my daughter is coming up on 10 months. she scoots, she does this weird crab crawl, she pulls up, cruises from chair to ottoman to sofa, and reaches things i am not prepared for her to reach. she gives me kisses, understands "no" and we've entered the testy waters of discipline.
the hours when she is awake are full of constant movement (on both our parts). if i sit down to work on something, not five minutes goes by before i have to go see where she is or what she's almost swallowing or which dog she is pestering. getting things done is much more difficult than i was prepared for them to be. last week was particularly busy and i found myself staying up well past her bedtime in order to get work done (cursing that i can't just learn to say "no" when offered a paying job...but hey, money talks).
today--because my weekend was so jam-packed and we had no time to go get groceries--i decided to eat lunch out before heading to the store to stock up for the week. much easier said than done. my 5th percentile baby is still too small for a high chair, even though she's more than able to use one. her little legs slide in and out and the straps don't fit tight enough to contain her when she decides she'd rather stand or kneel in the high chair. and then there's the constant battle between giving her a toy that she'll drop on the dirty floor a hundred times, or risking a melt-down if she has nothing to play with. so out she comes, onto my lap, while i try to keep her grubby little paws away from my food. in between my own bites i give her tiny little bites of black beans to keep her satisfied. but the black beans are so irresistibly good (and an almost 10 month old doesn't understand that there's anyone to feed besides herself), that she cries out in impatience between bites. it became so loud that i began to fear the patience of other patrons and gave her a stern "shh!" face and told her "no, no--if you want some you can be patient and tell me 'more', ok?" signaling the baby sign language move for "more." well, the people-pleaser in her that she got from her mother was upset at the reprimand, and then she began crying, with her wails bouncing off the concrete floor and unfinished industrial hangings of the ceiling. people stared. the kinder people said "aww" as i tried to console her as quickly as possible with another bite of black beans.
"this is life," i thought. never again can i just have just a simple, peaceful lunch by myself. it will be this way for a long time.
and then i noticed a woman--professionally dressed and not much younger than myself--eating lunch by herself and i began to think about the days when i could take lunch breaks on my own. when i had the opportunity to wear nice clothes that weren't covered in boogers, and put on makeup, and do my hair. and she seemed to notice me in a similar way. she seemed sweet, probably someone i would like. she kept smiling at june, even when she was rowdy.
and then i remembered who i was when i was in her place. i remember the days of my pregnancy when all i did was work, to the point of exhaustion. i wondered how that life would fit into my life as a mom, and if there would ever be balance. when she was born, and i started back to work, every day i sped to the daycare to find her as the last baby of the night, in the arms of the daycare worker while they were turning out the lights and cleaning up. i was already the mom i swore i wouldn't be. and then, through ways that i would have never seen, God orchestrated the perfect balance for me. now, almost every day i am home with my little girl. and because He knew i would go insane without some sort of creative outlet, he has created the opportunity to work from home, doing things that i enjoy. it's not a lot, it's never easy, and there's not a day that goes by when i don't wonder if i should go get a full time job again. but then i couldn't bear putting her back in daycare after the joy of being home with her. so we adjust.
i always wanted to work from home. and until today i used to think that when that wish was granted, God chuckled and called me a fool. because Lord knows i've felt like one. there are days when i want to run screaming into the night. but now i know He didn't answer that prayer in laughter. He answered it in love, with an outpouring of blessing, because He sees what i normally don't see.
i looked back at the woman smiling at us, and i smiled back. because when i was her, i wanted to be who i am today. i am the person i always envied. i get to have lunch. on a monday. with my daughter. this is life. it doesn't get any better than this.
Monday, November 18, 2013
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
ABC's of Me
well i've begun about a half dozen blog posts in the last month, only to delete them half way through. i don't have the energy or voice to carry me through to the end. i don't know why. i feel like i'm in a creative cloud.
this takes very little creativity, and gives me at least a position in which to write something. a part of me hopes it helps clear some of the fog. if nothing else, it gets my brain moving a little as i think of the answers.
here goes!
this takes very little creativity, and gives me at least a position in which to write something. a part of me hopes it helps clear some of the fog. if nothing else, it gets my brain moving a little as i think of the answers.
here goes!
A – Available or Married?
Married--Two years this week!
B – Book?
i don't know if i have a favorite, but probably the best paper i ever wrote in college was on "the awakening" by kate chopin. it actually wasn't even the assigned book. i requested to write it on that book because i loved it so much. it spoke a lot to who i was in college.
C – Cake or Pie?
pie. or cheesecake if that counts.
D – Drink of Choice
i'm a true water girl. i almost always prefer water. but i have a weakness for sweet tea and cherry coke.
E – Essential Item?
chapstick.
F – Favorite Color?
blue or red (depending on the purpose)
G – Game to Play or Watch?
watch...wait am i choosing or naming? i don't do participation games...like the ones at showers. i do, however, love watching sec football.
H – Hometown?
warner robins, georgia. but i claim montgomery, alabama because it's what i remember the most and travel to the most.
I – Indulgence?
pedicures and gourmet mac n cheese
J – Job?
ha. which one?
K – Kids?
a nine month old daughter named June..... :)
L – Life is incomplete without?
God, my family, dogs, carbs, and large bodies of water
M – Music group or singer?
i think this changes based on the stage i'm at in life. but i have to say the one band i have consistently loved since i was a teenager, through all life stages, has been dave matthews band. say what you will. i don't care. i'll shout it from the rooftops.
N – Number of siblings?
one younger sister
O – Oranges or Apples?
granny smiths. with brie.
P – Phobias / Fears?
roaches. and tragic death of loved ones.
Q – Favorite Quote?
in design school i had the pleasure of being taught by dr. maryann potter, the feistiest, no-nonsense design senior out there. she was very quotable. one of my favorites of hers (directed at something as simple as calculating how much paint you need per room) spoke to much more than she meant it:
"you're trying to get lost in the forest. there's no need to. there are no trees here."
R – Reason to smile?
my daughter
S – Season?
fall
T – Tattoos?
when done well, i like them very much on others, but i have none of my own. i'm too indecisive.
U – Unknown fact about me?
i played 3 or 4 musical instruments growing up. i also painted (i was better at painting than music i think). i was offered a scholarship (twice) to scad but i didn't go because of their lack of academics. i thought it was unrealistic.
V – Vegetable you love?
i honestly don't love many vegetables. i eat them because i know they're good for me.
W – Worst habit?
i pick at my nails. constantly. it drives my family insane.
X – X rays you have had?
teeth, wrist, and ankle.
