Thank you god for Gen Gen!!

I’m not entirely sure when having a baby nurse became the norm but I’m sure as hell happy it is. I know our mothers did it all on their own and I truly praise anyone brave enough to do so but there is no way I would be able to function without mine. The whole process of finding a baby nurse can be very stressful as “all the good ones book up” and you should start interviewing as soon as you get pregnant…Only in Manhattan! 

Well as soon as I was 12 weeks I started asking anyone and everyone I knew if they liked their nurse and if they did I added their info to my crazy list and started making calls. After speaking to so many nurses I narrowed it down to 3 to meet. The first two nurses I met were as nice as can be, very calm and nurturing and seemed to have a lot of knowledge about newborns. I was very torn about which one to choose and thought I should just pick one and not even meet the third one. Shai said I should meet at least 3 to really decide and I am so happy he did. I heard about the last woman through 2 friends that used and loved her. From the second Gen Gen walked into my apartment I immediately knew I needed her in my life. She blew in the door like a freakin hurricane!! A crazy blond mowhalk, neon nails and a sweatshirt with a crystal skull on it…It was love at first sight. She sits down and literally didn’t shut up for one second. She told me she had been a baby nurse for 21 years (which I didn’t believe because she looks 30) and is also a registered nurse, which made me feel so safe. As crazy as she was, I knew I could trust her with my child and that she would teach me so many things. When she told me that no baby she ever worked with needed to be ferberized (cry until they fall asleep) if they followed her program I told her to sign me up! 

Fast forward to November 3rd, I come home from the hospital and there she is, in Jagger's room refolding every outfit, burp cloth and blankie in his dresser. She even set up his changing table with all the creams, wipes and diapers and pre creamed each diaper so they were ready! Who does that?!?! She gave Shai and I huge hugs then took Jagger in her arms and made a huge fuss about how cute he was, which any new mama loves. Over the next few days she started teaching us everything we needed to know as new parents like diapering, swaddling, feeding and bathing and helped us get comfortable in our new role. She was very patient with all our crazy questions and never made us feel stupid for asking anything. But this isn’t what we love about her…She makes herself at home and within days she felt like family. She is technically a stranger coming into our home but it felt so normal and natural. She was obsessed with Jagger and Tyler (my nephew), she made us all laugh and she is an obsessive cleaner and organizer…Gen Gen is a triple threat! My favorite thing about having her here is every night Shai and I sit in her room with Jagger and talk for hours about anything and everything. Her life stories are incredible and with all that she has been through she has the BEST outlook on life. She has more energy than anyone I know and it really starts to rub off on you. She also happens to be the craziest person on the planet, with a mouth like a truck driver and NO filter. Like I said, we are a match made in heaven! There is never a dull moment and I’m sure if we had a reality TV show it would kick the Housewives ass because she is so entertaining.

We originally hired her for 2 weeks but as the time came to an end I started freaking out and had her stay on one more week. I wasn’t ready to let go. When the last day rolled around I pretty much moped around the apartment, as I was TERRIFIED for her to leave me responsible for my little boy! I didn’t feel like I could do it. I am now 5 days without having Gen Gen living here and while it’s definitely the greatest challenge in my life, it’s also the most rewarding. I feel like I am finally a mama. Its funny how changing a diaper or getting him dressed for the day feels like such a huge accomplishment but it does and I’m proud of myself.

After all this praising I’m sure many of you would like to hire Gen Gen for yourselves but she will be staying on as our part time nanny as I couldn’t imagine not having her around to keep teaching me new things and to have a good laugh! Good luck to all you soon to be moms in finding the right match in a baby nurse! 

OMG...I'm a mama!

Coming home from the hospital was one of the most exciting and nerve racking experiences of my life!! I hardly learned anything in the 48 hours we spent there and if I didn’t have a baby nurse waiting for us at the apartment I would have been FREAKING out! After hours of tests and filling out forms we were free to leave and I couldn’t believe what was happening, we were actually taking our baby home! When we walked up to our apartment the tears immediately started flowing…my sister and Tyler put a huge Welcome Home Jagger sign on our door and when I saw it, it hit me… I was home with my son and my life was about to change forever. As I made my way into the baby’s room I started crying even harder. My family did a great job decorating his room last minute, as none of us knew if we were having a boy or a girl. The room is all white and grey with a little splash of zebra, which I love. Once we got settled I took a long hot shower and tried to take in this huge moment. I stood under the water with a huge smile as the tears flowed.

