When he arrived in the clinic 45 minutes later, happy, hyper lab with a bulging spay incision bouncing at his side, I cut right to the chase and told him how sorry I was about the situation.  He shook his head and told me not to worry, that he understood sometimes things just didn’t work as they should.  Relief poured over me, but was quickly dampened when I confirmed that my lovely incision had indeed herniated: soft bowel loops could be reduced back into the abdomen, but clearly the abdomenal wall was open. And had been since Friday night.

Have I ever mentioned that I hate big dog spays? The ovaries are generally deep in the abdomen and so I either spend too long trying to exteriorize them, or I am tying off the arteries without great visibility and it is just stressful for me. However, until now I had yet to have a single actual complication. And I thought that her spay had been one of the least stressful ones to date. Everything had gone smoothly. But, these things happen.

I took her straight back into surgery and found remarkably pink, healthy intestines, but a rather inflamed abdominal wall. I flushed, debrided, resutured, said a thousand Hail Mary’s, and woke the pup up.  And then spent the entire night sweating over whether it would heal properly. 

In the morning I was thrilled to see my patient wolf down her breakfast, pee and poop normally, and generally look like a happy, healthy dog with a closed abdomen. When the owner came to pick her up, he apologized for sounding short in his messages and disagreed when I assured him that he had every right to be frustrated and upset. I cautioned him about the chances of a recurrence and the importance of keeping the dog as quiet as possible for the next few weeks, and sent them home with a recheck appointment scheduled, my cell phone number, and instructions to call if there were any concerns at all.

Going forward, every surgery patient will have our emergency number printed on their invoice, and we’ll be doing away with the redundant, stupid answering system.  This situation could have gone wrong in so many ways, and I know the dog even now would have a better prognosis if I had been available Friday night. But for now I am deeply grateful for my wonderful clients, their friendly and forgiving nature, and the ability of a Lab to heal thyself, with a bit of help from her bone-headed vet.

Important backstory: my phone system at the clinic is inelegant at best. We have one line with voicemail. And we have an answering machine.  Usually the answering machine is on, and gives a message that we’re closed, and supplies my cell number for emergencies and the number of the nearest emergency hospital. Otherwise, if either we turn the machine off or are on the phone when someone calls, they get our voicemail which tells them we’re open and to leave a message and we’ll call them back. The only time we turn off the answering machine is if, say, my assistant is there alone and needs to run out to grab lunch or something.

Anyway, Friday we left early because of bad weather and somehow the answering machine didn’t get turned on (so any callers would have gotten the message that we were still open and no emergency info).  Sunday afternoon I got contacted via Facebook by a client who needed something, and she told me that the message at the clinic didn’t supply my emergency number.  At this point I realized that our answering machine wasn’t on, so called the clinic voicemail to check messages.

There were three messages from a client whose dog I had spayed the previous Tuesday. From the sounds of it, the incision was either infected and swollen or had dehisced – either way, they needed to get in touch with me and were trying their best and couldn’t. And were understandably irritated.  As soon as I got the messages, I called both of the numbers they had left and got voicemail for both - I apologized up and down and told them I’d be happy to do anything I could for their pup, and to please call me. But they had called Friday night, and I didn’t get back to them until Sunday afternoon.  Unacceptable.

It’s driving me batty because the dog needed to be seen, I was totally available to see her, and I hate the thought of my clients thinking that I was ignoring them.  I just hate it.  Shit happens, and at least this wasn’t a mistake based on negligence or ineptitude, but STILL. It sucks and will very likely cost me these clients (who, up until know, I had an excellent and friendly relationship).

Stay tuned to see what happens – so far they haven’t called me back, and I’m not sure they will. We’ll try to follow up again tomorrow from the clinic.

The treadmill is a total eyesore, but I convinced him that we need a treadmill more than we need a couch. We’re both out of shape. It’s bad.

