Next work in progress

The First Few Days






Two Weeks Before Evelyn Is Born:



Doc: I really want it to be just the three of us for a while.

Me: Ok, and I just REALLY want my mom to be there.

Doc: I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want some time to be our own little family before everyone shows up and wants to hold her. This is a big deal for us. I think it’s fair for me to want that. Maybe after a week.

Me: A week? Are you crazy. I’ll give you 48 hours. That’s fair. 2 days.

Doc: Ok. 2 days.



12 Hours after Evelyn’s Birth:



Doc: Why isn’t your mom here yet ?

Me: She’s driving as fast as she can. She’ll be here by 1….I hope.

Doc: I’m so tired. Can’t…stay….awake…..



Downside of a homebirth and having your baby all to yourself? No sleep. None. Those assholes in scrubs I mentioned earlier? They aren’t going to take care of my baby for me so I can rest. Nope. Doc and I are running on 4 hours of sleep to last us two days. Evelyn isn’t in a nursery. She’s right there next to me. After being up all night and all day in labor, I was ready to sleep for a week. Evelyn however, after resting for 9 months, decided to see the world, starting now. No newborn nap for her.

Doc stayed up as long as he could and I stayed up most the night checking on her every 10 seconds to make sure she was still breathing. All I wanted was my mom to show up and take her between nursing times so I could sleep. Just a little sleep. That’s all I needed. That 48 hour period of just our little family, could have been 48 minutes. 48 minutes would have been just fine. What I needed was for my superhuman mother to show up and save my ass.

My mother is my hero. She’s also crazy. Her first date with my father was a motorcycle race that resulted in him crashing, going to the hospital, and being bedridden for a week. She biked 100 miles through the West Texas Desert when she was 50. She also hiked the Pecos Wilderness 8 months pregnant. Interestingly enough, she also knew how to make the best spiced pecans in the world every Christmas and was a sugar cookie genius. She was like Martha Stewart meets Juliet Gordon Low meets Davie Crocket. Maintenance extraordinaire and mother of five, she was my inspiration for self-sufficiency.





My mom doesn’t have what you might call, sympathy. She lives by the 48 hour grace period rule. If you have not fully recovered in 48 hours, tough shit. Get over it.

Evelyn latched on, and the raw, sharp pain that shot through me made me grind my teeth loud enough I knew she could here. I tried to shut my eyes hard enough that you wouldn’t see the tears forming.

“Is her tongue underneath your nipple?” Doc asked, glancing back down at the “how to latch” section of my breastfeeding guidebook.

“Yeeeessssss” I tried to get the whole word out without my voice shaking as Evelyn guzzled.

“Maybe she’s not opening her mouth wide enough.”

“She’s latched right….it just hurts.”

“Well, are you sure that you-“

“Just stop. Honey. She has been latching right and as you can see….it’s not okay.”

My mom crossed her arms, “I’m sorry honey. I know it’s horrible. I remember sitting there crying thinking ‘OH MY GOD’. It gets worse before it gets better.”

Worse? How can it get worse? My mom and husband are staring at my cracked, sore nipples and I’m trying to feed my baby but fighting the urge to cry like a freaking baby. It doesn’t get worse. It can’t possibly get worse.

It got worse.