Category Archives: My Life

All my bags are packed

I first heard about the new flight service between St. Louis and my hometown at my sister’s baby shower last December, when I was just barely pregnant.  My first  thought was, “Ugh, what a carbon-intensive way to make what is a pretty easy 4-hour car trip.”  Not to be a judgmental enviro-snob or anything 😉

I was quite certain that I would never avail myself of the service, super cheap flights ($30 each way — thank you government subsidies) or no.  Fast forward several months, and we were contemplating a trip to visit my family with Grumpleskiltskin Gabriel in tow.

Now, Little G is not particularly fond of the car, which in general is fine with me — I’m not particularly fond of the car, either.  (Even if he loved it and fell asleep instantly,  I would refuse to use it as a sleep aid.  Babies certainly require green compromises, but I have to draw the line somewhere.)  Anyway, the prospect of 4 hours in the car with a screaming baby, plus the additional trip time for stopping to feed him, change his diaper, etc., lacked appeal, but we did want to visit, so the Wednesday before Labor Day found us at the airport.

Eight seater

The trip went very smoothly, i.e., I did not vomit, and it also ended up being a pretty good way to travel with the little one.  He slept almost the whole way there, and on the return flight he was pretty chill once I provided his in-flight beverage.

The dude in flight

Had Matthew not really wanted the experience of flying on this little plane, I might have spoken up against it more.  I also realized as we drove to the airport that, given our sleep-deprived state these days, flying was probably MUCH safer than either of us being behind the wheel for four hours.  Benefits aside, though I won’t say that we for sure won’t make the trip by plane again, I definitely don’t intend to make a habit of it, given the environmental cost of air travel.  If we can’t make the trip by car, we may just stick close to home for awhile.

Calling all writers

Today I finally finished and published my post on cloth diapers.  The post ONLY took about three weeks from conception to completion.  Better than nine months, I guess, but really pretty pathetic.  Obviously I need a little help here.

If you would like to write a guest post for Her Green Life, get out your pen keyboard and start writing.  It would be great if the content has a “green” bent, but other than that, the sky’s the limit.

A few prompts if you have writer’s block: your green tips or tricks, garden stories, local food stories, energy saving ideas for the house . . . .

Send your posts to me at hergreenlife[at]gmail[dot]com.  If you have a blog  of your own, please include a link for me to share (but you don’t have to be a blogger to contribute here).  Happy writing!

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Image courtesy of Daily Tech Post.

Radio silence

We’re still alive here, despite Gabriel’s best efforts.  Turns out that taking care of a baby is HARD work.  We naively thought that our weeks of maternity/paternity leave together would be a lovely little vacation, some nice family bonding time for the three of us.  Ha!

Now we know what all those cryptic, “Your life will never be the same,” comments were about.  We reacted with annoyance and denial at the time, but perhaps it was unwarranted.

On the green front, we switched over to cloth diapers about four days after we got home, which was when the disposables from the hospital ran out.  I’m very glad I took all the disposable diapers that were in our hospital room, despite the nagging green voice in my head saying, “Oh, just leave them for the next person, you have all those cloth diapers at home.”   Anyway, more about the diapers in another post.

The continuing heat wave means A/C 24/7 (not green), and I’m so thankful we have it, not gonna lie.  We’re keeping it set right around 80° F, which means our little guy is pretty happy just in a diaper, or a diaper with a light swaddle for sleeping.  I’m a bit scared to see our electric bill, since we normally benefit from cranking the thermostat up to 90° F or so when we’re at work during the day.

Matthew’s been getting in some garden time, and we continue to eat extraordinarily well (though sometimes finding the TIME to eat is tricky).  I’ll try to post more regularly, but that’s definitely not taking precedence right now.  They say it gets easier . . . .

Under the knife

Two weeks ago today I underwent major surgery . . . for a tummy tuck and a boob job.  Okay, not exactly, but it kind of looks like it 😉  Here’s what really happened.Continue reading “Under the knife”

Parting shot

I plan to eventually post the entire birth story here (or at least an abridged version, as it was quite the saga), but for now, you’ll have to accept bits and pieces, in no particular order.  The end is a decent place to start.

After making two big, tough decisions — transferring to the hospital and then eventually opting for a C-section — we thought the hard part was over after they moved me from recovery to a regular room.  Instead, it signaled the beginning of 3 1/2 hellish days, starting with irregular results of Gabriel’s initial blood work.

Long story short, we are fairly certain now that whoever drew the blood did not follow proper site sterilization procedures, leading to contamination of the sample.  This led to a cascade of unnecessary interventions that included antibiotics, several lumbar punctures (to test for meningitis — and guess what?  improper site sterilization for lumbar punctures can CAUSE meningitis — lovely), and Gabriel (who wants it on the record that he was perfectly healthy the entire time) spending two completely unnecessary days in the NICU so they could “observe” him and begin treatment immediately when he began his [nonexistent] decline.

After lots of pressure about starting treatment, heavy-handed “I’m the doctor so of course I know best” rhetoric, and scare tactics based on one-sided information, the pediatricians on-staff never apologized or admitted that the whole ordeal was most likely due to a mistake on their part.

Instead, on their final visit before we were discharged on Friday, the two pediatricians came into the room for one final visit.  We greeted them icily, and gave them the answers that they wanted to hear (of course the baby will always sleep in his own bed) to get them on their way ASAP.

They could have offered something to try to end things on a pleasant note, but instead, as they were about to leave, the more senior pediatrician, said, “We’re so happy we could give you a healthy baby.”

Matthew and I were floored.  You GAVE us a healthy baby?  Excuse me?  I had a healthy baby, and your messed-up procedures caused completely unnecessary concerns and procedures, like the lumbar punctures and unnecessary antibiotics, that could have damaged his health.

Though they were already on their way out of the room and we did not get to call them on it, pictures are  worth a thousand words, and I believe Gabriel put this quite eloquently.*

Gabriel's response to Doctor Don't

*Note, this picture was not staged, although it did not occur at the time of the doctor’s statement.