A look back at 2012.

A look back at 2012.

2013?  Seriously?  How is this past year over?!  What an epic, epic year its been.  2012 will certainly go down as one of the most memorable and eventful years of our lives, with the highest highs and the lowest lows.  I thought I’d use this post to recap some of the major events of the last year.  (I DID want to post this yesterday, on New Year’s Day, but Tess had other plans so I didn’t get to it. Sorry!)

I guess you could say the year kicked off last January with a bang… or a snow-dampened “thud” really.  It's a long story, but its also pretty funny at times so I’m going to share the whole thing.  Andy and I went to a conference at a ski resort in Utah (Snowbird).  In hindsight, perhaps Utah wasn’t the best place for me to learn to ski but I really wanted to go to the meeting - for the science. I figured I was athletic and, with Andy as my instructor, would be a quick learner.  The fact that Andy broke his ribs skiing at this very resort 8 years earlier didn’t deter me at all for some reason.  For the first few days, I WAS doing really well.  On our fourth and last day of skiing, despite feeling very sore and tired, I was feeling very confident and wanted to try out a more difficult blue trail after sticking to the green every previous day.  To start the day, Andy and I were going to do one last run on the green trail to warm up and I asked him to watch my turns to make sure they were tight and fast enough to work for me on the harder trail. 

Snowbird Utah. Beautiful. But my least favorite place on earth!

As we made our way down the mountain, he did as I asked, but unfortunately, when he stopped to turn around and watch me I was headed right for him.  Since I was so inexperienced, I couldn’t veer around him in control and I face-planted big time.  My boots were fixed into my skis too tight so they didn’t pop off as I took a nose-dive down the mountain.  When I was 18 I tore 3 ligaments in my knee (including my ACL) and had knee surgery.  This was actually the reason I hadn’t learned to ski earlier than this trip – I had always been so afraid of re-injuring that knee nothing made me want to risk going through that whole experience again. 

As soon as I fell I could feel the pain in my bad knee and was freaking out that I had torn my ACL again, but was simultaneously in denial about the potential of having done that to myself again. Other skiers stopped to see if I was ok but, at that moment, my pride was hurt more than anything.   God, I felt like such a loser lying there in the snow.  They offered to call the snow patrol to get me off the mountain, but because I’m a stubborn fool I shouted at them all that I was fine and to leave me alone.  Knowing that this resort didn’t accept health insurance only credit cards, all I could think was “I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay $1,000 for a ride on a damn snow mobile!” whether or not that was even true. So I pulled myself up off the ground, clipped myself back into my skis and went flying down the mountain.  Andy tried to stop me, but at this point I was so furious with him for “causing” the crash that there was nothing he could do to stop me. 

I essentially skied down the mountain one-legged, and somehow by the grace of God actually made it to the bottom alive.  However, I failed to think about what I would do when I got to the bottom considering we were about a mile from where our room was.  Andy asked the ski lift guys how we could get back and they told us that beyond the snow pile behind us there was a shuttle bus stop.  “Great, that’s lucky” we thought. WRONG! The snow pile turned out to be more of a small mountain than a pile.  It was literally 40 ft high!  So with my gammy leg, I had to scale this mountain of snow. We start making our way up, and I could barely get myself up this mini Everest let alone my gear, so there was Andy behind me carrying not only his own skis, poles and helmet but also mine.  I at least was carrying my own poles, but only because I was essentially using them as a prosthetic to help get me over the mountain.  So naturally, Andy was breathing quite heavily from his heavy load.  Because I was in such a fit of rage and blaming Andy for causing the whole mess, I shouted at him “STOP BREATHING LIKE THAT! Trust me, this is much harder for me than it is you!!!”  Poor bastard couldn’t even breathe right. 

