In the days leading up to the birth of my third child, time stretched out like taffy. Each day was like a week. I was hot, pregnant, and DONE. I was excited to have my daughter topside; anxious to see her and cuddle her and try to fit her whole head in my mouth. I was exhausted from aches, pains, sleep deprivation, and the worrisome fear of exploding into labor like a rocket soaked in gasoline.

Chris' labor progressed like an exponential growth curve. Yes, children, I expect you to know what that means by the time you're ten. It started out slow, picked up little by little, and then WHAM-O! I wanted to be hit on the knuckles with a hammer repeatedly so that I could focus on something LESS PAINFUL AND HORRIFIC. The medical term is "precipitous labor" which sounds like you're having a baby in a rainstorm, how peaceful and lovely, but what it really means is WHEN DID SOMEONE INSTALL A SPACE SHUTTLE LAUNCHPAD IN MY HOO-HAH? By the time I figured out that I was really in labor and not just regretting the cheese steak that I ate the day before, there was precious little time for things like anesthesiologists and launch sequences.

So as I waddling along through my last days of pregnancy, I had the constant itch in the back of my brain that said "you better watch out sister. You're about to blow at any time." The hospital bag was packed in the car and gathering dust. Of course, as the old saw goes, a watched pot never boils, and I felt like I was going to be pregnant until this one entered kindergarten. The doctor kept pushing for an induction, and I reluctantly agreed. Better to have an induction than have to mop placenta off the upholstery in my Honda, right?

We dropped off the kids with my parents, and went out for dinner: cheese steaks, what else? We sat outside on the patio of Pop's Steaks, feeling the late summer heat and joking about going into labor before heading to the hospital for our induction at three in the morning. The other folks on the patio wished us luck, and we set off home for a few hours of sleep before heading off to the hospital.

We checked in, I dressed in one of those sexy hospital johnnies with my bum hanging out, and the night nurse set up my IV with the teensiest does of Pitocin possible. Dimitri pulled the cot out of the visitor's chair in the room and promptly started snoring. No first-time nerves this time; he was a pro. The night nurse and I watched him and shared a giggle. She said in her Indian accent "De men, dey always snore." I tried to catch a few z's, but the scratchy Johnny and the constant bleeping from the contraction monitor made it hard. Too, each time I dozed off, some infernal blood pressure cuff would inflate, squeezing me half to death and jerking me awake.

After a couple hours, the day shift came on the floor, and we were greeted by Denise, the same nurse who delivered Chris. We were also visited by Haze, the nurse that delivered Sophie. It was like old home week. They remembered us from our two previous deliveries. We chatted, made small talk, and Denise showed me how to bypass the blood pressure monitoring cuff. She joked "You guys have been here often enough; you might as well learn how to use the equipment."

She told me that the doctor sent orders to up the pitocin, drug me up, break my water, install all kinds of wires, and call her when I was ready to push. I told the nurse, though, to hold off on all of that, that I would rather labor as long as I could without wires hanging from my vajayjay, and pull the epidural ripcord when I couldn't handle the pain any longer.

She agreed, and used only external fetal monitors, two paddles covered in slime attached to me by Velcro belts. Any time I lay down, the paddles would shift and we couldn't keep a lock on Zoe. The bed was incredibly uncomfortable anyway, and I found that, as the contractions intensified, it was more comfortable for me to stand and sway back and forth. The contractions were pretty intense, I remember them being that bad with Sophie's delivery when I started bribing nurses for the anesthesiologist's phone number. I knew, though, that the earlier I got an epidural, the longer the labor would be, and I knew that I could handle more. I focused on my breathing and pictured red turtleneck sweaters with each contraction.

