Sometimes life hands us lemons and we try to make lemonade. And sometimes life hands you a pile of horrific news, fear, and pain and you still have to find a way to make lemonade. That’s what parents do all the time and that’s exactly what my friend and author Amanda Winn Lee did. When her young son was diagnosed with cancer, she along with her husband Jason, went to war. And in their arsenal was a huge sense of resolve, stubbornness, and a willingness to live, laugh, and love along the way.
Her book, “The Noodle Chronicles: Everything I Know About Cheating Death I Learned From My Kid”, is both frank and funny, heartbreaking and heart-warming. And I want you to read it because ”it’s not about the cancer”.
Welcome to the twisted little mind of Amanda Winn Lee. Come take a stroll through her consciousness as she navigates the arduous- and sometimes surprisingly hilarious- journey of her family’s battles with cancer. Acquaint yourself with her goofy preexisting mental condition leading up to her stint as the terrified mother of a seriously ill infant. Once the madness begins, her acerbic wit and bizarre brand of humor carry her through some of every parent’s worst nightmares. See how she handles the insanity that science — or nature, or whatever — throws her way. Whether she’s starting a betting pool with the nurses on when her son will lose his hair, or silently willing him to just keep breathing, Winn Lee shows us the journey through her eyes in a way that is both riveting and ridiculous. Her account is a raw and unflinchingly honest look at life in the hospital for the parent of a sick child.
(Don’t worry- the kid lives.)
She is Momma Power incarnate to me!
Oh, and did I mention that a portion of the book’s proceeds go directly to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (www.lls.org)? All the more reason to check out her book!
Now if any of you enjoy Japanese Animation, you may already know Amanda. She is a star in this world! Her voice work stretches far and wide in animation and gaming. Check out her imdb page here. And she has a fan page for her writing and voice work and I can personally attest that it is a whole lot of funny.
This week I will be hosting a Google Hangout with her so she can share with you just how funny, life-affirming, and all around wonderful she is. In the mean, please check out her book on Kindle. You can get a free sample here or read below for reviews and a short excerpt to give you a peek into the mind that is my friend and my hero, Amanda Winn Lee.
Customer Reviews
“I read this book in one sitting – I could not put it down. ”
Kimberly| 6 reviewers made a similar statement
“Thanks to Amanda Winn Lee for sharing her story in the book. ”
Kevin| 7 reviewers made a similar statement
“For such a heavy topic, she wrote a book that was ultimately fun to read, which I consider to be an incredibly impressive feat. ”
W. Valentine| 4 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Honest (and often funny) memoir. February 1, 2013
By Nikki Bennett
Amazon Verified Purchase
I can sum up why this is such a fantastic book in one word.Honesty.This book reflects one woman’s journey through the unthinkable–dealing with a child with cancer. An unnerving topic at best, and the only way to pull off such grim subject matter like this is to infuse it with raw sincerity, which is what Amanda Winn-Lee does. Describing childhood cancer–the pain of watching your baby suffer, the hopelessness, the guilt and anxiety–is a daunting undertaking, and if Winn-Lee didn’t write with such open honesty, the reader would have a much harder time.Honesty and, I might add, a ton of humor. Winn-Lee’s sometimes hilarious take on things transforms this story from a gloomy read to a wondrous treat. The book is sad where it needs to be, but joyous and downright uproarious in all the right places. Think you can’t possibly find humor in such a depressing subject? Think again! You’ll laugh more than you’ll cry (although the book definitely hands out some grab-the-Kleenex moments.)
Winn-Lee doesn’t pull punches, she writes what she thinks. But for all its serious and sometimes goofily irreverent subject matter, the writing style is light, easy to read. I had a hard time putting this book down–I wanted to keep reading, not only because I was interested in the story, but because Winn-Lee writes so well. In fact, I’m a little jealous of her style, but I know how she does it. Stephen King once said if you aren’t honest in your writing, people will see right through you, and reject your work. You can’t reject Winn-Lee’s style because she writes in a simple, clean, fun, and above all, honest way.I highly recommend this book. Mothers (whether their kid suffers with cancer or not) will relate. Folks who have a family member with cancer will relate. And if you enjoy a poignant, funny, no-holds-barred story written by a very talented author, you’ll relate too. That includes about everybody, I think!
