heartbeat every time he’d kick. Things weren’t so rosy in the exam room, though; my blood pressure had spiked over 150/100. And, unfortunately, my cervix had made very little progress toward being “ready” for delivery; my cervix was soft (effaced) but not at all dilated and the baby had still not dropped into position. If I had not been as far along, my OB would have prescribed blood pressure medication and sent me on my way. At 39 weeks, the only “cure” was to deliver the baby; at that point, she was less worried about the baby and more worried that I’d have a stroke if my blood pressure kept going up. After a quick call to the hospital, we were scheduled for a 5-6 pm check-in that evening to begin the process of ripening my cervix for an induction.

We had already packed out hospital bags and stowed them in the car, so the rest of the day was spent in an awkward waiting phase, not really able to accomplish anything. We went out for a hearty brunch, called our families with the update on Baby J’s arrival, and mostly just hung around the house watching the clock. At around 3:30, I decided to take a bath, since I wasn’t sure I’d be allowed one at the hospital because of the drugs needed to ripen my cervix. And at around 4:15, I changed positions in the tub and felt a little squirt. I immediately drained the tub and hopped on the toilet, just to make sure my water had actually broken and I wasn’t simply incontinent, but every time I changed position again I felt more liquid squirting out (and, unlike urine, you can’t just squeeze your pelvic floor muscles to stop the flow). I put on a ginormous “sanitary napkin” and headed downstairs, where I continued to leak. Since we were heading to the hospital anyway, I wasn’t sure if I should call my OB’s office, but in the end I decided to it was better to be safe rather than sorry. The on-call OB told me we should eat a quick, light meal and then head to the hospital – it was showtime!

I figured the pad I had on would be enough, but after a perilous 30-minute car ride (did I mention that morning’s snowstorm?), my pants were soaked. We dragged ourselves and our luggage to the emergency room to check in, and we were escorted up to labor and delivery, where the nurses were waiting for me. Since my water had broken (and the amount of discharge still coming out was crazy), we were no longer going to use drugs to ripen my cervix. But also, since my water had broken, there was a greater sense of urgency to getting the baby delivered; since the amniotic sac had ruptured, the risk of infection was greater the longer the baby stayed in. So, it was decreed that if labor hadn’t progressed on its own by 11 pm, I would be administered Pitocin to get things moving. With nothing to do but wait, I took a bath, read a little, and got comfortable in the delivery room. I had begun to feel contractions – basically strong menstrual cramps – but they were few and far apart. So I wasn’t terribly surprised when 11 pm came and went and I was only 1 cm dilated. My hep lock was inserted and the Pitocin drip began.

My contractions increased in intensity and frequency, but it wasn’t until around 4:45 am when I started having what I would call painful contractions. Because Pitocin is used to stimulate the uterus to contract, the contractions that result can be worse than those of a “natural” labor because the uterus is hyperstimulated. I had intended to try and birth naturally, but I wasn’t opposed to medication – and at that point, I needed something to take the edge off. Rather than jump straight to an epidural, I decided to try intravenous Fentanyl; I would still feel discomfort and pressure, but we hoped the Fentanyl would be enough to dull the contractions to a more manageable level. And for about 15 minutes, that plan worked brilliantly; the first two contractions after the Fentanyl drip began were much smoother. But things went downhill fast, and after a series of increasingly painful contractions – in the words of Amy Poehler’s character in Baby Mama, I felt like I was “sh*tting a knife” – and even a brief vomiting interlude, I paged the nurse and asked for the epidural.

I don’t remember any pain from the giant needle being inserted into my back – I was too busy riding out four mind-numbing contractions while trying not to move. Thankfully, it didn’t take long for the epidural to take effect. And guys – everyone should get an epidural, for everything. It was AMAZING. The fog of pain around me lifted and I could focus on timing the contractions and counting down to the delivery. Which, incidentally, was going to be sooner than anticipated. At 5:30, after the epidural had taken effect, my nurse inserted a catheter (since I was numb from the waist down, there would be no getting up to go to the bathroom). While she was down there, she measured my cervix again – and in 45 minutes I had progressed form 4 cm to 10 cm dilation. It was time to push!