My friend Danielle, in addition to being a wonderful person, is also a professional doula. She was kind enough to give Dim and I a childbirth refresher course this time around, including instructions on how to deliver at home if it came to that (Space Shuttle! Placenta in the Honda!) She gave me the best visualization of the dilation and effacement process that I had ever heard; I only wish I had known about it before: Your uterus and cervix are like an ill-fitting turtleneck. The baby tugs and tugs on the turtleneck to get it stretched over its head. With each contraction, I imagined my girly parts as a really bad Christmas sweater, and the kid was pulling to get it over her head. It sounds dumb, but it really helped.

Where was Dim in all this? The place where no man should be: captivated by the contraction monitor. Men, let me let you in on something: NEVER judge your wife's contractions by the spikes and jags on the tape that comes out of the contraction monitor. She doesn't need to hear you say "that last one wasn't so bad. That one only got halfway up the graph" or "Check out the contraction peaks on the lady in the next room. Wow, she must be in a lot of pain." You'll lose your balls, dude. LOOK AT YOUR WIFE, NOT THE MONITOR. I know the machine goes "ping!" and has lots of interesting dials and readouts, but I'm telling you, you have to peel your gadget-loving eyes away from it. You don't have to try and live under the same roof as a contraction monitor. The contraction monitor can't spit in your food and decide to cut your brake cables. Trust me fellas: be nice to the moaning lady with her ass hanging out of the gown.

Humor me through his brief change of subject: did I ever mention my freakishly large head? The head that prevents me from wearing tight-necked clothing and hats of any kind? No? Well, just between us, my head has its own gravitational field. I have this giant melon that requires stronger than normal neck muscles to prop it up. I could crush beer cans with my neck. Anyway, I tell you that to tell you this: GIANT HEADS ARE GENETIC. My Christmas sweater visualization was morphing into yanking a watermelon through a tube sock as the contractions increased.

I asked Dim to press on my hips as I leaned on the hospital bed, hoping that counter-pressure might help ease the process. Every time Dim pressed on my hips and lower spine, the peak on the contraction monitor would disappear. Dim spent a few contractions congratulating himself on finding the magic button on his wife that ERASED CONTRACTIONS COMPLETELY. He quickly realized, though, that pressing on my backside was moving the slimy paddles on my belly and losing the signal until he let up again. It was fun to let him think that he magically cured labor. It took my mind off the watermelon and the tube sock for a while.

There was no mistaking, though, that my body was quickly turning itself inside out. The pain was regular and intense. I was focusing on letting the pain work for me, though. Last time I remember being in the thick of transition and tensing in anticipation of each contraction. For the labor uninitiated, you lucky devils, "transition" is the time during labor when the woman feels like she's dying, and will very likely take everyone in the room down with her. This is not the time to tell her that your hands are sore from rubbing her back. (Dad, mom still doesn't forgive you for that one.) She'll gnaw your hands right off your wrists like a fox stuck in a trap. The clenching and tensing wasn't helping. I can only equate it with that horrible glaucoma puff test that you get at the eye doctor's. You're anxious and squinty in anticipation of the inevitable puff of air on your eye. They can't puff until you open your eye, and yet you don't want to open your eye because you know the puff is coming. The anticipation is the worst. It was the same with Chris' labor.

My clenching before a contraction was about as effective as sticking my arms out in front of me before getting hit by a bus. I was determined not to go through that again. I was determined to make each contraction do the most it could, and not fight them. Dim did an excellent job of keeping my spirits up. He kept showing me the tiny newborn diaper that the nurses had ready in the warming bin. He kept reminding me that we were going to have a sweet little baby wearing that diaper in no time. I focused on breathing, swaying, and not clenching. Dim's counter pressure was very helpful. I labored like that for a while, until the contractions got too close together for me to really catch my breath. I called the nurse, and told her I was ready to pull the rip cord for pain meds. The anesthesiologist on duty was the same I had with Sophie. Thankfully it wasn't the pear-headed bastard that pantomimed a spinal for Chris' birth. Did I mention that yutz was texting while giving me pain relief? OMG IM STICKING A NEEDLE IN UR SPINE LOLZ!!!1! No wonder it didn't take that time. The epidural sent a really terrible shock down my leg, but I was looking forward to a drug-induced haze. The anesthesiologist left the room, and told me to call for him if I didn't feel relief in ten minutes.