4.0 out of 5 stars Strong words in a strong memoir January 31, 2013
By Trisha L Sebastian
Amazon Verified Purchase
I’ve known Amanda Winn Lee since about 2000 or 2001 when I first met her at a convention for fans of Japanese animation (aka anime) where she was a guest of honor. I followed her career with great interest, but was surprised when we became somewhat close as friends. When her son was born, I celebrated; when she revealed his leukemia diagnosis to a small circle of her friends, I read her semi-private Internet journal entries closely, hoping and praying that little Nicholas (aka Noodle) would make it. Over a decade after we first met, Amanda Winn Lee has collected and refined many of those journal entries and her thoughts into a memoir, which I bought almost immediately.Cancer is a disease I’m somewhat familiar with as both a very dear friend of mine and one of my aunts have died from it, both not very long after the initial diagnosis. As a result, I see cancer as being an all-encompassing bogeyman which can never be defeated, never assuaged. It’s obvious while reading this memoir that while Winn Lee has a different perspective on the disease as her father was a famous oncologist, her healthy fear of it is conveyed by language which is true and stark, unforgiving and unflinching. There are some who will flinch from the sheer amount of times the expletive which rhymes with “duck” are used, but I dare anyone who isn’t a trained Mormon to use moderate language when relating a story like this and recalling specific incidents with well-meaning but clueless people whose thoughtless words hurt rather than helped.I appreciate how rather than use a strictly chronological approach to telling her son’s story, she chose to group subjects into sections. Read more ›
5.0 out of 5 stars A tumultuous roller coaster ride that goes through love, honesty, and KICKING CANCERS ASS June 5, 2013
By Akeem
The Noodle Chronicles is about a woman (the lovely Amanda Winn Lee) who’s son gets cancer(leukaemia) a few months after being born. Amanda Winn Lee doesn’t hold ANYTHING back, so you don’t have to worry about sappy or overwrought writing. You get a very real, first-hand account of what its like to have someone close to you suffer from cancer. It also happens to be one of the funniest books i’ve ever read. (yes you read that correctly, this book is hilarious!) I’d liken her story to a roller coaster; a tumultuous ride filled with happiness and misfortune, and I can honestly say I’ve never read anything like it.SO BUY IT! IT’S CHEAP! AND SOME OF THE PROCEEDS GO TOWARDS CANCER RESEARCH!PS: There’s a happy ending to this story 
5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn’t put it down March 28, 2013
By Kimberly
I read this book in one sitting – I could not put it down. I laughed out loud, I bawled my eyes out, I gave thanks for all the healthy little ones in my life and said a prayer for all those battling for their lives and the lives of their loved ones. She’s so honest about every step of the journey. This is a must read.
4.0 out of 5 stars Heart and soul June 21, 2013
By April
Amazon Verified Purchase
I adored this book. It made me laugh and broke my heart at the same time. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart
5.0 out of 5 stars An honest, gallant book May 30, 2013
By C. L.
Amazon Verified Purchase
As Amanda Winn Lee writes, most people don’t particularly enjoy thinking about illness and death. That said, I think most people would find a lot to admire in The Noodle Chronicles; I know I did. I thought Winn Lee’s book was wry and human, and I’m glad she wrote it.
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent memoir May 26, 2013
By David DAtz
Amazon Verified Purchase
Lee pulls no punches, but gives the full, candid story of a fight with cancer, with wit and without self-pity. Terrific book.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely incredible
I have to admit, this review may be a bit biased. I have admired Amanda Winn-Lee for a very long time as an actress, and I had the privilege of meeting her a while back at a… Read more
Published 8 months ago by Christopher Lucas
5.0 out of 5 stars You think you know maternal love? Wait until you read this.
As a mother of a boy the same age as Noodle, the hero of this autobiographical novel, I went through a journey from expecting my baby, ups and downs of pregnancy, child labor and…Read more
Published 9 months ago by S. Blank
5.0 out of 5 stars A real and honest voice
This book is about the author and her family’s journey as they beat their infant’s cancer diagnosis. I applaud Ms. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Toni Craw
5.0 out of 5 stars Intensely uplifting, wonderfully obscene.
An amazing true story. Amanda Winn Lee speaks with an open honesty and casual obscenity that instantly makes her relatable to anyone who’s ever had the sleepless honor of being a… Read more
Published 9 months ago by C. Diederichs
5.0 out of 5 stars amazing journey
this memoir tells the story of Amanda Winn Lee and her son Nicolas “Noodle” and his battle with cancer.
