Hi there. Guess what? I had a baby a week ago. Not that you’d know it, since I haven’t posted anything about it. I managed to get some photos up on Flickr before the realization of having two children, both with an affinity for filling diapers at an alarming rate, finally sunk in.

I’ll put together a birth story over the weekend, but I’m pleased to say everything went extraordinarily well. I went in for an induction Thursday night, had my water broken late afternoon Friday, ordered an epidural at 5:30 pm and started pushing at 10:04 pm.

Wilder Wellington was born 20 minutes later.

At a jaw-dropping 10 lbs. 8 ozs. The general consensus among the doctors and midwives was 9-9.5 lbs. I made the nurse weigh him twice to be sure. Despite being almost 2 lbs. heavier than Emerson, he was a lot easier to birth. Thank god for that. If I would have known the size going into the delivery, I think I would have gone on strike. Or on vacation. Let somebody birth the Christmas turkey.

He is lovely. I don’t know what else to say right now. He is just simply gorgeous. He looks a lot like his brother, but with darker skin and more hair. (And a smaller head, for which my nether regions are grateful.)

It is a week later and he has already gained his birth weight back. After several nights thinking our house was an all-night afterparty, Wilder slept 11:30 pm to 6:45 am, only waking once at 3 am to gorge himself at the milk bar. I forgot how heinous the whole “milk coming in” process was. Picture flaming hot coconuts. Now stuff them under your skin. Comfy? Now attach a vacuum lined with tattoo needles to your nipple and turn to “puree” for 25 minutes every three hours. Joy.

For me? I’m doing so much better than last time that I could burst with it. Despite a belly that looks like Laura Flynn Boyles’ alien at the beginning of MIB 2, I feel great, taking some iron for anemia, and have dropped 25 lbs of fluid already. I think I spent an hour yesterday just getting reacquainted with my ankle bones. (why hello, you’re so…so, delicate and boney, aren’t you?)

All in all, despite the nonstop bitching about the heat, I would totally recommend summer babies. Sitting on the porch swing, rocking the baby in the breezy, dappled sun, watching Michael draw chalk trains on the driveway with Emerson, drinking iced coffee…not a terrible start.

My two boys. I foresee a future that is lightly perfumed with sweaty athletic socks.

Two hours until I leave for the hospital. And I’m still working. And probably would work at the hospital if they had the decency to install WIFI. Alas no. All of this means I will be packing up stuff to go approximately five minutes before I leave.

People keep asking me if I’m excited. Not yet. I know what I’m in for this time and I just want to get through the labor and delivery. Then I’ll be excited.

Here’s the final belly photos. Holy stretch marks. And chubby cheeks...thanks to 45 lbs and copious amounts of ice cream. Yeesh.

I would officially be 40 weeks tomorrow.

And here’s Emerson being “sweet” to his baby brother.

See you guys on the other side!

Helen beat me to the punch on this post.

I’m sitting here with a slightly rumpled piece of paper that was tucked into one of those “Seventy billion perfect baby names” books. The paper starts conservatively, with a long list of neatly typed boy names, then spirals downward into a mess of blue, felt-tip madness – scratch-outs, additions, comments, doodles and even a game of tic-tac-toe and hangman.

It is this list we chose Emerson’s name, and it was flat-out war. Michael and I, knowing how opinionated and picky we are, started out early. After battling from 25 to seven names, we wrote them all out with the middle name (easily chosen from a tradition in Michael’s family) and each of our last names. We agreed that our children would have each of our last names – mine as a sort of second middle name, and then my husband’s surname. I never gave a thought to changing my last name when I got married. Hell to the no. And I decided that I wanted to balance the traditional patriarchy with the practicality of having a single, consistent surname for our kids. (People used to ask me if Michael minded about keeping my name. My standard reply is that if he would have minded, I wouldn’t have married him.)

After we had snug, final few names…Michael decided, at 3 am about a month or so before I gave birth, to insist on a new favorite – Emerson. I wasn’t sure I loved it at first, but some time, convincing, and the promise of naming rights for all future children sealed the deal. And, of course, we love it.

My parents, however, were not sure and were, let us say, they were pretty direct in their opinion. To say they pretty much abhorred every name we picked was an understatement. Maxwell, Beckett, Jamison, Bowie, Whitman, Sawyer…HATE. Even though as an expectant parent, your heart knows naming is absolutely your right and final decision, it was pretty demoralizing.

