Excuse me, are you a new mom?

When you have a baby, you can't help trying to make eye contact or passively smiling at other women pushing a baby stroller. It's like learning to flirt all over again. Let's face it. All of a sudden, you're home all day and night with a newborn and after the initial adjustment period passes (for me after about 2 weeks), you want to get out. I started feeling a little cabin fever last week once my husband went back to work. And since pretty much everyone I know is at work during the daytime hours, I need to make some new mom friends.

Thankfully, I've been able to meet up with my prenatal yoga buddy a couple times in the past week to walk along the Hudson. We compare notes about our baby's sleep patterns and poop and spit up and boobs. And most importantly, we keep our sanity. I need to just start hitting on other moms in general. I see quite a few women pushing young babies along the River. What should my pick up line be? "Nice stroller! How about this weather?! How old is he? Are you a new mom too?".

I'm actually meeting another new mom for the first time on Friday for a walking date. I joined an online community group for West Village Parents and posted an open invite on the message boards calling other new moms to meet up. I've received a few replies from women who have recently had babies or are due this summer. So I'm online dating other moms I guess (it worked for my husband and me).

I searched Meetup.com and found a few other organized community events like baby story time at our local library or baby play time at an indoor play space. Plus, there's post-natal yoga class where moms bring their babies. My yoga friend also joined a walking group of downtown moms that I may crash one day soon. Obviously, these play dates benefit the moms more than the babies who are more than likely sleeping the whole time anyway. But I think as a new mom you just need to get out and talk to other adult human's sharing the same new experiences. 


Even though I have this list of potential things to do with my new baby, outings make me nervous at the same time. What if he starts crying or what if I have to breastfeed in public or what if I don't meet anyone I click with? It's scary and intimidating to be a new mom.


On the bright side, at least these groups, venues and resources exist for new moms in the city to take advantage of. That was one of my fears about being outside the city. I didn't want to feel isolated in the suburbs. Now I just need to take advantage of all the things above and work on my game picking up other moms. I need to get those digits!

The first time getting out

My precious bundle of joy is two and a half weeks old and every day is a learning experience. From birth to breast feeding to sleeping to soothing to pointing the penis down in his diaper so he doesn't pee out, each day presents a new challenge. But as I learn more about my baby and he learns more about the world, each day is easier than the day before.

The first time my husband and I attempted a real outing, the baby was 1 week old. I was terrified. I thought I was pushing a time bomb in the stroller that could detonate at any moment. We went to a diner for breakfast only 5 minutes from our apartment. I had the most insane anxiety about the baby waking up and screaming his head off. I wanted to order our meal as fast as possible and get the hell back to the safety of my cave. As the time passed without an explosion, I began to feel more comfortable. In fact, he never woke up in the restaurant despite the clanking dishes and people talking. After breakfast, we even went for a walk in the park to extend our time out of the house. Since that first outing, I try to get out of our apartment everyday to get some fresh air. It's good for me to not feel claustrophobic and interact with other adults. The hardest part is training myself to not feel scared to try new things with the baby.  I've learned that as long as he's eaten, I have about a 3 hour window to run around and the baby does not care one bit.


Whether for a casual walk or to run an errand, my baby loves the bounce and noise of city streets, which is great, because walking is how we get around our neighborhood in New York. We're also in a great location for walking to West Village restaurants, Washington Square Park, Hudson River Park, Union Square and Tribeca. We can walk nearly everywhere we need to go.


Additionally, I love my stroller! We chose the Uppa Baby Cruz, a smaller version of the Vista. It's tough enough for going up and down curbs and narrow enough to take indoors. (I think the Vista which is wider and has bigger jogger wheels would be too much for some of the small spaces in New York.) I also love the huge basket for my diaper bag or groceries or whatever. It's like my mini all-terrain vehicle!


I'm so thankful that I can just lay him in the stroller and GO versus the hassle of getting in and out of a car for every little errand. Another PRO of New York City life! I guess if you have a car, you don't know any better. But me for, it's just too easy to walk 5 minutes to go to lunch, the drug store, or Starbucks or 10 minutes to the Park or the River, or 15 minutes to the grocery store or Pediatrician. I never thought I would be happy without a car. I always thought a car was a must when you have a baby. Maybe I'll change my tune in the winter months, but right now walking is perfection!

I'm back... with a Birth Story!

Yay, I'm back! It's been a long month since my last post as I waited for my little bundle of blog material to arrive. I'm happy to report that labor was without complications and no where near as dramatic as you see on TV. Nonetheless, pushing a baby out is HARD! I compare it to climbing Mt. Everest and living to see another day. I feel like I accomplished the hardest thing I've ever done in my life!

It all started on Wednesday night, June 27th. After spending the day with my brother and sister in law, walking around the city and having lunch, I noticed I was bleeding at bed time. I called my Doctor who said to check in with her again in the morning if it persisted.

Around 6 am, under the advice of the Doctor, we went to the hospital so she could examine what was going on. I was having light contractions. They were about 6 minutes apart. It just felt like my stomach muscles contracting. It wasn't painful. It actually felt like the "practice" Braxton Hicks contractions that I had been experiencing the last few months of pregnancy. Of course, I had my "go bag" ready and we had lined up a friend to be dog-sitter for Summer Mae already.