Y – your favorite food?
mac n cheese
Z – Zodiac?
capricorn
Friday, August 23, 2013
the list
for the sake of not sounding opinionated or agenda-minded in a post, this one is just about my personal beliefs. the things that get me through the day.
there are books about it, movies, theories, etc--we all have an idea of what we think an "afterlife" is like. i believe heaven is a real place, because the bible tells me it's real. does it say there is a cloud-like mist everywhere, and that there's a perpetual white backdrop, and everyone walks around with glowing skin in white robes? no. it doesn't get that specific. so i guess we're all left up to our own ideas of what it's like.
one thing that i associate with heaven is "the list."
the list is my on-going compilation of who will be at my welcoming party when i die and arrive to the "pearly gates." i like to think that there will be a big huge gathering of everyone who has made a difference in my life, all gathered around to usher me in, before i meet the Big Cheese. like a hundred high-fives before you go in for the interview. know what i'm sayin?
the list is divided into two categories: the people who i assume will go before me, and those who have already left this world and are dancing in the glory of our Father.
yesterday, the latter part of that list grew by one person.
derrell jenkins left our world after a long battle with cancer.
derrell and i were not best friends, not even close friends. we haven't spoken in probably a year. we met when i joined the nabard kung fu academy about 5 years ago. i remember thinking "what's up with that dude in the back, and why does he move so slow but sweat so much?" then he stopped coming for a little while. and it was then i learned who derrell was. derrell, not much older than myself, had been diagnosed with lung cancer and was in the middle of chemo therapy. he moved slowly because he kept a bag of the fluids draining from his body on the inside of his uniform.
then for a little while i passed him coming to class just as he was leaving. i remember asking master (our teacher) how derrell was doing one day. he said "not good. the cancer is all in his body." i couldn't believe it. he looked so healthy. like an entirely different person than the guy i met on my first day of class.
then our classes lined up and i was there when derrell was there. shortly after that, i found out it was because derrell came to every class. he was the first one there every morning. he drove from milton to get to class at 5:30 am. some mornings i didn't show up because i was tired, or because 4:45 came too soon, or because i was afraid of how sore i was going to be, or that i couldn't make it through another 90 degree, no a/c, 2 layers of clothes, toughest work-out of my life. seriously, i would dare a cross-fit loyal to come to class. and i don't say this to make me sound like a bad-ass. because i wasn't. i say it to make you realize just how tough derrell was. he sometimes came to class three times a day. when he had cancer. and i couldn't drive 10 minutes as a perfectly healthy person, three times a week.
on top of that, derrell was absolutely the most positive person in that academy. he was quick-witted, funny, and up-beat. every day. the days he didn't show up, i prayed he was ok. and on those days it was much harder to make it through an hour of grueling work. he joked with master, lightened the mood, and was the most beautifully open person when it came to his faith.
many people identify themselves as christian. but only a handful of people i've met truly embody what it means to love God, love people, and live boldly. derrell loved God, loved people, and was thankful every. single. day. and he let you know it, too. he mastered the method of sharing his faith in a way that didn't make people uncomfortable. he wasn't a "christian weirdo," he was a normal guy. every day he asked me how i was doing, asked how my job was, remembered little things about me--and all the while i would think "why does he care how i'm doing--he has cancer! i should be asking how he's doing!" master was not a person of faith. he joked that he told people who wanted to "save him" that he didn't need saving. he said "maybe i wanna go a hell." but i think derrell and master were very close friends. you would have to be, spending so much time together. i saw the impact derrell had on master--i saw the impact derrell had on everyone.
half the time people don't take me seriously when i talk about how i used to be a part of the kung fu academy. i haven't been since before i got pregnant. and i'd be lying if i said i didn't miss it. i don't miss the early hours, or how much pain that man put me through, but i miss belonging to something like that. it was like being part of a family (that just so happened to whip you into shape while you were there).
and today i know that family is hurting with the loss of derrell. for a while i believed that derrell looked so healthy because maybe God was healing him. i thought "why would God want someone with such a beautiful purpose to die? look at all the good he is doing on earth for His kingdom!" and only a few days ago he was hospitalized. and now he is gone. it is hard for me to understand, and probably harder for others. but i know that derrell completed his purpose. and that he got a "job well done" from the Big Cheese.
i mourn the loss of derrell not because of our relationship (or lack thereof), but because of the person he was. the world looks bleak without someone like derrell in it. although i do think his life will still impact people. i know it will. you only have to take a look at his facebook page to see how many people he impacted. it is overwhelming.
and now i can add derrell to the list. i'm blessed to have met him, and i can't wait to see him again.
there are books about it, movies, theories, etc--we all have an idea of what we think an "afterlife" is like. i believe heaven is a real place, because the bible tells me it's real. does it say there is a cloud-like mist everywhere, and that there's a perpetual white backdrop, and everyone walks around with glowing skin in white robes? no. it doesn't get that specific. so i guess we're all left up to our own ideas of what it's like.
one thing that i associate with heaven is "the list."
the list is my on-going compilation of who will be at my welcoming party when i die and arrive to the "pearly gates." i like to think that there will be a big huge gathering of everyone who has made a difference in my life, all gathered around to usher me in, before i meet the Big Cheese. like a hundred high-fives before you go in for the interview. know what i'm sayin?
the list is divided into two categories: the people who i assume will go before me, and those who have already left this world and are dancing in the glory of our Father.
yesterday, the latter part of that list grew by one person.
derrell jenkins left our world after a long battle with cancer.
derrell and i were not best friends, not even close friends. we haven't spoken in probably a year. we met when i joined the nabard kung fu academy about 5 years ago. i remember thinking "what's up with that dude in the back, and why does he move so slow but sweat so much?" then he stopped coming for a little while. and it was then i learned who derrell was. derrell, not much older than myself, had been diagnosed with lung cancer and was in the middle of chemo therapy. he moved slowly because he kept a bag of the fluids draining from his body on the inside of his uniform.
then for a little while i passed him coming to class just as he was leaving. i remember asking master (our teacher) how derrell was doing one day. he said "not good. the cancer is all in his body." i couldn't believe it. he looked so healthy. like an entirely different person than the guy i met on my first day of class.
then our classes lined up and i was there when derrell was there. shortly after that, i found out it was because derrell came to every class. he was the first one there every morning. he drove from milton to get to class at 5:30 am. some mornings i didn't show up because i was tired, or because 4:45 came too soon, or because i was afraid of how sore i was going to be, or that i couldn't make it through another 90 degree, no a/c, 2 layers of clothes, toughest work-out of my life. seriously, i would dare a cross-fit loyal to come to class. and i don't say this to make me sound like a bad-ass. because i wasn't. i say it to make you realize just how tough derrell was. he sometimes came to class three times a day. when he had cancer. and i couldn't drive 10 minutes as a perfectly healthy person, three times a week.
on top of that, derrell was absolutely the most positive person in that academy. he was quick-witted, funny, and up-beat. every day. the days he didn't show up, i prayed he was ok. and on those days it was much harder to make it through an hour of grueling work. he joked with master, lightened the mood, and was the most beautifully open person when it came to his faith.