I think they love the name now, I knew to gird my loins for the onslaught this time around.

Naturally, we went right back to the short list to name Pilot Fish. Again, we’d already picked out a middle name – Wellington – which is a family name on my side. Michael’s last name is short and very common (at least around here) so the two names sound quite good together. Especially with MD, or PhD, or even Nobel Prize winner attached to it. Not that I’m thinking about those sorts of things.

Being the good book-dorks that we are, we wanted to stick with a literary name. We knew right away which one. We hunkered down over the name, knowing that once again we would be faced with vocal protest of my folks (and, funnily, other people of my parents’ generation). And we were not disappointed. I did manage to stem the flow a bit at one point, telling my father,that upon hearing I was getting my crap about the name we chose, my uber-conservative, 86-year old grandfather (my dad’s dad), yelled “It’s none of your parents’ damned business what you name your kid!” Go, Poppop.

To date, my parents still choke when they try to utter this baby’s name. Emotionally, I’m large unaffected. I know can’t win, and I don’t care. I’ve bluntly told them to get over themselves. We love it, we hope the child will love it and they will do and say nothing to make our son feel awkward about his name EVER.

In the meantime, we’ve been coaching Emerson on the name of his new baby brother. He’s got the hang of it now, but is more likely to call him “What-to-wear”, “Underwear” or “Wonderwear.” Unfortunately, some of those are starting to stick. Underwear – what a hell of a nickname.

My only Blogher note. Probably ever. It’s likely that I will never go to Blogher. MAYBE if it was located in Lancaster, which HAHAHAHA! (although, Blogher, listen up. Lancaster is building a new convention center…just saying).  I wish I wanted to go, what with everyone OMG!!ZZZ BLOGHER leading up to, during and in the hung-over recaps. While I like reading about the antics and the drama and am jealous because I lack the personality to drum up the level of enthusiasm these women have about meeting in person to talk about blahgging, the thought of me in that type of social situation makes me black out. Maybe 10 years ago I could do it. Yeah, definitely. Now I would probably hide in my room after sessions with room service, crappy cable and a bottle of wine. What I will say is that all of the Blogher drama and the “you had to be there!” recaps have been great sources for finding new blogs to read. Am mad deleting and adding new feeds…desperately needed.

So how about something totally unique…say a pregnancy update? No! you say…really? Because you having been talking about that at all! I mean, at this point, what’s there to say beside…am big and fat, swollen ankles, holy hell, is this baby ever going to come?  Here is one more thing.

Am being induced late Thursday afternoon. Which is, like, TOMORROW. Holy yay. Pilot fish should be here Friday or (if the universe hates me) Saturday. I’m fully expecting another marathon induction, wherein my labor is as easy to start as an open, honest dialogue on birth control with John McCain. (wha?) Easier second-time labor, my ass. This baby is still tucked up around my larynx, with no sign of dropping, and my cervix is playing completely dumb (baby when? Due date what? Are you expecting something? *blinkblink*) This boy is absolutely going to be bigger than Emerson. I have the horizontal stripes across the middle of my stomach that tell me so. I went to the grocery store last week and the sight of me carrying a watermelon under my arm nearly made my husband pee his pants with laughter. If he didn’t give such orgasmic foot rubs, his ass might be buried in the backyard right now.

Ok. So, I know it’s the way big medical practices work these days, but I hate having to see whatever doctor or midwife is available. You can’t get to know a single provider, which means I have to retell me life story every visit. I also have to account for my choices and decisions (last week…induction a go! This week…why induction? Why not wait it out?), convince every person I see that I am a thoughtful, well-informed and rational patient, not a hysterical, hormonally imbalanced pregnant woman who just wants this baby out already. Every provider I’ve seen has had a different opinion about risks, procedures, things to watch, etc. Fluid too high! Fluid fine. Induction reasonable! No, no, let’s wait and see. Baby is going to be 9 lbs or more! Nah, will be normal. Gaining too much weight! Weight is absolutely fine. You need an ultrasound! Ultrasounds not necessary.

Come The Fuck ON already. I’m sick of it.

I read a very interesting article on Feministe this morning, about the decisions of mothers to work/stay at home and the struggle to find some sort of work/family balance that maintains happiness or, at the very least, a minimal amount of guilt and stress. And I’m sufficiently hopped up on misery, hormones and general fatigue that I’ll bite.

It’s no secret that the United States is not high on the world’s list of countries that mandate some sort of paid maternity leave. In fact, according to a link from the article, the United States is “…one of only five countries that does not provide or require employers to provide some form of paid maternity leave.”

While there is FMLA, or the Family and Medical Leave Act, which requires employers to give most workers (not just mothers) up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave for births, adoptions and certain other medical care, that leave is wholly unpaid. So while you are guaranteed your position back after 12 weeks, unless you have private or employer-provided short/long-term disability insurance, those 12 weeks come at your expense.

There are a few states that do provide some amount of short-term disability for maternity leave. Pennsylvania is not one of them. California is, and I believe Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Washington either do or are considering it.

Working in a global consulting firm, I have colleagues spread out across virtually every continent. Many of them are women and the majority of those women are mothers. I am wildly envious of the support their governments and/or employers provide to women in the UK, France, Germany, Canada, Sweden and Australia, to name a few. Paid leave can extend (in decreasing percentages) for up to a year in some cases, with additional unpaid leave available. 

My colleagues are shocked to discover that not only does the United States not have a mandated policy on paid maternity leave, that even the most generous employer (like mine) will provide only a limited number of weeks, which often needs to be augmented by saved vacation and sick time. But that paid leave only applies to full-time, salaried employees, of which I am not.

While I work a full-time gig at this global firm, I am a contractor, meaning I am actually an employee of a contracting agency, not the firm, and paid on an hourly basis. My agency takes care of taxes, has benefits and a 401K available, but there is no coverage for maternity leave. There are no paid sick days or vacation days in my job, and very few paid holidays. The six weeks of maternity leave I am planning to take starting July 28 has been meticulously scraped from my weekly paychecks during the last several months. Fortunately, my compensation has enabled me to save enough to cover all bills and expenses through mid-September in the absence of a regularly scheduled active paycheck. I’m already thinking I’ll try to work 10-15 hours a week after the first few weeks off, just to keep a little money coming in. When people ask me why I’m not taking more time off, I respond, “I simply cannot afford to take any more time.”

I have absolutely no problem being direct and forthcoming with executives of multi-billion dollar companies.

But I am absolutely unable to tell my housecleaner that her current work just isn’t all that great. Today I had to ask her to actually MOVE things when she dusted and I wanted the floor to swallow me whole.

WTF is up with that?

I never do memes (ah, don’t we all say that?). But in the spirit of procrastination from the work I need to do this morning, I took one from Erin.

1. What is in the back seat of your car right now? Car seat. A cajillion toddler toys, two maps, an umbrella, a tiny jean jacket and a box of tissues.

2. When was the last time you threw up? About 3 am Christmas eve…something about Christmas dinner didn’t agree. Broke my standing 10 year no vomit record. Dammit.

3. What’s your favorite curse word? Motherfucker. Apparently, it’s getting to be my son’s favorite as well. Might need to do something about that.

4. Name 3 people who made you smile today? Michael and Emerson and the woman on the phone who scheduled me for a massage on Saturday.

5. What were you doing at 8 am this morning? Picking up toys ahead of the cleaning lady’s arrival.

6. What were you doing 30 minutes ago? Checking email.

7. What will you be doing 3 hours from now? Probably checking email again.

8. Have you ever been to a strip club? Yep. I used to be the token straight girl at a weekly Lesbian Poker Night in DC. Tthey broke my strip club cherry.

9. What is the last thing you said aloud? I’d like to schedule a massage, please.

10. What is the best ice cream flavor? If you are nine months pregnant, the answer is YES. Otherwise, mint chocolate chip.

11. What was the last thing you had to drink? Decaf coffee.

13. What was the last thing you ate? A butter cookie.

14. Have you bought any new clothing items this week?  Does a new bra count?

15. When was the last time you ran? Like exercise, or like running after SOMEONE? Last time I ran was in February, when I was four months pregnant. Last time I ran after someone was probably last Wednesday when a certain toddler decided to haul ass through the mall.