ISBN: 9781624888755
For my father
A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book will go directly to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (www.lls.org)
The Beginning
I fucking hated being pregnant. I mean, I really loathed and despised being knocked up, which came as a huge surprise because I’d been dying to have a baby for as long as I could remember. Ever since I was a little kid I’ve had an endless parade of goldfish, rabbits, hamsters, cats, and even hermit crabs to act as surrogate children. (No dogs. My mom is allergic.) When Jason—my husband/partner in crime—and I did finally start a family, we shared an apartment with three insane cats and two rabbits, one of which was the most belligerent creature I’ve ever seen. The little bastard would oink with annoyance whenever anyone picked him up. I thought it was hysterical. I’d make a point of tenderly petting his ears just to piss him off. He would usually stamp a foot angrily and mutter under his breath like a cranky little old man. I wish I could say we’d rescued him from a life of abuse on the streets, but the truth is we’d raised him from a little bitty baby, so I guess that wasn’t much of a testament to my parenting skills. However, I was confident I’d have much better luck with human progeny.
Whenever one of my friends got pregnant, my heart would ache and I’d insinuate myself as much as I could into their newly formed bond. I was jovial Aunt Amanda, happily indulging preggo cravings and practically begging to hold the baby just one more time. Every time I had to hand that little bundle of joy back to its rightful owner, my eyes would well up with tears and a small chunk of my will to live went with it. I wanted to have a baby so badly that it was like a physical pain, like a toothache that was fine so long as nobody touched it.
It actually took several years after we got married to decide we were finally ready for the heady giddiness of reproduction. (Well, for Jason to be ready, anyway. Part of me was gunning to drop and spread ’em from day one.) I have a neat little thing called endometrieosis that makes getting pregnant difficult, if not impossible. For those of you unfamiliar with it, I’ll spare you the details—just think girl stuff. So we weren’t just ready, we were all psyched up to tackle the Herculean challenge of getting me fertilized.
Oddly enough, it worked the first time we tried. I was thrilled when my ob-gyn informed us our little miracle baby was firmly ensconced in my innards. She was blown away that I had managed to get pregnant on my own. (What can I say? I get shit done.) She hadn’t told me that she’d started pulling info on infertility that she was sure she’d have to give me later.
I couldn’t wait to see what the world of growing a human had in store for me. When I discovered that there was a lot more to pregnancy than the ethereal bliss and beauty of carrying a new life inside me, I was totally shocked and admittedly pissed at the friends who’d duped me into believing otherwise. In a particularly dark moment, I sent one an email that said, “Thanks for lying to me, bitch.”
I didn’t have a very complicated pregnancy. I wasn’t one of those poor women who gets stuck being bedridden for weeks on end—though sometimes I secretly wished I was, if for no other reason then to finally clear off my DVR. My pregnancy afflictions were pretty run-of-the-mill. Yet I consider gestation one of the most god-awful experiences I’ve ever had in my life.
I have to take a quick moment to address something that drives me up a freakin’ wall: Why the hell do people say “we’re pregnant”? It’s ridiculous. Pregnancy is a biological condition. He isn’t the one swells up to five times his normal size. Hedoesn’t have to pee fifty million times a day. He doesn’t burst into tears because he ran out of toothpaste. He is not the one with the actual human growing inside him. You don’t say “we are on the rag” or “we have jock itch.” I understand that couples want the man to feel involved in the whole pregnancy, but saying “we’re pregnant” is not only ignorant, it just makes your mate seem horribly pussy-whipped.
Anyway, back to how insufferable I found having a bun in the oven to be. Take morning sickness. Mine never made me barf, although there were times that I sincerely wished I would. I have always said that nausea is the worst feeling in the world. I’d rather be in pain than be nauseous. At least you can sleep (or pass out) and block out the pain. No such luck with nausea. It’s a miserable, seemingly interminable state that keeps you awake and immobile, begging for release, even if that would mean horking up half of your intestinal tract. You know those movies where people are threatened that they will be tortured and in pain until they are begging for death? I say bring it. While I’m not a big fan of pain, I think nausea is way worse. One dose of morning sickness would have me begging for mercy. Hell, I’d even give you the commander in chief’s personal cell phone number, just for godsake make it stop.
I was actually pretty lucky. My poor friend Val had one of those awful pregnancies where she was spewing well into her third trimester. (I still can’t believe she made herself go through that more than once.) Mine was just this awful lingering malaise that lasted for hours and never let up. I think I spent 90 percent of weeks seven through thirteen of my pregnancy in bed. It’s the only time I’ve ever considered myself lucky to be an out-of-work actor.
