I Made It To The Powder Room!

This is a big day for me!

Huge! Really HUGE!

I'm not pregnant!  Nor did I win the lottery!

But I did hit the jackpot.  

I am finally In the Powder Room!  They let me in as a guest!

Let me explain.  In the Powder Room.com is the fantastic site that lets us women both blast outside reality with hysterically funny tales, as well as confront our inner demons with courageous and raw stories. 

My début In the Powder Room is about sex bay-bee! I go back to college, to the days when I often made myself available to men even when I knew better.  Even when I knew that after it was over I'd feel hollow. Even when I put myself at risk.  

I really put my cookies on the line with this one -- it is the most I've divulged of myself since I started blogging, and you simply must read it, lest I feel more cursed and unlovable than too old sushi.  

Ok, so here's the even BIGGER news!

The folks at ITPR have gotten all Emeril and kicked it up a notch (BAM!) with a new humor anthology entitled -- ever so brilliantly -- You Have Lipstick on Your Teeth! 

And Mom's New Stage (that's me!) is in it, along with 38 other fantastic writers!

Each piece reflects the wild humor and/or the soul-bearing heart you would expect from ITPR.

Here are a few stories to whet your appetite:

Tracy Winslow

"The Gym: A Place Where Muscles and Gag Reflexes Go To Workout"

On the tour of your new gym facility you are shown the pool, spa, sauna, workout and yoga rooms. What they fail to give you is a warning about the WOMEN who frequent the locker room. Some of the things you see there will shock, horrify, astound and amuse you. It's not for the weak of heart. Or stomach.

Rebecca Gallagher

"Friends Let Friends Pee Their Pants"

We all know that childbirth can wreak havoc on our bladders. But even as a teenager, I had a week continence. It's bad enough peeing your pants, but peeing in a pair of your friend's pants- that's a whole different story!

Amy Flory (Grotzke)

"The ABC Club"

Freshman year of college I bonded with two women who are still my closest friends. That bond was solidified over a mutual disdain for the nasty business of blow jobs. We even formed a club, The Anti-Blow Job Club (Club?), which our mothers were less proud of than we expected them to be.

Meredith Spidel

"I Have a Dress Problem"

We've all got our closet shame, Meredith's comes in the form of cases of t-shirt dresses that she hides from her husband.  People don't divorced over stuff like this, right?  Right??

Andrea C.

"Going Off the Deep End: A Tale of Swimsuits Gone Wrong"

They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger - and the stories of my bathing suits from summers’ past are no exception to the rule. If people have skeletons in their closet, mine are wearing swimwear - just hanging there as a reminder of the horrors I endured from poor choices, wrong sizes, and unsuitable designs for my body type.

And here's the whole crew!

You Have Lipstick on Your Teeth is officially available for purchase TODAY, so I know you'll want to rush over to Amazon.com to get your hot little hands on a copy STAT.  You Have Lipstick on Your Teeth is available as a Kindle download or in paperback.  Information on ordering on other e-readers such as Nook, Kobo and Sony will be coming soon. 

You Have Lipstick on Your Teeth...

It's the book women are going to be laughing and crying over, talking about, and sharing. 

It's the book for your mother, your sister, your aunt, your grandmother, your adultish daughters, and of course, your girlfriends.  

It's the book where, just like the powder room, women need to be.  

The Duchess of Cambridge's Natural, Unmedicated, FANTASTIC Birth

It’s kind of amazing isn’t it?

The Duchess of Cambridge, a woman who could have any luxury in the world, planned to have a completely natural, unmedicated birth.  A painful birth. She wanted the age-old experience -- something that in the era of "too posh to push," a member of the élite could surely elect to forgo. 

And like a true princess, her wish came true.

I am happy for her. Really I am.  Don’t think I’m mocking her, ‘cause it ain’t so.

This duchess births like a boss

But every time I hear of a successful vaginal delivery, medicated or not, my soul dies a little.  And those women who nonchalantly exclaim, “I pushed a little and the baby shimmied right out!” make me want to go under a table, curl up in a fetal position and drool.

I don’t begrudge them their natural unmedicated births. I’m sure it was no slice of cake.

 I just really wish I’d had one too. 

Initially I feared the pain, but wanted as natural a birth as possible.  I went to prenatal yoga, took extra classes with a natural birthing expert, watched Ricki Lake’s The Business of Being Born, read up on the subject, and took Lamaze.  When a founding member of a leading Chicago dance company heard me mention the possibility of an epidural, she poo-pooed the idea.

“You are a dancer,” she reminded me.  “You can handle pain.”

She had planted a seed.  I’d be a trooper.  I would have a totally natural birth.

Eventually, all my girlfriends who were due around the same time I was went into labor.  Some had those “sneeze-out” deliveries.  Some had it a little harder. 

But no one had a C-section.  Including my Lamaze-class buddy who had cringed at the birth video, saying, “I want no part of that.  Just let them cut me.”

Soon my due date came and went.  My bun had not only been hard to get in to the oven  -- it didn't want to come out. 

I knew that induction and Pitocin often resulted in the dreaded "C", but the combination of a compromised uterine environment tainted with meconium and a hospital full of doctors and residents rushing to get their Thanksgiving on didn’t sound great either. 

A week post-due, I was admitted for induction.

Unfortunately, Pitocin wasn’t for me.  I got intense coupled contractions and my son went into to distress several times -- the first time causing a small medical battalion to rush into my room, flip me on my side, and administer a neutralizing agent.  I couldn’t handle more than 5 cc’s of Pit when the goal was 20.

After about 8 hours, I tired and asked for an epidural.  Friends of mine had said that they had one, fell asleep and woke up ready to push.

But I awoke disappointed.  I was still at only 5 cm. Just before midnight, after being at the hospital since 8 a.m. the doctor called it.  As compassionately as she could, she told us, “You can keep trying, if you want, but I really think it is time for a C-section.”

I cried. 

I had dreamed of my baby meeting the world to soft light and to music from my I-pod playlist.  I had planned to be on my birthing ball, and on all fours and pulling on ropes.  Instead, I was strapped prone to an operating table, my arms stretched sideways, in a starkly lit operating theater, the only sounds the muffled voices of the medical team and the imagined squishes of tugging and pulling inside my abdomen.

Instead of my baby being put on my chest immediately, he was whisked away to be APGARed and tested and cleaned.  I endured an agonizing 30 minutes of being stitched up and listening to his cries while longing to look into his eyes for the first time. 

And my daughter came into the world the very same way.  I tried for a V-BAC, but she was discovered to have been breech.  Too late to be turned.  (We won’t go into that.)

I am beyond grateful – ecstatic, really – that my kids turned out perfectly healthy, and that they are thriving.  Years ago, we might not have been so lucky.

Many friends comfort me by saying I didn’t miss much by not going into labor and by having c-sections.  And, I didn’t wind up with some kind of vasshole situation.  But still.

Every time someone tells their birth story, I shrink as though my story is less than. Even though the first part may have been unique, everyone knows how a c-section story ends.  When a group is sharing their vaginal deliveries, and you announce you had a c-section, an uncomfortable “oh” ripples through the bunch.

I wish we’d stop hailing vaginal deliveries as virtuous and the women, like the Duchess of Cambridge, who have these births as heroines. I may be speaking for myself, but a lot of us desperately wanted this experience but were denied it.  We feel cheated.  Disappointed.  Like our births didn’t measure up, and it’s a life event we will never know. 

It hurts enough.

All this is just one more equation for women to feel like failures for not being perfect.  We already have perfect bodies, perfect weddings and perfect big-girl houses to live up to. 

Let’s not make birth yet another fairy tale. 

10 Reasons this Blog is AWESOME!

Welcome!  

Maybe you're an old fan.  Or you dashed on over after my guest post on Scary Mommy.

If you're just getting to know me, let me start by saying I'm modest.  Humble. I am NOT a woman who prattles on about her achievements.  Being boastful is unnecessary because our cuticles tell all.

They don't?  

Well, shit! That explains everything.  

So, as a glowing introduction, one that leaves me happy, not feeling like someone who makes credit cards in their bedroom, here are ten supercool things about my blog.  Ten things you'll love!  Ten reasons you'll tattoo "I <3 MOM'S NEW STAGE" on your breast!  (Just kidding about the last one.  That's really creepy.  Even I wouldn't do that and it's my site.)

1.    It's a mash-up.  I am a dancer/teacher/mom/wife/person who passionately launches into the theme song from "Good Times" (keepin' your head above water, makin' a wave when you can!) to thumb her nose at the stress of 21^st-century life.  This blog shows the humor, heart and the "Oh Hell to the no!" of all of the above.  Never boring! 

2.    Inspiration from other moms.  And while these may be great things, I don't mean just moms who have lost the baby weight, rock stylish clothes, and wear actual make-up.  I do in-depth interviews with moms who are creative forces, yet deal with the day-to-day issues we all share.  Check some out and feel galvanized! 

Hubbard Street alum Sarah Cullen Fuller
photo: Todd Rosenberg

3.    Dance, Dance, Dance!  Maybe you used to be a dancer.  Maybe you still are. Maybe you've always loved it and want an inside view.  What is the life of a dancer or dance mom? Is there more to dance that 47 pirouettes and the flexibility of Silly Putty?  I’ll bring the love, nerves and the pee-your-leotard funny of the dance world.

4.    I can laugh at myself.  Negative comments may stab my soul, but I can turn one into something AWESOOOOOOOOOMMMMMME!!! The first time I posted in Scary Mommy about husbands babysitting, the sanctimommies and angry daddies brought their asshole-ripping tools in full force.  One guy dared me to write 10 Things About Me That Suck For My Partner.  Dude didn't know he was messing with the MSD - mistress of self-deprecation.  Boom! One of my most popular posts!

5.    Little Graphics - Sometimes life is too busy to read a whole blog post. And, hell, sometimes it's too busy to write one.  I love little graphics, like the one below, that let you go "tee-hee" and get back to peeling your kids’ grapes. 

6.    I'm in two books!  I’ve appeared in I Just Want to Pee Alone, a hilarious best-selling anthology put together by the amazing Jen of People I Want to Punch in the Throat. This fabulous book includes 37 of some of the best lady bloggers out there. It went to number one in the humor category on Amazon, at one point beating out Tina Fey! And... I am part of another fierce anthology that will be released any day now. Squeeeeeeeeee!  I’ll keep you posted.  

7.    I love open letters.  I tend to seethe and rehearse what I coulda, woulda, shoulda said and done. It might show a lack of metaphorical lady balls; it might be even totally passive-aggressive.  But it lets me go on the offense like a bitch, but gracefully. As opposed to leaving the scene in handcuffs or dissolving into a puddle of tears, which would surely occur in a face-to-face confrontation.  

8.    You are not alone.  Raise your lighter app and sing the Michael Jackson song.  I bare my soul about mommy playdates, keeping my little brown boy safe and being a dance teacher.  The latter even landed in Huff Po!  I don’t try to make you sob-heave, but I hope you read my site and feel like someone knows what you’re going through.

I thank the phenomenal Bearded Iris
for this one.

9.    I revere irreverence.  I like to curse.  I love to be slightly on the wrong side of wrong.  I recently did a graphic called How Having Kids Feels Like Having a Bad Boyfriend.  Some thought I was making light of domestic abuse, which I would never, ever, ever do.  But I DO like dark humor.  And I like taking risks.  And I REALLY like cookie dough ice cream.  

Seriously, though, we can talk about why it was funny or not in the comments.  Just be respectful, okay?

10.I’m honest.  There should really be nine reasons, but I needed this one for the title.  Don’t hate. 

Thanks so much!  I hope you’ll keep coming back.  Mom's New Stage is a fun place to be!