Zoey's birth story

Zoe & me the next day

As Baby's due date approached, friends and relatives kept asking me if I was nervous.

Labor? Nah. I felt pretty confident about it. I was shooting for an all-natural, no pain meds, breathe-through-it hippy birth.

I figured I had a few things going for me-- I'd continued to exercise pretty hard until about 7.5 months pregnant (if that makes any difference), and thought I had a pretty high pain tolerance. My mom said both of her (med-free) deliveries didn't really even hurt. Even my mom's mom said she almost slept through most of her contractions the second time around.

I'm telling you all this now so you can laugh at me later.

I woke up the morning of baby's due date feeling a little crampy, and ready to get this show on the road. Conveniently, my sister needed to move out of her second-story apartment that day. So I helped.

I even snapped at Jason & my parents a few times for trying to take boxes out of my hands... I wanted that baby OUT.

I put extra pepper flakes on my pizza at lunch. I thundered ran up my sister's stairs about ten extra times. I went for a hike in the woods with Jason (nothing like being far away from civilization to induce labor, eh?).

I went to bed disappointed. I woke up at 3AM to a contraction. It didn't hurt that bad-- just like my mom said.

Sure enough, they kept coming at about three minutes apart, getting increasingly uncomfortable. I woke Jason up, and we took our packed bags to the hospital.

They measured my dilation-- only 2 cm out of 10. I laid in a bed hooked up to monitors, and those contractions started to REALLY hurt. They felt like period cramps from hell.

I broke down in tears after about 2.5 hours at the hospital. They checked me again, and the trap door hadn't budged at all-- still 2cm. They said we should go back home.

I asked the nurse when we would know to come back. Her eyes widened as she emphasized, "The contractions will be DRAMATICALLY more intense."

I felt my chin start to quiver again.

About an hour after we went home, everything fizzled out and stopped. After I caught up on sleep, Jason suggested walking to get them going again. And I lost it. I sobbed into my hands that I didn't want to feel that pain again. I knew it had to come back. But I couldn't will myself into consciously trying to make it happen.

Contractions came back with a vengeance around midnight. This time, though, they were twelve minutes apart instead of three. I spent the time in between them scanning notes from our childbirth class, trying to figure out what "coping mechanisms" might help. It was all pretty laughable at this point. I was starting to feel sick to my stomach from the pain.

I started walking circles around our apartment to distract myself. I repeated the same route from about 3AM to 10AM; the downstairs neighbors must have thought someone had lost their mind. ...well, pretty much.

Around the time Jason woke up, the contractions were consistently five minutes apart, and definitely, officially "DRAMATICALLY more intense." He walked with me outside. At this point I couldn't make my legs work during contractions, so I'd stop to bury my head in his neck and try not to hyperventilate.

We went back to the hospital at 2pm. I didn't let them hook me up to the stupid monitors-- the nurse just checked me right away and I was at 4cm. Thank. GOD.

They filled up the bathtub in the delivery room, and I climbed in. With the warm water jets, a lime popsicle, and Jason reassuring me through every 60-second wave of pain, it was all bearable again.

Yeah, our hospital ROCKS.

But, of course, they kept getting stronger and stronger. Before I knew it, I had become a "moaner." I'm not sure why making noise helped; I'm not sure that I could have not made noise. My awkward walrus sounds started to distract me, so we came full circle to the day I found out I was pregnant-- I grabbed a towel and shoved my face into it.

Soon a contraction would start with a moan, and escalate into what Jason calls a towel-muffled "battle cry." He sat by my side through every one, repeating "it's okay, it's okay, just a few more seconds, it will fade away." And that's the only way I got through them-- one at a time, not thinking about the next one, just thinking about the next "break" and that it would come in a few seconds.

When the nurse checked me at 4:30, I was at 6cm. The nurse said she could feel baby's amniotic sac bulging into the birth canal (you know you weren't going to avoid hearing a few details like that). She offered to break the sac to help things along.

But to me, breaking my water meant two things:
I'd have to get out of the tub (infection risk).
DRAMATICALLY intense contractions would get DRAMATICALLY more intense.

