Noah!

       Baby's got some crazy big eyes, right?
I definitely never thought I would be a stay-at-home mother. 
       But let's start at the beginning...
I had been thinking to have a drug free childbirth... let me say that was a crazy, ignorant idea. Labor hurts beyond any description/my imagination. I do not know how anyone can choose it. After an hour I was like ok, I give up, I will do anything to make this stop.   I was 1 cm dilated (it goes up to 10 cm, and gets progressively more painful) and I was vomiting violently from the pain. Also throwing myself against the floor, over and over, begging Jonathan to somehow help me. I have a memory of screaming in a cab, and the cab driver trying not to look at me.
     I can only compare it to those immensely painful charley horse cramps in your calf, but in your abdomen. For 24 hours. Or in my case 28.
     Once I got the epidural, I was narcotically happy, the floatingy best I have felt in years. the actual pushing bit was not hard and really quite fun.
     I got the bill/insurance settlement  just for the epidural today... guess how much it cost? They billed $14,500 and insurance paid $2000. unreal.)
     So now I'm at home with baby for -- well, kind of a long, stupid story involving some incorrect paperwork-- but hopefully 2 more months if I can fix it-- possibly 1 more week if I can't. I'm definitely gooey eyed gaga over Noah a lot of the time. Although it's also tough to have a relationship with someone who screams if he's slightly unhappy. I spent last might from 11 to 12:30 am holding him in my arms dancing around the bedroom, which was the only way to keep him quiet. I guess this will help me lose the baby weight.
      Many days go by with a bare minimum accomplished. Basically every 3.5 hours, I spent 1.25 hours in a strict routine of changing his diaper, breast feeding him, changing his diaper, bottle feeding him, changing his diaper, pumping milk, changing his diaper, cleaning the bottles/pump. Then I have an hour and a quarter where he sleeps (and I sleep, eat, do laundry, tidy the house, answer emails, make food, write an endless series of thank you notes for baby gifts) and an hour where I talk to him, rock him, sing to him, read to him, jiggle him up and down, and whatever else I can do to amuse him/stop him crying. It's a weird, lazy-but-exhausting routine. I definitely can feel it affecting my memory: maybe it's hormones or maybe it's lack of sleep, but I feel I'm at about 75% of normal mental processing speed.
     Despite this, I'm becoming more efficient at housewife type things, mostly thanks to Amazon Mom (like Amazon Prime, but with diaper discounts), and, I guess, practice. I can also do many more things with just one hand.
     I only leave the house on average once every three days. I don't know how people live when they have either multiple children or no washing machine. I find myself making time tradeoffs like "I have 60 seconds before he screams: what's more important, putting in my contact lens or getting a glass of water?" "4 minutes: breakfast or shower?"
    It's the first year in maybe 10 that I haven't played in the National Chess Congress and I miss playing chess, although I feel quite incapable of casually going back to it right now. more soon, maybe.