CHAPTER 19 OUR FAMILY

This is our little family. The first few days in the hospital were a little crazy. We had no idea what we were doing. Our son got circumsized and he handled it very well. My son never left our site and he was doing so good at breast feeding. He started sleeping in bed with me right away and I didn't mind in fact that is right where he belonged. Nurses actuallly came in our room because they heard there was such a cute baby. Yeah we knew. He is beautiful. He is very special. You could tell immediatly that he was Asian and he looked just like his dad. The most funny part of the whole thing is he actually came out bald on top like I dreamed he would be. Anyway we had our son and it was amazing. I was sitting in bed on day and looked over at Rob and said I just wanted to let you know I love him more then the cat. It was TRUE I loved this baby more then anything in the whole world. In 10 seconds he became my world. I already worried and protected and thought about him every second of the day.

CHAPTER 18 THE BIRTH

So Monday came and I was told I couldn't eat or drink anything all day. I was pissed and mean. You can't imagine the horror of telling a pregnant woman no food or drink. Finally 2:00 rolled around and we were off to the hospital. It was the oddest feeling knowing we were leaving with out a baby but would be back with one. So the nurse lady came in and said since we were having a C section they needed to shave me. Don't worry I had already done that. WRONG. Next thing I knew this mean lady was going after me with a bic and nothing else no shaving cream or water or anything. Wow talk about making me more miserable. Then she came in to give me an IV and I'm pretty sure the IV was the worst pain of the whole thing. So family starts to trickle in and they are all wishing me well and the nurse walks in and says okay we are going to get your baby. So I start walking down that hall..WAIT...the doctor isn't here yet turn around. So I go back to the room and sit for a few minutes and then its back down the hall. So they take me in a room put me on a bed and roll me over. The anastheologist says I will feel something like a bee sting in my back. I don't even think it hurt that bad. Next thing I know the doctor says we've already started and I'm amazed it didn't even take a half second for me to be numb from my neck down. My husband made some interesting faces and the next thing I knew the doctor said you will feel a little pressure. It felt like someone was kinda pulling on my chest and all the sudden I heard a scream. Now normally I'm not one of those emotional people but the whole time all I could think was if he cries right away that means he's healthy. So he started crying and I'm embarrassed to admit I started crying. Yes I cried. I couldn't believe it after only about 2 minutes if that long I had a baby. The next thing I knew he was being whisked over to a table and wiped and touched and booger sucked. Then they handed him to my husband and he brought him over and showed him to me and I'll be dammed he was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my whole entire life. I knew immediately he was someone special. My husband and Brandon went with the nurse for a bath and I stayed behind to get sown up. After he was bathed and I could move my big toe and legs the nurses brought Brandon to meet me. They pulled down my shirt to see if he would start breast feeding. So he got close to me and I said something to him and as soon as he heard me speak his little mouth started sucking on the air. My baby was born to breast feed. It was awesome. That was the only other thing I was worried about. A few hours passed and I was moved to my room where they brought him in and actually let me hold him. Then a bagillion people showed up and I became a proud mom. Yes I was a little high and don't remember it all but I was a proud mom.

CHAPTER 17 ALMOST DONE

My son was born on August 1st 2005. About 4 days before that on a friday I went to see the doctor only to hear that I was still not dilated and this kid wasn't coming out. He sent me across the street for a sonogram to see how big the baby was. They said he would be anywhere between 7.5 to 9.5 pounds. The doctor said that the baby was big enough that if I was ready to have him I could. WHAT. I was getting him out because I couldn't wait any longer I needed to meet my son. So we scheduled an appointment for 4:00 PM on Monday the 1st to have a baby. Whoah. You have no idea how odd it is to know exactly when you are going to have the baby. So during the weekend while we were waiting my husband and I suddenly realized we wanted to add the name Cooper to my sons name. Kenny Cooper was my husbands friend who died at work one day and it was because of him that Rob and I are what we are because it was his death that brought us together. We contemplated naming the kid Brandon Taylor Aloysius Cooper Mateo but we liked the baby and couldn't do that to him so we dropped Taylor. Next thing I knew my dad called and said he wanted to change the baby to be named after his other grandpa so the day before his birth our son because Brandon Cooper Gabriel Mateo. Some family had already nick named him "Coop." The nursery was ready I was ready the cat was ready everyone was ready. We were going to have a baby.