No thanks.

Two hours of walrus moaning later, they checked me again.

...still six centimeters.

No.

So I got out of the tub. I climbed into the bed. The doctor started poking around with a "crochet needle," and GUSH.

Thar she blew.

I squatted on an exercise ball, and Jason stood behind me for support (both mental support, and "don't-fall-backwards" support).

Contractions kept starting with a moan. Then they'd escalate to the throaty battle cry. At the sharp peaks of each pain wave, I heard myself making a new noise-- brief, high pitched shrieks. I wasn't doing this very gracefully.

Labor is a weird thing. I'd always heard women say, "I've never felt so strong." "I've never felt so empowered." "I can't believe what my body is capable of."

But for me, it felt like something that was happening to me. Not something that I was willfully doing. Not really anything I could take credit for.

During our birthing class, the instructor had emphasized that if you relax all your muscles through each contraction, it'll be more "productive" and help the process go more quickly. So I guess I can take credit for that-- it takes a lot of concentration to be in the worst pain of your life and try to stay somewhat limp.

After they broke my water, my memory gets pretty hazy.

Jason says my face got really pale, and had this look of childlike desperation-- like, "please make it stop." He says I was almost completely unaware of everything happening around me.

I do remember the moment that I felt something move. Like, move down towards the exit. I told Jason to get the nurse.

I somehow got onto the hospital bed, and here I distinctly remember the nurse being all, "WHOAAAA NELLY TIME TO GET THE DOCTOR."

I felt a strong urge to push, so I asked the nurse if I could. She said I should wait until the doctor got there (as she nervously started putting on latex gloves). I don't know why I listened to her, really-- why do you need someone with an MD to catch a baby?

So I didn't push. But it didn't matter. My body was getting this kiddo out all on its own. I felt her head get lower and lower, until thirty minutes later I experienced the unmistakable burning sensation of a baby head squeezing out of my body.

Pretty rad, actually.

The doctor (who had shown up at some point, apparently) helped ease baby's shoulders out, and the rest was just a giant feeling of relief.

They dried our daughter off in about ten seconds flat and put her on my chest.

And, finally, it was no longer a theoretical idea in my mind that this pregnancy was going to end with a baby. There she was. She was amazing. Everything about her was so small, and so alive. I tried to wrap my mind around the idea that it had been her in there all along.

I felt her little feet and laughed with recognition-- those were definitely the same small, pointy heels that I'd been feeling kick through my belly for the past few months.

"I know, sweetie, we've had a crazy day too."

Her eyes were the most incredible part. They were bright, shiny, and so... awake. Every time I looked at them I felt this almost physical "smack" to my brain. It was unmistakeable that there was a real little soul behind her sparkling eyes. A unique person whose entire life was starting in those few minutes.

Jason and I looked at her, and she looked back at us. We told her we loved her. We sat in this happy trance for forty-five minutes. Then we switched her over to Jason's chest so she could bond with him as well.

(Two weeks later, her laying on his chest is still my favorite sight in the whole wide world.)

* * *

For the rest of that evening, I remember thinking, "There is NO WAY I'll ever do that without pain meds again."

But two weeks later, "mommy amnesia" is setting in and it's getting increasingly difficult to remember what it all felt like. I guess this phenomenon is how nature gets away with women ever having sex again after their first childbirth experience. So, maybe next time, I'll try to be more prepared. I'll look into "hypnobirthing" or something. But I'll definitely keep that epidural option open.

(Plus, if you can no longer remember the pain a week later, does it matter if it hurts or not at the time? Kind of like a "tree falling in the forest" paradox...)



So, there you have it. That's what delivering a baby was like for me, for those of you who wanted to know. It was really, really hard. It was really, really awesome. It will always be one of the most incredible days of my life. We're so glad she's here.

Three Matthews-ers

This is our little daughter, Zoey.

We finally got to meet Miss Sneaky on Tuesday, June 26 at 8:13 PM.
She was 20 inches long, and adorably tiny at 6 3/4 lbs.