I was making pretty decent progress, hauling my one-legged self up the snow when a low hanging branch hit me in the face, knocking me to the ground.  At this point, I just lay in the snow with tears streaming down my face. This represents quite possibly the most pathetic moment of my entire life. I couldn’t believe this shit show was actually unfolding. I felt trapped, halfway up this pile of snow – unable to keep going up, but unable to make my way back down.  Somehow, Andy managed to convince me to keep going and we made it to the top.  A shuttle bus came and we made our way back to the room.  Andy kept telling me I needed to get to a doctor, to which I could only reply that I didn’t need a doctor I needed a divorce attorney.

By the time we got to the room, I had decided against the divorce, but my knee was the size of a damn basketball. I knew it was bad.  It turned out, I did re-tear my ACL and would need surgery.

Dr. Jenkins taking care of me post-surgery.

Lovely swollen, bruised knee after surgery.

It was a pretty horrible couple of weeks between the injury and the surgery, but in hindsight it led to a few really good things.  Firstly, it inspired (forced?) Andy to get a driver’s license!  I hurt my right leg so I couldn’t drive.  After 8 years of begging him to learn to drive, all I could think was “I should have done this to myself years ago!” Only partly in jest…

First driving lesson!

Then, 6 weeks after my surgery, I found out I was pregnant...

That was another crazy day that I will never forget.  When I took that home pregnancy test Andy was actually working on finishing up fixing a plumbing disaster that had occurred in our kitchen the previous week.  What exactly happened with our plumbing is a story for another day, but long story short he was on his back under our kitchen sink elbow deep in drainage while I was in the bathroom taking the test.  When I saw the positive result, I’ll be honest I immediately went to a state of sheer panic.  I’ll never forget standing at our bathroom sink, feeling like I could actually hear my heart beating in my ears.  I walked out to the dining room where I called out to Andy that we needed to talk. He wasn’t exactly thrilled about being called away from his plumbing catastrophe, but heard a seriousness in my voice that I rarely have, so he thought he better get up.  When he walked into the room with me all I could do was hold up the pregnancy test stick to him.  I couldn’t even talk, it was like I swallowed my tongue or something.  When he saw it, he looked at me and asked “we’re expecting?!”  When I nodded my head, he dropped to his knees and started to cry.  He put his head to my belly and kissed it.  I’ll never forget it.  Despite the fact that I personally was in a panic, it was so calming and reassuring to know how excited and happy Andy was.  I was so grateful that my children would have him as their father. 

Positive! Yikes!

The drain pipe that was the cause of our plumbing catastrophe.

April. 6 weeks.

Tess's first trip to Fenway. 6 weeks.

September. 27 weeks. 

December. 40 weeks.

Once the initial shock of being pregnant wore off, I was equally as excited as Andy.  But during this time, we were also waiting on news of whether Andy was going to get tenure at Emory.  It was more than slightly nerve-wracking to consider the possibility of him not getting tenure, and being politely asked to leave Emory, while we were expecting our first born.  But fortunately a few weeks after hearing the amazing news about our little embryo, Andy found out he got tenure!  It was almost too perfect, we couldn’t have planned it better.

The rest of the year was a complete blur of being busy with home improvements and getting ready for Tess’ arrival.  We had to turn our party house into a baby house.  Andy did some amazing things re-doing our bathrooms, turning TV rooms into bedrooms, moving walls, etc.  

Old bathroom construction.

New bathroom!

Old TV room, now our bedroom.

We also had to buy a second car.

We also had some major scientific successes this year.  Just in the last month of the year, I had a paper accepted to PNAS and Andy had a paper published in Science Translational Medicine that had been covered extensively all over the popular press from the Today show to the Wall St Journal. 

Andy in the Wall St Journal

These things would have otherwise been the biggest events of the year, but they sort of got overshadowed in a year where Andy got tenure and we started our family.