And, for the record, it’s not even baby weight that I’m itching to lose! I lost all the baby weight within 2 weeks of having the little bugger. It was actually quite amazing. My feet had retained water throughout the pregnancy, but after being on fluids for the duration of labor, I came home from the hospital with tree trunks for legs, they were so fluid-filled. It was a solid month before I didn’t pee like a racehorse every single time I peed, and truly, the baby weight was gone in 10 days or so.

So I really just want to feel strong and in shape again.

The trick is going to be finding the time. Especially on days I work – I get home around 6 or 7, and always need to pump, which takes about a half hour. Then I get to eat and perhaps make dinner, all while spending some precious, much-cherished, will not be giving it up time with my baby (who I usually don’t see those mornings because I leave before he wakes up). Baby usually gets to bed around 8:30, and if I was smart and ambitious I would go straight from his crib to the closet and change into some workout clothes. But I’m not…I tend to be lazy, and instead go from the crib to the couch and hang out with my farmer.

Another issue is that baby’s bassinet/nap spot is inconveniently located right around the corner from the very noisy treadmill, so running during a nap is probably not going to work.

But I think I can do it. First, I have three-four whole days off a week – I should be able to fit something in on those days. And on Mondays where I go in late to the clinic I can DEFINITELY get up before the baby does to run. Early clinic mornings are a little tough because I’d have to get up by 5 or so, and I just know myself enough to know that that probably won’t happen on any regular basis,.

Here’s hoping. I think I can, I think I can.

And so life is remarkably smooth. I work Monday afternoons, Tuesdays and Fridays. On Tuesdays and Fridays, I wake at 5:30, pump, get ready for the day, and head out by 7.  My farmer gets our baby up and fed and sometimes dressed (this is still something of a sticking point…usually my boy spends the day in his PJs because farmer doesn’t see the point to him wearing anything else, except for the other day when he tried to dress him in his HALLOWEEN COSTUME because he thought it was cute. It was super cute, though I still can’t help but cringe slightly at the thought of my baby wearing a tiger costume around all day. Thankfully, he had outgrown it.

But anyway, if my farmer is working that day, baby goes to my mother-in-laws around 10am.  She works, but it’s no problem for the baby (and occasionally his cousins) to accompany her to work. When she comes home, she’ll either drop him off on her way, or if we are still working, he’ll go home with her and the first parent home will pick him up on the way.  Easy. Peasy.

Wednesdays and Thursdays, I’m home with him, and when I do have to go into the clinic, he just comes with me.  This has become increasingly difficult as he has gotten more lively and labor intensive. Those first few weeks he’d just hang out and sleep or look around but now it has gotten almost impossible for me to get too much done with him around. But it’s still fun. And most likely excellent for his immune system.

With the new year, and increasing busy-ness, I am going to be adding either Weds or Thurs back into my work schedule, but I hope to keep Monday mornings and Thursdays my off days forever. 

The nice thing, again, is that I call the shots. If it’s not working out, we’ll change it, and no one is going to be mad at me, or feel inconvenienced.  I love that.  I seriously don’t know if I could work a job again that doesn’t offer this much flexibility.

Like, today is a Wednesday and though I’m home now,  I’m soon headed into the clinic to take care of some year-end things with my office manager. And tomorrow I’m working instead of Friday, because Friday we have a doctor appointment.

It’s a good life.

I didn’t mean it as a challenge, but I feel like 2011 read that post and scoffed. And while it can be argued that 2011 wasn’t the monthly excitement that 2010 was, it did offer me a new home, a successful clinic and most importantly, this:

Therefore, 2011 wins, hands down.

Being a mom has easily trumped all other life experiences. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still very proud of and happy with my career, I love my husband and family with all my heart, but still…it really is the most wonderful, amazing thing. My heart explodes everytime I look at that ridiculous face. It helps that he is an extremely easy baby, with cries that *almost* always match a demand for a clean diaper or a bottle.  And it helps that my farmer and I both have fairly flexible work schedules, and that I have a mother-in-law who can watch him pretty much whenever we need the help.  Life is frighteningly good.