She's a happy, healthy baby with a charming set of goofy expressions and squeaky noises. She's addicted to snuggling, so we have to keep her in our arms pretty much around the clock. Darn ; )

She's even taught us a little Matthews-ing... that sometimes, when it comes to people, 1 + 1 can equal 3. Pretty neat trick, kiddo.

Let's just skip straight to the good stuff

Happy 6-MONTH SLACK-I-VERSARY to me! 

Going for the "cringing in shame" look, but instead accidentally made an ad for pleasantly-scented scarves

I told you I had to go to the ER, got two new grown-up jobs, had cool news, and then... I disappeared off the face of the planet.

Except for the random z***** Halloween picture that has greeted loyal blog checkers since October (sorry Mom).

So you know that typical children's novel plot where the main character's loyal dog starts acting funny, and then disappears, and you cry because it's totally dead and you didn't realize this was going to be one of those "shit-happens,-kid,-we've-all-gotta-grow-up-sometime" books? AND THEN THE DOG REAPPEARS A WEEK LATER WITH A LITTER OF PUPPIES??

No, I don't have any puppies.

(Sad, yes.)

But I DID get knocked up.

You guys are going to kill me. Killllll meeee... because...
we've only got 8 more weeks until Matthews-er #3 pops out.

For people who want to "grow" their blog, probably the stupidest thing you could do is skip seven out of nine months of blogging GOLD.

For other *certain* people who've just agreed to work 50 hours a week and then, surprise!, get a BIG FAT DOSE of exhausting hormones paired with completely overwhelming and exciting and thrilling and terrifying implications about the rest of their life...

Yeah, not a good recipe for le blarging.

(I also partially blame the realization that coffee had been providing 90% of my personality.)

Yes, Sneaky Baby was a beeeeg surprise for us. But now that I'm completely addicted to getting kickboxed from the inside out, and now that I've felt little baby hiccups echoing through my guts (who knew that could happen??!!),  I wouldn't have it any other way.

So thanks for sticking around (and HOLY CRAP a petition?? You guys are the greatest. Sorry for slinking away into my "having puppies den" and hiding from it). I literally have 10 different rough drafts waiting for you in the line-up; my goal is post once a week. I hope it will be worth your wait.

Until next week,
I adore you guys as much as I now love ♥♥♥pickled eggs and strawberry popsicles for breakfast♥♥♥,
that's A LOT,

April

Good news, bad news

First of all, HAPPY 5TH OF JULY!!! Today is the day when all the fireworks go on 75%-off clearance and I get to load up for the rest of the year. Yesssssssss.

& I hope you all had a happy 4th of July, as well. But I'm really mostly just glad that it leads to the 5th of July.

So, for the bad news today: I think I broke my toe at work Friday (lifeguarding). My friend says I should tell people that I kicked a naughty kid in the face, but alas... it's not quite that blog-worthy. I tripped, kicked a pole, & felt an ominous little snap in my foot (sound effect!).

I looked down & saw a crooked little toe, then my foot promptly swelled up & turned blue just like Violet Beauregard when she HAD to try that damn Willy Wonka gum. Time to take it to the juicer?

After hobbling around all weekend, I've never felt more grateful for being a (usually) able-bodied person who can walk faster than one mile an hour. I went to the grocery store last night, and was sorely tempted to steal a shopping cart to use as a walker for the rest of the week.

As for the good news? Thanks to moving our mattress to the living room, we've discovered Jason can do a stunning impression of Pepé Le Pew.

(Unfortunately I am terrible at editing videos, so you're going to have to put up with my creepy slo-mo laughing at around 0:25.)

Because my broken toe & Jason bounding gracefully across our living room are SUCH related topics.

*That foot photo was for YOU, Lauren Anderson ; ) ; ) 
(I told you I know a creepish amount about you.)

Oh, just daydreaming about lighting things on fire

Sometimes (all the time) I daydream about designing houses. And I think,

WOULDN'T IT BE AMAZING TO HAVE A FIREPLACE IN YOUR BEDROOM?

And then I revise that thought:
Nayyy, A FIREPLACE IN THE BATHROOM. 'TWOULD SURPASS THE AFOREMENTIONED LEVEL OF AMAZINGNESS.