** Word to the wise – try to avoid getting an epidural placed while going through transition. **

I was propped up to make sure the drugs from the epidural all stayed below my waist, and they left me there for a couple hours to rest. Then, at 8 am on the dot, we started pushing. I could still feel contractions, with pressure but without the accompanying pain, and with each one my nurse and Jason held my legs up while I bore down. I was obsessed with pooping the bed; I kept smelling it and turning to ask Jason if I had pooped, and he kept telling me not to worry about it. I did notice my nurse kept removing waterproof pads from the bed and stuffing them in the trash, but I didn’t realize why until, after an hour of pushing, the OB on call came in and said I was bleeding a little too much and they were going to help the baby out.

Y’all – forceps are scary. They look like giant stainless steel salad tongs, and you just have to avoid where and how they’re going to fit, because you can’t imagine that they actually *would* fit – and here is another reason why the epidural is awesome. Once the forceps were removed from their sterilized, single-use packaging, things happened very quickly. There were more nurses standing at the ready, in case Baby J needed extra attention, and the forceps went in, and I felt pressure, and then I was pushing some more, and I gave one big push, and everyone yelled, “Look! Look!” and I yelled, “I can’t see over my belly!” and then my nurse said, “One more push!” and suddenly Evan appeared and he was screaming and covered in blood and mucus and one nurse toweled him off while another suctioned his nose and mouth, and I looked at Jason and he was sobbing and smiling, and they wrapped Evan in a blanket and put a hat on his still-bloody hair-covered head, and then he was on my chest and we were kissing his face and hands and counting his fingers and toes, and he was perfect.

Evan Scott Johnston
Born December 2, 2011 at 9:20 am
7 pounds, 4 ounces
20 inches long

While browsing a pregnancy-related message board I frequent – on which the general craziness and all-out hormone raging of the majority of posters there could be a whole other post – I’ve been seeing the term “35/35″ popping up without really knowing what it meant. But I finally figured it out in the shower this morning.

35 weeks down. 35 days to go.

And that’s where we’re at, kids. As of today, I am 35 weeks pregnant and have 35 days left until my due date. And I’m of two minds about it.

We’re “ready” for the baby in the sense that we feel up to the task of being parents and feel we could reasonably avoid situations that might result in the little guy’s untimely passing. We’ve read the books. We’ve taken the classes. We know the important “do’s” and “don’ts” and are comfortable with feeling our way along for the rest. I’m not intimidated by a lack of sleep or a fuzzy brain, or even labor itself anymore, which I couldn’t say for the longest time (the “twilight sleep” and c-sections of yesteryear seemed preferable to feeling every pain and dealing with the potential damage “down there”).

And really – we’re ready to meet this little guy. We talk to him every day. He dances when daddy plays the piano and practices his ninja moves while mommy reads in bed. We’re beyond ready to see him.

However.

I feel woefully under-prepared when it comes to the practicalities of the fact that I’ll be GIVING BIRTH TO ANOTHER PERSON IN BARELY MORE THAN A MONTH. Sure, we’ve made progress. Our stroller has now been joined by a crib and play yard. I’ve bought tons of clothes – the cool stuff too, not the overly cute “I don’t know if you heard but we’re having a MANLY boy who loves SPORTS and CARS and DOGS BUT NOT CATS” stuff that seem to fill many stores. We scored some amazing gifts from our wonderful friends at Baby Fiesta ’11 a couple weeks ago (Kevin and Shelby, we tested out the Puj Tub in our sink and it fits perfectly!) and are filling in the gaps slowly but surely.

But I need to wash all the clothes – and we don’t have a dresser or storage space for me to put them away in yet. The massive task of ordering our cloth diapers has yet to happen – and they’ll need several cycles in the wash too before they’re usable. Our second bedroom? Still a disaster area. We’re plowing through piles of junk mail and years of accumulated receipts and folders and papers, filling our recycling bin to the brim mere moments after it’s emptied (and it’s a big ‘un, too), and there seems to be no end in sight. If the trash man came every day, we’d keep him employed.

Also troublesome is the fact that with every passing week I’m getting larger and less mobile. The good scrubbing that our bathrooms need isn’t going to get done by me, I’m afraid. Nor is the furniture rearranging that will happen once my office is emptied of its detritus. All the boxes that need to go from upstairs into our garage won’t be moved by me. Floors need to be mopped, carpets need to be cleaned, shelves need to be dusted… There’s a cleaning service in our future – I don’t see any way around it. Especially with houseguests coming at the end of the month.

