a poke in the eye

I’m sure I have mentioned before that strange things just pop into my head… and I try to make an effort to remember them to post here for some amusement, usually I don’t remember though. Today is an exception, I remember -you know how they tell you that you have to hear something 84 times (or some such number, I made that one up) in order to recall it at will… well it must be because I said it over and over to my friend, because it makes her laugh.

I was late this morning (look back, I’m sure it’s not news that I’m outing myself as a not-prompt person) – and of course fantasizing, what would I tell the group of women who were all prompt and waiting on me when I arrived – nothing is usually what I tell people, but I do pass the time in traffic fantasizing great things. Today was pretty darn good – I had received an email late last night from my friend, it said simply “I need some momumo time, seeing the world through different eyes, do you have time?” (she doesn’t actually call me momumo, but ya know, I’m not gonna out my real name).

I didn’t get it until pretty late, right before I was going to sit down to a nice glass of milk and some graham crackers with my wonderful husband, who as of yesterday, I have been together with for 20 years (yesterday was the anniversary of our first “date”) – so I didn’t reply, she sent her email around 4 in the afternoon and I had to assume that by 1030pm she was either already in bed, or already found some other soul to unburden her venting to.

So I phoned her on my way across town to the meeting that I was already running late to, assuming that she of all the people I needed to touch base with today, would answer her phone at 715am and not want to beat me senseless with the handset. She did answer, she was awake, and she didn’t want to beat me, so I made a good assumption there (always dangerous to make assumptions) – I said, hey I got your email late last night sorry… I have about 30 minutes right now while I drive across town to a meeting I’m late for. You know, I don’t know if I hogged the conversation, I don’t think I did, because thinking back we spent a significant amount of time talking about a crop “circle” out near the Denver International Airport, that seen from the air looks like a Republican symbol, you know to greet all the visitors to the Democratic National Convention (I would think it just as hilarious if they did the opposite at the RNC) – anyhow, she brought up this topic asking if I had seen any news stories on it, etc. so I think she just needed to talk to a grownup that wasn’t her family or ex-husband maybe, not particularly about anything, and maybe just not about anything. Alas, I digress from my story (big shock there, I never do that)… so we were talking about how I was running late to my meeting and I had gotten something in my eye while getting ready and maybe I could sell that as my excuse “sorry I’m late, I got something in my eye” – and I said you know though, my eye isn’t really red anymore, maybe I should just poke myself in the eye before I walk in (and we laughed our asses off)… oh crap, you know I think this another of my stories that just doesn’t translate well to the written word. I must say however, that we continued to beat that dead horse as we visited other topics during the conversation. I told her about my nephew being born, and I got all teary eyed during the teary eyed part, and I was like “hey, if I don’t wipe off these tears, the whole poked in the eye thing might fly better at the meeting!”… then I called her back after the meeting, because clearly 30 minutes was not enough, and well I had another 30 minutes of driving to get to my office… and I mentioned that I had been in the ER having my bleeding eye looked at – she laughed, she knows damn well I’m way too big of a wimp to actually poke myself in the arm let alone the eye. I did manage to retain this story for y’all, and I’m telling you driving across the highway this morning it was very hilarious, imagining myself sitting in the parking lot at the school jabbing myself in the eye with my finger until it reached the appropriate redness and tearfulness to convince a whole group of prompt women that I had an issue big enough to delay my arrival at this important meeting. Like I said strange things pop into my head.

So, yes my nephew was born, and circumcised for those following that craziness. He is fine, he hasn’t rebelled against his mom and begged for his foreskin back at this point, so we’ll see how it goes after he loses interest in milk and sucking on his fist and begins to use words. It was WONDERFUL – I know, all births are wonderful, and I have had the fortune of being at now 6 other births in addition to the three that I pushed out myself – and this would be the third birth that I have coached – what a great thing to be able to do for another woman. Anyhow, the best most awesome wonderful part of the story – you know that part I alluded to that makes me cry every time I tell it (still a week later) – I believe I mentioned that the baby’s daddy is stationed in Iraq, he left the first week in July. He is able to call home to his wife with good regularity, generally twice a day – they did get skype, so the calls are not costing a fortune – and I don’t know that he will continue twice a day after the whole ‘is the baby here yet?’, ‘the new baby is great’ stuff passes – but for now he calls when he gets off of his shift and before he goes to bed and he calls again when he wakes up and before he starts his shift – this would have been around 5am our time – so after hearing from him during early labor, we didn’t expect to hear from him again until 5am. So as the baby was crowning, and we all got a look at his little head, the phone rang… and it was his daddy calling (during his sleeping hours, he had awakened and had the urge to call), and he managed to maintain his connection during the entire birth and hear the whole thing – it wasn’t anything at all like being there – but he was able to have a connection somehow – I’m crying (or maybe I just poked myself in the eye with something?) just typing it – and the baby is great, mom is great, everything went wonderfully – she was able to follow her birthplan to the tee, it was just wonderful. I have to say, this was my first midwife attended birth, and that is a great way to go!! It was a hospital birth, midwife attended, and as they live out a ways into the country from the hospital, I don’t know how comfortable I would have been with a home birth – just because I have seen complications at a birth that needed aggressive attention (which I still believe, but it can’t be proven – were actually brought on by, or at the very least exacerbated by intervention – there, my natural is the way to go speech will end there, I could start a whole blog on how I think birth should be natural – and that would get way too deep for what this blog is about?). If I were to have another one (immaculate conception?), I would have a midwife attended hospital birth – wow the advances in letting you move around and labor in multiple positions are wonderful too. She wasn’t tied to the monitor at all except for the first 15-20 minutes after arriving at the hospital – they just bring the monitor to you and hold it on for a couple of contractions and then go away again for an extended amount of time.