There was no major medical trauma during Noodle’s gestation, though that didn’t stop me from immersing myself in the Internet and deluging myself with terrifying stories of what could go wrong. Around six months, I developed a mild food allergy to nuts and shellfish that made me a little itchy. I figured it was probably nothing, but looked it up in one of my expecting-baby books anyway. These tomes are supposed to answer everyday questions about gestation and put the pregger’s mind at ease. However, the authors also wanted to cover their butts, so they were sure to explain how small symptoms could also be an indicator of a major problem. So basically, it was “everything is fine, don’t worry… BUT it might also be serious, in which case your baby is going to die.” My itching could be nothing, or it could be a sign of this awful liver disease that would kill the baby mere days before he was born. I was terrified. The more I scoured the Internet for info, the more convinced I became that my liver was failing and placing my unborn baby in peril. But blood tests showed my liver was in fine shape, despite the years of abuse it had suffered in college. We discovered the itchiness was just food allergies, which were easy enough to take care of. (Solution: Don’t eat that stuff. Duh.)
My gallbladder also got a little feisty toward the end, but avoiding fatty food was a no brainer for me. All I craved was fresh fruit and Luna Bars,—and just for the record I felt totally ripped off. I had looked forward to weird food cravings. My mom always tells the story of how when she was pregnant with me, she went to the famous Peppermint Park in New York City and ordered an ice cream sundae with mint chocolate chip and peanut butter ice cream, topped with butterscotch sauce. The guy behind the counter said “That’s disgusting,” and refused to give it to her. I looked forward to having my own cringe-inducing combinations to talk about, because I think satisfying a good craving is one of the most orgasmic feelings in the world. But, no, for me it was all about blueberries and watermelon. Very disappointing.
It was strange how much my diet changed once I got knocked up. I’ve never exactly been a slave to healthy eating. In the pre-breeding days, if it was quick and portable, it was lunch. Leftover baked potato, bag of potato chips, handful of Cap’n Crunch, whatever. But in the preggo era I lost my taste for stuff that was bad for me. I don’t think I ate chocolate the entire time I was pregnant, which is just bizarre because normally I can’t even go a week without some sort of fix. (I mean, of course I can survive, but it sure as hell ain’t pretty.) I was also off salt, which is beyond bizarre—it’s more like a sign of the End Times or a violation of the physical world as we know it. I have always had ridiculously low blood pressure. When I was in college I even had a doctor tell me I should never cut salt out of my diet. Not a problem. I put salt on everything. Seriously. I even put salt on toast. The day I saw my first salted dark chocolate bar, I wept and had an orgasm at the same time. But I never once touched the saltshaker the entire time I was pregnant. I think it may have freaked Jason out a little.
We were both hoping that all the pregnancy hormones running through my body would get rid of my milk allergy, too. I’d had a dairy allergy when I was a kid that I had grown out of, but later grew back into. We’d heard that some women found themselves able to tolerate milk and all its creamy brethren again once they started procreating, and I was salivating like Pavlov’s pooch at the thought of eating real ice cream again for the first time in fourteen years. (That soy stuff ranges from mildly similar at best to fucking disgusting at worst.) The milk experiment was messy and short-lived. Suffice it to say, I was not one of the lucky ones.
The pain of pregnancy was no picnic either. I’m not talking about the proverbial aching back and feet. I did a lot of prenatal yoga (yes, I know how dorky that sounds), so back and feet were never really a problem. Instead, I had a constant pressure in my pelvis that was absolutely maddening. You know those car jacks people use to change a tire? It felt like someone had shoved one into my pelvis sideways and was slowly cranking it up. Not fun. Still, I didn’t have crippling sciatica or anything like that, just a constant state of discomfort.
The worst part of being pregnant was the anxiety. I was a nervous wreck from day one. I’m embarrassed to admit that for the first ten weeks I wouldn’t even jump up and down because I was afraid it would knock the kid loose. I refused to wear anything with a waistband and even walked with a slow, careful glide—just in case. Jason and I like to joke that I suffer from NFS, or Neurotic Fuck Syndrome. Back then I wasn’t just suffering from NFS:, I was the freakin’ poster child.
I don’t even know how to describe it, but deep down, I knew something was wrong. I mean, at the very core of my being I knew the baby inside me was not healthy. Even when the usual prenatal tests would come back looking great, I was still convinced chaos was reigning supreme in Uterusland.