So now I was confined to bed, the pains were coming faster, and the drugs weren't working. If you had a closed captioning feed hooked into my brain you would see OH HELL NO, WHERE IS THAT ANESTHESIOLOGIST? I asked Denise to call him, and it seemed like it took him a year to wander back in. Between groans I told him that UUGGGGHHHH, it didn't work, don't you have some GGGGHHHUUUUUGHGHGH thing else that will OOOOOOOOO puh-leeeaassse? "Sure." He said. "I've got something stronger ready here."

What?

"You had better drugs and you were holding out on me? GET OVER HERE MAN!" He put whatever-it-was in my IV and I felt a cold shock down my spine and after a few more contractions, I stopped...feeling...my...butt. It's an odd feeling to all of a sudden lose the sensation of your rear-end and thighs. I caught myself feeling myself up more than a few times. I could feel my bum but my bum couldn't feel me back. It was so strange. "So this is what it feels like to grope me?" I said to my husband. "Yup. Feels good, doesn't it?" He said, giving me a wink.

Awwww. I love him. And I love drugs. I told the nurse so several times.

After the second dose of I-love-it-whatever-it-was took full effect, the nurse broke my water and checked me - 9 centimeters. Still not ready to push, but darn close. She told Dim that the baby had dark hair, and his face lit up. He was so happy to be having a dark-haired baby. She called the OB's office from my room to tell the doctor that she had better head over tout-suite. The doctor said that she would finish up the exam that she was doing and head over. "HURRY!" I yelled at the phone before Denise disconnected. She told me to relax, that the doctor is at least twenty-five minutes away, plus whatever time she took with the patient she was with when we called.

I spent the next twenty minutes breathing deeply and trying not to explode. The pain was manageable, and, aside from the fact that I couldn't feel my butt cheeks on the delivery table, I was cool. Then my uterus started sending messages to my brain: push. Push. PUSH, DANGIT! I told Denise that my uterus was taking over my brain, and that I really, really, really wanted to push. "Not unless you want this baby on the floor, Mama." Denise said. She told me to pant rather than push, so it became a race to see what was faster: my OB's car or my cervix.

The doctor skidded into the room, and I remember thinking it would have been exactly like that scene with Tom Cruise in Risky Business except she was wearing clogs. And, you know, pants. "You ready?" she asked me, looking at the business end of me while putting on a paper apron. My response was a panting version of "reallywantotpushreallywanttopush." "Wait!" She said, pulling off the apron. "I have to go pee. Can you hold on a little longer?"

Blink. Blink.

"YOU HAD BETTER PEE FAST, LADY!" I waggled my finger at her as she ran for the staff bathroom. It wouldn't have been polite for me to point out that there was a bathroom right there in the labor room, not five steps from where I was very actively NOT PUSHING, HEE HEE HEW. I don't know, maybe she had a Mexican lunch and needed privacy. She returned just as I was about to say to Denise that she would deliver this baby with or without the doctor, because that's it - my uterus wins. I can't hold back any more.

The doctor told me to push, as if I need to be told! My uterus had taken over, pushing had already commenced! I let my body do what it already knew how to do, and had done twice before. I pushed with everything I had (except my butt. That was still on holiday) and Zoe came out in only a few contractions. I heard her cry, and I felt a flood of absolute joy. She was pink and perfect and sure enough, had a mullet-full of dark hair. The nurses cleaned her up and handed her over to me. She was so incredibly beautiful. She had these two large beautiful, sharkskin-colored eyes. At seven pounds and 12 ounces, she was my biggest baby, but she still looked so tiny to me, my Zoe. My Zoe Belle. I was in love.