Thinking back to the state I was in after my knee injury…. it was really hard on me emotionally. I like staying active, and in general hate asking for help or being impaired in any way. And when I hurt my knee 12 years ago, a lot was going on in my life (for an 18 year old at least) and re-injuring myself brought up all those memories. And taking the narcotics for pain didn’t help my state of mind.  But what’s crazy is that in a strange, roundabout kind of way, my first knee surgery ended up leading me to go to Smith College. Anyone who knows me knows how much I loved (and still love) Smith. 

Tess is already in the admissions database at Smith.  This is how much I love this place!

So something horrible ended up leading to something wonderful.  Similarly, this knee injury ended up leading to the circumstances that brought Tess into my life.  Even the bad experience I had with pain meds after the surgery is the reason I was adamant about recovering from my C-section drug-free… which is why, I think, I recovered so quickly.  It is really, really crazy how everything sort of came together perfectly in the end.

If there is one major realization I can come to after looking back on 2012 its how lucky I am to be married to Andy.  Of course, we are insanely in love and have been for 8 years.  Love at first sight on Bourbon St in New Orleans in 2003 has developed into the most loving and beautiful relationship I could have ever hoped for.  But this year I have had to depend on Andy more than I ever thought I would have to.  When I was laid up from my knee surgery, Andy waited on me hand and foot… and let’s be honest, I was a nightmare to deal with most days.  I was a complete monster at times!  God only knows why he put up with me. Then as I became more heavily pregnant, I had also injured my pelvis from overdoing it with exercise. In the last 8 weeks of my pregnancy I couldn’t bend, lift, carry, etc.  Again, Andy did pretty much everything for me. On top of all that, he’s made amazing changes to our home, all while having one of the most successful years of his career – getting tenure and publishing this major paper.  He is truly amazing!  I am blown away and totally inspired by him.  And finally, to watch him become a father in the past few weeks has melted my heart and made me fall in love with him in a whole new way.  He is already the world’s most amazing father and he’s been at it 2.5 weeks.  Tess is the luckiest girl in the world to have him as her dad, and I’m the luckiest woman in the world to have him be the father of my children. 

OK sorry to end on SUCH a sappy note, but what can I say?  Maybe it's the hormones or maybe its just the nostalgia that the New Year brings out in me, but I am madly in love and have the best family in the world.  I’m so grateful and felt the need to pour my heart out. 

Happy New Year, everyone!  I hope 2013 brings you all as much happiness as 2012 has brought me.  

My heart belongs to her!

Very happy Christmas.

New Year's Eve drink at the Marlay House with my girl.

First Christmas

First Christmas

For those that know me well, you know that I’m crazy about Christmas. I’m a complete geek about it.  I start listening to Christmas music around Thanksgiving, sometimes even earlier.  I can watch It's a Wonderful Life over and over again and never get sick of it (and still tear up when Mary welcomes George Bailey home on their wedding night, and again when Harry tells George he’s the richest man in town).

Welcome home, Mr. Bailey.

I’m pretty sure my love of Christmas started because my mom is an even bigger nut about it than me.  What’s lucky is that I happened to marry a man who is equally as geeky about Christmas as myself.  We decorate the house not just with a tree (which Andy insists must be REAL and at least 8 ft high), but with our Christmas village and Byers’ Carolers too.  We put up wreaths, deer and lights outside and inside we have advent calendars, poinsettias and Christmas cookies galore.  

Byers' Carolers

Christmas Village

Last year we spent the 2 weeks leading up to Christmas going to the Christkindlmarkts in Europe.  We did Munich, Innsbruck, Salzburg, Vienna and Prague.  It was magic.  

6 years ago Andy proposed to me on Christmas Eve.  

Christmas 2006

It's clearly a very special time of year for us, and this year expecting a baby made the whole Christmas season even more magical.  Having my mom here for 2 whole weeks near Christmas was also amazing.  We decorated the Christmas tree together – the first tree we have decorated together in almost 10 years.  We went Christmas shopping, set up the Christmas village together, made and decorated Christmas cookies, and watched everything from White Christmas to Elf. It was fantastic.  (And it made coming home from the hospital after the first failed induction much easier on me). 