SWANKY AS ****.

Mmmm. Fire. Makes me daydream in caps lock.

It started in middle school, when both my unsuspecting parents had to work in the evenings. I'd grab my hidden stash of matches, make a beeline for the bathroom, and select the products with the most dire-sounding warning labels.

Then I'd spray/pour them onto the concrete patio outside and let them duke it out for the Most Impressibly Flammable Award.*

My college roomates didn't know this when they invited me to live with them sophomore year... in a house heated by nothing other than a wood stove.

One freezing, dark winter night in my beloved college home, I took it upon myself to heat the house very thoroughly before my roommates & I went to bed. I built a fire that would put a pyromaniac Boy Scout counselor to shame-- the black metal chimney above the fire took on a faint orange glow.

YAY for college students and their impulse to photographically document every moment of life (...says a blogger)

Soon everyone had changed into boxers and tank tops, and we'd plastered ourselves against the wall furthest from the blaze.

I checked the thermometer in the next room over. IT READ 98°F. IN THE NEXT ROOM OVER. It was a proud, proud moment.

And then... we looked out the window. Everything was blanketed in an unexpected coating of snow. We ran outside in our sweaty pajamas, stuffed the fresh white powder into glasses, then went back inside & added juice & colorful straws. I will never eat a better snow cone in my life.

Sometimes it pays to be a pyro.
(Sorry about the burn marks on the patio, Mama & Papa Bear.)

*(Aerosol foam shoe cleaner won, hands down. The coolest part is that it floats on water, so you can spray it into a water fountain, light it, and watch the floating flames go down the little waterfalls. Highlight of my 13-year old life.)

photo 1 • photo 2 

Couldn't resist posting some vacation photos

Alternately titled "Two Matthews-ers, Swimsuit edition."

My sister & I just got back from a week in the Southern California sunshine! (So sorry ladies, no Handsome Hubster in this one). 

Our sweet grandma bought us some tickets to come visit her & the rest of our family near LA (yes, I'm yet another California-Oregon transplant kid).

We drove to the airport in true Pacific Northwest fashion-- windshield wipers battling the rain at top speed, bags packed optimistically with shorts & sandals, and pale legs coated in blotchy self-tanner.

Then we enjoyed six long, sunny days of:

-- boogey-boarding for hours (and the resulting traumatic sunburns),

(look! apparently I run like a raptor too) & (I hope Kelsey's okay with her butt on my blog) ('cause I know YOU guys are) (wink wink)

-- visiting with our uncle's family and soaking up all the cousin love we possibly could absorb,

got to see our awesome grandad on Father's day! Schweet. (In other news, B.F. meter has bumped up to a 6.25)

-- doing rascally things like taking a tour of all the nearby In-n-Outs at 1AM, and inventing a suuuuper mature "game" with my grandma's bathroom scale: how much weight can you lose by going to the bathroom? Kelsey won, with 4 POUNDS LOST in one... "sitting" (her strategy involved lots of water, then lots of coffee).
(Sorry. There's another "TMI" tag & "things that happen in the bathroom" tag for the tally.)
(My grandma didn't know we were playing this game. Now she does... Hi, Grandmom.)

-- and last but not least, somehow convincing our 70-year-old grandma to try boogey boarding.

Have I mentioned that summer is my favorite thing in the universe? Just the smell of sunscreen makes me giddy.


(Next up: part two of The Story of Hubster & Me, as told by Mr. Matthews-er himself!)

I promise this isn't as bad as it sounds.

We broke our bed.

(I kind of wish it were as bad as it sounds, because that would be super impressive.)

My giant flirt of a husband picked up all of my 140+ lbs, flipped me in the air, and chucked me onto the bed. There was a deafening crack, a moment of wide-eyed silence, and then... nervous laughter. We took off the top mattress, and flipped the bed frame up onto its side:

Within an hour after moving the mattress to the living room, the naked bed frame was covered in Stuff.

Of course, this is to be expected according the The Law of Horizontal Surfaces, which states that "any horizontal surface in a 700-square-feet-or-less apartment must be covered in Stuff."