many people identify themselves as christian. but only a handful of people i've met truly embody what it means to love God, love people, and live boldly. derrell loved God, loved people, and was thankful every. single. day. and he let you know it, too. he mastered the method of sharing his faith in a way that didn't make people uncomfortable. he wasn't a "christian weirdo," he was a normal guy. every day he asked me how i was doing, asked how my job was, remembered little things about me--and all the while i would think "why does he care how i'm doing--he has cancer! i should be asking how he's doing!" master was not a person of faith. he joked that he told people who wanted to "save him" that he didn't need saving. he said "maybe i wanna go a hell." but i think derrell and master were very close friends. you would have to be, spending so much time together. i saw the impact derrell had on master--i saw the impact derrell had on everyone.
half the time people don't take me seriously when i talk about how i used to be a part of the kung fu academy. i haven't been since before i got pregnant. and i'd be lying if i said i didn't miss it. i don't miss the early hours, or how much pain that man put me through, but i miss belonging to something like that. it was like being part of a family (that just so happened to whip you into shape while you were there).
and today i know that family is hurting with the loss of derrell. for a while i believed that derrell looked so healthy because maybe God was healing him. i thought "why would God want someone with such a beautiful purpose to die? look at all the good he is doing on earth for His kingdom!" and only a few days ago he was hospitalized. and now he is gone. it is hard for me to understand, and probably harder for others. but i know that derrell completed his purpose. and that he got a "job well done" from the Big Cheese.
i mourn the loss of derrell not because of our relationship (or lack thereof), but because of the person he was. the world looks bleak without someone like derrell in it. although i do think his life will still impact people. i know it will. you only have to take a look at his facebook page to see how many people he impacted. it is overwhelming.
and now i can add derrell to the list. i'm blessed to have met him, and i can't wait to see him again.
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
6 months new
my baby is 6 months old...or 6 months new if you think about it. she is my first. and this is all still very new. with having a child, not only does your baby have a lot of firsts, but as parents, we do too! first loonnnggg car trip with a baby, first time going shopping and looking for items based on the fact you can nurse in them, first time i'm more concerned about someone else's skin more than my own when we're in the sun. lots of firsts. lots of newness.
here are some of the things i've observed about the newness of having a 6 month old:
relationships: when you have a child, your relationship with everyone changes, whether intentional or not. without knowing it, i have re-defined my relationship with people based on how they are as a mother themselves OR how they treat and respect me as a mother. and without knowing it, they've probably re-defined their relationship with me as a new mom. it's hard to explain, but i think it happens with everyone.
identity: i've gotten several reminders (before and after having a baby) that it's important to remember who you are as a woman and wife before who you are as a mother. i don't deny this fact. i know my children will one day fly the coop and i'll be left with my silly goober of a husband who will only become more of a goober when he's old. i know it's important to maintain that, even though i probably fail at it daily (but honestly it's hard when you are the mother of a baby and also breastfeed--there are literally certain things you are obligated to stop and do, no matter what). but what i also know is that i was designed to do this. i know God called me to be a mother. if you have known me a while or kept up with me recently, you may be aware that i change jobs like i change clothes. it hasn't been intentional--it just works out that way. i don't feel like i have one area of expertise that i'm passionate about, and i'll admit i have felt slightly flawed when i couldn't come up with even one thing that i had passion for when people would ask. but i am deeply passionate about being a mom. i research everything, i identify well with other moms, i love reaching out to new moms (and love facebook for that reason), and i deeply love the little person my husband and i have created. i am not a stay-at-home mom, but those of you who think it is not a real profession are delusional. it's probably one of the most real professions out there, because they are 100% committed to our up-coming generation. i'm still working out my mom-life balance but is a challenge i'm blessed to face.
the cage rattler: there's no polite way to say this so i'm just going to say it. i think male child psychologists are a load of bs. i have never considered myself to be a hard-core feminist, and i think there are tons of award-winning single dads that exist. i also am grateful daily that i don't walk this road alone. i often think to myself that i would literally go insane if it weren't for the help of my husband sometimes. i would be worn out, ragged, my grass would be at eye level, and i'd probably wear barf-covered jeans to work. i literally don't know how single moms do it. that being said...there are things that a mother knows, feels, and intuitively acts on based on some part of the brain that i'm convinced only exists in women. i'm not saying fathers are inferior because i've also known cases where the father is the sane parent in the home. but until you've been inside the mind of a mom, there's no way any man can preach to me on how to raise my child on any sort of professional level. it's just not happening. i might be wrong. i might be stubborn and ignorant. but that's just how it is.
and more about breastfeeding: no secret. i'm pro-breastfeeding. i've mentioned it before. it's not always the easy option, that's for sure. one reason is it's not so easy to plan an outing. you have to either pump ahead of time to have enough bottles, plan to breastfeed wherever and whenever, or to be back before your baby is hungry. sticking to a no formula rule may sound absurd to some, but i am firmly planted in what i want for my child....and begin tangent:
and you know, i should feel confident in that. i really do get tired of all the opinions. it's probably easy to tell that i have my own opinions, but i'm not going to stand around in a circle of moms and make comments about how i mother my child in a way that makes someone else look inferior. our job as moms is to make each other feel confident in our decisions and to know that the only "right way" is the way that works for your family. i mean, it's not like one way of parenting is like bringing up a child to be a serial killer. as long as we love and spend time with our children, it shouldn't matter when we start them on solids, or how soon they're potty trained, or how long they sleep in the bed with us, or if they spend too much time with mom. in general, i don't think kids spend enough time with their moms. i may not always agree with someone's parenting techniques, so you know what i do? i slap on my sweet southern manners, keep my mouth shut, and give them the respect they deserve as a mom facing today's (and yesterday's and tomorrow's) challenges exactly the same way i do.
...end tangent.
so i may not be able to enjoy an impromptu night out, but i am totally ok with that. especially because right now my baby is extra snuggly and will rest her head on my chest, fully awake, for a pretty good amount of time. and there is nothing you can tempt me with that would make me want to give that up. right now, life is good, my baby is easy, and i don't require a "much needed break." when she's a toddler, i'll take up that offer, especially when she's not physically attached to my body.
snuggles: see above. absolutely the best. there was a time when my baby would be content with anyone. and mostly, she still is. but sometimes she gets cranky and she just needs her mama or daddy. and that's ok with me. i already have the kid in daycare, so you can't pull the whole socialization card. sometimes a baby just needs her parents.
emotions: i've never considered myself to be an emotional person. but the mother-child bond and the growth process create a wreck in me sometimes. example: i was at a restaurant, enjoying pizza with my family, when a friend of my husband joined us with her four children (sidenote: the single mom thing i mentioned before--this lady is one of them--not only does she have four kids, but they are well-behaved and she also has time to maintain a killer body). they all took turns holding my daughter and playing with her when suddenly the youngest of her children became very upset and emotional, crying for apparently no reason. when she was finally able to express the reason for her upset, she cried something into her mom's chest, and her mom said back "what?! i don't like that baby more than i like you! you are my baby!! i LOVE you. and i will always love you." i shoved a piece of delicious pizza in my mouth to help choke back the flood of emotion that overcame me. to most it might have seemed like just a mom dealing with a crying child. but up close it was a tender moment between a mother and her youngest daughter. what a great mom she was to express that to her, and to know that her daughter didn't need disciplinary action, or a "come on, you're being ridiculous, quit crying." she knew that she needed to hear that she was loved, and that she was still her baby. there is a time for tough love and a time for tender love. i can only hope to have that kind of discernment with my children. eat that, male child psychologist.
