Nine pounds? Oh, I don't think so.

At my last doctor visit, the nurse said I'd gained 0 pounds. That's a zero. Zip, zilch. Weight gain=None.

Fast forward 2 weeks to this morning, and the nurse says: "Nine pounds."

Excuse me? How does a 5'2" person gain 9 pounds in two weeks? I doubt I could lose 9 pounds in two months.

Guess that explains why my wedding ring suddenly stopped fitting yesterday. Sigh. The baby herself won't weigh anywhere near 9 pounds. Bagels and brownies are tools of the Man.

Damn. That puts me at 37 pounds gained already. Doctor says it's "probably a lot of water."
I don't drink that much water. Camels don't drink that much water.

In other nonfat news: Last week we had Baby School (newborn care), which among other things included baby CPR (upsetting), diapering (moderately easy on a creepy inanimate doll that didn't actually do anything gross in int), breastfeeding (warning: excessive pain ahead), and swaddling (I don't do crafts).

Day Two of class culminated in two "graduates" bringing in their 2.5-week old Baby Lilly. Also known as "The Creature" (their nickname not ours. but fitting).

They looked fairly sane and not overly haggard...until the woman started recounting her experiences of the past 2.5 weeks.

She sounded....depressed, overwhelmed, mildly annoyed with her husband (who could not share in her physical ordeal) and just generally not very happy but trying to hide it. "Get help" was really her repeated piece of advice. Even though her husband did all the burping, diapering, and cleaning, Mom still felt they they were SOL without a helper.

Meanwhile, "Baby Lily" had this blank stare and sort of a Gollum-esque body.

Needless to say, my spirits spiraled. I was horrified that no one was going to be around to help me for weeks. Kevin's attitude changed dramaticall, too. He was ready to sell all his guitars and sadly acquiesce to a life that he'd never wanted. (He never said that second part, and he kept saying his funk was temporary, but it was there and it was my fault :( ).

Then I got MORE depressed, naturally, and it all went to Hell from there in the McCarthy household. I called my mom and begged for her to fly out the second we escape the hospital, even though until two weeks ago I was looking forward to starting this on our own together. Now, I felt we were being sent into battle and was really ready to go AWOL unless my mommy came.

Thank you Baby School. As my boss noted, they should make you take this class BEFORE you decide to have a baby. Sponsored by Trojan Brand.

Fear not, reader, we don't remain in Hell for more than 4 or 5 days.

This weekend we visited some friends in San Jose who have a 2.5-week old, Olivia. Olivia sleeps 8 hours through the night already. Olivia makes eye contact. Olivia sat on the table in her little bouncy things and hung out with the four of us while we had lunch.

Olivia's mommy and daddy looked and sounded just like their regular old happy normal selves. They didn't sound depressed, they didn't talk in in baby talk, they didn't dote over her but were clearly in love with her, and their house looked normal. They were still our friends.

Yay!

Admittedly, Olivia's daddy was doing all the diapering and burping, etc., but didn't seem to quite appreciate the depth of the physical toll that childbirth and early breast feeding takes on Olivia's mommy. I've decided to accept that most men's power of empathy is just lacking , no matter how helpful they are at that time. It's probably the ones who are trying to "positive" which is something we like. And maybe if they were too empathetic, they would do that weird "sympathetic pregnancy" thing and we would have to leave them. Hard to say.

In the end, Kevin and I left our friends' house rejuvenated and not looking at each other through that sad film of unfamiliarity we had...that gaze of "how the hell did i get here and who the hell are you?" that had filled every room the last few days.

I decided to adopt some of our friend's doctor's more convenient recommendations...so we went for sushi for dinner last night. Hurray!

I also learned that I don't have avoid alcohol entirely while breastfeeding. There is no "hurray" word in English that's strong enough to describe how good that glass of wine is going to taste after this little bit'o Lyric has exited the building of Mommy. I am allowed to have one now, but I think my brain won't allow me to enjoy it. In a six weeks though, I'm buying a damn good bottle of wine and sitting over candlelight with my husband and our new puppy. I mean baby.

Nine pounds!?