But moving our mattress to the living room has been the best part of this whole ordeal. Welcome to the Matthews-ers' (Monogamous) Harem -Style Bouncy Fun House! Who needs carpet when you can have foam-covered springs?!

Open the doors and windows, and curl up with a book. Come in through the door and bounce your way across the room. Giggle in the dark for an hour after you turn the lights off because it feels like a fifth-grade sleepover without parental supervision (I guess that's the kind of mentality that got us here in the first place).

Five Otter Pops says it'll stay there until August.

Really terrible reasons to start a family

I'm watching my friends, one-by-one, succumb to baby fever. It's like a real-life version of the twitterpation scene from Bambi.

I keep expecting it to hit, but I've got nothing. I love kids, but babies? I don't get it.

So far, the only reasons I've even thought about starting a family have been... shallow. Very shallow. Such as:

We first liked the names "Emma," "Sophia," and "Will." But we all know what happened with those names. So a year ago we picked new ones (because how else do you pass long car rides?).

Sure enough, the new picks have started slowly creeping up the "most popular names" list. I keep having mini panic attacks every time a friend or relative gets knocked up (what if they use it first? eeeeeeeep). (So, current name candidates? Under lockdown.)

Plus, there are the materialistic things like THESE:

[from]

And THIS:

[from]

Another selfish reason: because I think pregnancy is the coolest thing ever. Your uterus grows to 1,000 times its size. If your whole body pulled that off, well... here are the tallest buildings in the world:

Here is you x1,000 next to those buildings:

LARGE & IN CHARGE, BABY.   L A R G E   &   I N   C H A R G E  .

And another terrible reason for getting knocked up? Because I am DYYYYING to have a puppy right now. And our apartment doesn't allow puppies, but it does allow babies. BAD April. Baby does not equal surrogate puppy.

Any more posts like these and the Child Services people are going to be waiting in the delivery room to seize our newborns.

Sure, I want kids someday. Sure, I've loved my future offspring ever since I realized I could have offspring. Sure, I've loved them even more since I met the guy who would be contributing half their chromosomes and raising them with me.

But I don't want them right now. (Okay, maybe a tiny bit. Like a 5.5-out-of-10 amount of Want.)
(But that's all.)
(& I hope they get his hair.)

Rainbow Recap & R-Rated Pictionary

As per the results of last week's Great Thematic Debate (thanks for everyone's input), Rainbow Birthday Party won the cause!

 Click-to-zoom? Highly encouraged.

(Seeing as I don't drink very often, one glass of beer severely disabled my camera skills, and I completely screwed up missed quite a few individual shots-- so here's the whole crew together.)

Check it out-- even the pizza was colorful.

This place wasn't called "Pizza Research Institute" for nothing-- yes, that's a peach slice. Sitting atop curried cauliflower.

After pizza, we spontaneously decided to cram everyone into our tiny apartment, where we did some serious damage on a giant jug of sangria and played Telephone Pictionary.

Telephone Pictionary, without fail, is THE Most Surefire Way to Get a Group of Six or More People into Complete Hysterics. (Yup. It's so official that it overcomes my laziness about hitting the shift key.)

You sit in a circle, and each person has a pad of paper. You write down your initial message-- for example, we chose to write down "song or book titles." Everyone passes their paper to the right, and the next person has to turn to the next page and draw it.

The next person in line must write what they think the drawing is. As it's passed around the circle, you alternate writing and drawing.

It gets screwed up REALLY fast.

Jason wrote down the song "Citizen Soldier" by 3 Doors Down. By the end, it had turned into the COMPLETE opposite. Flip through!



So from Jason's point of view, he wrote "Citizen Soldier" and, 12 turns later, received happy Jesus playing the guitar. Gooood times.

DON'T flip through this next one if you anticipate being offended by slightly censored F-bombs, and cartoonish illustrations of... uh... the aforementioned F-verb.



So, in the end, we had a good time and I highly recommend this game. My abs are still aching two days later.

