Apparently my friends think of me as some kind of Baby Expert, because now Sara has a question for me (and you) about how to help out when a friend has a second baby. Although since the closest Sara comes to babies is when she scowls at them in the street I guess I AM an expert by comparison. Ha ha, just kidding. Sara only scowls at babies in restaurants and elevators like all normal people.

Here’s the question:
So my cousin’s wife (We’ll call her M to make this easier) is having a baby next Tuesday. My cousin is the one who does my taxes, so I owe him, like, an enormous fruit basket or a kidney or something. They have an almost-four-year-old daughter. What can I offer to do to help? Make food? Take the older kid to the museum for a few hours? If you or your hordes of minions have suggestions for how to help out the second-time parents, I’d appreciate it.

Here’s my advice:
Take the older kid. Taker her far far far away. Take her to a museum and to lunch and to a big space where she can run around and burn off energy. An almost-four-year-old should be a fun date for half a day or so and M will definitely appreciate being able to rest – a newborn is CAKE compared to a toddler. Food is good too, but I would suggest a pizza gift card or a delivery of something like brownies or, well, a fruit basket instead of a frozen meal. Big casserole trays take up a lot of space and if M has done any pre-baby cooking herself her fridge and freezer might be full. You could, of course, call ahead and say “Don’t make dinner Tuesday, I’m bringing something over” and deliver a fresh made meal (or maybe have a nice local Chinese restaurant deliver a fresh made meal) because that saves on both the trouble of making dinner AND the sink full of making-dinner dishes – for some reason, dishes are the absolute hardest thing for me to stay on top of as a mother of 2. Even worse than laundry.

Here’s the important part: when you DO go over to deliver food/pick up their child/offer a kidney, DON’T STAY. Keep it to 2 minutes tops. Don’t sit on their couch, don’t use their bathroom, don’t stay for a meal, don’t so anything that would require M to feel the need to apologize for her unwashed dishes and dirty floors and sweatpants. As much as I loved having people stop by to visit I died a little inside every time the doorbell rang because of the state of my kitchen counters. They were SHAMEFUL. I was even more ashamed of my dirty kitchen than I was of wearing pajamas at 3 pm and no makeup and greasy hair – because what was I doing with my time if it wasn’t making myself presentable OR loading the dishwasher? I AM A LAZY FAILURE.

So. In short: help with the older kid. Drop off fruit basket. When you see M, say “You look so great! Your baby is adorable! Your toddler was SO well behaved at the museum! She clearly has awesome parents!”

Personally, I would find that even better than a kidney. And that’s coming from someone who could actually use one.

How about you, friends? What was the MOST HELPFUL thing someone did for you after having a baby?

I feel like I’ve been involved in a lot of conversations recently about choosing – or not choosing – to have a second child. On the one hand, first babies are a big deal and nothing changes your life more than having one. Going from childless to being parent may be the biggest adjustment a person can make. I mean, it’s not like you get to try dating a bunch of babies to find the right one or do a trial run by living together first before you decide to make it permanent. Even if you stole rented borrowed a baby from someone else it’s totally different when you know they’re yours to keep. You gotta make sure you don’t screw those suckers up because you’re the one who’s going to be dealing with the aftermath for the next 60+ years.

So in the grand scheme of things, adding another baby shouldn’t be such a big deal. You’ve already got the stuff. You’ve got a little hands-on experience. You’ve figured out what works for you and what doesn’t. And yet somehow adding 1 new baby to 1 toddler-sized baby = 5x as much laundry. 5x as much crying. 5x as many sleepless nights. 5x as many bad days. It takes 5x as much time to leave the house or take a shower or make dinner. Things you really enjoyed with one baby – like grocery shopping – are suddenly impossible. With a toddler in the seat, where does the baby go?! Do you take them out of the bucket and wear them? Even if they’re sleeping at it’s 4 degrees outside and it means standing next to the car shoving them into the Moby while the toddler screeches? Do you put the bucket in the cart and only buy as many groceries as you can fit around them and then face the wrath of the bagger at checkout? (So far, my solution is to only shop when I can take one kid – or no kids – but that’s not going to last forever.)

Of course, you also get 5x as much love, which totally makes up for that other stuff. Most days.

