I am playing Three Truths and One Lie with Whimsy and minions this week.

We are now at the point where I tell you the stories behind each of the truths/lie from Tuesday’s post. Numero Dos:

“I can pop my back and pelvis by squeezing my butt muscles.”

True story.

Not much to say about this one.

When I was pregnant with Anneke, I had horrible terrible very bad symphysis pubis dysfunction. It happened again with my pregnancy with Griffon (to a much reduced degree) and again with Archer (worse than with Griffon, but better than with Anneke).

When I was pregnant with Archer, I realized serendipitously that I could cross my feet at the ankles, squeeze my butt cheeks, and, most times, pop my lower back and pelvis into better alignment. Every couple days, it would pop so loud that Brad could hear it in the next room, and it’d feel soooooo much better.

It still pops now, but not in a good way. It’s misaligned, and I pop it out of habit to try to make it feel better, but not so much. I kinda think it’s part of the Back Injury That Won’t Die.

Tomorrow: The BIG Reveal! Can you not wait?!

Last Easter, my belly looked like this.

This year? Well, okay, I’m not gonna show you my belly. But my baby Archer, my last belly baby, he’s almost 11 months old. My beautiful boy.

I love that guy.

When did you get your best rush of the year?

Hands down, when I expelled a fourth human being from my body.

Grab a cup o’ warm milk and pull a rocking chair over to the fireplace ’cause I got a story for ya. Or. Stop reading if you don’t want to hear about the machinations of mah ladybits.

Mmmkay.

Archer’s Birth Story

My OB agreed to induce me at 39 weeks, to ensure that Brad would be there for Archer’s delivery (our closest family members are 250 miles away, and we didn’t really have friends with kids that we felt comfortable asking to watch Kieran, Anneke, and Griffon for an indeterminate amount of time) and to ensure that I’d make it to the hospital and get the antibiotics I needed before delivery. (I was GBS+ this time, after three GBS- deliveries, boo, and she thought I’d have a fast labor, since this was my fourth baby.)

Run-on much?

I had to be at the hospital on Wednesday, May 13th, at 4:30 a.m. for a 5 a.m. induction. After all the requisite paperwork/questions, they got me started on pitocin and IV antibiotics (WHICH MADE ME FEEL LIKE MY ARM WAS BROKEN, I AM NOT KIDDING, HURT LIKE A MOTHA) at 6:15 a.m. I started out at 2.5 cm, 50% effaced, and baby floating (see here for info).

After around two hours of pitocin, my contractions were getting painful, so I got an epidural (I did the martyr labor with Kieran, not particularly by choice, and decided that I enjoy a good epidural). I also got started on a second bag of antibiotics at that time (my OB wanted me to have two bags of antibiotics before breaking my water).

At around 11 a.m., I was checked and had only progressed to 3 cm (still 50% effaced and floating). I thought I was in for a long delivery. My OB broke my water and found really thick meconium (mmm, meconium). She decided to place a uterine catheter to infuse saline into my uterus to try to thin the meconium, so that, if the baby aspirated some, at least it would be thinner than the stuff he had passed in utero.

The nurse increased my pitocin about 30 minutes later.

At 12:30 p.m., I was checked and had progressed to 5 cm, 100% effaced, and -2 station. My doctor thought my labor would go really quickly after that. She told the nurse she wanted to be in the room before I started pushing, which she expected to happen in an hour or two. My nurse turned my pitocin down at that point, to give my uterus a break because I’d progressed so quickly.

Around 1 p.m., Archer’s heartrate kept going off the monitor when I’d contract. My nurse called the charge nurse to come place a heartrate monitor on his head. It had only been 30 minutes since I’d been checked, but I was feeling a lot of, as they say, “pressure.” My nurse had changed right before, and the new nurse wanted to get a baseline, so she decided to check me. I had gone from 5 cm to 10 cm in 30 minutes! Yippee!

Everything went into high gear at this point. My nurse called the charge nurse to tell her to forget the heartrate monitor, called my OB to tell her to get to the hospital, and called the NICU (and some other baby unit – never knew what it was) to tell them to come over, so Archer could be checked when he was born because he’d passed meconium. She got my legs set up (because I couldn’t feel them, see, sweet!), she got the warmer set up… Everything was ready to go.

My OB got into place, and I pushed once. Everyone in the room was like, “He’s *right* there!” She told me to push once more, and I could feel him crowning. She asked me to stop halfway through, so she could suction as much meconium as possible from his throat and nose. With just one more half push, my Archer Gene joined the world at 1:28 p.m., gorgeous and healthy. SUCH an easy delivery.