As before, I nursed her for a while and then handed her over to Dim and the nurses for bathing and pictures and shots and such, and gave myself a farewell grope as the epidural wore off. The nurse brought in a wheelchair, but I was ready to walk out of the delivery room. I asked her to take out the IV so I didn't have to drag that silly IV pole around the hospital. The nurse told me that I was a professional, that I should have twenty more. Then she offered me a job. "Hell," she said, "You already know how to use all the equipment, you've been here enough times, you know what you're doing; I might as well put you to work." I gabbed with her and another nurse as I walked down the hall to the recovery room, and immediately asked for a cheeseburger. I was ravenous.

I changed out of the Johnny, and walked down to the nursery to hang out with Dim and Zoe. Zoe was a sweet thing, calm and happy. It felt a little bittersweet holding her; I was so pleased with this birth, it was my favorite of the three; and yet, I knew that it would be my last. Great. Just when I feel like I had the whole thing figured out, too!

We're a family of five, and I'm really happy about that. I feel like we're complete, like the whole team is here. I love each of my children fiercely. I always thought it was a bit corny when people say that their hearts grow each time they have children; that the love that you have for your kids isn't divided amongst them, but multiplied each time another one comes along. That's the second math metaphor, I know. I'm sorry. It works, though. I'm supremely grateful that I'm in the center of this incredible family; I have three wonderful kids that I adore: they buzz around us like little electrons and bind us together as a unit. I suppose that makes Dim and me a nucleus. Lithium, I think. Hooray, my family is a flammable metal and explosive in water! Sounds like we're in for some fun pool parties when the kids get a little older - exploding Marco Polo, perhaps?

I'm so deeply pleased that my three kids are here on this side of the veil, but I'd be remiss if I didn't admit that I'm a little sad that this phase of my life, the pregnancy and delivery phase, is over. True, I'm never going to pound antacids and waddle like a hippo again, but neither will I feel a new little life squirming and jumping inside me, either. Childbirth was something that I was really good at, and as a type-A braggart I'm loathe to let go of things at which I excel. I suppose I'll have to find other things- like shuffling cards or rapid alphabetization- that I can rub in other people's faces. Nothing will ever compare, though, to the privilege that I had bringing these three awesome kids into this world. I made life happen, and that's a profound and humbling and wonderful thing that some people never get to experience. Some people have to settle for adopting a cat or building a model airplane.

But I'm a parent. I was honored to be able to experience childbirth three times, and lucky enough to have three great kids to show for it. I know that some people choose to be childless, and others ache with despair because they are childless. I'm very aware that the stress of raising three kids is a problem that a lot of people wish they could have, and it's also something that others wouldn't wish on anyone. I, however, am better because of it. I firmly believe that this family was meant to be, and for whatever ineffable reason, the Powers That Be decided that Dim and I, even with our mountains of flaws and insecurities, were the people destined to be the nucleus for these three little electrons.

I'm thankful that we get to be Lithium together.

I had a lovely outing this weekend. Did you hear that? OUTING, as in OUT, suckers! I had lunch with a friend I met through the blogoshphere. True, I did talk about kids and breast pumps incessantly, ignoring the eye rolls of the kid-less folks at the table (sorry, Brian and Claudia!) I had a very nice time, even though I got the feeling that people were putting up with my company rather than enjoying it at times.

While I really enjoy Claudia's repartee, and she did not disappoint, I was most looking forward to meeting Sweetcoalminer. I have been reading her blog for a long time now, and after reading her posts of career woman-turned-stay at home mom amidst many Stepford L.A. mommies, I felt like she was a real kindred spirit, in the words of Anne Shirley. Any woman who can belt out a good toddler poop blowout story without putting down her Panini is a kindred spirit to me, indeed. I felt quite bashful to be meeting her in person, a little like a peeping Tom who is invited in off the branch, but I had a really enjoyable time, and I was grateful for the THREE WHOLE HOURS on my own. THREE, suckers!