that is all. for now.
here are some of the things i've observed about the newness of having a 6 month old:
relationships: when you have a child, your relationship with everyone changes, whether intentional or not. without knowing it, i have re-defined my relationship with people based on how they are as a mother themselves OR how they treat and respect me as a mother. and without knowing it, they've probably re-defined their relationship with me as a new mom. it's hard to explain, but i think it happens with everyone.
identity: i've gotten several reminders (before and after having a baby) that it's important to remember who you are as a woman and wife before who you are as a mother. i don't deny this fact. i know my children will one day fly the coop and i'll be left with my silly goober of a husband who will only become more of a goober when he's old. i know it's important to maintain that, even though i probably fail at it daily (but honestly it's hard when you are the mother of a baby and also breastfeed--there are literally certain things you are obligated to stop and do, no matter what). but what i also know is that i was designed to do this. i know God called me to be a mother. if you have known me a while or kept up with me recently, you may be aware that i change jobs like i change clothes. it hasn't been intentional--it just works out that way. i don't feel like i have one area of expertise that i'm passionate about, and i'll admit i have felt slightly flawed when i couldn't come up with even one thing that i had passion for when people would ask. but i am deeply passionate about being a mom. i research everything, i identify well with other moms, i love reaching out to new moms (and love facebook for that reason), and i deeply love the little person my husband and i have created. i am not a stay-at-home mom, but those of you who think it is not a real profession are delusional. it's probably one of the most real professions out there, because they are 100% committed to our up-coming generation. i'm still working out my mom-life balance but is a challenge i'm blessed to face.
the cage rattler: there's no polite way to say this so i'm just going to say it. i think male child psychologists are a load of bs. i have never considered myself to be a hard-core feminist, and i think there are tons of award-winning single dads that exist. i also am grateful daily that i don't walk this road alone. i often think to myself that i would literally go insane if it weren't for the help of my husband sometimes. i would be worn out, ragged, my grass would be at eye level, and i'd probably wear barf-covered jeans to work. i literally don't know how single moms do it. that being said...there are things that a mother knows, feels, and intuitively acts on based on some part of the brain that i'm convinced only exists in women. i'm not saying fathers are inferior because i've also known cases where the father is the sane parent in the home. but until you've been inside the mind of a mom, there's no way any man can preach to me on how to raise my child on any sort of professional level. it's just not happening. i might be wrong. i might be stubborn and ignorant. but that's just how it is.
and more about breastfeeding: no secret. i'm pro-breastfeeding. i've mentioned it before. it's not always the easy option, that's for sure. one reason is it's not so easy to plan an outing. you have to either pump ahead of time to have enough bottles, plan to breastfeed wherever and whenever, or to be back before your baby is hungry. sticking to a no formula rule may sound absurd to some, but i am firmly planted in what i want for my child....and begin tangent:
and you know, i should feel confident in that. i really do get tired of all the opinions. it's probably easy to tell that i have my own opinions, but i'm not going to stand around in a circle of moms and make comments about how i mother my child in a way that makes someone else look inferior. our job as moms is to make each other feel confident in our decisions and to know that the only "right way" is the way that works for your family. i mean, it's not like one way of parenting is like bringing up a child to be a serial killer. as long as we love and spend time with our children, it shouldn't matter when we start them on solids, or how soon they're potty trained, or how long they sleep in the bed with us, or if they spend too much time with mom. in general, i don't think kids spend enough time with their moms. i may not always agree with someone's parenting techniques, so you know what i do? i slap on my sweet southern manners, keep my mouth shut, and give them the respect they deserve as a mom facing today's (and yesterday's and tomorrow's) challenges exactly the same way i do.
...end tangent.
so i may not be able to enjoy an impromptu night out, but i am totally ok with that. especially because right now my baby is extra snuggly and will rest her head on my chest, fully awake, for a pretty good amount of time. and there is nothing you can tempt me with that would make me want to give that up. right now, life is good, my baby is easy, and i don't require a "much needed break." when she's a toddler, i'll take up that offer, especially when she's not physically attached to my body.
snuggles: see above. absolutely the best. there was a time when my baby would be content with anyone. and mostly, she still is. but sometimes she gets cranky and she just needs her mama or daddy. and that's ok with me. i already have the kid in daycare, so you can't pull the whole socialization card. sometimes a baby just needs her parents.
emotions: i've never considered myself to be an emotional person. but the mother-child bond and the growth process create a wreck in me sometimes. example: i was at a restaurant, enjoying pizza with my family, when a friend of my husband joined us with her four children (sidenote: the single mom thing i mentioned before--this lady is one of them--not only does she have four kids, but they are well-behaved and she also has time to maintain a killer body). they all took turns holding my daughter and playing with her when suddenly the youngest of her children became very upset and emotional, crying for apparently no reason. when she was finally able to express the reason for her upset, she cried something into her mom's chest, and her mom said back "what?! i don't like that baby more than i like you! you are my baby!! i LOVE you. and i will always love you." i shoved a piece of delicious pizza in my mouth to help choke back the flood of emotion that overcame me. to most it might have seemed like just a mom dealing with a crying child. but up close it was a tender moment between a mother and her youngest daughter. what a great mom she was to express that to her, and to know that her daughter didn't need disciplinary action, or a "come on, you're being ridiculous, quit crying." she knew that she needed to hear that she was loved, and that she was still her baby. there is a time for tough love and a time for tender love. i can only hope to have that kind of discernment with my children. eat that, male child psychologist.
that is all. for now.