And so, I wouldn’t mind if 2012 bores us a bit. I wouldn’t mind if we didn’t have any major changes.  It’ll be nice to raise my boy, to travel some, to continue to build the clinic, to just enjoy the life my farmer and I are creating. I might even try to blog more! Who knows. Happy New Year!

Well, maybe not failed, exactly. I’m still quite productive outside of being a mama.  Things at the clinic are going great, and truly, I really enjoy my time there even though it takes me away from my baby. So if nothing else, I can cling to that.

But generally and almsot entirely, that baby, that golden-haired, cooing and grunting, screaming or really-wanting-to-smile-ing, baby-scented baby occupies my every last thought.  My heart clenches when I see him after being separated for even 2-3 minutes. I love him so fiercely its like a sporting event.

Hence, my lack of posting lately.  Methinks noone wants to read about how my normally sweet-tempered child spent yesterday being a colossal fuss-bucket until he finally came up with a big poop and quieted down after nearly driving his parents to hysteria. And I haven’t lost control of my senses so much that I think otherwise – I hardly want to write about it (except I do! because that’s how i spent my day yesterday, going nearly hysterical with my farmer trying to fix whatever ailed our boy).

So I’ll try a synopsis: Things are great. I’m sticking to a basically to a one and two half days schedule at work, which is surprisingly comfortable for me, and productive for the clinic. Harvest season is officially over and my farmer is FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY done spending the better part of his days in the field, preparing the ground for next years crop. This lasted way longer than it normally does, and that coupled with a new baby was super unfortunately. However, my baby being the best baby on the planet for his first five weeks helped to make those of near-single parenting easier than I would have expected.  And as it turns out my farmer happens to be a better father than I even would have guessed, and that has made me love him all the more. All of our pets are good – they have welcomed the enwest peanut with a mixture of jealousy (dog) and complete indifference (cats).

I’ll try harder, but that’s all for now.

I was 11 days post-partum, but really feeling pretty good. I only went in for the afternoon, and I made the executive decision to bring my baby. It was Halloween, and our people/pet costume party was scheduled from 3-5, and we had no actual appointments scheduled*, and so really, it was fine.  And it was nice – I felt like I had been gone for an eternity, even though it was less than two weeks.

During those two weeks the clinic got inundated with strays, and so my goal for the afternoon was to get as many cats fixed as I could (we had 6), so that they could move on to greener pastures (and stop stinking up my clinic!). I managed to neuter 4 cats. It was a good, easy start.

And then it was party time, and that was really nice, seeing some favorite clients and showing off my newest love.  It was also a little bit exhausting. It’s possible I had a crying fit when I got home.

Monday morning I had told my assistants that I would plan on being in from 10-3 on Tuesdays, so that they could start scheduling. My Tuesday morning, that entire time block was booked. And so I left my little peanut with his grandmother for a few hours, and went in a worked like mad for a solid 6 hours (I did get two breaks to pump, but otherwise no eating or sleeping). Again it was a nice enough day - I think every patient I saw was a wellness/vaccination visit, and every client was either a favorite or new. 

I was worn out by the end of the day, and very happy to have Wednesday and Thursday off. Friday I went back in in the morning, but left by noon to make it to baby’s first doctors appointment, where he got a clean bill of health and confirmation that he may be the cutest baby ever. Duh.

So all in all, as nice as a 6 week maternity leave might have been, I think the new schedule is going to work out pretty well, too – working when I can, when I’m needed, and being home when I can, and when I’m needed. No doubt things will get more complicated with busier times, but for now, I’m pretty happy with things.

* When I got there I picked up the phone to call someone and the second I did, an incoming call came in and I had to make an appointment for a sick kitty…plus I ended up seeing a newly adopted pup during the party, but that was easy peasy.

