Category Archives: Porter

as in, Magoo.

On labor, drugs and my delivery dream team – Part II

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(click here to see Part I).

I’d like to dedicate this second installment to my mother and my husband. For putting up with each other. For putting up with me. And for being even more amazing the second time than you were the first time.

Looking back over my life, I have made the stark observation that some of the best things I have ever accomplished were achieved only after doing them horribly wrong the first time. And if you read Part I, I am sure you can see where I am going with this. Let’s just say that if there was a Labor & Delivery Awards Show, I would be taking home the golden uterus statuette for Most Improved Performance.

My body’s total disregard for the definition of due date – as in, the date your body is supposed to actually give you the baby; hence the word due – was no different the second time around than it was the first. And as week 40 came and went, we began going through the paces of ultrasounds and check-ups every other day. I really did have high hopes of getting to go into labor on my own, but with each check-up, my cervex gave us the same answer: Don’t call us, We’ll call you. As it turned out? They never called.

As week 41 turned to week 42, we began talking the I-word (for those of you not up on pregnancy lingo, that would be IN-DUC-TION). And so, after a rant to my midwife about my experience with cervidel (or as I remember it: that heinous stuff that tried to kill me), I was scheduled to be hooked up to a petocin drip first thing on Monday morning. Unless my stubborn-ass body decided to change its mind and actually give me this child of its own free will, this would be my last two days of being pregnant. Use them wisely. (for those of you not up on pregnancy lingo, that would be SLEEP.)

I still had a nagging sadness over the fact that I would never enjoy the opportunity of going into labor on my own, but as I would later realize, I got the next best thing. You see, it took my body FOR-EVER to respond to the petocin. Like clockwork, the nurse would come in every half hour or so to increase the drip and monitor my pain scale. Every second or third visit, I’d tell her that my pain had progressed from 0 to a .667 because of my husband’s inability to occupy himself without annoying me.

We passed 6 hours, waiting for my body to finally realize that it was not going to win this battle. We divvied up my “clear foods” tray (I got the green Jell-O and the popsicle), we watched TV, and Steve did his best to document the occasion in photographs (mostly taking photos of himself). And, slowly, hour after hour, my contractions began to finally arrive with increasing regularity and intensity, until I all of a sudden realized, “Holy Crap, I’m in labor.” It was around this time that I demanded the TV be turned off (sorry, no Food Network this time), Steve was directed to stop taking pictures of himself and my mother effortlessly eased into her role as the breathing Nazi. With my team at my side, we proceeded to spend the next 4 hours showing these people how it is done.

I breathed when I was supposed to breathe, I relaxed when I was supposed to relax, and whined when I felt I was owed it: “5 centimeters?!? That’s it? I can’t go another 5 centimeters! I’ll die!” As you might guess, the midwife was not particularly sympathetic.

Within an hour, we heard it on the fetal monitor like a giant flick on a microphone: My water broke. So that’s what it feels like. Everyone did a little dance – except me, who all of a sudden realized that we had crossed some invisible line in which we went from jogging to running, and that at the rate things had been moving, transition was imminent. Oh God, not transition. I’m not ready for transition. SOMEBODY STOP THE TRANSITION. I’LL DIE!

The pace of things began to escalate, and I remembered that all those hours ago when my pain was at a .667 that I had confirmed that yes, if the situation called for it, I would like to request one of those lovely Fentanyl shots. This was one of those times. But here’s the thing. It just wasn’t as good this time. I got the shot and waited for the magic, but it was marginal, at best. And instead of getting the lovely reprieve I was looking for, I instead found myself focused on the fact that this right here? This was it. Suck it up, cause there’s nothing to save you now.

So we breathed, and we focused, and we made low-pitched moans instead of high pitched whines, and then I started to realize that the only way this relentless loop of life-sucking contractions was going to ever be over was if I got to push this damn baby out. So I began pestering them. Can I push now? Please? How about now? How about now? 10 yet? IT HAS TO BE 10! PLEASE LET IT BE 10!

I don’t remember the exact moment that they let me start pushing, but I will forever remember it as the moment that I was gloriously granted the beginning of the end. Unlike the first time around when I spent 2 1/2 hours of trying to force out a semi-wedged baby, this time I was given the clear-for-landing signal, and 20 minutes later a gooey little 9 pound 6 ounce, vernix-covered Walstonling was laid on my chest. My son.

natalie porter

Within 10 minutes, Celene and Thad showed up with Stella, and Dore couldn’t have been even 5 minutes behind that…everyone standing witness to our new and improved selves.

steve natalie stella porter

Here is a short clip of Porter, being processed for intake. (thanks, Thad.)

Speaking in tongues less these days…sort of.

