Eight-six-six-three-nine.

We are family 86639. That's the number on our hospital bracelets, the ones that match our son's, though ours are wound loosely around our wrists while his is bound tightly around his impossibly small ankle.

Every day for the last eight we've had to confirm that the numbers on our three bracelets match, to ensure that the nursery is handing over care of our son to the right parents. Through showers and tears and poopy diapers and Ohmigod-he-just-peed-all-over-himself-and-me and first baths the bracelet's other identifying information has slowly faded, but these particular numbers are clear and bright as the day they were put in place, March 30 at 3:30 am.

I went into labor at midnight on March 30, 2011. I was prepared to write the contractions off as Braxton-Hicks until I saw the aptly named "Bloody Show." And I knew it was for real this time. At 2 am the pain and frequency of the contractions pushed me up the stairs to wake Mr. Savant. I tried my best not to alarm him, but I'm not sure I succeeded. We were in the car by 2:30 am, but were turned back halfway to the hospital by Michelle, the midwife, who recommended over the phone that I labor at home as long as possible before heading to the hospital. I made it until about 3:15 -- crawling, walking, taking a shower, sitting, squatting. Mr. Savant rubbed my back and my sacrum and breathed with me through each contraction.

We arrived at the hospital and I was 90 percent effaced and 3 centimeters dilated. Three labor and delivery nurses tried in vain to put in a heparin lock and draw blood, but I was so dehydrated that my veins wouldn't give up anything. Finally, Georgianna, an IV specialist, came in and nailed it on her first try after I was left smarting from five failed sticks.

Once that was done, I labored until 9:30 am when I was completely effaced and 6 centimeters dilated. And then I requested an epidural. Which was bliss after more than nine hours of gut wrenching, mind-altering, literally brought-to-my-knees pain. But then the dilation slowed down to a crawl. We waited. Hours passed. I was hooked up to a Pitocin drip. Then my water was broken. Finally, at 9:30 pm, I was 9 centimeters dilated but my contractions had become very sporadic and completely ineffective. There was a possibility that more Pitocin and more time could bring the baby into the world vaginally, but there was also a possibility that he was stuck and that any effort I made would be in vain. I was asked if I wanted a C-section. I quickly said yes.

I was prepped for surgery: a Foley catheter was put in, I was taken off all the fetal monitors and Mr. Savant donned blue scrubs, complete with plastic "shower cap" and booties. They increased the epidural and wheeled me to the C-section suite. A drape was hung perpendicular to my neck, and my arms were extended out from my shoulders. It felt like a combination guillotine and crucifixion, though I could see nothing nor could I feel any pain, only intense pressure. I could feel my body being prodded, pushed and sometimes flung side to side. And at 10:06 pm I heard the most wonderful sound -- my son opened his mouth and let out a lusty, deep and full wail.

I was crying before they even held him up over the drape. "That's our son! There's our son!" I said to Mr. Savant. That's when things got very, very fuzzy and vague. Mr. Savant left with Cameron Erich, our baby boy. I was put back together and placed in a recovery room for an entire hour during which time I had no idea where my son, husband and family were. And I felt so empty. I got doses upon doses of narcotics and I don't even remember when I held my baby for the first time. Mr. Savant fed him his first bottle, which was part of our original plan.

After two groggy, semi-conscious days, they broke the news to us. Our tiny baby boy was experiencing withdrawal from the Percoset I'd been prescribed while I was pregnant to cope with the excruciating hip and lower back pain I had while carrying him. They'd have to give him doses of morphine to assuage the symptoms, and slowly wean him off. And he'd have to stay in the hospital nursery for an indeterminate amount of time until he was "clean."

I will forever bear the burden of guilt, shame, the what-ifs and the why-didn't-they-tell-me's ... but it is still too painful to elaborate at this moment. For now, I can only say that I blame myself though it seems no one else does. Or at least if they do they don't want to admit it.

And that is why, day after day, Mr. Savant and I travel to the hospital, check in on the maternity floor, and spend hours in a small, bare, cold room with Cameron. For the hours we spend there, we form some semblance of a family; completely whole, all three of us there, family number 86639.

Things I'm looking forward to

Rediscovering my pre-pregnancy wardrobe.
Seeing my feet.
Pedicure(s).
Beer, wine, mixed drinks.
Not wearing Sea Bands as my major fashion accessory.
Not hearing Mr. Savant making snarky comments about our lack of a sex life.
Not waddling.
Eating without first having to consider whether a food will make me nauseous and/or vomit.
Having things to talk about other than how miserable I feel.
No longer fending off "Did you have the baby yet?" emails, Facebook posts, texts and phone calls.

You have fun with that.

I just don't get "attachment parenting." To me it seems more like "martyr parenting;" on-demand (breast)feeding, baby-wearing, cloth-diapering, co-sleeping ... why do people put themselves through this? Because a "brand name" doctor said so? Doesn't this "sacrifice yourself, your life and your sanity in the name of someone else" throw up some kind of red flag in the common sense region of your brain?

It does for me. But maybe that's because I struggle every day with striking a balance between my own preservation of self and giving away much too much of my time and energy to please others. And in some way, I do recognize the pattern and the 'logic' behind the attachment parenting philosophy. And it doesn't surprise me that so many women are attracted to it. Because, to me, the underlying theory is something like "If I give everything of myself whenever it's asked for, if I do everything to please and placate this person, then they will love me forever."

I've tried that. Granted, within adult relationships, but still. It didn't work then. It wasn't love. It wasn't respect. It wasn't any of those things that real love is -- it was slavery and it was sheer hell. Why, for fuck's sake, would I want to raise a child whose expectations are that adults' purpose in life is to cater to their every whim?