I remember around week sixteen, I was taking a shower and studying the bump that had started to emerge from my abdomen. As I ran my hands over my smooth, wet skin, I thought about all the joys motherhood had in store for me. I had visions of cuddling my baby boy and cooing while he stared back at me with unbridled adoration. (I knew from day one it was a boy. Don’t ask me how.) We had done an ultrasound earlier that day, and saw that the kid was intact and doing well. In fact, the little stinker had turned around while we were watching and wiggled his little butt at us. We knew it was just a coincidence, but I liked to think the kid was inheriting the smart-ass gene from his parents.
The problem was, I had wanted this baby so badly that I was convinced something was going to happen to take it away from me. (Yes, I realize how pathetic that is. All you amateur psychologists out there feel free to go nuts. Here, I’ll start: “She obviously has self-esteem issues and doesn’t think she deserves good things.” You take it from there.) I suddenly flashed forward to how devastating losing my child would be, and before I knew it, I was curled up in a ball on the floor of the shower, sobbing and pleading with the baby that he be okay. I wish I could say this was an isolated incident, but me weeping in the shower happened far more regularly than I care to admit. I’m not saying I burst into tears every time I heard running water (though it did make me have to pee), but for some reason my fears always hit me the hardest when I was naked in the shower. And when I wasn’t bawling over the threat of losing the one thing I wanted more than anything else in the world, I was grieving about how my already ample ass was now elephant size.
I do remember one brief period in week twenty-two when I thought everything just might be okay. I wasn’t too achy, and I was really enjoying having this little squirming thing in my gut. I could look at baby clothes and cribs without feeling like I was going to burst into tears. But a few days later, the feeling of well-being disappeared, and I was back to being a basket case.
Poor Val, the one who had the barf-till-the-kid-pops-out kind of pregnancy, told me a trick she used to get through the most grueling part of her pregnancy (which was just about all of it). She would look at a tiny, newborn-size sock and revel in the thought of the baby wearing it. I tried that, but all I could think of was how horrible it would be if my baby never got to wear the sock. I couldn’t help imagining how hideously painful it would be to box up the baby stuff, all of it unused. Val wanted to throw me a big baby shower, but I was too scared to take her up on it, as if formally acknowledging this baby’s existence would jinx everything.
Jason had the patience of a saint, and eventually everyone talked me down from the ledge. (I wasn’t that bad. Yet.) There were a zillion and one different hormones running amok in my body, and I had to constantly remind myself that they were probably influencing the way I saw things. Also, I had a really great shrink who was good at calming me down. One day I was regaling him with more stories of my fears and hysterical conviction that things would go wrong, when he looked at me and said, “If you had to bet everything on whether or not the baby was okay, what would you bet?”
“Um, what?” I was so busy scaring the snot out of myself that I was having trouble even understanding what he was asking.
“If you had to bet everything on whether or not the baby was okay, what would you bet?” he repeated, patiently.
“Everything?” I asked.
“Yes, everything. Your home, your husband, your car, your belongings, your career. Everything. What would you bet on?”
I took a deep breath and, after much soul-searching, decided that I wanted to place my money on the everything’s fine square. In an instant, most of the terror and panic that had gripped me ever since I had gotten pregnant just lifted away. There was still a nagging voice in the back of my head screaming “Something’s not right!” but I told it to shut the hell up and move on. I decided I was being a stupid drama queen.
So the night I got the phone call from the pediatrician telling me my kid had cancer, all I could think was, “I fucking knew it!”—but I’m getting ahead of myself.
The end of the pregnancy was agonizing. All the pregnancy books describe how uncomfortable it is, but I didn’t believe them. The books all said to expect abject misery and discomfort on a level that would usually attract the attention of Amnesty International. They lied. It was way worse than that. I did everything I could think of to get the damn kid out of me and just get it over with already. I took insanely long walks. I went to the restaurant here in LA that’s rumored to have a salad that induces labor. I had more sex in the span of two weeks than I’d probably had all year. I was beyond done.
For my birthday, we went to the Gospel Brunch at the House of Blues. I am by no means a religious person. Jason says I’m an apatheist—I just don’t give a shit whether or not there’s a God. Usually religious ramblings have me rolling my eyes and grinding my teeth, but damn! Do I love me some gospel music. The music is so energetic and uplifting. It’s a celebration of life, and I can certainly get down with that. The cool part about the Gospel Brunch at House of Blues is that from the get-go they let you know that today you are all part of the Hallelujah Chorus, regardless of your beliefs. For some reason that made me feel happy to belt out things that would normally make me cringe. And we danced. Oh, Lord, did we dance! I was standing up for every song, grooving in the aisles. When the brunch was over, the actual choir members came down and greeted everyone. They kept telling me, “Girl, we thought you were going to dance that baby right out of you!” Well, duh. That was the general idea. I had tons of Christian freaks come up and try to talk to me, too. They misunderstood and took my frenetic attempt to kick-start labor as religious zealotry. I didn’t have the heart to tell them otherwise.