Monday, June 17, 2013
the apology
this weekend i made a brief and off-hand but very profound apology to my daughter as i was packing her in the car. i said "little girl, i'm sorry in advance that we're raising you to be christian."
it came both directly from the place i'm at now in my faith, and also indirectly from my experience with the christian world.
allow me to explain:
by definition, i am a christian. i truly believe Jesus was the son of God and that he came to demonstrate God's love in the most profound way possible. i believe he saved me, knows me, and loves me despite my constant downfalls. i believe love is the greatest power on earth. you know that beatles song? "love is all you need..." i believe that's true. i believe God is love.
but ya'll. christians are some crazy bunch of weirdos. and i don't mean that in a good way. my husband is a good weird. loveable weird. but christians, i think, are some of the hardest people to love. and i think that's because i expect more of them. i expect christians to know and take practice in the fundamental law of christianity: to love God and love people. but christians are just as imperfect as anyone else. and we're allowed to be. but i think we often times forget that. not only is it forgotten by non-christians in a way that paints us in a light that says "oh, aren't you christian? aren't you supposed to be holy and crap? and like, generally a good person?"
no. not always. not even most of the time. not any more than anyone else. i know atheists that are better people than christians. and i can name a few christians that i'd love to punch in the face. and just by that statement i prove my point--i shouldn't want to punch anyone in the face. i should love above all else. there is a song i used to sing in church growing up: "and they will know we are christians by our love" based on paul's teachings. when we fail to love, we fail as christians.
in general, i would say christians have let me down a lot lately. it is what has kept me away from church, disengaged, and distant from christian social gatherings. i'm tired of the euphemisms. i'm tired of the insincerity. and i'm tired of the masks people wear day after day. i'm tired of hearing "i'll pray for you" when i know it probably isn't true. i'm tired of seeing my friends be hurt my church leaders. and i'm am sick and dang tired of the word "awesome."
i don't care how awesome your church is. i don't care about your free coffee or your give-aways or your picnics or your pictures of all the fun you have. i don't mean to call out any particular church because this trend is fast-growing, and that just covers one "demographic." (although isn't it strange that churches have demographics?) maybe you belong to a church where you're tired of wearing a suit and tie. maybe you're tired of feeling like you're "going to hell". maybe you're tired of pointing fingers. maybe you're tired of having to "perform" like a christian. maybe you're tired of living your life sheltered away from everything because it is "sinful." from time to time all christians feel like outsiders. there is always something we want more of. what is it you want?
what i want is to be sincerely valued as a contributing member of the church. i want someone to ask me how i'm doing and mean it. i want someone--anyone--to remember my name. no. scratch that. names are hard. i want people to remember me. i'd go to church in a dang grass hut with no instruments if someone took the time to make me feel like i belonged there.
and that is a double-edged sword. because there should be no connection between my relationship with christians and my relationship with God. but this world is not perfect, and therefore that relationship will always exist. i know that God would never hurt me, hold a grudge against me, be insincere with me, push me away when i'm struggling, or completely forget about me when i wander off. but as christians, we are family. and family is never perfect. you can't chose your family. they are there whether you like it or not. and sometimes being hurt by family is the worst hurt you can have, and the hardest wounds to heal.
several places in the new testament, it is made obvious that christianity does not mean your life will get easier. sometimes that was very literal. the apostles lived with a price on their head. people actually wanted to kill them. that's hard. and still exists today, making me very thankful that all i get from people is an eye roll or sarcastic laugh when i tell people i am a christian. but i also think when Jesus said "in this world you will have trouble", he had a smirk on his face. i think he looked into the future and muttered to himself "cuz ya'll just inherited the whole looney bin! good luck with christians!" (i like to imagine God with a sense of humor and a southern accent. ya'll.)
i know i probably have the wrong approach. my desire to live a normal life and fit in somewhere stems from my failure to have so much passion for God that i don't care about anything else. i pray that one day God is enough for me and that i no longer look to this world for satisfaction. because right now this world is ugly. and that's a heavy weight for a parent. four months into this gig and i'm already wishing i could shield my daughter from the hurts the world will cause her, especially from christians.
it's funny though. those of you who have been readers of my blog may recall what my pregnancy was like. from nearly the instant i discovered my pregnancy i had a very strong inkling of who my child would be (gender was obviously not part of that because i was 90% sure she was a boy). and already i see that coming true. her face lights up in the presence of even perfect strangers. even when they don't pay attention to her she will smile at people that walk past her. i knew that she would love people. i knew it from the beginning. i just hope she keeps her child-like innocence and is not diluted by the harsh realities of the world.
i hope my daughter becomes what the christian family desperately needs: lovers of people; people in their raw and unpolished form. because people are weird. ugly. and at times unloveable. when we can truly love the unloveable, it is then that we have done our job as christians. we've got a long way to go.
it came both directly from the place i'm at now in my faith, and also indirectly from my experience with the christian world.
allow me to explain:
by definition, i am a christian. i truly believe Jesus was the son of God and that he came to demonstrate God's love in the most profound way possible. i believe he saved me, knows me, and loves me despite my constant downfalls. i believe love is the greatest power on earth. you know that beatles song? "love is all you need..." i believe that's true. i believe God is love.
but ya'll. christians are some crazy bunch of weirdos. and i don't mean that in a good way. my husband is a good weird. loveable weird. but christians, i think, are some of the hardest people to love. and i think that's because i expect more of them. i expect christians to know and take practice in the fundamental law of christianity: to love God and love people. but christians are just as imperfect as anyone else. and we're allowed to be. but i think we often times forget that. not only is it forgotten by non-christians in a way that paints us in a light that says "oh, aren't you christian? aren't you supposed to be holy and crap? and like, generally a good person?"
no. not always. not even most of the time. not any more than anyone else. i know atheists that are better people than christians. and i can name a few christians that i'd love to punch in the face. and just by that statement i prove my point--i shouldn't want to punch anyone in the face. i should love above all else. there is a song i used to sing in church growing up: "and they will know we are christians by our love" based on paul's teachings. when we fail to love, we fail as christians.
in general, i would say christians have let me down a lot lately. it is what has kept me away from church, disengaged, and distant from christian social gatherings. i'm tired of the euphemisms. i'm tired of the insincerity. and i'm tired of the masks people wear day after day. i'm tired of hearing "i'll pray for you" when i know it probably isn't true. i'm tired of seeing my friends be hurt my church leaders. and i'm am sick and dang tired of the word "awesome."
i don't care how awesome your church is. i don't care about your free coffee or your give-aways or your picnics or your pictures of all the fun you have. i don't mean to call out any particular church because this trend is fast-growing, and that just covers one "demographic." (although isn't it strange that churches have demographics?) maybe you belong to a church where you're tired of wearing a suit and tie. maybe you're tired of feeling like you're "going to hell". maybe you're tired of pointing fingers. maybe you're tired of having to "perform" like a christian. maybe you're tired of living your life sheltered away from everything because it is "sinful." from time to time all christians feel like outsiders. there is always something we want more of. what is it you want?
what i want is to be sincerely valued as a contributing member of the church. i want someone to ask me how i'm doing and mean it. i want someone--anyone--to remember my name. no. scratch that. names are hard. i want people to remember me. i'd go to church in a dang grass hut with no instruments if someone took the time to make me feel like i belonged there.
and that is a double-edged sword. because there should be no connection between my relationship with christians and my relationship with God. but this world is not perfect, and therefore that relationship will always exist. i know that God would never hurt me, hold a grudge against me, be insincere with me, push me away when i'm struggling, or completely forget about me when i wander off. but as christians, we are family. and family is never perfect. you can't chose your family. they are there whether you like it or not. and sometimes being hurt by family is the worst hurt you can have, and the hardest wounds to heal.