You get to see how big and smart and grown up your older baby is and you can’t believe it. All those milestones that you breezed by months ago are suddenly seem new again – the walking, the talking, the feeding himself. The presence of a brand new baby lump makes everything a toddler does so much MORE. More fun, more amazing, more exciting, more louder (I know it’s not a word, but it is MORE LOUDER).  He’s not a baby anymore and yet he is YOUR baby and you want him to stay small and grow up all at the same time because the growing is so much fun to watch and experience but how can you stand the thought that one day he won’t need you at all??

Then there’s the baby, the teeny tiny fresh baked baby to nurse and change and rock and nurse and change and rock again. There are no socks on the planet tiny and stretchy enough to stay on her feet. She doesn’t smile at you or laugh at you yet but she sleeps best tucked into your armpit and the warmth of her body is practically the same as hearing her say “I love you mama”. You get to look forward to all the milestones again and you can’t wait for them to get here but you also want her to stay a tiny lump forever because all the growing is just too much for your heart to handle and maybe too much for your body to handle too. What happens when they can BOTH run away?

Because now she’s crying from the bedroom and you have shampoo in your hair and the toddler just pulled off his diaper and the washing machine is buzzing and you forgot to buy milk and oh no does that mean you HAVE to take them both to the grocery store? Hurry hurry better get going no time to slow down grab some breakfast throw some peanut butter at the toddler and oh crap the baby needs to be fed.

So you sit down and relax and snuggle the little baby and start to enjoy the moment. Then the bigger baby wiggles up next to you and lays his head on your shoulder and sighs and your heart EXPLODES into a million zillion pieces you stop wondering how you’re going to handle two babies and wonder instead how you ever lived without them.

I can honestly say that I was TOTALLY UNPREPARED for life with a newborn – mostly because apparently my first child wasn’t a human baby at all but some sort of puking, crying, fussing, alien monster who refused to nurse, stressed us out like crazy with jaundice, and generally made life miserable for at least his first four months of life. Looking back now, E and I are both going “Wow, we REALLY should have complained more to the doctor about that puking thing because obviously we were clueless about normal human babies”.

(Although honestly, we mentioned it ALL THE TIME and all we got was “Meh, some babies throw up a lot“, even from my lactation consultant. Clearly it wasn’t normal but since he was gaining weight no one cared how miserable it made everything in regards to our home life. If I hadn’t spent so much time doing frickin’ laundry the first time around maybe I would have gotten more sleep and not been quite so…well, horrible to everyone. Especially E. It was really sucky y’all.)

THIS baby is an angel. I would take a dozen of these babies. She spends all her time sleeping, only waking herself up with hilariously loud poops to get a new diaper, nurse for a while and then cuddle with anyone who holds her. She falls asleep again without any complicated shushing/swaddling/burping/dancing/begging/crying rituals in her swing or the (broken so it doesn’t actually bounce) bouncy seat or the co-sleeper or lying on the floor. She only requires one outfit a day and 90% of the laundry is a result of my overactive milk ducts and their ability to soak through anything in .43 seconds and not projectile baby puke.  When the baby nurse came to visit last week Caroline had already gained back all but 4 oz of her birth weight and I’m going to go ahead an predict by her 2 week checkup she’s already closer to 10 lbs than 8.

In further attempts to be absolutely nothing like her brother, Caroline has perhaps the world’s strongest latch and no doubts about using it to suck on pretty much anything (I’m hoping this is a good omen when it comes time to introduce a bottle). I’ve had to drag out my old nipple shield to deal with the tenderness and bruising – nothing serious or horrifying, but when she cluster feeds for two hours straight the pinching gets to toe-curling levels of painful. It’s not anyone’s fault – I don’t need a link to “how-to-get-a-better-latch” videos or whatever – just a result of her mouth being small and my engorgement being massive and a few lazy nursing sessions that did a little damage. Fortunately, my body remembered it WASN’T feeding a whole litter of babies this time around and I’m already back to normal nursing sized boobs instead of GIANT PORN STAR WHO STAPLED THESE BASKETBALLS TO MY CHEST??? sized boobs.

ALSO: I have a tip for sore nipples that doesn’t involve buying those super expensive gel pads I loved so much last time. Tea bags. Seriously. The baby nurse suggested it (she’s also an LC) and it’s amazing. Just steep two tea bags in hot water, let them cool off and stick them on your nipples. The tannic acid in the tea combined with the coolness helps soothe the bruising and pinching. The internet backs me up on this with science but my nipples back me up even more with “OMG THANK YOU”.

MORE ALSO: In the debate between “No, breastfeeding should NEVER hurt” and “A little nipple soreness can be normal while you’re adjusting” I am officially in the later camp. I know the difference between a good latch and a bad latch and even when we have it PERFECT I get a little sore after 30+ minutes of constant nursing. It’s definitely improving though, and I bet in 2 weeks I don’t even remember what I was complaining about.

As for the rest of my I-just-had-a-baby recovery, I can barely tell I just had a baby. I hesitate to say that I am AWESOME at giving birth (because someone awesome at giving birth could probably do it naturally in a wheat field at sunset instead of with an epidural) but my BODY is certainly prepared for labor and delivery pushing out an 8+ lbs baby, even if my brain is not prepared for that kind of pain. Like I said in my birth story, even my above average baby didn’t do any damage. She did so LITTLE damage in fact that I don’t even pee my pants when I sneeze anymore, something I was doing at 9 months pregnant. I KNOW. IT’S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE. The worst part of my recovery was actually the stupid Tdap booster they gave me in the hospital that made my left arm practically useless for two full days and the rhogam shot I got in my left hip that hurt almost as much. That soreness combined with my milk coming in made me want to just hide under the covers and not let anyone touch me ever again – especially a toddler who thinks “jump on mommy” is the best game ever.

Oh but THEN I got another kidney infection, less than 24 hours after being discharged. I spiked a fever in the evening and another in the middle of the night but held off on calling the doctor until office hours and then talked them into letting me do outpatient lab work to confirm (although REALLY? I know what a kidney infection feels like by now. Swearies) and calling in antibiotics to my pharmacy rather than possibly readmitting me. I did NOT want to go back to the hospital, especially with a newborn nursling. I feel infinitely better after almost a week of antibiotics. But this probably means I should reschedule my March kidney stone removal appointment to some time sooner or the infections might keep happening and that doesn’t seem fun.

And now that I’ve told you how well everything is going, don’t be surprised when I take it ALL BACK next week. It’s the first law of blogging and I just broke it. I hope you’re happy internet.

Despite the circumstances being totally different, I could pretty much just repost Little Evan’s birth story here and go take a nap for the next half hour instead of writing Caroline’s. But the poor girl is already getting the second baby short stick in so many ways (a wardrobe of hand-me-downs! no baby book! unfinished nursery! I left her sleeping on the floor for 20 minutes last night while I checked my email went to the bathroom!) it’s not worth the therapy bills I’m going to be paying in 16 years. So here’s the story of how Caroline Noelle joined us.

I was NOT expecting to have this baby early, despite saying “Oh I think I’m having her early” about four bazillion times a day for the last 9 months. It’s one of those lies pregnant women tell themselves because it makes the pregnancy easier – like “Oh I’m sure this weight will come right off when I’m nursing!” I was REALLY not expecting to be induced, both because I had no problems going into labor with my first baby and because right up until the kidney stones/infection/hospitalization (and even during all that) Baby Girl showed no signs of distress or problems or largeness or any other reason for needing to make an early exit. I am excellent at being pregnant (despite the CONSTANT COMPLAINING but hey, that’s my right while I’m incubating another human – I’m pretty sure it’s in the Constitution and everything) and my blood pressure/weight gain/blood tests have always been right on track. The only time a doctor mentioned induction was a jokey “Don’t worry we can get that little tax deduction out before January 1st, no problem!”

So when I went in for my 38 week checkup on December 16th I wasn’t expecting to get the Concerned Face from my midwife over my elevated blood pressure, followed by orders for bloodwork and instructions to come back the next day for another check. I CLEARLY wasn’t expecting the next day’s appointment to land in me L&D all evening after my liver function numbers showed signs of pre-eclampsia and my blood pressure got even higher since I brought nothing with me besides my phone – not even knitting, and I never go ANYWHERE that might take a while without my knitting. After talking my way out of starting the induction immediately (it was scheduled for 5 pm Saturday) I spent Friday night and Saturday morning finishing as much last minute stuff as I could (including baking & shipping two kinds of fudge and two kinds of cookies for Madame Menu’s Holiday Cookie Swap because if there is one thing I’m dedicated to it is COOKIES) and staring dazedly at walls thinking “OMG I AM NOT READY FOR THIS!!” When my OB called Saturday morning to say she wanted me in ASAP instead of waiting until 5 I practically went into shock and flitted around half-finishing the four thousand things I suddenly felt an urgent need to accomplish. I finished exactly zero things.

At about noon on Saturday E and Little Evan dropped me off at L&D (by dropped me off I mean “came up to the floor and helped me get settled” – not “pushed me out the car door at laughed as they sped away”) so they could pick up Mom at the train station in Mystic at 3:45. All my nurse friends came in to say hi and congratulate me on being on the floor to have a baby instead of a kidney stone and I basked a little in my semi-celebrity status. It meant I got the biggest room, including the bathroom with a full sized shower rather than a teeny tiny corner nook, something I HATED when I was there for four days.

The floor must have been kind of busy (the rooms are REALLY soundproof so I can never tell) because it took a while for the nurse to come in and start my IV then a little while longer for the doctor to come in and check me to determine I was still at about 1.5 cm – the same as I was in the office on Friday, but soft and more than 50% effaced, which put me in pretty good shape to induce. They started me on the lowest level of pitocin right around 3 pm.  My blood pressure was still high but I felt fine and was still mostly just annoyed that everyone was making such a big deal out of what was probably nothing. E got back to the hospital around 4:45-ish after picking up Mom and leaving her and Little Evan at the house. Then my lab work came back with the protein in my urine at 4+, which is the highest it can be and meant I officially had pre-eclampsia. So…not exactly nothing after all. Suddenly my doctor’s Concerned Face turned into a So There’s A Risk You Might Have A Seizure During Labor Face, which meant she was ordering magnesium sulfate in addition to the pitocin. Thanks to my commenters, I actually knew what that was (yah internets!) and was prepared for her suggestion. I also knew it was used to slow down labor which meant more pitocin was going to be ordered even though they’d been slowly turning it up for a while and I was definitely feeling the contractions.

Then several things happened at once – the OB broke my water to make things go faster, the nurse started the magnesium on a pump so I was stuck at a cord’s distance from my bed and they raised the pitocin to about a 12 (out of 20) which made it necessary for me to clutch my blankets and breath through each contraction instead of just squinting a little. I also had to get up and change gowns since the water-breaking resulted in what can only be described as a deluge that had both the nurse and the OB literally JUMPING BACK away from the bed. The words “it was like a fountain!” were used. I then managed to produce a series of smaller fountains pretty much every time I had a contraction for the next few hours. I’m talented. After I got back in bed, I spent some time contemplating the miracle of life updating Twitter and wondering how much longer I had to wait before I got my epidural, which by this point wasn’t so much something I was considering-if-things-got-there as something I-absolutely-no-question-wanted. The doctor checked and said I was at 3 cm would you like me to call the anesthesiologist? YES. PLEASE.

E decided he should probably go get some dinner while the chances of missing the birth of his child for a turkey sandwich were still pretty good. He came back about 12 seconds after they finished my epi. I think he timed it like that on purpose, although I don’t blame him – I’ve now had two epis and a spinal and still NEVER seen the needles they use. The anesthesiologist and the nurses and I messed around with pillows and blankets and tilting me to the side until the numbness evened out nicely – tingly legs, no pain and just a mild sensation of tightness during contractions. The super nice anesthesiologist even gave me a little extra loading dose to make sure it was going to stick.

At 8 pm my doctor’s rotation was over and I got another doctor from the practice. I was NOT super thrilled to learn it was Man Doctor, the same one who refused to believe my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad, at least an 8 on the scale of 1-10, something is WRONG WITH ME PAIN was anything besides a pulled muscle. So, yeah, not thrilled. But after looking at my vitals for the last five hours (blood pressure still only borderline, no other symptoms) and my slow progression he decided if my next blood pressure was low he was going to pull the magnesium and stop the medications (and my body) from fighting against themselves so maybe I could actually have a baby some time in the next day. I decided to forgive him for the kidney stone. I got off the magnesium around 9 and at 10:30 E and I both decided to get some sleep. We drifted off to the soothing sounds of people drowning and freezing to death, thanks to Titanic (commercial free!) on our tv for background noise.

A little after 1:30 my nurse came in to do vitals again and asked how my contractions felt. I told her I had been sleeping so soundly I didn’t really notice them at all, which probably meant my epidural was up a little high since last time I could feel them better. She said “Well they’re pretty close together so just be sure to ring me if you feel the need to push – but don’t worry, I’ll be back in 15 minutes to check again.”

Which is why at 1:45 am I was sitting quietly in bed, reflecting on how amazing it was that I would soon be the mother of two and trying to enjoy a few more quiet pre-newborn minutes when I suddenly felt the baby’s head SLAM into my lady parts. Like, BOOM TIME TO HAVE A BABY. NOW. I was once again reminded why all those women on “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant” end up giving birth on the toilet. (Interestingly enough, not once did I worry I might actually poop during labor and I certainly didn’t care if I did. That’s definitely a first-time-mom thing.)

If I had been sensible, I would have pressed the call button right then and there but I was so determined to finish all my reflecting and quietness and savoring of the moment that I just breathed really hard through the contractions and waited for my nurse. But when the breathing turned into clenching every muscle in my lower half as hard as I could so I didn’t end up DELIVERING MY OWN BABY I caved in a rang the desk to send someone in.

Of course, since I had just told my nurse I wasn’t feeling anything she didn’t really understand why I was acting all urgent about the situation and wandered off to find another nurse who was apparently the expert dilation checker. I somehow refrained from shouting at her that dilating was the least of my problems since I was pretty sure she could see the color of the baby’s eyes by this point. Expert dilation checker nurse took one look and ran off (apparently she wasn’t interested in catching a baby right then) but reappeared with the baby nurse and Man Doctor a few seconds later. I would have enjoyed a chance to be smug about my rightness but was way way too busy focusing on not pushing to muster up more than a tiny “I-told-you-so” face.

By 2:20 they were breaking the bed down into a labor bed and by 2:25 they FINALLY told me I was allowed to push. The nurses kept trying to help me arrange myself and my legs and adjust things but all I wanted them to do was leave me alone – the epidural was working to manage the pain but the stretching and pressure were VERY VERY present and I had no problems lifting my legs or scootching down so I could just please, finally, have my baby. Man Doctor said “So how long did you push with your first one?” and when I said “Seven times” he said “I think we might beat that this time”.

The nurse asked if I remembered how to push or if I wanted to practice. I told her I remembered. Two pushes later Baby Girl’s head was out and I felt SO MUCH BETTER. E told me later she was face down and the doctor had to turn her, which is why it took me three more pushes to deliver the rest of her. One of the nurses flopped her up on my chest and my first thought was “Oh my gosh, SHE’S HUGE!” They tried to clean her off and let me hold her for a minute but got kind of concerned when she didn’t start to scream – just a few tiny baby yells and some mewing. She was also really blue-ish (which ended up not being from lack of oxygen but from smashing her face into my pelvis on her way out) and only got a 5 for her first APGAR. Once the baby nurse checked her over and they realized she was awake and breathing and happy – just quiet – she got a 9 for her second. While they finished cleaning her off and wrapping her up Man Doctor informed me he was going to do one quick stitch but my epi was still on so I didn’t feel anything. After a nurse said Baby Girl was 8 lbs 5 oz he was pretty impressed at both my lack of damage and the short pushing time, but mentioned I shouldn’t grow the next one much bigger. Sounds like a challenge to me.

Once the baby was out they started unhooking me from stuff – first the monitors, then the epi (they had taken out the catheter before I started pushing), then they put a hep-lock on my IV and I was free. I could stand after about 30 minutes and they let me get up and use the bathroom (amazingly painlessly! a miracle!!) and get changed while E held the baby and we discussed her name. He was still pretty set on Piper but I think watching me give birth gave me the edge I needed to get him to cave on Caroline. She just looks more like a Caroline to me and after a few days with the name we can’t imagine calling her anything else.

I tried nursing a few times and she had a strong suck and a good latch but was too sleepy to last more than a few seconds at a time. I let the nurses take her down to the nursery for monitoring with strict instructions to BRING HER BACK if she made hungry noises or if they wanted her to try eating again and E and I both crashed – after all, 4 am is still 4 am, even if you just had a baby. ESPECIALLY if you just had a baby. They brought Caroline back around 7 and I got her to nurse for the hospital’s requested 15-20 minute stretch before we just hung out and cuddled and I admired the fact that I had grown not only another whole human being but such a totally adorable one. E slept until around 9, then went home to grab Little Evan and Mom so they could come meet her. The rest of my time on L&D was spent complaining about how much I HATE their stupid beds and asking when I could go home. Since all my pre-eclampsia symptoms disappeared after birth they couldn’t really make me stay so by 11 am Monday I was packed and ready and headed out the door so the four of us could start our lives together as a family of four. So far it’s been fantastic, really honestly fantastic.

So! There you go! Even with the unwanted induction and the Serious Faces and the magnesium sulfate and the Man Doctor I still think that was an excellent experience. The basics – 12 hours of labor, took a nap, woke up, short time pushing – were the same as with Little Evan. I guess technically it was even shorter in all because I started from not being in labor rather than regular timed contractions. Thanks to everyone who told me not to worry about induction – your reassurances kept me calm when I could have been super stressed. And thank you to everyone for all the congratulations, kind words and compliments on Caroline’s cuteness. I promise to provide as many Fresh Baked Baby pics as possible for the next few weeks!

Since THAT was super wicked insanely long, I’ll save Baby #2: The Aftermath for another post. Don’t worry, it’s not as terrifying as it sounds.

Not right now, but probably before the weekend is over. My blood pressure was still high today, combined with some elevated numbers for my liver function (I should really pay more attention to WHAT exactly those numbers are and/or mean, right? But when the doctor is frowning at me my brain goes blank) means my OB was concerned enough to send me up for a couple of hours of monitoring in L&D. I have absolutely no other symptoms of pre-eclampsia – no swelling, no headaches, no blurred vision, no protein in my urine – and my blood pressure STILL isn’t quite high enough to be official pre-e (at least according to Wikipedia) so I managed to talk them into letting me out of labor & delivery tonight. If there was a record speed for getting your pants on, I totally broke it on my way out the door.

As long as I keep feeling fine, I’m free until 5 pm tomorrow, at which point they’re starting my induction.

That’s right, I said 5 PM TOMORROW. SATURDAY. Which might even be TODAY by the time you read this. SOON. My mind is having some trouble processing this time frame, in the same way my mind would have trouble processing the entire room turning upside down and all the furniture sticking to the ceiling.

The baby, for the record, looks FINE and still doesn’t care that her mama might be sick. Girls, I tell ya, trouble right from the start.

But now I have approximately 22 hours to finish up my Super Important List Of Things To Do Before The Baby Comes, including getting these boxes of Goodwill donations out of my kitchen, organizing baby clothes, finishing the nursery and picking my mom up from the train station. Because I CANNOT have this baby until she gets back, despite the amazing collection of frozen meals now filling our basement freezer thanks to my awesome friends from Stroller Strides and E being on stand down from work. I need my mom here to feel prepared and relaxed and calm and all of the good things one should feel when bringing a new life into the world. I’m already nervous enough just hearing the words “induction” and “pre-eclampsia”, I don’t need to feel overwhelmed by the huge pile of unwashed laundry and the dirty bathrooms and the fact that I STILL haven’t been to the grocery store since I was sick. E is helpful and all but really? His idea of a clean house means you can walk from the front to the back without tripping. Mom understands CLEAN.

So, internets, wish me luck for Saturday night/Sunday. And no more guesses in the birthday pool, since it looks like the weekend is for sure. But the 19th is my mother-in-law’s birthday and also the day E and I got engaged 7 years ago so not a bad day to have a baby overall. If you want to follow along on Twitter I’ll be over there as much as I can & you don’t need to have an account. Just look at my page here and try to focus on the tweets that don’t have an “@” somebody in front of them, since you’ll only see half the conversation. That is, if you’re interested in live birth updates. If not, come back Monday or Tuesday for fresh-baked bebeh pictures.

P.S. I would really appreciate happy, it-wasn’t-so-bad induction comments since the majority of the stories I’ve heard are not so good. Even with the drugs everyone’s labor seems REALLY long and hard – not to mention my mom’s induced labor with me which was long & hard and DIDN’T involve drugs.

P. P.S. I thought I had more time to ask for these, but if anyone would be willing to write & share their own birth stories while I take a few days off that would be awesome. You can be a blogger or not a blogger or have it written already and send me a link or write it now or write it in the next two days. Just send me an email at bebehblog@gmail.com so I can post it here. It doesn’t have to be rainbows and butterflies or involve meadows and wheat fields (although if it does PLEASE sent it), I just want to hear your story and take a few days off to, you know, give birth myself. And everybody loves a birth story.