Of course, there is a price to be paid for all good things. I came home to a wigged out husband, and feral, naked children. I swear, whenever I leave the kids with my husband, things quickly devolve into Lord of the Flies at the house. The kids are snot-streaked and naked, the downstairs looked like a confetti truck got teabagged by a Toys R Us truck, and the cat was making eyes at a poopy diaper left on the changing station.

I was gone three hours, not three weeks. I realize that I'm the only thing keeping the trains running on time around here. I come home to a frazzled husband because I committed the GRIEVOUS SIN of leaving for three hours without a cell phone. (Not that I need a defense here, because I don't, but I told Dim the name of the restaurant and left the web page up on my computer. He totally could have called the restaurant in an emergency, but whatever. All he had to do was keep the kids breathing for three hours.)

I'm sounding a bit pissy here, aren't I? I'm not, really. It just amuses me how one-sided the situation is. I don't have the luxury of phoning my husband after three stressful hours of Nintendo and cheese puffs to demand that he stop what he's doing to come home and relieve me. I can't just "babysit" my kids.

So I got home, wiped off snot, started a load of diapers, and got the trains running again. I managed to do it with a calm voice and a smile on my face, even though a bit of ass chewing would have been justified. I think my husband could use more solo time with the three kids, and not just in a keep-them-alive-until-the-wife-returns way. It might give him a taste of the flaming-chainsaw juggling act that is raising three young children. He doesn't have to do laundry, or dishes, or meal prep, but doing more than parking their butts in front of the Nintendo or ferrying them over to his mother's house is in order, I think.

I'm ambivalent about parenting advice. When I was a new mom (the first time around) I would bristle at advice coming from sources I distrusted or disliked. My thought was "Oh really? You recommend Acme diapers? Have you even seen how your kids are ending up? That's clearly related to your choice of diaper, lady. Puh-leeeze." I'm sure that I turned my nose up at plenty of decent advice from mothers because I wouldn't let my defenses down and wouldn't let people chip in.

Don't get me wrong: some advice was just plain silly and deserved to be ignored. Like, don't let your kids drink iced liquids because it's bad for their hearts. They might have heart attacks. Heart attacks - FROM ICE WATER. It's miraculous that penguins make it past a year old. And stepping on cracks in the sidewalk? You know what they say about that, don't you? Sometimes I wonder if other people lack a bullshit filter in their heads. I mean, at what point do you hear something that ridiculous and you think to yourself: you know what? That sounds pretty logical. I better remember that the next time I get ice water at a restaurant. I had better make sure that the waiter stashes Bayer aspirin in his apron and knows CPR. Do people really lack that little golf whisper in their heads that stifles "bullshit" with a cough when someone tells them that their cousin said that he had a friend who had a sister that went to the hospital because she ate the seeds from her apple core and almost DIED from the cyanide? Are these the same people that believe when Fox news says that Obama wants to kill your grandmother with health care reform?

The best advice, at least from an entertainment perspective, comes from the folks who don't yet have children. To hear a childless person tell you what worked for them when they were twelve and babysat, or what they would do once they have kids is precious, so much so that you have to repress the urge to pinch their cheeks from the cuteness of it. Awww, you have no kids, and you think you know what to do? That's so sweet. Well here, here's a screaming infant that won't nurse and won't sleep and won't poop and can give you no feedback about how well or how poorly you're doing. I'll be at the end of the driveway, trying to remember what that bright yellow ball in the sky is. I'll see you in about thirty seconds, Skippy.