He weighed 6 lbs 12 oz and was 20 inches long. His Apgars were 8 and 9. He looked like this.

And now?

I get a rush every time I look at his sweet face.

* This post was written in response to Gwen Bell’s December 14th prompt for the Best of 2009 Blog Challenge.

Pardon me. I was 14 for a couple days.

Back to Gwen Bell’s annoying questions.

Album of the year. What’s rocking your world?*

Funny to think of this album “rocking my world,” but my gut reaction is The Antlers‘ Hospice, which you can listen to here. It’s just beautiful, gorgeous, beautiful beautiful beautiful. The idea behind it is so heavy, it reminds me of the political songs bands did in the 80s and early 90s. Love it.

The best place. A coffee shop? A pub? A retreat center? A cubicle? A nook?*

I’m not sure I would call this the “best” place, but I’d have to say my most frequented place in 2009 was my extraordinarily cheap IKEA couch. At the beginning of the year, I was 4 1/2 months pregnant, and I spent practically all my non-work waking hours on that couch. Because, well, I wanted to die. Then, after Archer was born, we spent many hours nursing and sleeping and watching TV there. The baby and I actually slept on the couch every night for maybe four months after he was born.

So. My couch. An obvious highlight of 2009.

* This post was written in response to Gwen Bell’s December 10th and 11th prompts for the Best of 2009 Blog Challenge.

Every single night, I tell myself I’m going to go to bed by midnight. Seriously. Every. Single. Night. And then I always stay up until at least 1 o’clock.

When I have nights like last night, I realize THIS IS NO KIND OF GOOD. And I always say I’ll be better tomorrow.

I worked from home the last few weeks before Archer was born, and late was just the groove I got into. It’s the groove I always get into. If left to my own circadian rhythms, I’ll stay up later and later every night, and find myself waking up later and later every morning to compensate.

By the time I went back to work on July 1st, I was regularly staying up until around 4 o’clock, and sometimes later. Having to go back to work has tamed me to an extent, but I still love me some late nights.

Part of it, I think, is that the house is just soooo very quiet then. Like all the words in my life have been these bold, black, 62-point font Bauhaus words, all overlapping in my air, all day long. And all of a sudden, those words are gone, and I can hear the fan in the laundry room. And I can control the words. Because they’re mine. They’re lovely little Helvetica words with button noses. And they’re in thought bubbles.

Happy birthday to my little sweetheart baby.

At two months, you are smiling (we still have to work pretty hard for it, though), cooing, holding your head up, and loving Momma best of all. You are still confused by the two-months-long absence of the thumbs you kept near your face and enjoyed in the womb.

You like it when Daddy plays with you (at this point, games mostly involve lots of staring). You love nursing, and pacifiers maybe even more than that. You still like water (inhabiting it, not drinking it) and being swaddled.

Things you do *not* like: shots, the nasal aspirator, screaming (your siblings are more than a little loud).

You look like a combination of features from your brothers and sister. And maybe it’s because you were named after your great-grandfather, but I’ve recently thought I could see his and your grandfather’s features too. Whoever you resemble, you’re beautiful. A sweet, serene pea.

Happy two months, Archer Gene.

I keep going back to that picture of Griffon from my last post. Partly because he looks so damn kissable. Love those sweet little cheeks and chin and that sleepy face. I *love* that child. Like with cute little hearts and pink arrows. Love love.

But.

I do not like his current incarnation.

Let me tell you a story about Griffon.

Before Griffon transformed our family into bethfive, a happy little hippie commune (because he did, I’m telling you, it was all love and holding hands after he was born), we didn’t even know if we wanted another baby. I was fine (sort of) just plodding along with my boy and my girl. I could have gone either way (sort of) on the issue of conceiving another.

(This is not strictly true, of course. I think I told myself this at the time, but I don’t think I actually believed it. The ugly head of procreative desire probably would have reared itself at some point. But not then.)

Anyway, when I got pregnant, I still could have gone either way. I mean, the pregnancy was not unplanned, but I took a sort of Zen attitude about the whole thing. I had lost two pregnancies between Kieran and Anneke, and I knew another loss was a possibility. I tried to stay as objective and detached as I could at first, focusing on the biology of what was happening instead of any possibility that a real human being might eventually emerge from my vagina and have to have a place to sleep and someone around to feed and diaper him.