In anticipation of the big day, I had joked that there are certain times of day you can't go into labor in NYC due to lack of taxis... morning rush hour, evening rush hour, shift change at 4pm, and if it is raining. Luckily, I avoided all of these scenarios and easily hailed a cab around 7 am. Easy - peasy! Another thing I worried about in advance was the route to the hospital. I didn't want a tour of mid-town and Times Square on the way to the hospital. It's about a 20 minute drive uptown and I did NOT want to drive through my personal HELL on the way to the hospital. But we simply asked the driver to take FDR highway on the East side and we were there in a snap!


I was admitted to Labor/Delivery and the Doctor suggested we induce labor since there was no definite cause for the bleeding and my pregnancy was full term. I could have gone home and labored naturally for a few more days I think but who wants to take the chance of waking up in a pool of blood. So we agreed and settled in for the long haul.

Thursday, June 29th happened to be the busiest day in Labor/Delivery so they didn't have a room for us. We were placed in the recovery area for about 12 hours before they had a delivery room available.
From 7 am to 1 pm, I was simply waiting around, hooked up to an IV and monitor to measure my contractions. Again my body was starting the process on its own but I was only 2 cm dilated (out of 10). So I was no where near ready to push a baby out. I was slightly uncomfortable. It felt like mild lower back cramps.

At 1 pm, they started the Pitocin, a drug used to induce contractions in order to make you dilate and start active labor. The dosage started at 1 cc and increased by 1 or 2 ccs every 20 min. Frankly, it was BORING! I was on Facebook and texting friends about the lack of excitement. One crappy thing about early labor is that you can't eat solid food once you start the IV to prevent major puking from a full stomach. So I was just on Facebook, eating popsicles, dreaming about a cheeseburger and wishing my body would get the show on the road.


About 2 hours into the Pitocin, the contractions became increasingly stronger. Laying down was way uncomfortable so I pretty much stayed on my feet. I was doing a lot of squatting and swaying to open up my hips.


Finally around 5 pm, we moved into a private labor/delivery room. It was pretty amazing actually. We were like taking photos of the view out our window over looking the East River and Roosevelt Island. The room was like a hotel with dark wood and really spacious. I didn't feel like I was in a hospital.

Around 6 pm and 15 ccs of Pitocin (max is 20 ccs), the real pain began. The contractions were coming one right on top of another like only one minute apart thanks to the drugs. I wanted to wait until I really couldn't take the pain to ask for an epidural in order to not slow down labor. Ask and you shall receive. The epidural came around 7 pm and it was great! I couldn't feel any pain in my back or stomach. But I wasn't totally numb. My skin had sensation and I could move my legs. It just numbed the contractions. When the anesthesiologist administered the epidural, it felt like a stabbing pain as they literally stuck my back with a needle but it was only for 10 seconds and then it was over. I will mention, I really loved my nurses at this moment. My baby daddy had to leave (a policy made after too many dads passed out watching the epidural being administered) so my nurse held my shoulders and comforted me.

After the epidural, we were just chilling and watching a First 48 marathon on A&E (yes, this is a reality murder series and my favorite show). We tried to get some rest and took naps.

At 3 am, the Doctor, who was MY actual Doctor throughout my pregnancy (before it was just another Doctor in the practice), examined me. I was still only 4 cm dilated so she broke my water using a long straw like tool to break the bag around the baby.

Now the real fun begins. Soon after she broke my water, I began having immense pain and they had to top off my Epidural with additional drugs. At least I knew something was going on down there! I called the nurse again shortly after to tell her that I was having HUGE pressure down there (TMI, but it's like you have to pass a huge poop whether you want to or not. You can't hold it in.). The Doctor checked me again and said I was totally dilated and could PUSH! What? Oh shit! I was not ready! I was scared! I went from 4 cm dilated to pushing in 2 hours. BTW, my husband held my leg as I was spread eagle and pushing but he looked at my face the whole time and just tried to talk to me. I have no idea what he was saying due to the fact I was a little distracted by the overwhelming situation. I'm sure he was supportive and at the least he did not annoy me.


The nurse said the average first delivery takes about an hour and half of pushing. The first hour was annoying because it was learning how to push with your vaginal muscles. You can't really practice that in advance. I felt the urge to push, the pressure, when the contractions hit but didn't feel the pain in my stomach or back thanks to the epidural. The slowest part of pushing was I had to push the baby under my pubic bone and into the birth canal to come out. I pushed as hard as I could and tried to practice calm breathing in between contractions coming about every 2 minutes.

Finally, his head was ready to come out. Those last 15 minutes of labor were EXTREMELY PAINFUL! Despite the epidural, there was no masking the pain of the baby coming out. I remember begging the Doctor to pull him out of me. But only I could do it.

Abracadabra! My son was born! They laid him on my belly and he was so cute! Seriously, he was pink and not even slimy. I think my husband expected a purple, cone head, alien baby but that is not what we got. One sweet thing I remember is my husband saying "We want to do skin to skin". That means they didn't take the baby away right away to measure him, but let him skin to skin on my chest so he could bond with his mom. Although I was a little out of it, my husband was thinking of what was best for the baby and me already and then I knew he was a Dad.