More than a year has passed since I have posted in this blog, ever so frazzled about school vacation, annoying kid activities, bento boxes, or whatever else was on my mind in 2017, that I must have forgotten to tell everyone the news!
Our family has grown AGAIN!
Well... first we adopted a cat in April, but that wasn't hard core enough for our family, so we produced another child of the human variety last month. Yup, just when my youngest one traded naps and diapers for preschool and ninja turtles, i voluntarily bought myself another one way ticket back into the land of midnight feedings, those impossible moby wraps, and all-day unintentional boob exposure. Why would any sane, liberal, non-evangelical, educated person do that after almost ELEVEN years of raising young kids? I care about my carbon footprint and I love science, I swear!
Because THIS GUY was worth it-
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| baby Q! |
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| last pregnancy picture...ever. |
Of course, there was plenty of obligatory chatter about a double epidural/spinal (in case my insides were so scarred up and mangled that my surgery lasts 5 hours) and the multiple "units on hold" in case of hemorrhage, which I was told I would have many times by those friendly MFM doctors. In the OR, I tried to just relax and listen to the Journey Pandora station and joke around with the 15 year old resident who was seriously considering getting his wife a Chipotle burrito for Valentine's Day. Perhaps that's the Millennial equivalent of flowers?
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But as soon as they popped this guy out and put him right on my chest, my inner monologue changed from "don't bleed to death" to "look at this beautiful perfect baby of mine".
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| "skin to skin" in the OR. Oh, the times they are a-changin'. |
Thomas Quinn Power was born on 12:26 on Valentine's day during the second verse of "Time after Time" by Cyndi Lauper. He was 8 lbs 3 oz, 21 inches, and looks exactly like all the other Power children. He is lazy and sleepy and sweet and perfect in every way. He is our "Quinn", but it also means a lot to me to have given him my dad's name. I know he would have really loved being a grandfather.
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| Just like Simba! |
My hospital stay was like a relaxing spa vacation (except the infected incision part, of which I will spare you the details- yuck), punctuated by 45 minute visits from my LOUD family (sorry, neighbors) who brought Quinn and I lots of love, and soup and pastries from ABP, because hospital food is definitely not spa-like. This also included a self-imposed Facebook hiatus which ended up lasting a couple of weeks (want to see people freak out? don't post on FB for days after everyone knows you just had a baby). This was my "one last time" and I wanted to enjoy every minute without being on my phone all day.
The best part of being an "experienced" new mom is that for the most part, everyone in the hospital leaves you alone. They refer to you as "the easy patient". There is a certain amount of respect people have for grand multiparious moms- nobody will dare try to tell you how to take care of your baby at this point. The nurses ask YOU when you want to do things like get up and walk around, and we have fun conversations about other things besides childbirth. There is no lactation consultant toiling around when the amount of time you've spent breastfeeding your other babies exceeds half a decade. On day 3 when the baby loses 10% of his birth weight? NBD! He'll gain it back! The residents didn't even bother me too much during their 4:30 am rounds (or maybe I was just too busy sleeping to notice).
Quinn was worth every ache and pain and the week of flu-like symptoms leading up to his birth. He was worth messing up my trip to Spain with his first trimester yuckiness (I ate all the uncured jamon and soft cheese anyway, oh well). He was worth all the nights I fell asleep on the couch or in bed with the girls because I was just too damn exhausted to function past 6pm. He was worth resigning and checking out of everything - school, volunteer work and other useless activities. This turned out to be the best gift I could have given myself, because I can now step back and really evaluate what is worth my time (hint- none of it, really).
I won't lie- It is sad to truly be "done" with my reproductive years. As much as I wanted my imaginary little girl Alice, and as much as right now I feel like I can have 5 more because this birth was beautiful and unexpectedly easy, now is the time to step back and be grateful for my five perfect children who are smart and funny and annoying and listen to Foreigner and Elton John and the 4 Non-Blondes. I am so lucky. I mean, what if the sixth one liked Nickleback...or Coldplay? Why would I risk that?
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| The Power 5 |
So far, my non-motherhood related goals include things like wearing a pair of pants with a button, sleeping on my stomach, and not trying to pass off yesterday' s eye makeup for today's, but I'm sure I'll emerge from my 11 year mom cocoon soon enough. The unknown is scary, and so are the 500 emotions associated with being "Done", but honestly, never moving forward and having five more kids is an even scarier thought.
If only crazy people have big families, you can happily count me among the ranks of the (non-evangelical) crazies. I'm in love with the beautiful family Joe and I have created, and I'm excited to start living the highly anticipated cliche called the "next chapter".
Maybe one of these days I'll even stop googling "reverse tubal ligation" ;)