Finally, at thirty-seven weeks, I couldn’t take it anymore. I decided to ask my doctor about inducing. Here’s how I imagined the conversation would go:
DR: So, how are you feeling, Amanda?
ME: Well, I’m very uncomfortable, and I’d like to discuss inducing.
Here’s how the conversation actually went:
DR: So, how are you feeling, Amanda?
ME: (hysterical SOB) Make it stop! No more! (SOB, WAIL)
That was when my doctor told me the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard in my life. She told me I was beginning to dilate and if I didn’t give birth over the weekend, then, merciful soul that she was, she would induce me the following week. I thanked her and hugged her as best I could over the Goodyear blimp that was my belly.
My previous efforts to get the ball rolling paled in comparison to the frenzy I was in that week. If I wasn’t shagging Jason senseless, I was out wandering in the Hollywood hills. Any tourists who went to see the legendary Hollywood sign that week were treated to the sight of an angry, enormously pregnant woman tromping up and down the street muttering obscenities under her breath.
The week past without me popping, so we induced. My sweet, benevolent doctor admitted me to the hospital and hooked me up to a Pitocin drip, while everyone sat around and waited for me to get down to business. I wasn’t worried about labor—I had told everyone from the very beginning that I was really looking forward to my epidural. I hadn’t even bothered with birthing classes, because I know I am a total wuss when it comes to pain. I knew I would cave to the temptations of modern medicine, so why bother pretending otherwise? Besides, medical stuff makes Jason squeamish, so I didn’t see the point of subjecting him to all those birthing videos. I knew we were going to want to revive our sex life at some point after the baby was born, and the last thing either of us wanted was images of birthing-stretched twats indelibly burned into our brains.
Now, if you’re pregnant and reading this, so do yourself a favor and skip the next few paragraphs. I hated hearing pregnancy horror stories when I was knocked up, and oddly enough, people are compelled to tell you the most horrendous shit they can think of about pregnancies gone wrong. Seriously, just move on. You won’t be missing anything.
As for the rest of you … giving birth was an absolutely miserable experience, and I hated it even more than I hated being pregnant. Nicholas wasn’t a big baby (6 pounds, 14 ounces), but despite massively deceptive outside appearances, it turns out I have a very small pelvic girdle. Apparently my pubic bone wasn’t moving out of the way of his head, and he was still too far up to use those salad-tong thingies. The kid got stuck, and no bullshit, I seriously thought I was going to die.
We decided to do an emergency C-section much to my relief. It had taken the Pitocin thirty hours to kick in, and I had been too nervous to eat the morning before. It was my forty-somethingth hour without food, and it was ugly. I was more physically exhausted than I had ever been in my life. The last time the nurse told me to push, I told her to go fuck herself. So I was thrilled to hear I was off to the chopping block.
That was where I learned something unspeakably awful: epidurals don’t always work. I always thought the whole argument was whether or not to have one. That it might be ineffective hadn’t even occurred to me.
There I was in the delivery room of this cute little Catholic hospital, screaming things that would have made a sailor blush. First we tried the epidural. Nothing. I was still in agony. When I begged the anesthesiologist to knock me out, he s-l-o-w-l-y explained to me why we wanted to try to avoid that. Next we tried a spinal block, but that didn’t work either. The anesthesiologist didn’t believe me. He kept pinching my thighs and saying, “Really? You feel that?” While I knew that general anesthesia wasn’t exactly ideal for the baby, I figured him growing up motherless because I had gone insane from the pain and had to be institutionalized would be worse. By that time I was bellowing at the top of my lungs, “Jesus motherfucking Christ, just knock me out! Get this goddamn thing out of me!” Jason said they could hear me screaming at the other end of the ward. Seconds later, a mask clamped down on my face and I was out like a light. The next thing I knew, I was in Recovery and my dad was stroking my hair while I begged him to keep pushing the button on the automatic painkiller dispenser. Dilaudid was my friiiiiiiieeeeeeend.