CHAPTER 16 BABY CLASS

For about 4 out of the nine months my husband and I attended parenting classes that my insurance paid for. For the most part they were good. The bad parts were when they showed us what could happen in delivery. First they pulled out some salad tossers that they called forceps. I guess those were to grab the baby by the head and pull him out if he wasn't coming. Then they showed me a vacuum. I wasn't happy I was freaking out. Finally they showed us some wierd contraption that screwed into the babies head to monitor him. That was it I was officially freaked. I made up my mind. I was having a C-Section. Another scary day was when the dentist came to visit. He told us horror stories about cavities and showed pictures of babies with rotten teeth. Then he told us that if parents brought in a child with a cavity and they brought it in a second time with another one he would call social services on them. Whoah what? Kids get cavities. Mental note..don't go to this crazy ass parent hater. finally though the best day of all was the day that we actually got to play with little dolls. The teachers assumed us moms knew what to do and set in teaching the dads. First they asked the dads to change the dolls diaper. They opened it up to find peanut butter smeared all over the babies butt (interesting we have seen some similar stuff after having him.) So the dads had to figure out how to get all of the peanut butter off. Then they had to put a fresh diaper on. Rob tore the little straps off his first one and had to get another diaper. Then they had to put a hat and shirt on the baby and master swaddling. It was hilarious seeing how it took some people twice as long as others to get the shirts on and some peoples swaddle fell apart in seconds. The best though was when they turned out the lights, turned on a tape of a screaming child that got worse the longer it was on and handed them each a bottle, some formula and water and said make a two ounce bottle. Man there was formula flying everywhere. They forgot to cover the nipple and when they shook water was alllll over. That class was my favorite because it was the first time I actually felt like I knew something.

CHAPTER 15 WAIT NOW I HAVE TO WORRY

So the pregnancy progressed and before I knew I started to worry. What if I"m not a good mom. We started taking parenting classes which are a whole chapter in themselves and during these classes they talked about SIDS. OMG I became obsessed what if my baby died of sids. What if I didn't hear him at night. What if someone kidnapped him. What if someone came along and cut him out of my belly (yes I really did think that thanks to my mom telling me that it had happened on TV.) Anyway another thing you should know about me is that I am the queen of "whatifs." I can what if any situation. What if a car hits mine and I didn't put the carseat in the middle and the baby dies because it hit me on the side his seat was on. What if I'm crossing a bridge and a spider gets in the car and bites me and I drive off. Did I mention I am also totally insane. Basically I went into major freak out mode about being a bad mom. Thank god for what to expect when your expecting and Jenny Mccarthy. Both of those books told me that by worrying about not being a good mom I was actually being a good mom. That meant that my natural instincts were kicking in. They said if you didn't think about that stuff it was a bad sign. Hell I was about to become an excellent mother then by their standards. This made it okay to worry that although I do have a state of the art alarm system in my house I don't have an alarm on my crawl space meaning someone could cut a whole in the side of my house and come in through the crawl hole kidnapping my son. HEY It could happen.