And then to hear the complaints: Baby's not eating/sleeping well. Breastfeeding isn't nirvana, neither parent is sleeping well, baby cries and wails no matter what; no matter what I do, it's never enough. And then, of course, comes the inevitable monetizing of these problems. Birth Doulas and postpartem doulas and lactation consultants and all these other "professionals" making you feel as though, if you don't get it just right, your kid is going to hate you. Well, guess what? You set yourselves up for this! I really don't feel badly for you. You have fun with that.

It doesn't take a lot of sense to realize that your kid is going to be "attached" to you regardless. You're fulfilling their needs one way or the other, and co-sleeping and baby-wearing aren't going to make that attachment any stronger, in my opinion. And who wants a kid who can't cope with disappointment? Who can't entertain themselves or deal with delayed gratification?

I could go on and on about how much this bothers me. But I think I'll just have to try to let it go ... because, with my luck, I'll have a kid who actually thrives on this "attachment parenting" bullshit and I'll be forced to eat every single word.

Winter of Discontent

I can't watch Mad Men right now. We downloaded (cough*stole from the Internet*cough) the entire first season intending to make our way through the series and ... it's too close. The isolation, the 'whatever you say, Dear,' the anxiety and the malaise; the problem that has no name.

""The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning [that is, a longing] that women suffered in the middle of the 20th century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries … she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question — 'Is this all?"" Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique.

Even fifty years on from the first stirrings of what would be the Second Wave of feminism, the problem persists. Naming it is still elusive. I have fulfilling work. I am independent with a marketable college degree and a solid resume. I face no real stigma if I put Baby Savant in day care, if I leave dishes and vacuuming and cooking for Mr. Savant.

And yet, I find myself asking, still, "Is this all?" Of course, it's easy to give in to the crushing weight of this hopelessness with more than four feet of snow on the ground, with only one car (which Mr. Savant takes to work most days) and few friends. And my unborn son and all the related discomforts and symptoms make crawling back into bed and sleeping days away a simple alternative.

I find myself envious of my imaginary sisters on Mad Men. They have a neighborhood. They have a community, a circle. Sure, none of them want or are able to see past the barriers The Problem throws in their path, but at least they share a common delusion. I have no one with whom to share this exile.

A baby Savant manifesto

Being pregnant is one of the strangest things that has ever happened to me. And to be brutally honest, I fucking hate it. I'm uncomfortable; too hot too cold too tired awake at 3 am peeing every 20 minutes stuffing my face heartburn constipated diarrhea puking migraine rhinitis of pregnancy OMGWTFBBY!!!!1 Maybe it's because I am, at heart, a narcissist, and the fact that no one gives a flying fuck how I'm doing as long as the embryo/fetus/grandbaby is fine is pretty disturbing. Or maybe it's the sheer overwhelming tonnage of guilt, shame and fear that's suddenly shoveled upon pregnant women. What am I eating? When am I sleeping? How much am I exercising? Why am I/am I not doing/not doing or buying or behaving or feeling this, that or the other way?

For fuck's sake. I'm 4 and a half months along and I'm already so sick of it. Yes, I'm drinking my usual two cups of fully caffeinated Starbucks coffee every morning. Yes, today I'm going to Arby's for lunch instead of choking down some tofu salad wheat grass organic crap. Yes, I'm taking Sudafed and Tylenol and Claritin and I clung to the anti-nausea drug Zofran like a drowning woman to a splintered wood plank. And yes, sometimes I give myself a pass and smoke cigarettes. Yes, I'm going back to work as soon as I possibly can after Savant Spawn is born. No, I abso-fucking-lutely refuse to breastfeed, reject completely this "attachment parenting" bullshit and am already researching daycare options. You got a problem with that? I'm sure you do. And I don't care.

I've always been good at decision-making. Sometimes, I know, I am too hasty, but I don't have many regrets about the choices I've made so far. So, today, I'm adopting a new credo. Fuck Guilt. I'm going to do the best I can for my little Savant based on who I am. Not on who anyone else believes I should be as a mother. I say again: Fuck guilt.

Somewhere between 'happy' and 'total fucking wreck.'

So there was life and death, right in front of me. A baby robin, fallen from the nest, nestled in the branches of a juniper bush. The dog saw it before I did and froze. And the bird, slowly, hopefully but with this certain sense of inevitability, opened its tiny beak wide. And waited. Waiting in the pulsing moments, with the hot dogs' breath of full summer brushing past, for food or water or comfort from its mother. But to me it looked like a silent scream.

That was yesterday. This morning, on my way to sign powers-of-attorney with my husband at work, I picked up a stranded, flailing earthworm and placed it back in the dirt. Hopeful.

In between, buoyed as always by the voice of my best Friend, I managed to pop my head above the surface and have been treading water for the last 36 hours. Trying to keep busy and hold the loneliness, the ache, the disconnect at bay.

Today, a child asked to take a walk with me. Asked me if I wanted to play basketball. And the apartment freakshow tried to sell me a snowblower. This is my fucking life.

Connecticut Zombies

Connecticut is filled with zombies. They all have the same pasty complexion, round, dull eyes and light brownish hair. They shuffle blankly through Stop 'N Shop. They stand as though in line at the pharmacy, but I've found out too late they're just gathering their thoughts and mustering the ... what? Courage? Motivation? to move on. If you speak to them, they struggle to comprehend; you can see their brains blink back to life and chug-a-chug to full speed before they slur an answer.

Sometimes, they chew gum. Like the doctor I saw today. She shambled into the exam room, and in a Ben Stein voice she introduced herself. She was chewing gum as though it were peanut butter. Long, drawn out mastication, of course, loudly, smacking and cracking and occasionally making sucking sounds as she moved the wad back and forth between her cheeks.

What am I supposed to do amongst these strangers? It's like the whole state is populated by Stepford folk.