And there’s all the other little details – preparing to put Baby J on his own health insurance, lining up contractors to attend to my clients while I’m on leave, training my boss and co-workers to handle my duties, preparing freezer meals so we have something to eat after the baby arrives that doesn’t come from a drive-through lane, figuring out when and how to get my mom and Jason’s family out here after the baby shows up, changing our life insurance and writing a will, and so on, and so on, ad infinitum. Every day someone reminds me that Baby J is pretty much done cooking and is just hanging out and gaining weight, so he could pop out at any time – and we have yet to buy, let alone install, our car seat.

I know, somehow, everything will get done. But.

35 days seems so far away. And it’s not nearly long enough.

“Would I rather have meatloaf, potato soup or lasagna for lunch?”

“Dunno, ask Baby J.”

“I did. He just grunted and kicked me.”

“That’s my boy.”

Returning to corporate America to work for The Man has one big downside.

Now that I’ve conquered that “first blog post after so long that it’s embarrassing” hurdle, it’s time to get some regularity in my publishing schedule. And since all pregnant women can talk about is being pregnant, expect lots of details on the state of my uterus in the coming weeks.

On second thought – how about them [insert sports team here]?!?

One thing that’s been interesting about pregnancy is how everyone asks the same questions. I imagine it’s much how celebrities feel after being nominated for a prestigious award. “How do you feel? What’s it like? Where do you get your shoes?” So, I’ve compiled a list of the things we get asked most often, along with time- and context-sensitive answers. Luckily, none of our friends are cray-cray or rude, so they say “You’re so cute!” and “When can I start buying presents?” and don’t rub my belly like the baby is a genie granting wishes. I also don’t get asked things like “Daycare! Why would you let someone else raise your child?” or “Do you know who the father is?”

Q: Are you ready?
Short Answer: No.
Long Answer: We have purchased a stroller and some clothes. The clothes are currently stored in the bags they came in, stuffed in the seat of the stroller. Which is in our living room. We were also given a Bumbo seat with tray and a Boppy pillow. Both are in the trunk of our car (along with another bag of gifted clothes and diapers and the pillows and blankets we bought for our childbirthing class because everything in our house is covered in cat hair) since we have no place to put them yet. We expect to be “ready” once the baby is able to clean their own room.

Q: How are you feeling?
Short Answer: Great!
Long Answer: Great!
Longer Answer: I haven’t thrown up once. I can count the pounds I’ve gained on one hand. I still can sleep through the night without potty breaks. I’ve gotten two amazing prenatal massages so far, so my back is feeling pretty good. My feet hurt, but my feet always hurt. No hemorrhoids yet (I’m sure you wondered). Mild heartburn, thanks to my inability to cut back on Coke Zero and Mexican food. No diagnoses of concern. So, I’m just waiting for the moment when my doctor calls to tell me something catastrophic has happened and my baby is actually a severe case of indigestion accompanied by very localized weight gain.

Q: Do you know what you’re having?
Sarcastic Answer: Yes. A baby.
Real Answer: It’s a boy! Or, at least, I hope it is. Otherwise Jason’s shout of “cock and balls” during the anatomy scan makes no sense.

Q: Have you decided on a name?
Public Answer: We’ve got some options we’re trying out. We’ll probably wait until he’s born to make a decision.
Secret Answer: We totally have a name picked out. We just don’t want to tell you. Sorry.

Q: Are you having any cravings?
Answer: Not any cool ones, no. The two biggest have been cheesecake and steak fries (Red Robin – YUM).

Q: What’s the theme of your nursery?
Answer: “A baby lives here.” Seriously. We don’t have the energy or inclination to have everything coordinate. And we don’t have the space to have a nursery – we have a “second bedroom where the baby sleeps with a pullout for guests.”

Q: Are you waddling? (This usually comes from women who have grown children.)
Silent Response: Smile. And then waddle off to find some cheesecake and steak fries.

Q: Are you planning to breastfeed?
Answer: Some women are bothered by this question, but I don’t mind so much since it usually comes from women who either have young children or who are also pregnant. I’m certainly going to try to breastfeed, but we won’t know until after Baby J arrives if I’ll be able to (my biggest concern is that little boobie surgery I had a few years back). Bonus answer – We’re also planning to use cloth diapers, and we won’t be circumcising. Dirty hippies!

I can’t wait for the next two months, when I get REALLY huge and people start to wonder, aloud and in public, if I could be having twins or if I’ve gained too much weight. Which leads us to “Things You Should Never Say to a Pregnant Woman.”