 I will say that actually *having* the baby was not so amazing. In fact, probably one of the more harrowing ordeals of my life. For the duration of my pregnancy my “birth plan” had been something to the effect of “avoid an induction, avoid an epidural, avoid a c-section…but if you need any of that then just get it and don’t let it get you down”. Not very elaborate. And so when my son was showing no signs whatsoever of making his own entrance into the world, and with days of empty schedules slipping by at the vet clinic with days with fuller schedules rapidly approaching, I opted to be induced three days after my due date.  I knew that my odds of making it through a pitocin-induced labor without pain medication would be slim, but I tried. And I failed. We started at 8am, by noon I was feeling regular but very bearable contractions, by four they were quite painful and I really had to concentrate to get through them, and by 8pm I was almost weeping and, faced with an unknown duration of that pain, asking how the hell long was it going to take the anesthesiologist to get there to get the damn epidural.

So then with the epidural I was able to relax a little bit for a few more hours. By about 1am, I was starting to get more painful, and indeed was fully dilated and “ready to push”.  I’ll keep this part short and will just summarize that I never felt the “urge” to push, and when asked if I felt like I needed to push I was so confused…physically, no, but otherwise, um, I was 3 days overdue and fully dilated so sort of felt ane motional need? Was that good enough? Anyway, I pushed. And pushed. And personally I never felt like I made much progress, although the baby did descend in tiny increments.

FOUR HOURS LATER I was falling asleep between contractions and being woken by the pain to push for as long and hard as I could, only to pass out again when they subsided. I was vomiting sporadically and shaking uncontrollably. Since I was making *some* progress and the baby was fine, my OB left it in my court – we could try forceps or vacuum extraction, or we could go for a c-section. Since there was seemingly no great reason why he couldn’t come out the old-fashioned way, I opted for forceps or vacuum. Neither worked. The OB couldn’t explain why she couldn’t get forceps positioned properly, and my baby had too much hair for the vacuum to get a good grip on his little furry noggin.  So when the OB said it was time to seriously consider c-section, I said “yes, please, immediately. Can I get more pain meds now?”. 

So at 5am, I was wheeled into the surgery suite, my epidural was used to completely and blissfully numb my lower half, I vomited one last time off of the surgery table, and my baby was born. He had passed meconium in utero (duh), and so they held him up for me to see for 0.2 seconds and whisked him off to work him over.  I was still shaking like a leaf and beyond exhausted so I wasn’t too upset to be deprived of the happy mama-meets-her-baby moment.  I sent my farmer to stay with our son while I alternated between shaking and sleeping during recovery. At some point I fell asleep and woke up at 8:30am back in my room. It took me a minute to realize that I wasn’t shaking or in pain. “I’m normal again!!!”, I said to my nurse. “Can I have my baby??”

I could. He was perfect, and perfectly healthy.

And now, let me share the moral of this too-long story: All’s well that ends well. Because that ordeal is fish sticks compared to me getting to meet this amazing little person:

So today is Wednesday, and normally would be a surgery day, but instead the morning was pretty full of appointments. And I wasn’t all that excited about it. And you know what happened? Every last one of them called to cancel. This was remarkable for a few reasons, most especially that they called – usually it’d just be no-shows. But it was also such fabulous timing. Normally I’d be anxious and worried about the state of the business, but today, a morning sitting in my office doing paperwork was exactly what I needed. Now so long as it doesn’t keep up once I’m back from having the baby, I’ll know it was the universe just helping me out a little.

*Ironically, despite my good intentions I’ll end up doing surgery FOUR days this week. I was supposed to do four surgeries on Tuesday, but one was dropped off Monday afternoon and since I had the time, I decided to sneak him in early, thankfully. Today I had to do a sort-of “emergency” neuter on a dog with prostatic disease (only an emergency because I’m running out of time to get them done). And I agreed to alter two kittens on Friday, mostly so that I would get them done before next Tuesday, when I just might be  having a baby.