Jason and I had previously decided on the name Nicholas. We were smart to plan ahead because I was so out of it, we probably would have ended up with Fuck-Off-and-Die Lee on the birth certificate if I had had to come up with something on the spot. Deciding what to name the kid had been a long, fruitless process until one day Jason had jokingly quoted the line from the John Cusack movie The Sure Thing:
GIB: Yeah, Nick. Nick’s a real name. Nick’s your buddy. Nick’s the kind of guy you can trust, the kind of guy you can drink a beer with, the kind of guy who doesn’t mind if you puke in his car, Nick!
As with all other Gen Xers, anything from pop culture immediately strikes a chord with us. Of course his name is Nicholas. How could we have thought otherwise? I also liked the way the name Nicholas reminded me of Jason’s mother, Nita, who had died the year before. A few nights after Nicholas’s grand debut into the world, I heard Jason calling him Nicky-Noo. (I blame the sleep deprivation.) I thought it sounded a little goofy, so I started calling him Noodle instead. The name just stuck.
Jason had been fairly reserved about the whole breeding process up until then. He had always been uncomfortable around babies and would to refuse to hold them. However, I always knew that he would make a fantastic father. I was right. The first time he held Nicholas, he just sat there quietly snuggling this little pink squirmy creature as tears of joy ran down his face. Or so my mom said. I was still off tripping balls in la-la land compliments of the drugs, so I didn’t get to see it.
I do remember the first time I held Noodle in my arms, though. They had moved me to a room and given me even more massive amounts of drugs, for which I was supremely grateful. As I lay in bed, they wheeled in the cart with this tiny, wrinkled stranger in it. I held him in my arms and the first thought I had was how similar it was to hugging Amber, my old teddy bear. Amber had been a permanent fixture in my bedroom since I was three, and all that snuggling had paid off. It was as if I had been training my whole life for that moment.
Noodle immediately started to cry, so I sang to him. I had been crooning and reading to him while he was in utero, so I thought he might recognize my voice. In a way, he did. The second I began singing, he started screaming his head off. You would have thought someone was pulling out his little microscopic fingernails with pliers. We weren’t off to a great start.
The next few days are lost in a haze of painkillers, tears (his and mine), and sore nipples (just mine). However, once Noodle discovered that my boobs were the end-all, be-all of his little existence, things improved tremendously. In fact, they went so well that he nursed every hour and a half for the first three months of his life. I was in lactating hell, but I had read a study where babies who were exclusively breastfed had marginally higher IQs. In my sleepless hysteria, I was convinced he was going to spend the rest of his life chanting “Do you want fries with that?” if he got within ten feet of a can of formula. I wish I knew then what I know now—it really doesn’t make a damn bit of difference. In fact, if you give the kid a little formula at night, they’ll sleep better because it stays in their stomach longer. That meant I could have gotten a few more hours of sleep, which I desperately, desperately needed.
Taking the baby home was terrifying. He was so small and helpless. I worried he’d be swallowed up in the chaos of our apartment. If I wasn’t nursing him, I was too scared to sleep just in case something happened to him. We had a co-sleeper—a small miniature crib that hooks on to the side of the parents’ bed—set up and ready to go. I tried to sleep when he did, but it never quite worked out that way. Every time he sighed or twitched, my Mom Radar would go off and I was instantly awake, anxiously examining him from head to toe for any sign of distress. The sleep deprivation became brutal. My friend Jan called me after six weeks to ask me how motherhood was. My answer was, “Relentless.”
I had been warned time and again about how debilitating the lack of sleep was, but I thought my college finals had prepared me for the challenge. What I had forgotten to take into account was that after finals were over, I would crash out and sleep for thirty-six hours straight to make up for it. Now, I wasn’t given a chance. That’s when we came up with the expression hate-my-life tired. That’s when you’re so tired that it hurts to move and you hate everything—your husband, your baby, your existence, etc.
The time that elapses between your kid’s birth and your kid’s first smile is agonizing. I liken it to starting a new job when you have to wait for the payroll to kick in. After a while it feels as though you are working for no paycheck. You start to wonder why the hell you’re busting your butt when you’re not getting anything in return. Then you get that first paycheck and ka-ching! Holy crap, do you love your job! I was still in the waiting phase, and I was beginning to think I had made a huge mistake. I had thought I was ready for motherhood, but now I began to wonder. Unfortunately, babies come with a pretty strict no-returns policy attached.
To top it all off, Jason and I had just bought a house. We had no idea what we had gotten ourselves into. When we first looked at the house, all we could really see was how glorious the backyard was. Jason kept saying, “This is a ball-tossing yard!” while daydreams of father-son bonding danced in his head. We loved it and had visions of seamlessly transitioning into our new home as a doting triad. Boy, were we in for a surprise.