Not to mention that sitting in our tiny little apartment, listening to the hysterical laughter of twelve of my favorite people, is definitely my idea of a good time.

Matthewser Makeover

First of all, I want to thank everybody who's been wishing me a happy birthday! Between facebook and text messages, I feel like I'm in front of some sort of tennis ball launcher that's chucking waterballoons filled with loooove. Truly blown away.

So, THANK YOU, EVERYONE ♥ I'm a lucky lady to have you all.

Aaaand as promised, here's my little present to myself: the new Matthewsers page! Brought to you entirely by kind internet strangers who post HTML tutorials, and my (desperately naive) late night grit and determination:

(click to zoom)

...at least, that's what it should look like. Hopefully.

There were a few blooper reels-- for a while, I thought it would be a genius idea to draw cartoons of us on the sketchbook. After an hour or two of drawing, I got halfway done and decided STRONGLY against it:

(for the record, Jason requested to be upside down)

Can't. Do. It.

Why does it look cool on these guys and cheesy here? I don't know. But I can't bring myself to go through with it.

***

Here are a few tutorials I found especially easy and valuable:

How to make your post titles and widget titles a custom font.
How to make the top Blogger Navbar invisible until you hover over it.
How to make a custom browser icon (favicon).


And, for old times' sake, a screenshot of the original Matthewsers layout:

I'm sure the chalkboard will return again someday : )

Elevator Music

We have been sooo happily busy ever since we got home! I got to see my K's (Kelsey, Kody, Kanette, and Kristie), and my S's (Sam, Sammie, Scott) all within about four days. It's been fabulous. (Claire and Mama Bear were icing on the cake! ...Just not quite as conveniently alliterated.) The past few days have been such a whirlwind, we're only just starting to feel the jet lag now.

A happy reunion with the two K's who picked us up from the airport!

I do have a few posts brewing in the ol' brain, but until I 'wrap up' (HA. HA. HA.) all our late Christmas packages and cards, I'll leave you with this:

I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS EXISTS. No buttons = mind BLOWN.

BOOM. Blown again.

I read this story right before we flew out of Sweden. Gulp. (5-minute read)

Crazy pancake talent.

It might be too late to order these, but why not make them at a nearby paint-your-own-pottery store?

One word: soulful.

Don't know what you want for Christmas? Consider asking friends & family to donate here instead.

This is atrociously, obnoxiously cute. We love it.

kaPOOF!

There's been a very exciting development in our apartment over the past week. Apparently, if you bring a dandelion flower inside (who does that?! ...oh), it goes to seed!

And check this out-- one of them flopped over, but then used its last bit of planty-life-force to curl its poof up off the ground. Man, these things really want to have babies. I'm just impressed.

"Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them."  A.A. Milne

(P.S. .....)

Elevator Music

The posts have been a wee sparse lately because we've been so busy rampaging around... so while we take a few days to document it all for you, here's a lazy post full of the BEST THINGS ON THE INTERNET (in our humble, yet insistent, opinions):


How appropriate.

Very sad that we're not able to do the annual Halloween party this year, because we'd stop at nothing to make this happen in our apartment.

And if you've got a house of your own, please do this and this  so we can live vicariously through you.

A little perspective. (There may be a few ads to ignore at first-- then click "play," and use the scrollbar at the bottom.)

If you have a twisted sense of humor, this will never get old.

Daily instant karma!


Once I get my schmidt together, you'll get to hear allll about our latest misadventures: Science, Stereotypes, Survival, and Apartment Makeover Extravaganza!!!


And in other news, IT SNOWED!!

Snow brings out the ecstatic, flake-chomping puppy inside Jason (which makes me happier than the snow itself).

"Look Ma, no hands!" IS NOT PERMITTED.

Speaking of learning new languages, Jason has also decided NOW is the time that I teach him Spanish. You know that commercial about The Most Interesting Man in the World who can speak "French... in Russian?" We're getting there.

Yet despite all the "Swedish-(Danish?)-Spanish-English"  soup bubbling between my ears (aka Sveenglés, see title below for example), today I saw something that made me realize:  Some things just transcend languages.

Nice hat.