Things are back to being pretty good. I mostly got over that rough patch of a few weeks back.  Sure, the heartburn persists. I’m still pretty tired. I think I’ve gotten more used to the belly, though getting up and down isn’t me at my  most graceful.  But baby is back to being a little wriggler, and even when they hurt, I absolutely love the kicks and pokes and turns and punches.  I think, despite the discomfort, I think that I’m actually going to miss being pregnant so I’m trying to appreciate it as much as I can.

I’ve been very fortunate to have a so-far complication free pregnancy. It’s been the first time since puberty that I can eat pretty much whatever and not gain weight (I’ve gained about 17 lbs, which makes my doctor quite happy, and me too).  I’m growing at almost perfect rates, I’m feeling him kick as much as he should, I haven’t been sick, there has been nary even a smidge of blood since whenever I had my last period (December probably). Aside from fairly regular braxton hicks I haven’t had any real contractions or even cramping.

I’ll be honest too – as a girl who has always had a mushy abdomen, I love having a taut, firm belly! Sure it sticks out to Toledo and looks like a basketball and occasionally like it’s inhabited by an alien, but it’s the cutest my belly has ever been.

ANYWAY. I digress. Let’s talk about the timing of it all. When I was first opening the clinic last fall, it occured to me that I might never get to have children. Because pregnancy and babies and maternity leave doesn’t seem to mesh well with being a business owner, solo practitioner, sole source of revenue for a new, fledgling business.

But then I thought more about it. Hopefully, the clinic today is as slow as it ever will be. In other words, hopefully the clinic will only get busier as the years pass. And so doesn’t it make more sense for me to take the time now rather than waiting a few years, if ever I’m going to?

And then I thought: who says maternity leave has to be traditional? Is it necessarily better to take a solid 6-8 weeks (or whatever) before returning to work full-time? Maybe it’s just as good, maybe it’s even better, to take a solid 2 weeks and then very slowly, gradually transition back to an almost full-time schedule over the course of many months?

And then I thought: life is short. I’m 34 and will much more seriously regret not having a family than losing some income. And the rest is history.

So here is my plan for maternity leave: we’re going to wing it. We sent out reminders for October a few weeks early and will call people for time-sensitive things on a weekly basis.  I’d very much like to avoid induction*, but I probably will opt for it if I get to be a week overdue.  I’ve been in touch with a few neighboring vets that I trust so that we can send emergencies that I can’t see to them.  We’ll be scheduling light for all of October, and I’m in a small little town where everyone knows I’m pregnant and we’ll warn people that rescheduling may be necessary.  So when baby arrives, we’ll reschedule what we can and refer what we have to.

After baby, I would like (as would my doctor) two weeks at home.  The clinic will stay open (and float on cash reserves and revenue from flea meds, hopefully) regular hours.  If an emergency comes in that I think I can handle, I’ll take it. If I can’t, we’ll refer it.  After a few weeks, I’ll start back a few mornings a week. As necessary and possible, that will get expanded towards normal.

I hope to not actually come back to a full time schedule ever. I’m taking Thursday mornings off currently, and would like to extend that to all day Thursdays. And maybe another half day somewhere.I have learned a surprising but excellent lesson recently: revenue does not correlate directly to the number of hours I spend at the clinic.  We will make just as much money if I spend a full five days here than if I spend three and a half days here.  (Though I will get behind on paperwork).

Should something go wrong that necessitates me being out of commission for longer, I will contact a relief vet to come in a few days a week.  But if my plan pans out, that hopefully won’t be necessary.

In a way, I think I’m very fortunate. I don’t have to “let anybody down”, I don’t have to ask for time off. Whatever happens with maternity leave affects me and only me. I like that. Of course, this is all supposing that things continue to go quite smoothly, so if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go cross fingers, knock on wood and do a few good deeds.

* At present, I don’t think the baby is positioned properly – I think he’s either breech or more likely transverse. If he doesn’t fall into position and a C-section becomes necessary, then, poop. But at least I’ll probably know exactly when he’s going to get here.