several places in the new testament, it is made obvious that christianity does not mean your life will get easier. sometimes that was very literal. the apostles lived with a price on their head. people actually wanted to kill them. that's hard. and still exists today, making me very thankful that all i get from people is an eye roll or sarcastic laugh when i tell people i am a christian. but i also think when Jesus said "in this world you will have trouble", he had a smirk on his face. i think he looked into the future and muttered to himself "cuz ya'll just inherited the whole looney bin! good luck with christians!" (i like to imagine God with a sense of humor and a southern accent. ya'll.)
i know i probably have the wrong approach. my desire to live a normal life and fit in somewhere stems from my failure to have so much passion for God that i don't care about anything else. i pray that one day God is enough for me and that i no longer look to this world for satisfaction. because right now this world is ugly. and that's a heavy weight for a parent. four months into this gig and i'm already wishing i could shield my daughter from the hurts the world will cause her, especially from christians.
it's funny though. those of you who have been readers of my blog may recall what my pregnancy was like. from nearly the instant i discovered my pregnancy i had a very strong inkling of who my child would be (gender was obviously not part of that because i was 90% sure she was a boy). and already i see that coming true. her face lights up in the presence of even perfect strangers. even when they don't pay attention to her she will smile at people that walk past her. i knew that she would love people. i knew it from the beginning. i just hope she keeps her child-like innocence and is not diluted by the harsh realities of the world.
i hope my daughter becomes what the christian family desperately needs: lovers of people; people in their raw and unpolished form. because people are weird. ugly. and at times unloveable. when we can truly love the unloveable, it is then that we have done our job as christians. we've got a long way to go.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
mama thoughts: part one
once upon a time i started a blog about the beginnings of motherhood. those first few insane weeks. the ups and the downs. but the longer i've been on this adventure, the more i realize that it doesn't matter how many things you read to prepare you for motherhood--the only time you will ever identify with new mom advice is when you've already been there.
so here's a blog i read from time to time that i thought has some good things moms can identify with.
on another note, i haven't written anything in so long that somewhere inside of me there's a little writer screaming. sometimes i'll be in the middle of a workday and want to run home and blog/write, just to get the thoughts out and onto paper. somehow i am way more effective in communicating through writing than through speech. i need serious help when it comes to spoken words. if you want to really know how i'm feeling, ask me to write it down.
and here, for no reason at all, are some things i've been wanting to say that stand out in my mind right now, about motherhood.
worst-case scenario
this is something that occurred the very first night we brought our baby home. i had a series of at least three nightmares that involved my baby. one involved an invisible force-field around her bassinet that kept me from her. from then on out, there exists a space in my brain for these type of terrible thoughts. you know how we only use a fraction of our brains every day? well when you become a mom, you start using more. example: we were taking baby on a walk in her stroller at a downtown event where the roads were open to pedestrian traffic only. the hubs only buckled the part around her waist. i said "we need to buckle her in all the way!" he asked why and i said "because a drunk driver could come screaming down the street, turn off course and plow into the stroller, sending our baby head-first into the pavement," as i looked down at a particularly uneven part in the sidewalk where it had cracked and a large piece jutted out, and imagined her hitting one of those parts. i don't intend to sound morbid, here. if i did, i would tell you some of the other, much worse thoughts i've had that involved harm and death to my child. i find some comfort in knowing my husband has the same thoughts. we don't talk about them out loud and try our best to take such thoughts captive as fear sneaking in.
boobs can save the world
i have turned into an avid breastfeeding pusher. i want to join la leche league full time (aka the milk mafia, or booby brigade as some call them). the more i learn about breastfeeding the more i honestly think the downfall of our society could be solved with breastfeeding and the mother/child bond. i'm going to go ahead and tell you right now my kid is going to be able to toddle up to me and pat my boob for a snack. call me freak. i am not ashamed. that being said, i have had my fair share of breastfeeding battles. it was the hardest thing physically and emotionally for me to overcome after the birth of our baby. i felt trapped. my nipples cracked and bled. pieces of them came off in the shower. and the only reason i finally have an ounce of time to devote to this blog is because i'm home with mastitis. yeah. imagine having the flu and then go ahead and add in an incredibly sore boobie. but every once in a while when i'm nursing my sweet girl, she pulls off and i look down at her expecting that she's trying to push out a poot, or that she's fallen asleep, or is fussy--but no. she simply stops to look up at me and give me the widest gummy little heart-melting smile you've ever seen. as if to say "hey mama, thanks for giving me such delicious nutrition. i like this time with you." or at least that's what i hope she's saying. because i like my time with her. and by saying all this i don't mean to alienate the mother's who didn't or couldn't breastfeed. because i know some superwoman type moms who have raised perfectly healthy babies on formula. and they have just as beautiful of a bond with their kids. but i think those moms who might not be so inclined to bond with their babies, and even less so when their babies are children, and then teenagers--maybe if they breastfed they might develop some sort of bond that was unexpected and would last a lifetime. and then their would-be insecure child might not grow up and project his or her insecurity as some sort of crime, mental illness, or major life disfunction. maybe. i don't know. it would make a good study.
shout out to the couple with the crying baby
i swear my kid could be in the best mood all day, and as soon as i get in a foreign environment: screaming. for no reason other than she wants to be home. so every time i see a mom and/or dad with a crying child and everyone in the store/restaurant staring, i feel for them. and i know what it's like. put me next to the family with the young kids at the restaurant. i won't care. i won't ask to be moved. a short time ago, i would have definitely made a face and then looked at my dinner company and muttered "great." different case these days. now. i don't identify with the parents of fit throwing, disrespectful youths (yet). and i hope that my kid won't be one of those. and if she is, she better be prepared for a butt-whooping in the car. i will not tolerate disrespect in public. so i don't feel bad for those parents...yet...
give me more
despite the vibes my kid might give off in public or amongst a small gathering, she is actually a very good baby. based on that fact, i'll take a whole barn full of kids. the joy that parenthood has given me already is so great, that i can't imagine the outpouring of love and joy i would have with more of them. and add to that laundry, a house that is a disaster, a husband i get no alone time with, and even less sleep than i have now...i don't mean to sound naive. i also know i won't know the madness multiple kids will bring until it arrives. but i think it would be worth it. and i definitely want more. even three months into it. that's not to say i wouldn't have a total meltdown if i got pregnant tomorrow, but i would eventually accept and look forward to it. no, but seriously. i hope i don't get pregnant tomorrow.
love that grows
you can never truly know what you haven't experienced. that is what i'm learning most about motherhood. and one thing i've never experienced is this kind of love. i loved my baby when she was born. in a love at first sight, googly-eyed type of love. but every day i learn more about her, i love her more. and it excites me to know that i will learn so much more about her, and love her that much more. how is this possible? i don't know. i am just thankful that our beautiful creator loved us enough to share a love that big with us, and allows us to experience it.
and that's about all i've got for now. i hope to see more of this in the future. i take joy in imagining you have all been waiting on the edge of your seats for my next post. although that's probably not true, thanks for sharing in my ramblings. however relevant or irrelevant :)
so here's a blog i read from time to time that i thought has some good things moms can identify with.
on another note, i haven't written anything in so long that somewhere inside of me there's a little writer screaming. sometimes i'll be in the middle of a workday and want to run home and blog/write, just to get the thoughts out and onto paper. somehow i am way more effective in communicating through writing than through speech. i need serious help when it comes to spoken words. if you want to really know how i'm feeling, ask me to write it down.
and here, for no reason at all, are some things i've been wanting to say that stand out in my mind right now, about motherhood.
worst-case scenario
this is something that occurred the very first night we brought our baby home. i had a series of at least three nightmares that involved my baby. one involved an invisible force-field around her bassinet that kept me from her. from then on out, there exists a space in my brain for these type of terrible thoughts. you know how we only use a fraction of our brains every day? well when you become a mom, you start using more. example: we were taking baby on a walk in her stroller at a downtown event where the roads were open to pedestrian traffic only. the hubs only buckled the part around her waist. i said "we need to buckle her in all the way!" he asked why and i said "because a drunk driver could come screaming down the street, turn off course and plow into the stroller, sending our baby head-first into the pavement," as i looked down at a particularly uneven part in the sidewalk where it had cracked and a large piece jutted out, and imagined her hitting one of those parts. i don't intend to sound morbid, here. if i did, i would tell you some of the other, much worse thoughts i've had that involved harm and death to my child. i find some comfort in knowing my husband has the same thoughts. we don't talk about them out loud and try our best to take such thoughts captive as fear sneaking in.
boobs can save the world
i have turned into an avid breastfeeding pusher. i want to join la leche league full time (aka the milk mafia, or booby brigade as some call them). the more i learn about breastfeeding the more i honestly think the downfall of our society could be solved with breastfeeding and the mother/child bond. i'm going to go ahead and tell you right now my kid is going to be able to toddle up to me and pat my boob for a snack. call me freak. i am not ashamed. that being said, i have had my fair share of breastfeeding battles. it was the hardest thing physically and emotionally for me to overcome after the birth of our baby. i felt trapped. my nipples cracked and bled. pieces of them came off in the shower. and the only reason i finally have an ounce of time to devote to this blog is because i'm home with mastitis. yeah. imagine having the flu and then go ahead and add in an incredibly sore boobie. but every once in a while when i'm nursing my sweet girl, she pulls off and i look down at her expecting that she's trying to push out a poot, or that she's fallen asleep, or is fussy--but no. she simply stops to look up at me and give me the widest gummy little heart-melting smile you've ever seen. as if to say "hey mama, thanks for giving me such delicious nutrition. i like this time with you." or at least that's what i hope she's saying. because i like my time with her. and by saying all this i don't mean to alienate the mother's who didn't or couldn't breastfeed. because i know some superwoman type moms who have raised perfectly healthy babies on formula. and they have just as beautiful of a bond with their kids. but i think those moms who might not be so inclined to bond with their babies, and even less so when their babies are children, and then teenagers--maybe if they breastfed they might develop some sort of bond that was unexpected and would last a lifetime. and then their would-be insecure child might not grow up and project his or her insecurity as some sort of crime, mental illness, or major life disfunction. maybe. i don't know. it would make a good study.
shout out to the couple with the crying baby
i swear my kid could be in the best mood all day, and as soon as i get in a foreign environment: screaming. for no reason other than she wants to be home. so every time i see a mom and/or dad with a crying child and everyone in the store/restaurant staring, i feel for them. and i know what it's like. put me next to the family with the young kids at the restaurant. i won't care. i won't ask to be moved. a short time ago, i would have definitely made a face and then looked at my dinner company and muttered "great." different case these days. now. i don't identify with the parents of fit throwing, disrespectful youths (yet). and i hope that my kid won't be one of those. and if she is, she better be prepared for a butt-whooping in the car. i will not tolerate disrespect in public. so i don't feel bad for those parents...yet...
give me more
despite the vibes my kid might give off in public or amongst a small gathering, she is actually a very good baby. based on that fact, i'll take a whole barn full of kids. the joy that parenthood has given me already is so great, that i can't imagine the outpouring of love and joy i would have with more of them. and add to that laundry, a house that is a disaster, a husband i get no alone time with, and even less sleep than i have now...i don't mean to sound naive. i also know i won't know the madness multiple kids will bring until it arrives. but i think it would be worth it. and i definitely want more. even three months into it. that's not to say i wouldn't have a total meltdown if i got pregnant tomorrow, but i would eventually accept and look forward to it. no, but seriously. i hope i don't get pregnant tomorrow.
love that grows
you can never truly know what you haven't experienced. that is what i'm learning most about motherhood. and one thing i've never experienced is this kind of love. i loved my baby when she was born. in a love at first sight, googly-eyed type of love. but every day i learn more about her, i love her more. and it excites me to know that i will learn so much more about her, and love her that much more. how is this possible? i don't know. i am just thankful that our beautiful creator loved us enough to share a love that big with us, and allows us to experience it.
and that's about all i've got for now. i hope to see more of this in the future. i take joy in imagining you have all been waiting on the edge of your seats for my next post. although that's probably not true, thanks for sharing in my ramblings. however relevant or irrelevant :)
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
enter june marie, stage right
well. this is how it happened:
{disclaimer: i don't intend to be graphic in this post, but i also will not hold much back, so proceed with caution, and be prepared to know things about me that you may not want to know}
my due date came and baby was still not here. my amazing friend, anna, had us over for some hang time and probably the best foot/neck/scalp massage ever. anna (among many things) is a trained and experienced massage therapist and she knows some secret spots in the foot that can help kick labor into gear.
the next morning (saturday) i woke up to some "heavy fluids" leaking out of me. i didn't think my water had broken, because these same heavy fluids had occurred earlier in the week and led me to falsely believe i was in labor. so to further hurry this labor along, the husband and i went for a walk, while i entertained contractions every 10 minutes or so. but they weren't regular. i timed them off and on through the morning but they still weren't regular. but they were getting stronger. and i had at least 3 more changes of clothing due to my continuing fluid leak. since i'd had several bouts of false labor, i called over our neighbor who is a nurse, but she could neither confirm or deny that i was in active labor, but she said there was a good chance i'd go into labor soon. so i continued my daily tasks--got some work done, did some laundry, pausing only briefly to concentrate on breathing during contractions.
then around 2, i got out of the shower and my contractions had been coming steadily every 8 minutes. at that point i knew i was in labor (ok well i knew before that, but just didn't want to believe it). so i grabbed my bouncy ball, watched nearly a season straight of scrubs, and we continued timing. jeremy kept a written log of when they started and how long they lasted while i bounced away and practiced my breathing. around 6pm i got up to grab my water from the kitchen and a much larger fluid gush occurred. still not the huge "flood gates opening" type gush you normally hear of, but enough to make me quite sure that was my water leaking and not just pesky fluids that i experienced earlier in the week. shortly after this my contractions were 4 minutes apart and around 90 seconds long, and i could barely talk through them. so off to the hospital we went.