Despite my crazy, over-the-top obsession with Christmas, however, were it not for Andy… this year we would have had A Christmas Story style Christmas dinner.  The run up to Christmas WAS magical this year, but by the time actual Christmas Eve came around I felt like all I could manage to accomplish in a day was feeding Tess. I had anticipated needing to nurse her every 2-3 hours as the nurses, lactation consultants, books and breastfeeding course instructors told us… but I think Tess went through a growth spurt right in time for Christmas or something and wanted to feed constantly.  Either that or she was simply engaging in the same yuletide gluttony WE normally do this time of year. 

"FEED ME!!!"

All day on Christmas Eve I would nurse at least 20 minutes on one side, then 20 minutes on the other… put her down and 20 minutes later she’d want to eat again.  When she’d cry, we’d check to see if she needed to be changed, burped, etc but all she would do is root or try to stick her fingers in her mouth and it’d be clear she was just hungry. And when I’d offer a feeding, she would chomp down and go to town for another 20+ minutes.  Up until Dec 24, she would be pretty consistent and want to eat every 2-3 hours but then out of the blue she turned into a hungry, hungry hippo for the holiday. 

 "Take this damn dress off and FEED ME!!!!"

I was freaking out about it, because I just wasn’t sure what I should do.  My first instinct was, if she’s hungry, she’s hungry and needs to eat.  But some of the books I read said it was important for babies to be on a schedule and to keep them on a strict 2-3 hour feeding timeline.  But what could I do if she wanted to eat again after 45 minutes?  Letting a baby “cry it out” who just wants to he held is one thing, but letting a hungry infact wail for an hour??? I couldn’t face it. 

Then I started to convince myself that I wasn’t producing enough milk, because I had no idea how much she was actually taking in when she’d nurse.  On top of that, my nipples were KILLING ME!  So while I didn’t really want to, I finally had to give in and give her some formula… quite a bit of formula in the end.  I was pretty emotional about it all to be honest (and then when she didn’t poo for 14 hours after having the formula I felt even worse about it).  But by Christmas morning I just came to terms with the fact that she would want to nurse on and off throughout the day and I was okay with it.  It was much easier to deal with when I was prepared for it and just decided to feed on demand.   But while I wasn’t an emotional basket case about it on Christmas, it still was all I could do just to feed her.  If it were up to me, we would have had “Chinese Turkey” from the local Chinese restaurant like Ralphie and his family because cooking and cleaning the kitchen was not even in my vocabulary that day. 

But Andy was incredible and while I worked all day on feeding Tess, he worked all day on feeding us!  He made scrambled eggs served with smoked salmon for breakfast – and Tess was kind enough to be quiet for 20 minutes while we ate.  Reason enough to celebrate.  Then for Christmas lunch he roasted a pheasant AND a small ham, served with duck fat roast potatoes, carrots, parsnips and Brussels sprouts. It was a feast and we probably could have had 6+ for Christmas lunch.  (He even had the kitchen spotless by the end of the day as well).   

In the end our little family all ate like kings for Christmas.  It was really nice that we were able to still have our Christmas traditions, and celebrate the holiday the way we love to, even though life is pretty much turned upside down and we are still trying to figure out the “new normal” around here. 

Parent-in-training. Do not judge.

Parent-in-training. Do not judge.

Tess' inner monologue: 

"You guys really don't have a clue, do you?"

The title of this post should be stamped on t-shirts for all new parents to wear. I feel this way after Andy and I experienced our first parenting fail the other day… First of many, is my guess.

While I was pregnant we considered getting a nursing chair – one of those gliding arm chair/rocking chair type of deals meant for sitting in while you feed your baby.  I decided against buying one in the end because they are damn expensive.  It seemed like such a luxury, hundreds of dollars for a piece of furniture when we have plenty of comfortable seats and couches in our house.  I decided to just use this old arm chair we have… a recliner that Andy had inherited from a department lounge at the University of Chicago about 10 years ago.  I know, that sounds horrible, but its pretty comfortable, and had previously only been used as our dog Twickers’ favorite spot, so in it went to our bedroom ready for nursing.

Twickers is very happy this will not work as a nursing chair and she can have it back.

Then Tess arrived and I realized how much time per day I actually spend nursing her.  And realized how critical back support is while you’re nursing.  She was home for a couple of days and I already had a sore back, sore wrists, a sore ass, etc.  I realized I shouldn’t have been so stinking cheap and wish I had just bought the friggin’ nursing chair.

So on Thursday Andy, Tess and I decided to go out and “quickly” buy a nursing chair.  HA!  Quickly… Come to find out, nothing can be done quickly when an infant is involved.  Sure, parents always harp on this… and I knew leaving the house would require diaper bags and car seats, but I never really realized what it was like.  I’ve formed a theory about it this week. It isn’t just the mere fact that life is complicated with a baby and you need to have a hundred different things prepared to go out. My theory is that as one enters parenthood, they pass through a time portal.  On the other side of that portal time moves at a different pace.  An hour goes by in what seems like 10 minutes now.  Andy and I keep looking at each other and saying, “how is it already XX o’clock??!!”  The first day we were home from the hospital, we had our pediatrician visit at 10:30am.  We started the process of “getting ready” – aka feeding Tess – at 7am.  PLEEEEEENTY of time we thought.  Somehow we were still 15 minutes late. Way to make a good first impression at our new doctor’s office. 

Proud papa at our first pediatrician appointment.  

She gained 3 oz!  

After hearing that news, we didn't care about our tardiness. 

Anyway, back to the parenting fail on Thursday.  We had some friends coming by at around 3:30 that day to meet our little nugget, and we were out the door to go shopping by noon. Again, PLEEEEENTY of time to go buy a chair and be back for our friends.  HA, again.  “Plenty of time.”  Famous last words. 

 Ready to head out into the cold, cruel world.

We first go to the Baby Depot at Burlington Coat Factory thinking we had the best chance of finding an inexpensive chair there, but of course we get there and they don’t sell nursing chairs. Awesome, that ate up about 30 minutes.  But we thought, “its only 12:30, we still have 3 hours… let’s run up to the Babies R’ Us and get one. “ Besides, this BCF is pretty ghetto and Andy says “Let’s get her out of her before she catches something from this place.”  We had a good laugh about that, and headed out to Babies R Us.

The closest Babies R Us is near the Perimeter Mall, for those in Atlanta who are familiar. For those who aren’t, you can imagine what ANY mall in America looks like 5 days before Christmas. We foolishly assumed since it was a Thursday at 1pm, people would be working so traffic wouldn’t be too bad. WRONG! Apparently in the Atlanta ‘burbs, people don’t work.  Traffic was a NIGHTMARE!!!  Ohhhh my God, it took us 20 minutes to go a ¼ mile past the mall.  But, still we thought… PLEEEEENTY of time!  I knew the general type of chair I wanted to buy, and was just going to quickly sit in a few, pick one, and tell the sales clerk to “wrap it up.”  We can do this.

Then, from the backseat Tess started to WAIL!  I looked at the clock and I realized it was feedin’ time.  Great.  I tell Andy, let’s just pull over into this Bed Bath and Beyond parking lot and I’ll feed her “real quick.” Again, I was just tempting fate to assume anything can be “real quick.”  So into the back seat I climb, and before I whip out a boob I decide to check her diaper – or nappy as we are calling it - to make sure that wasn’t the source of her wail.  Crap.  Literally.  She had a huuuuuge poo.  Since I’m still new at this nappy business, I knew I would not be able to change her on my lap in the car.  More experienced parents could probably change a nappy one-handed  while fighting off a pack of wolves, teetering on the edge of an active volcano, but not I. Not yet at least.  So I tell Andy that I’ll just run into the Bed, Bath and Beyond and use their changing table.