However, there were three pieces of advice that I still consider to be the best advice I ever got after I became a parent of a newborn. The first two came from my friend Nicole after the birth of my first daughter (ack! It sounds so strange to say that!) and the third came from my friend Shaunna, whose advice came in extra handy when I had a newborn and a destructive, curious toddler. Nicole told me that the most important thing to realize when you become a mother for the first time is that you can only expect to do one thing a day. One. That's it. You can either manage to brush your teeth or take a shower, but you will not be able to do both. You could manage to get to the grocery store, but only because you forgot to close the flaps on your nursing bra. Sure, you're managing to get groceries back into the house, but your boobs are hanging out of the bottom of your shirt in the produce section. That's the cost of doing business in those first few weeks of motherhood.

Her second piece of advice was from one kindred, type-A spirit to another. See, Nicole understands me. She understands that spice racks should be alphabetized and Transformers toys should be stored separately from Hot Wheels, even though they are both shaped like cars. She is a high school teacher in charge of herding and educating dozens of teenagers at a time, and without a cattle prod, which seems unfair to me. She understands the simple beauty of perfectly arranged office supplies and of toy buckets sorted by licensed action figure, presence and/or absence of light sabers, and likelihood of concussion if said toy is flung off the banister at a younger sibling's head. (She's the mother of sons, can you tell?) So her second piece of advice was simple, but profound: stop trying to do things perfectly, and start doing them well. Type-A people like me can get so caught up in how things ought to happen, that they can end up not happening at all, or become so top-heavy with the expectation of perfection that one little push in a weak area and the whole lot can come crashing down around you. Instead, accept the fact that your tits are dragging along behind the grocery cart, and just get dinner on the table. And yes, until you get your bearings, some nights "dinner" will be little more than scrambled eggs and whatever frozen vegetable you can pull out of the freezer. Or it may be take out Chinese. Whatever. Fuck Martha Stewart, you have a newborn.

The third piece of advice came to me when I was newly a mother of two. Chris was an incredibly attached newborn, and Sophie, who was not quite two, was completely off her axis as the center of the universe. I was terrified at the prospect of juggling the needs of two young children. I wanted to be a good mother to a needy newborn, but also meet the emotional, physical, and Cheerio needs of a very confused toddler. Shaunna's one of the smartest, ablest, most confident mothers that I know. Shaunna grew up in a small (by Mormon standards) family - I think that she only has three other siblings. She's now pregnant with her fourth child (hooray for her!) I emailed her asking how I could possibly manage to nurse a newborn (which, for the uninitiated, takes approximately twenty-three hours a day) while still chasing around after an active toddler with only a shaky understanding of the phrase "Stop eating the lining of that diaper." Her advice was pretty spot-on: When the baby cries, run around the house, baby-proof as fast as you can; then plop yourself down on the couch, whip out a boob, and hope for the best.

The advice is pretty simple, at least to someone who knows that Cayenne should really be sorted under the Ps for Pepper, Cayenne. You can only do what is within reason, to the best of your ability, and trust that you can handle the consequences as they arise. You should always work to the best of your ability, but understand that "the best of your ability" is a moving target, and will vary from day to day. Some days, things will go well, eerily Norman Rockwellian, and other days you will find yourself scrubbing crusted mac and cheese sauce off one kid's butt while chasing down the other kid who is racing around the house with a wet toilet brush.

This time around, I have a newborn, an 18-month old with a vocabulary of about thirty words, and a three and a half year old who needs to be convinced repeatedly that public nudity is not a viable option on the days that she attends preschool. I'll be perfectly honest: I'm scared. I feel pretty confident that I have control over the zone defense needed when I'm outnumbered by my kids, but it gets muddy when I have more kids than I have hands, and at least one of them is always holding a baby. I feel confident in my ability to adapt: these past three and a half years have taught me more about my ability to bob and weave with life's hiccups and my ability to take charge and get things done than any workaday job could have done. It's the twilight between what my comfort zone is and what it needs to be that gives me the willies: these first few weeks and months where I get my sea legs, where I grow more confident in my role as herder, nurturer, and general, all-around ass kicker.

Until then, any advice or encouragement that doesn't involve ice water or apple seeds?