Over the next 2 days, the crying didn’t stop. The combination of exhaustion, excitement, fear and hormones is seriously deadly and I was losing it. I kept thinking horrible thoughts like what if someone hurt him, what if I messed up or worst of all, what if I am just a terrible mother. My nurse (Gen Gen) had to keep calming me down and reminding me that this is all very new and while she soothed and consoled me, she also told me I need to snap out of it because my tears would go into my breast milk and make my son depressed. Well the thought of that made me even more upset!! I’m telling you, I was a mess! The fact that I couldn’t sit down without excruciating vag pain didn’t help at all either!! Why wasn’t I aware that the after birth is 1000X worse than the actual birth?!?! Ladies- why are you keeping this info from us!!

Ok so onto my feeding problem, which was even scarier than me being a horrible mama was that Jagger wasn’t having wet diapers which meant he was dehydrated because I wasn’t producing enough milk. To make matters worse, he was having a really time latching on so between both of those problems, feeding time was really stressful. I finally gave in and accepted that we needed to supplement with formula for the next day or two so he wouldn’t get sick. This was such a hard thing for me because I always envisioned only breast-feeding, and assumed if it was easy for my sister it would surely be easy for me to. WRONG! Once he started peeing more I went back to breast-feeding and my boy was miserable! He would cry and scream every time I put him on my boob and literally push me away. It was so heart breaking and feeding became an excruciating event. Every time he would fight it, I would cry and get so upset. I felt like a failure that I couldn’t breast-feed and really enjoyed having that bonding time with him. But it was too stressful for him and me and I had to accept that it wasn’t worth it. I am now pumping breast milk into a bottle (which is incredibly sexy) and alternating feeds with bottled breast milk and formula. While my rational mind realizes that it is what it is, my irrational self feels like a total failure.

The stresses that Im feeling are actually going beyond my feeding problem. Everything that comes up in discussion with Gen Gen makes me nervous. Bathing him, getting him on a sleep schedule, swaddling him and so on. Without even realizing it, I’m apparently creating problems that aren’t there. On Tuesday night Shai and I were in bed and he seemed upset with me. After asking over and over what was wrong he finally said- “You just seem so negative about everything and while I realize you’re only doing it because you want the best for our son, its going to affect him in so many ways and he will be an unhappy child”. Well, this hit me like a brick and you guessed it…I started bawling. At first I was so offended by what he said because I felt like he thought I wasn’t enjoying being a mommy but once I sat back and thought about it I realized how true it is. Instead of enjoying each little moment with Jags, I'm projecting about what im going to have to do in an hour, a day, even a week and its really not healthy. I think being a new mother is an extremely overwhelming role and I think as women we put too much pressure on ourselves to be perfect at it. I have finally come to accept that Im going to make mistakes and he's going to cry but that is all part of this amazing journey. I want to be present for it all and just enjoy the ride. I’m already feeling mother’s guilt and my son isn’t even 2 weeks yet! I’m so F*cked!

Its Baby Time!!!