• “You look like you’re about to pop!”
• “My sister/cousin/mother/aunt/friend only gained 10 pounds when she was pregnant.”
• “Should you really be eating/drinking that?”
• “Don’t worry – your face will thin out eventually.”
• “When I gave birth, [insert horror story involving stitches, drugs and multiple days of labor here].”
• “So, what are you going to do about it?”
• “You’re naming him [insert name here]? I had a dog named that!”
• “I love standing next to you. You make me feel so thin.”

While I could have pushed this post out to October, just to try and reach an arbitrary goal of two years between posts, I figured I’d play a little catch-up to make sure my freshly scrubbed, spam-free install of WordPress was up to snuff. So, the last not-quite-two years, in no particular order:

• I totaled our car. Our beautiful Honda Fit. *sob*

• I opened, and closed, a brick-and-mortar stationery store. The short version: expensive learning experience.
• We spent Christmas in Costa Rica. Best. Trip. EVAR.
• I learned to knit. And then promptly forgot how to knit.
• Jason started a new job with a company in California. Which means he gets to work remotely and occasionally take free trips to California (with me along as a stowaway).
• I have a desk job again. And I like it.
• I discovered I love guacamole. And tomatoes.

Oh, and this happened:

Y’all, for realz. I’m going to write a post. An *actual* post, not one that’s just a sentence past Twitter’s 140-character limit. I need to get back in the habit, because this site is as much for my bad memory as it is for you (“you” being the handful of people who are still reading this because you’re either related to me or you like boredom).

So, here’s some highlights of recent months:

• Nathan came to visit. Nathan is Jason’s cousin, and he and his wife Amy are two of our most favorite-est people on the planet. He came out to photograph a wedding, but we got to kidnap him for a day and give him the full-court “move to Denver” press. First stop: Steuben’s for brunch. Taste of Colorado was going on that weekend, so after brunch we wandered through the crowds before heading into the Art Museum. We had a glass of wine at the wine bar across the courtyard, margaritas at The Rio, and finally made it home to get cocktails and steaks at LoHi Steakbar. And then we delivered him back to his lodging for the evening and made nefarious plans to do things like find jobs and a place to live for him and Amy. There might be a private wiki involved. I have no further comment.

• We went to Breckenridge for Oktoberfest. For being so close to them, it’s sad how infrequently Jason and I go into the mountains. But this trip cultivated our steely resolve to do so more often. We shared a condo with Jay and Alex and Kevin and Shelby and Alex’s sister Erin and her friend Melissa, and several other friends also came up and either spent the day or got condos of their own. And it was a blast. We drove up Friday night after work and hung out, then spent Saturday drinking from steins and eating giant pretzels and funnel cakes and hanging out listening to polka music. Shelby got more than a little sick with a migraine that evening, so we stayed at the condo and ordered takeout with Kevin while everyone else went to an alternate condo to have a little house party (which Jason joined while I watched the UT-Texas Tech game), and then the next morning we had breakfast (an ordeal summarized by mentioning a breakfast place in a mountain town probably doesn’t get tables of 12 or have an hour wait very often in the summer) and headed home. Next summer – more mountains!

• I might be moving into a new office. It’s all very speculative at this point, although more of a reality than it was two months ago. But… there’s this shopping area relatively near us called Belmar. Apparently, it used to be a different, more run-down shopping area, and some developers swooped in and have replaced the old with a main-street style design with stores big and small and restaurants and a Bally’s Fitness and a bowling alley and a movie theater and fun new-urbanist lofts and townhomes and apartments (and in the winter, they enclose an area of the development and create a man-made ice rink). The idea is that Belmar is the downtown for Lakewood, a Denver-adjacent suburb (and the fourth-largest city in Colorado, I learned this week). One additional component of the whole development is the Belmar Arts District, mostly comprised of a section of storefronts called Block 7. Block 7 was set aside by Belmar’s developers as a place where artists and designers could have their offices and studios, and rent prices are suppressed thanks to subsidies. Right now there’s a range of photographers and designers and seamstresses (and even a place that sells Japanese tchotchkes, although that place is closing). And, until last month, there was a double unit (1200 square feet) occupied by a husband-and-wife design studio. They used half the space as their office, and the other half was a screen printing studio and gallery where they held classes and events. They had outgrown the space, and when they moved into their new location, it created the first Block 7 vacancy in 2 years. So I applied immediately. I bought a stainless steel portfolio from Meininger’s, lined it with fancy paper, created a simple identity system, and turned their two-page application form into a 20-page application. And I was worried that it wasn’t “enough” to stand out. Turns out, I was fine – I was called in for an interview with the leasing committee last week, and they said my application was the best, by far. I don’t know if that translates into getting the space, but I’m hopeful – we should find out in the next week or so whether I “won.” In the meantime, I’m on pins and needles, and I’m getting anxious about the amount of money we’ll spend to move in. My business insurance is going to increase by a fair chunk since I need to bump up my liability coverage and add things like workers comp insurance and auto coverage (even though I have no employees or a company car – it’s required per the lease). I also have to pay for new signage going in (the developer is splitting the cost), and furnishings will also be needed, both office and retail (did I mention half the space will be a store?). And I plan to lease out some of the extra space to other independent designers, so I’d have to work with the developer to clarify the terms of the lease so I can sublet (it came up in the interview, and they didn’t seem to think it would be a problem). Belmar’s goal is to have someone in the space in time to take advantage of the holiday shopping rush, so the timeline is extremely accelerated. But mostly – I’m excited.