CHAPTER 14 THE CAT FIGHT

My husband likes to drink. No he's not an alcoholic he just thinks he is still 21 and loves to party with his friends. Needless to say he is usually very shy. Not so true when he is drunk. He will talk and do wierd stuff and yell and jump around with his friends like a bunch of drunk idiots at a SF Giants game. He is very amusing to watch as this is not a side of him I normally see. Anyway another thing that happens when he drinks is that he is not affraid to talk about stuff. He will actually tell you what he is feeling. But the best part of it all is that when he wakes up the next day he usually has no idea what he said. So one night he has a few to drink and since I'm pregnant I am dead sober. So he is eating some chicken I believe and I say to make sure he puts it in the garage trash since my cat is notorious for getting stuff out of our trash. In fact he was notorious for just dumping over the whole trast. Some how this conversation turns to "You are going to love your cat more then your baby." This upsets me. The way I saw it my cat was my baby. I know I know a lot of you are saying ITS JUST A CAT. But, if you know me one thing you know is for the most part animals are a bigger part of my heart then humans. I cried for two days over a baby bunny that I had had for a bout 4 hours when it died. Anyway my logic was that this cat was like my kid. To be honost if someone told me now that if I had a second child I would love them as much as my first I would laugh at them. I am not programmed that way. I am not made to think of anything but the current. My husband on the other hand started to love the baby the day he found out I was pregnant. I tried to explain this to him but he didn't get it. To him he thought since I was carrying this thing I should understand the most. I didn't. I"m not that person. That person who just gets attached right away. Maybe part of me was thinking I would lose it or maybe part of me was thinking something would be wrong with him and he wouldnt make it. What ever it was I still though I was going to love my cat more. So we got into it and of course I cried. In fact he was still ranting as he passed out in bed. I think he fell asleep in the middle of a sentance. The next morning he had no clue that any of this had happened but I made sure to fill him in. I tried to think about it all. I tried to figure out if maybe I was wrong. If I needed to change my feelings. The problem was I didn't know how. All I could think of was this poor little cat who had no clue what was going on and would never understand becoming second in my life. (Yes at this point I think I cared more about my cat then my husband. The thing is once I do form a bong it is iron clad. There is no getting over it. Ask me how many of my previous relationships I still care about. So to me it made sense. The cat was there first there for he won.

CHAPTER 13 THE SHOWER

My friend Katie decided to plan the shower. Katie is a very classy gal which is totally opposite of me. I wanted chips and dip and weiner wraps. Katie wanted pinwheels, fruit bowls and mimossas. We met in the middle and had it all. My mom also brought alon egg salad sandwhiches and PB&J. Thank god because I was addicted to Peanut butter during the pregnancy. And I mean addicted. But we will address that later. Anyway I made sure we had fun games because she prefers showers with out games and just casual conversation. So we ended up with baby food tasting, a game where we melted different chocolate bars into a diaper and then made people guess what it was (it looked like poo in a diaper I loved it, everyone else thought I was gross for liking it) and the measure your belly game. I think there was more but I can't remember. Anyway I thought it would be more fun to have Rob come and bring a few of his friends. And also since I had lost so much weight and Rob had seemed to gain it all I thought why not have us stand back to back and measure how big both of our bellies had gotten. At this time he was actually as big as me. The shower was a little wierd though because the friend who had had all the abortions had come and I didn't know why because I hadn't really been talking to her. She acted like my best friend and ran around opening stuff and un packing and all the while I was thinking what on earth is she doing here. That was the last day I talked to her. She came to the hospital but I didn't talk to her becuase I was so caught up in me and Brandon. I remember my mom asking to take a picture of the three of us and the whole time I was sitting there thinking wow this whole thing is soo fake. I remember realizing that the things she was doing with her life were things I no longer wanted to be a part of. I was about to have a baby. I needed to grow up and realize this little baby needed a better environment and better people then who I was with. I made the decision to get rid of all the bad in my life and make it good. Anyway the shower was really nice and I got some great pictures of my husband eating gross food so that made it fun for me.

CHAPTER 12 A NAME

We had been going back and forth on names for a while. Rob had been driving home one night and fell in love with the name Taylor. I wasn't so hot on it for a first name so we decided to stick it in as a middle name. My dad called and said Aloysious was his grandpas name and he wanted that too. So our baby had two middle names. Finally I was reading the Tommy Lee book one day and he was talking about his sons Brandon and Dylen. That settled it My son was going to be named Brandon. Brandon Taylor Aloysious Mateo. What a mouth full. We had a name and set to work planning a shower.