16. What’s the last sporting event you watched? Phillies game on television

18. Who is the last person you emailed? A former co-worker at Law & Order: Amish Division for a lunch date.

19. Ever go camping? Yes. I prefer “cabining” much better. Or “Hyatting”

20. Do you have a tan? Uh, no. That would require actually going outside in the heat. Are you insane?

24. Do you drink your soda from a straw? Only at a food joint, if it comes in a paper cup.

25. What did your last IM say? “Ok, maybe at 11 am EDT? Would that work for you?”

26. Are you someone’s best friend? YES.

27. What are you doing tomorrow? Worky-work, busy bee.

28. Where is your mom right now? She’s at work in New Jersey. And probably none too happy about that.

29. Look to your left, what do you see? The family room and out the window into the backyard.

30. What color is your watch? I don’t wear a watch.

31. What do you think of when you think of Australia ? Beer. Boomarangs. Holy stereotypes, batman.

32. Would you consider plastic surgery? *looks down at stomach* Lord, yes.

33. What is your birthstone? Opal.

34. Do you go in at a fast food place or just hit the drive thru? Drive thru.

35.How many kids do you want? We thought two kids was the limit. Now that we know we are having two boys, we most likely will be adopting a third. This body is DONE. And the possibility of three boys? AIYEEEE!

36. Do you have a dog? No way, no interest. I have a toddler, an impending baby, a husband and five chickens. And only one in that motley crew actually poops on a potty with any regularity. That is enough to deal with.

37. Last person you talked to on the phone? Massage therapist.

38. Have you met anyone famous? Yes, famous to me, anyway.

39. Any plans today? Work, work, work.

40. How many states have you lived in? Let’s see, NJ, PA, DC and VA. Four.

41. Ever go to college? Yes. Trenton State College (eff that College of New Jersey noise)

42. Where are you right now? Home office.

43. Biggest annoyance in your life right now? The fact that this baby isn’t making any plans to budge anytime soon. Also, husband’s inability to fold the three foot pile of clothes next to his side of the bed with any sort of regularity.

44. Last song listened to? Ingrid Michaelson – The Way I Am.

46. Are you allergic to anything? Penicillin, I think. Also some cats.

47. Favorite pair of shoes you wear all the time? Flip-flops. Not because I love them, but they are the only things my sausage feet will fit into.

48. Are you jealous of anyone? Yes. Yes, I am.

50. Is anyone jealous of you? Hahahahhahahaha!

51. What time is it? 10:33 am

52. Do any of your friends have children? Yes.

53. Do you eat healthy? I ate extremely healthy until about month five of this pregnancy. And the last month or so are best to be forgotten in the annals of eating history. I figure I’ve got two more weeks before I have to give up my serious ice cream addiction.

54. What do you usually do during the day? I work in front of a computer. ALL. DAY.

55. Do you hate anyone right now? I don’t think so. But with the hormones, give it five minutes…I might change my mind.

56. Do you use the word ‘hello’ daily? Yes, I’m on the phone constantly for work.

58. How old will you be turning on your next birthday? 36… thanks for reminding me.

59. Have you ever been to Six Flags? Not since I was very young. I get sick on rides. See no-vomit record above.

60. How did you get one of your scars? Having one of 7,045 moles removed.

Ah pride! Refusing to use the maternity valet service, with my bladder ready to explode and the only parking spot requiring a five mile walk in 90 degree humidity. Pride, you bitch, I hope you get a nice case of the clap.

I should know better than to expect any definitive action when meeting with the midwives of my OBGYN practice. Internal check? Not necessary...increases risk of bacteria. All that hubbub about size and fluid?  It was shrugged it off as “still really normal,” nothing to be concerned with, nothing to do, nothing to see here, please pull around.

Pilot fish is measuring at 40 weeks, heart rate at 130. My blood pressure is 120/60 and I managed to pack on three pounds in a week, which might be water retention or it might be mint mocha frappuccinos…who’s to say?

I made it abundantly clear that I wasn’t going to wait until 41 weeks. No way am I going to risk going through another delivery like the last one. True to form, when I told her this, supported with all of my reasons, she just nodded sympathetically, but gave no indication of actually agreeing with me.

Hey, mom! How would you like to birth a head THIS BIG?

So, I’m going to struggle through another week until next appointment, which I’ve made with one of the doctors of the practice. We’ll see if I get a little more feedback than “do some squats and nipple stimulation in front of the television at night.” That should get the neighbors talking.