• I’m the new Events Director for AIGA Colorado. Because I needed more to occupy my time, of course, I volunteered for this position (the rest of the board was elected earlier in the year, but no one stepped up to handle events). As luck would have it I started working in the middle of a busy period, with four events in my first month. But things are starting to get into a rhythm, and I’m learning what I can and can’t do and who I should be contacting when. I see this position as an opportunity to influence the standing the design community has in Denver and Colorado, and to interact with both my peers and those I admire within the industry. It’s a two-year job, so I’ve got a lot of time to get good at it.

I was at the ACC Rio Grande campus, in the library – Calculus was first thing in the morning, and then I’d hang out before catching the bus down to Central Market for my shift. I had checked my e-mail and hit the news sites before class, and at that point all anyone knew was that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. No terrorism, no foul play, no hijacking… just… a plane crash.

Everyone in my class had heard about the crash, and everyone had different bits of news reports to share. The teacher sensed nothing would get done and dismissed us early, and I headed back to the library to check e-mail again. A crowd was gathering, and the library staff pulled a TV cart over and turned on the news. Everyone was rapt. Every space was filled with someone sitting or standing or leaning, watching the TV. And we watched, live, as the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed. People gasped, others were crying (including me). We were all frozen to our spots, watching as the news channel looped the video over and over – the crashes, the collapse, a plane in Pennsylvania, the Pentagon, the debris, the people running through ash, the people jumping from the windows… When the announcer broke in to show the collapse of the North Tower, at first we thought it was just another replay. Both towers? Both towers collapsed?

I wanted to stay in the library; I felt like I was rooted to my spot. But I was broke, and my job was expecting me. Most places were closing or already closed, but our store stayed open – people would need their olive bar mix and their organic tamales. But no customers came in, and everyone was in a fog – crying, hugging one another, whispering, shuffling around with nothing to do. Finally, in the middle of the afternoon with no sudden burst of grocery traffic in sight, our managers closed the doors. I was living with my brother at the time, and I rode the bus home and camped out in front of his TV. Where the videos were still looping without end.

• I’ve noticed my writing is “swooshier” when I write with a felt-tip pen than when I write with a ball-point pen.

• If Jason beats me home from work, I can tell he’s home because the shade on our front window is open. And when I get out of the car, I can hear him playing the piano.

• Pretzels covered in peanut-butter yogurt are delicious.

• I suck at parallel parking, even in our tiny car.

• I often, if not always, judge books by their cover. The designer’s curse.

• It’s been so long since I’ve been to the gym that I’ve lost my membership card. I hope they give me another one, because my membership doesn’t expire until August 2011.

• I dance around our living room. A lot.

• Every time my leg feels the slighest bit numb, I’m afraid I have another ovarian cyst. That’s how we discovered the last one.

• Jason won’t let me get a scooter. He’s been hit by cars twice – once on his bike and once on foot – and feels the damage would only get worse if I were going faster.

• I have little willpower to stop the buying transaction if something I’m thinking about buying comes in lime green.

• I’d be a lot thinner if I were allergic to Mexican food. And gravy.

• Jason once found a list of the things I wanted in a husband (I was only 14 or 15 when I wrote it). He still teases me about how few of the criteria he meets.

How many people do you know that have Hanson, Girl Talk, Jump Little Children, Neil Diamond, Cookie Monster, and the soundtrack to “Hairspray” in their iTunes playlist simultaneously? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Special snowflake, right here.