I place the protective pad that came in her diaper bag onto the table and put her up.  I am feeling pretty pleased with myself at how smoothly things are going, then another woman comes in.  She comments on the sound of Tess’ cry, “oh that’s a new baby cry! How old is she?” the woman asks. I reply “1 week.” Then stop and think to myself, “Holy shit! I have a 6-day old newborn on a public toilet changing table!!!!!!!!!!!” I am certain that this woman is staring at me with a  look of shock and contempt that I would risk exposing my “immune system-less” child to God-knows-what on this changing table, and begin to panic.  By the time I get Tess cleaned up I have convinced myself she now has Hep C, and I am the world’s worst mother.  Also running through my mind was our previous days’ first outing with Tess. It was a warm day so after taking her for her first walk through our neighborhood, we decided to take her to the Marlay House (our favorite pub). Andy would grab a pint and we’d catch up with the pub owners after a long hiatus during the pregnancy.  Great – so far, she’s made two outings… to the bar and to a public restroom changing table. I’m officially beating Dina Lohan in the Worst Mother of 2012 race.

Out for a lovely first walk through the neighborhood with the dogs.

Baby's first Guinness.  She looks like she's had 10!

I get back out to the car – oh, and did I mention it was also a torrential downpour outside? Yea, forgot that part.  It was like a monsoon.  So now I’m also convinced Tess will get the flu from the cold, wet weather I’ve brought her out in. I even took some of my hand sanitizer out and rubbed it on her little hands.  (Neither her hands, nor any other part of her body - by the way - had touched ANYTHING in this restroom or anywhere else… but, better safe than sorry.)

  On the verge of an emotional breakdown, I tell Andy I don’t even want to go to the damn Babies R Us anymore and instead decide to essentially cover my body in hand sanitizer, nurse Tess in the backseat, and drive home.

We got home in time for our friends’ visit at 3:30, but had basically driven around Atlanta for over 3 hours to only accomplish exposing my newborn to bubonic plague and to nurse her in a parking lot.  After a hot shower, a visit from good friends, and having taken Tess’ temperature to find she was not feverish, I DID start to calm down about the bubonic plague.  I mean, it was a Bed, Bath and Beyond not a damn Waffle House after all.  And I did have the pad… but it was just the idea of what I had done - AND the judgement I felt from that woman in the restroom - that made me panic more than anything.  And the fact that I just feel completely clueless about parenthood in general. I keep wanting to ask someone what the protocol is for various different scenarios just like this!  I can’t tell you all the phone calls to my mom that start with “is this normal?!”  I’ve even taken photos of poopy nappies to show her or my pediatrician at our next visit.  And yes, I am aware that I am insane.

Eventually, we were able to have a sense of humor about the whole thing fortunately, and even made a successful attempt at going out again the next day.  I fed Tess immediately before leaving the house, went out before mall traffic started, avoided public restrooms, and got to Babies R Us 30 minutes after they opened.  We may make mistakes, but what’s important is that we learn from them!  Although, I’m definitely a “shop-around” type of girl… I will drive around to 10 different stores to save $20 on something (even if I use $20 worth of gas in the process).  So my initial instinct was to leave Babies R Us and go “check out a few other places.” Then it dawned on me that, right now at least, I don’t have the luxury of shopping around.  I picked a chair and had Andy load it into the car. 

The WONDERFUL new nursing chair that provides plenty of back support.  

Its like a whole new world.

Me contemplating whether its possible to keep my little Tessie 

wrapped up inside my robe until she's about 18. Safer that way, I think.

It all took less than 2 hours, I have a - hopefully - Hepatitis free baby and a lovely comfortable nursing chair that has already changed my life.  In the end, our parenting fail turned into a roaring success! Just as long as my next post isn’t titled “First fever…”

Recovering from a hectic day in the arms of her daddy.