I grew more and more attached to the idea of adding a new being to our family the longer I stayed pregnant, of course, and by the end, I was totally invested. Even so, I was unprepared for what happened when he finally joined us.

I probably didn’t take my eyes off him for at least the first six months. He was perfect, cherubic even. Any worry I’d had about adding another child to the mix flew out the window, along with any hope of owning a sedan in the next 15 years. Our family was made closer, fuller, more loving, with his addition. Everything seemed to click. We fell into a routine, and I felt happier than I ever had. I loved him immensely, and I loved our new family.

And it wasn’t just me. *Everyone* loved Griffon. Everyone. Because he was such an easygoing, sweet moon of a child. He loved people. He loved smiling. He was just completely happy to be taken care of, content to watch his brother and sister play, equally as happy eating as he was taking a bath. Ea-sy.

And then something happened. Something sinister.

I don’t know when, exactly, but it started with the whining. I’m sure we probably thought it was cute at first. We were probably all, “Oh look! Little Griffon’s asserting his independence. What a curiosity.”

But I honestly can’t remember because I’ve sustained so much brain damage since then. What with his constant blows to my head and body, all the blood-curdling screaming, and my constantly recounting the laundry list of things “we don’t” do (hit, kick, push, throw, scream, flail in a storm on the floor, …), I’m exhausted. And maybe you’re nodding and saying it’s just the terrible twos, but I can’t hear you because my eardrums are bloody and collapsing.

I’m no parenting expert *snort*, but I hear this behavior may have something to do with our newest little uniter, his very existence the consequence of the joy Griffon has brought us and the ease with which Griffon was integrated into our little family. How’s that for irony?

No matter the reason, everything Griffon does these days makes me want him to grow up faster. How awful is that? I’ve completely abandoned the Zen attitude I took with him in pregnancy.

And the stupid part is, I have four children. I know how lucky I am to have these four lovely wonders in my life, and I know how quickly these years pass. But I still wish them away.

Things *have* to get better with him, though. Have to. I want my little bear back.

the true baby mashup.

I’m feeling oohhhh so slowed down these days. I was sooooo very tired today, and I really don’t know why. I’ve been getting the same sleep as usual, but I’m just so sluggish. Maybe it has to do with my four-pound bladder smasher.

And speaking of the wee organ twister, we’re seeing him on 3D ultrasound tomorrow morning. I’m excited but strangely able to contain myself due to the extreme exhaustion. We’ve never done a 3D ultrasound, but since we figure this is probably the Bethcaboose, I decided it was something I wanted to experience. (Also have never done a bellycast, which I’ve got on my calendar for 36 weeks.)

I’m supposed to come “well hydrated” to my appointment tomorrow, as it facilitates a clearer ultrasound picture. I’ve been carrying 64+ ounces of flavored water to work everyday, drinking another 48+ ounces at home each night, and peeing almost nonstop for this express purpose. Until today, when I forgot my work water. Today was probably the crucial day, right?

Kieran started Tae Kwon Do last week. So cute. He really likes it, and I think it’ll be good for him. Anneke started art classes. She’s so talented… may sound stupid to say that about a four-year-old, but it’s true. And Griffon started daycare again today. (He’s been out for four months, since Brad hasn’t been working. With a possible job looming for Brad, we got Griffy back in.)

Brad’s been taking Griffon to his new class the past few days when he’s taken Anneke to school. He’s screamed every day when they’ve had to leave. Today, he got to stay all day, and it appears to have been a success. He even kicked and screamed when Brad picked him up after the full day. On the way home, I was asking him if he was a Dancing Bear (his class’ name), and he was like, “Dansun Bay-er!” So so so cute.

Okay. I think this is the extent of my verbal stamina for the night. I’m out. :)

I just opened my weekly pregnancy newsletter thing. I ignore most of it most of the time, since this is literally the fourth baby for which I’ve gotten the *exact same* weekly newsletter. It’s geared mostly toward first-time moms, I think, so I really just look at the fetal pictures and remind myself how big the baby is (almost four pounds, 17 inches, now).

But this time, I saw this little blurb on breathlessness. I literally went back and forth in my head probably three times (in the span of a few seconds; this was not a tortured decision) about whether this information could possibly be useful. I decided it was short enough that it could not *hurt* me to read it, especially given my current level of lung non-usage.

These are the sage tips offered:

1. Take it slow.
2. Watch your posture.
3. Prop yourself up with pillows.

*Seriously?!* This is what you have to offer me?!

I think I’m gonna go cry now.