The same family had lived in the house for forty-nine years, and I guess they really hated professional repairmen. Everything that had looked so good at the closing revealed itself to be held together by duct tape and bubble gum once we got a good look behind the scenes. As Jason put it, it was forty-nine years worth of “Hey, my brother can do that for ya.” I can’t even begin to count how many half-assed, jerry-rigged piping and electrical fixes we came across. We even invented a new word based on the name of the former owners. Any time we came across another thing that was strung together with spit and some wire we’d say, “Oh, man. They Baumgartenered it.”
We had to be out of our crappy Hollywood apartment before the house was ready, so we stayed at a nearby motel. Every day I would pack up our stuff, hoping it would be the day all the people got out of our house and let us start our life. Every day I was greeted with stories of more mediocre fixes that needed correcting or additional painting or rewiring that needed to be done, and had to tearfully schlep everything back to the hotel. We didn’t get to actually live in the house until Noodle was three weeks old. Luckily, my parents flew back to help us during the actual move; otherwise, it would have been physically impossible. I don’t remember much of it. I just sat there lactating and sobbing while Jason and my parents arranged furniture and boxes.
I do remember slipping out to go to the grocery store at the end of the day after my parents had gone back to the hotel. It was the first time I had been anywhere or done anything all by myself since Noodle had been born. I needed a few minutes of silence and alone time, even if it was just going to the store and back. Of course, about a minute after I left, Noodle starting screaming his little head off. Jason was still new to the whole taking-care-of-a-baby-thing, so he panicked. After running through his limited litany of baby-soothing techniques to no avail, he gave up and called my cell phone. I had just grabbed a few items we needed and was waiting in the checkout line. The second I said hello, I heard Noodle howling in the background. Now, I don’t know if you are aware of this, but mothers are biologically programmed to respond to their baby’s cries. When kid has a fit, the mother’s milk glands react by kicking into overdrive so the squalling child can be fed and, therefore, silenced. As soon as I heard Noodle’s screaming, my milk got released (or “let down”) and started gushing down the front of my shirt. I told Jason I was on my way and quickly hung up. I was crushed that not only had my one stolen moment alone been interrupted, but now I would have to find a new grocery store to frequent, since I was way too humiliated to ever show my face in that one again. Good times.
To say things were rough in the beginning is an understatement. I remember one day about two weeks after we had finally moved in, Jason and I were putting Noodle to bed. Jason was well into his editing career, and he was lucky enough to have a gig where he could work from home at the time. Unfortunately the gig had ridiculous deadlines, so he was working every waking hour of the day. I wish I was exaggerating. That night, when we tried to put Noodle in his crib for the token hour that he would sleep, Jason looked at me and said mournfully, “Well, now I get to go to sleep, wake up, and do it all over again.” I just turned to him and said enviously, “Really? You get to sleep?” It was a low point for both of us.
At one point I was so exhausted that my milk started to dry up. I was devastated. All I had to do was sit there and lactate, and I couldn’t even do that right. So I started drinking those god-awful Mother’s Milk teas that taste like someone swept the dust bunnies out from under the bed and threw it all in a teabag. I also took fenugreek capsules, but those were kind of cool. They made me smell like maple syrup.
Other than insisting on being held every freakin’ second of the day, Noodle’s next couple of months were unremarkable. He had had a minor cold when he was six weeks old, but that was no big deal. As long as he was in someone’s arms, he was happy. The second I put him down, however, he’d scream bloody murder. Since he was too small to fit in a sling, I learned how to do a lot of things one-handed. He grew even more insistent about being held as time went on. He was very cute, but really kind of crabby, and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why.
At first we thought it was reflux from barfing all the time. Apparently Jason’s side of the family has this tendency to have immature pyloric valves. The pyloric valve is the one on top of your stomach that claps shut so stuff doesn’t slide back up your throat after you swallow it. (I got a little nauseated just typing that.) Some babies need more time for it to develop and strengthen, usually about a year, and as a result, they barf constantly. That’s not hyperbole either. Every single time I fed the kid, he puked. So not only was I exhausted, but I also constantly smelled like curdled milk. (When I was taking the fenugreek, I smelled like a full IHOP breakfast that had been left out in the sun.) I went through six to eight shirt changes a day, and I can’t even count how many onesies Noodle went through. We finally took him to a pediatric gastroenterologist who put him on Prevacid, which perked the kid up a little. He was still barfing like crazy, but at least now it wasn’t scraping his throat raw in the process.
End of this sample Kindle book.
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