Well, hello there.

I have two things to tell you.

1. I'm not dead. Well, not as of this writing.

It has occurred to me that if you were a follower (either officially or not) of my now-defunct former blog, Tales of the Late Twenties, you may think that I died in childbirth, as my last post was nearly 10 months ago when I was 37+ weeks pregnant. But nope--I'm still kicking. And I have a perfectly healthy, wonderfully mischievous little boy who will be 10 months old next week.

I meant to update the blog. I meant to write at LEAST one disgustingly detailed birth story, post an obscene amount of pics of The Boy (yes, it's an official title), and do weekly survey-style posts about my growing babe, chronicling all his milestones and stages and phases.

Speaking of things I meant to do, I also meant to have a natural, drug-free birth. I hired a doula, took classes, became a creepy lurker on the Natural Birth board, and even switched OBs and hospitals at 34 weeks in pursuit of the natural experience I wanted. Around 32 weeks I found out The Boy was laying sideways so I went to a chiropractor trained in a special method that encourages babies to move into a head-down position, and it worked! "Beautiful, life-changing natural birth, here I come!" I thought, marveling in my new found hippiness.

I. Was. Ready.

Except, not. At 38w1d my water unexpectedly broke at 11:00 p.m. after a long day at work (the day before I was to train my interim replacement, BTW). My doula didn't answer my dozens of phone calls (our plan was to labor at home with her as long as possible) and DH and I basically freaked. We jumped in the car and went to the hospital. We didn't have a backup "what to do in case the doula doesn't answer" plan.

When I got to the hospital I was almost immediately put on Pitocin. Long story short, I labored on the Pit without any pain meds for 24+ hours. When I got checked and was only dilated to a 5, they suggested an epi to help relax the cervix enough to finish dilating and allow me to get enough relief from my contractions, which were coming hard and fast every one to two minutes, to rest up for actually birthing the baby.

I was exhausted and worried and hysterical...and reluctantly agreed. About nine hours later I was at a 10. I pushed hard for 2.5 hours, but DS was facing sunnyside up with only the tip of his head in the birth canal and wouldn't budge. I ultimately had an unplanned c-section after 42+ hours of labor.

When we got home from spending six days in the hospital from start to finish, I was still in a bit of shock that my pregnancy was over and that it had ended in the way it did. I knew that after going through what we did to get our take-home baby I should just be happy that he had arrived safely. But the baby blues hit me hard, and I was Googling PPD on, like, day 2 at home. I couldn't bring myself to put my birth story into words, even though I knew that the details were slipping from my memory every day that I put off doing it. Weeks passed, then months, and everything became blurry around the edges. Bottom line: I had an easy pregnancy, a rough labor and birth, and then a high-needs newborn, and the blog did not survive.

So let's fast forward to now, at least for the time being. Which brings me to the second thing I need to tell you.

2. I turned 30 yesterday.

And as such, I can't very well continue writing a blog called Tales of the Late Twenties, now can I? That would just be false advertising. I suppose I really wasn't thinking ahead when I named the original blog that at 27.5 years old. But I honestly didn't expect to keep up with it this long. I'm also purposely naming this new blog after the next decade so that I can hopefully jinx myself into creating an interesting, successful blog that lasts until I'm 40. :)

So, without further adieu...may I present Mason, born August 12, 2010, 7 pounds and 4 ounces of everything I ever wanted, personified: