The Start.

This is Max.

He’s 9 weeks old and he’s changed the world. Well, my world at least.  Before Max arrived I thought I knew everything.  I knew being a parent was going to be hard but I had NO IDEA how hard. 

I had it all figured out starting with birth.  I did the studies and I was going to have the drug free, midwife assisted, birth center, water birth without intervention and because I had prepared myself and my body, it was going to be relatively easy. For 9 months, I strutted around the hospital where I worked, proclaiming I was NOT going to have my baby there.

Humility lesson #1 began 18 hours into labor when my saintly midwife decided I needed Pitocin to jumpstart a stalled labor. Pitocin= hospital transfer.  An additional 16 hours later, I was holding a 10lb, 4 oz Max in the hospital where I worked. The hospital I wasn't going to need. And the drug free birth?  While I managed to avoid the epidural, I happily accepted a bit of nubain around hour 20.  You know, to take the edge off. 

So that was the beginning of a journey that hasn’t gone the way I expected.  I quickly learned I didn’t know a damn thing and I was not the baby expert I thought I was.  I thought I was prepared because I read all the books, but as my also saintly husband proclaimed by Max’s second day on earth, “Apparently, Max didn’t read the books”. 

So here I am, sharing the story as it unfolds.  Mostly so when Max grows up, he has something to show to his therapist.