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I am terribly tardy in reporting that Porter has – over the last month or two – begun talking. But only if you qualify talking as a semi-intelligible, mono-syllabic, finger-pointing bark delivered with all the delicateness of a drill-seargant. Cwy! (cry) Dwibe! (drive) Kickle! (tickle) are all games that fall under the “I Say Jump, You Say, How High?” category. Where the “I” is Porter and the “You” are the rest of us dim-witted creatures whose job it is to peel his grapes.

Last weekend, while Steve’s parents were here for a visit, they were each subjected to – literally – hours of sitting in the car while Porter flipped every switch and button he could find. This game of Dwibe! is not a new one, and we spend a great amount of energy to keep him out of eyeshot of either car – lest he decide he wants to spend the next 2 hours rearranging the glove-box. Last week, I naively let him go out into the front yard just as Steve was driving up. After enduring 15 minutes of The Angry we finally just put him in the car with the intention of keeping an eye on him while we went in and out of the house. And I guess this is the part of the story where I have to share that, the car was parked on the street in front of our house, and at some point we were both inside the house long enough for our neighbor to walk by and notice a toddler standing in the driver’s seat of an unattended car. Imagine our supreme delight at opening the door to see our sweet grandmotherly neighbor holding our child and looking at us like we were Britney Spears. Yeah, that good.

But you see, this is how we roll these days: Porter tells us what he wants, we acknowledge that we understand what he wants, then he unleashes The Angry when we don’t give him what he wants.

Porter: Standing in front of the open freezer 5 minutes before bedtime, “WAAAAAAKKKKKLLLLLLLE!”
Me: You want waffle?
Porter: Matter-of-factly, “yeah.”
Me: But Buddy, we are all done with dinner. Waffle tomorrow, okay?
Porter: “NOOOOOOOOOO! WAAAAAKKKKKKLLLLE! NONONO!”

And just like that, he is fully prone, face-down on the floor – just me, him and the unattainable bedtime waffles.

For the most part, his vocabulary is based around a set of commands, and so we have been trying very hard to expand it to include the more benign aspects of conversation. For example, we are spending quite a bit of time these days on colors – progress being measured in oddly triumphant milestones. No longer is everything being referred to as “Geen!”, but instead we are now working with the wildly displaced associations of all the colors.

Me: “Porter, what color is this?”
Porter: “Lelow”
Me: “No, blue.”
Me: “Porter, what color is this?”
Porter: “Geen”
Me: “No, Orange.”
Me: “Porter, what color is this?”
Porter: “Wedt”
Me: “No, purple.”
Me: “Porter, what color is this?”
Porter: “Back”
Me: “No, green.”
Me: “Porter, what color is this?”
Porter: “Lelow”
Me: “No, blue.”

Woo Hoo! 0 for 5. I should have asked him to go double or nothing.

I leave you with a photo of Porter in his favorite sweatshirt. This is a sweatshirt that came as part of a set I hastily bought at Ross, not realizing it had a big-rig emblazoned on the back, with the fanciful title of “Highway Haulin”. Once I realized what I had done, I figured I’d just donate the sweatshirt and keep the jeans. Little did I know that this would singularly become the most requested item in his entire wardrobe. He INSISTS on wearing this thing every single day. I have gotten over my embarrassment of sending him to school in his new redneck-inspired ensembles, and have instead decided to embrace our hillbilly roots. I think I lost my right to engage in any elitist behavior right about the time my neighbor felt the need to rescue our child left unattended in a car in front of our house.

porter

porter

Bluetooth, Baby

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Have I mentioned MY NEW MACBOOK? Well, along with all of its beautiful, sleek apple-liciousness, comes the ability to wirelessly pull the photos off my cell phone. Here are the sweet little pics of my baby boy I took just before his ear-tube procedure back in August. Although, the image of him in a baby-sized hospital gown will forever be burned into memory…

porter

porter

porter

Quality Family Time

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One of those days right around Christmas, Steve decided it would be a good idea to engage both of our children in the task of making bread. Yes, really. He has been doing this more and more lately – suggesting activities out loud, in front of the kids that he knows have a success rate hovering somewhere in the single digits. And when I say ‘success’ I don’t mean that the project reaches full completion, but that any of it gets completed without one or both children or parents experiencing complete emotional breakdown. He did it again this week, when he suggested that we do finger painting. Indoors. With both children. He might as well have just opened the knife drawer and told them to go for it. I also find it quite odd that it is he – the one with the irrational fear of messes – who suggests these activities. I can only imagine that it is akin to throwing someone out of a plane to cure their fear of heights.

After suggesting the whole finger painting fiasco activity, I told him it would require that I had a cocktail in my hand. That day, happy hour began at 3:00pm. Steve was mopping the floor within the first 15 minutes. He was rocking in the corner within 30.

The bread making digressed not so much because of the floury mess that was created, but rather due to the volatile nature of the participants. If you lean in close, you can hear the anguished cries of Porter’s protest from pretty much the first moment he joins in the process.

stella and porter
(click photo to see the entire set)