CHAPTER 11 IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH

Have I told you yet how sick I was during the pregnancy? I vomitted so much I actually lost 20 pounds. I had morning sickness the whole pregnancy. In fact I had morning, noon, night and in between sickness. I also became enemic and I was always dehydrated. I didn't mind though the babys was growing and healthy and that is all that mattered. The baby was very active and always on the move. They would tell me how your baby is on the inside is how he will be one the outside. The first time Rob got to feel him kick he had been trying for hours to feel my belly with his hand. Finally I said put your head on my belly and see if you can hear anything. Whack. The baby kicked Rob right in the head. HA HA HA I loved it. His favorite thing was to stick his butt or foot out so you could see it from the outside and people got all wierded out.

CHAPTER 10 THE THING INSIDE ME

The whole first five months of the pregnancy I didn't really know if I wanted a boy or a girl. When people asked me I usually said I wanted a girl because it was what they wanted to hear. Everyone always assumed since I was such a girly girl that I would want to raise a girl like that. Don't get me wrong if I had a girl I would. She would become the pinkest barbie doll cheerleading designer clothes wearing person ever. The whole time I was pregnant from about the second month I started dreaming that I was having a boy. Not just anyboy though, a bald headed cartoon boy. If any of you watch the Simpsons and have seen Apu's kids I kept dreaming that I was having the little one with the culdisac hairline. I think I dreamt this because my husband is so dark that I naturally assumed our son would come out dark and Apu's kids must have been the darkest kids I could conjour up in my dreams. Anyway some nights I would wake up pretty upset that I was going to have a cartoon baby. We were going to find out in March what our baby was going to be. About two days before we were going to find out I was driving home up my street and I saw this little boy about 7 years old outside running around in a spider man costume. Mind you it was March so it wasn't even a Halloween costume. I could not get the image of my neighborhood spiderman out of my head. That night I couldn't sleep I woke up Rob at about 3 to ask him what he was for Halloween when he was younger. He told me he had been a base ball player, a cow boy, batman and robin and so on. It was settled. I wanted a boy. I didn't want 10 years of princess costumes and butterfly wings. I wanted a boy. I wanted someone to climb the walls and play in the dirt. We have a family friend named Norma who is from Mexico and doesn't speak the best english. I have always thought she held some secret powers. Anyway from the day she found out I was pregnant she touched my stomach and said "You are having a boy, I know." So the day we are going to find out I made the appointment before work. We went in and the lady was doing a ton of measurments. She kept telling me the sex wasn't important and she would get to it after all the other stuff was done. So I stopped watching and started talking to Rob about how she had just told me the baby had a full bladder. "Okay so it looks like you are having a boy." I'm sorry what. I wasn't even paying attention. "You are having a boy, look there is his little turtle right there." (she actually referred to my sons penis as a turtle." I was so happy. I started to cry because I knew that me and this thing inside were going to get along. During this ultrasound we also got to se a little bit of his personality. First he started jumping up and down inside me. Then the lady moved the wand so it was pressing his head. And you could see him start jumping up and trying to head butt the wand out of there. He got so mad he started stomping his feet and shaking his arms. It became obvious this little boy was going to have some personality. I liked that. I went to work and made the annoucement. My dad was so excited he actually drove to Babies R Us all by himself and brought back a little tiny Giants baseball hat and a yellow bib with a lizard on it that when you pressed a button it burped at you. He was over the moon. That day started a chain of random stuff buying. He bought him little carharts and flannels, a santa outfit, a raiders outfit (or two or three, shoes, Nike socks and so on. (The insaine grandparent buying hasn't stopped. In fact my dad can't even go to the grocery store or a 7-11 with out buying something for my son.) After this my husband, my mom and I loaded up and took a trip to Babies R Us. We bought a crib, a night stand and the most beautiful bedding ever. I ran home and set it all up and before I knew it we had a babies room. I found a song that I loved to play to the baby called Simple Man by Lynard Skinard. I would play it in the car, at work or in headphones to my belly. I was starting to like the thing in my belly. However I was still convinced I was going to love my cat more then my baby.