I wake up on Thursday November 1st at 750 am with shooting pains in my lower back. I look at Shai and tell him, it’s happening today, something isn’t right. Within minutes the pain starts wrapping around from my back to my lower abdomen and it is actually crippling. It comes and goes and I try breathing in between to help ease the pain. I decided to walk over to Liats and see what she thinks and as I walk in a contraction hits and I burst into tears. Poor Tyler sees and gets so sad asking why is Tati crying…Seriously, kill me!!!! Liat said I’m defintely going into labor and started timing the pains. They were coming every 5 minutes, lasting about a minute and went on for over an hour. HOLY SHIT I though…I’m gonna have a baby today!!! I call Dr Kim who suggests I go up to Mt Sinai right away as they are backed up from all the NYU patients. I finish packing my bag and Shai tells me he needs to go to Starbucks and get a coffee!! I saw fear and excitement in his eyes and knew I needed to stay calm and let him get some air before his life was about to change forever. Liat helped me get everything together and just a few minutes later my dad was driving us uptown to have our baby! We check into Mt Sinai and 20 minutes later were put in a birthing room (it really pays to have a doctor with connections at the hospital). About 10 minutes later Dr Kim came in and I could not have been happier to see her. She did an exam and I was only 3 cm dilated so we knew we had some time. I couldn’t handle the pain anymore so we decide to get the epidural right away. The anesthesiologist comes in and I swear this guy looks like he’s 16. Shai sees my face and turns to him and says “I gotta ask, how old are you and have you ever done this before”. He reassured us he’s done many and that he was only the assistant and the real anesthesiologist would be there any minute. He set everything up and the doctor came in and told me to slouch over, relax my back and take a deep breath. Dr Kim told Shai to sit down and not watch as she held my face in her hands and talked me through it (I told you guys she’s amazing). I did as I was told and before I knew it, it was over. I hardly felt any pain at all, just them threading the catheter into my spine but seriously no pain. In my eyes, the worst was over and it was nothing! For the next 6 hours I felt nothing, contractions came and went and I was happy as can be. They put in the catheter while I was watching Housewives of Atlanta and I felt like I was watching TV in my bed at home, nice and comfy. Liat and Shai were in the room the whole time and we were all just hanging out and chatting. Come 4pm I wasn’t dilating enough so Dr Kim had them put Pitocin into the IV to get things going. She told me once it started working and we got up to 10 cm we would start pushing but I had at least 3 hours. Well at 645pm a pain hit me like a brick. I was literally holding onto the rails of the bed crying in pain- the epidural was wearing off!!! I panicked and needed someone to fix this asap. Shai got the nurse and soon my epidural was being “topped off” and I felt a calmness wash over me- ahhh pain free again. I still don’t understand why ANYONE in their right mind would go through this with no epidural. It hurt like a bitch and I’m not interested in feeling that kind of pain. At 730 Dr Kim walks in with her scrubs and announces its time to push. My heart stopped with fear and excitement, it was really happening. With Liat holding one leg, Shai the other and Dr Kim and a nurse down south we were going to begin. She gave me instructions on how to push, one cleansing breath followed by 3 ten second pushes without breathing while pushing (only in between to catch my breath) and I was sure I would be a champion at it. Well I was dead wrong, I freakin sucked!! Who knew pushing could be so hard?! I was told the baby would make his way down a little during the first 2 pushes then go back up during the 3^rd…Great! Liat and Shai decided that bawling me out during pushes would make me angry and make me a better pusher so during each push I had each of them yelling in my ear PUSH, YOU SUCK, YOU’RE UGLY, YOURE NEVER GONNA LOSE THE BABY WEIGHT and all other comments that would work me up. Well it didn’t work because I kept breaking my push with bouts of laughter at how ridiculous this all was. It was like a freakin circus in there! And for inquiring minds, no I didn’t not shit on the table, not even once (probably because I was the worst pusher in history) After about an hour of this Dr Kim realized it wasn’t going to happen but told me we were getting this baby out without a C Section and we needed some backup. She had another doctor come and when the 2 of them re-entered the room I knew it was game time. Dr Kim had a gown over her scrubs and a table with a lot of tools came in with her. The other doctor got up on a stool next to me and told me she was going to push down on my stomach to help ease the baby out. Liat got pushed to the side to make room so her crazy ass decides to stand on a chair in the corner with the camera in one hand and the video camera in the other. Every time I looked up at her she was making cringing faces at me, you can only imagine how reassuring that was!

Before I knew it I heard Dr Kim yell that the babies head was out and I needed 2 more pushes. Within minutes I heard the most amazing noise of my life…my baby was crying!!! I don’t remember Dr Kim saying it was boy but as he was being placed on my chest I saw Shai come over and hug us with tears streaming down his face and I lost it. We were crying and smiling and taking this huge moment in as the nurse played Happy Birthday on the stereo in the room. It was a moment you just cant describe until you live it. They took my son off my chest to be weighed and measured and all that good stuff and I hear Liat say to Shai- OMG, look at those balls!!! I’m telling you, it was a shit show in there. In the midst of all this chaos Dr Kim is doing her thing cleaning me up and I see her stitching and stitching, I asked what the hell was going on down there and she told I had to have an episiotomy because baby would not fit out. I almost threw up at the thought of a scissor cutting me open but seems like I had no other option. She told me its like a C- Section of the vagina, lovely! Once I was all stitched up our family slowly made their way in to meet our baby boy. Everyone agreed he has Shais nose and lips with my eyes and small chin but overall is definitely a Shustik.

After half hour of visitors Shai and I were taken up to our room, which I was beyond disappointed about. For $650 a night I could go to the Gansevoort in Turks but instead I’m in a tiny room with a gross hard chair bed for my husband. But aside from the room, we were in pure bliss. They brought our baby back in the room and he looked like a little doll all swaddled up with his little hospital hat on. We couldn’t stop smiling as it hit us, we just became parents.

Jagger Grey Shustik

November 1^st, 2012 @ 9:11pm

7lbs 1oz

20”

And Perfect…