now here's the part where i will finally divulge our (original) birth plan. had it not been for insurance difficulties, we would have liked a home birth with a midwife (yes, we are total hippies). but we didn't have $5k lying around so plan b was a midwife in a hospital. which was fine. my midwife is awesome. we love her. she made us feel completely secure in our decision to go with a natural childbirth, with as little medical intervention as possible. my decision for this was based on many factors, not because i wanted to see if i could do it. the pain was not my first concern. i wanted to be in control of my body, feel its signals, and i also wanted the least amount of health risks for me and my baby. it's a very personal decision and i don't think my way is "right," but it was right for us. and when we toured the labor and delivery wing, the nurses assured me this occurs all the time, and that i'd be free from machinery, not tied to a bed, and i could even walk the halls if i wanted. it all sounded perfect. exactly what we wanted.
so we get to the hospital around 7pm. a nurse takes us to triage and hooks me up to make sure i was actually in active labor. i think i asked "when does gina arrive?" and she gave me a look like "don't you know?" and said "oh gina isn't on call this weekend. dr. tucker will be delivering your baby."
who's dr. tucker?" i asked. "she's dr. tucker," the nurse replied. not funny. "but gina's day off is on tuesday. she should be here. she said she'd be here," i shot back, a little panicky. and then i was told that weekends don't count. the doctors have to have a life. which was totally nonsensical to me at the time. she kindly called gina anyway, but got no response. that was unplanned event number one.
then after several minutes the nurse came in and asked if there was anything that could have caused "irritation" to my lady parts, to which i answered no. her reasoning for asking was because my contractions were very strange. after each one, i was having what i earlier referred to jeremy as "contraction aftershocks." and apparently the contractions weren't doing what they needed to because i was only 2cm dilated. what a disappointing thing to hear. they were getting ready to send me back home when i mentioned (in my second confused state of the evening) how frequent my contractions were and that my water had broken. upon hearing this, the tested my "fluids" which came back positive as amniotic fluid. and if your water has broken, they have to keep you, due to risk of infection. the one good thing that came of this was that there was only one other laboring woman there that night, so we got the "vip room" (which is nothing besides the handicap access room, but it's bigger and has more windows).
then my labor nurse came in. she struck me as odd at first--strange humor, an off bedside manner, and she was a big personal space invader. while she was asking me questions, i was laboring on the yoga ball and she got so close to me that i couldn't roll the ball in one direction because of her knee. because she was so disorganized and took so long, i at least got to labor around the room and on the ball for another couple hours. then she came in, hooked me up to about 3 different machines and proceeded to explain that maybe pitocin was a good idea to speed up labor. the dreaded p-word. at that point either my husband or i explained that our birth plan was to go natural. she backed off momentarily, but i wasn't taken seriously. and because of the "variables" i had to stay on the monitors. what variables?! what does that even mean?! i had a perfect, by the books pregnancy. there was no reason i saw that i needed to be monitored, except for the occasional fetal heart rate monitor. that was unplanned event number two.
then i really started to stress out. it was becoming increasingly difficult to labor comfortably as my contractions grew stronger. our friend jessica, who sleepless with excitement was staying in touch, offered to come for moral support. as our back-up emergency #2 person, i told her to go ahead and make her way to the hospital. (i would suggest to everyone having a neutral bystander like this, especially where your guests during labor are limited in number and you have too many family members to chose between--she ended up being a lifesaver, especially as our birth plan continued to unravel.) my husband was there to take my hand squeezes while jessica distracted me while our nurse (who became increasingly irritating) came in and decided to do all of her nurse business in the middle of contractions. never have i had someone hang out with their hand in my cervix for so long. and let me tell you--lying flat on your back while trying to be as still as possible is about the worst position to be in during a contraction.
every two hours our nurse came in to check my progress. and about every two hours, i dilated a measly centimeter. when your contractions are two minutes apart and over a minute long, there is nothing more discouraging to hear. and into the wee hours of the morning, they were nearly unbearable. i could handle each one individually (while swaying back and forth, breathing, and groaning), but the thought of however many more of them it took to get me to 10 centimeters--not to mention the effort after that it would take to push out a baby--was very disheartening. i was actually sleeping for 30 second spurts between contractions from the exhaustion. and the nature of my contractions was odd. unlike the typical parabola like graphs you see with a steep incline, peak, and decline, mine shot up at almost 90 degrees, plateaued at the top for nearly the entire contraction, and then dropped off. by 5am on sunday (23 hours of labor later) when the nurse came and checked me at 5cm, it was clear that my body wasn't responding to the contractions the way it should have. i don't know why. it could have very well been the stress of the situation. but either way, that was unplanned event number three. no 6 hour labor for me. shortly after 5 am, and an emotional talk with my two labor coaches, jessica called for me to have an epidural.
by 6am, the epidural was administered and i was finally able to nap in between the noisy visits from our nurse. around 8 or 9 in the morning, the shifts changed and i finally got a kind and gentle and competent nurse. that made a big difference. but because of the epidural, my contractions had spaced out to 7 minutes apart and i wasn't dilating past 7cm. around 10am, dr. tucker came in and told me they'd waited long enough since my water had broken and i was either going to have to take pitocin or have a c-section. say hello to unplanned event number four. once again we had a big decision to make, and despite swearing to take anything except pitocin, a c-section is still major surgery, and i still wanted to deliver my child vaginally and have him or her immediately on my chest. so pitocin it was.
2 hours later i was dilated fully and ready to push. however. as soon as i had the epidural, the nurses kept commenting on how great my epidural was because i had full-function of my legs, and could even left myself up and reposition myself in bed. it wasn't soon after that i disagreed with their "great epidural" comments. because the "great" epidural wore off. i started to feel the contractions. by the time the big-time pushing started, i could feel everything. ev-er-y-thinnnggg.
the surprising thing about pushing, was that it actually was more painful to rest during pushes. pushing offered a small relief. after the baby's head was close to crowning, all i could feel between breaks was a giant baby head in my lady parts. and it is not exactly easy to "take a break" when you can feel that. i had a great team of encouragement, but at some point during my encouragement, the nurse said "you're doing great! you've been pushing about 45 minutes...most new moms push for about 2 hours." and that's about the point i said "aw, HELLLLLLLZ naw" and decided to take it up a notch. in stead of the 3 pushes per contraction, i started pumping out 4. 45 minutes was about 44 minutes more than i cared for.
i cried at 2 points during delivery: when my husband told me there was lots of curly black hair, and when our baby finally arrived. after an hour and five minutes of pushing i could feel a head start to emerge from my body. i didn't want to look, but that was ok because there was enough i could tell from what i was feeling. i gave 5 pushes on the last contraction and out SHE came!
you know those moments in lovey-dovey movies where nothing exists but the two main characters? that's exactly what it felt like. they laid her on my chest, crying, and i met my daughter. i don't even remember who told me it was a girl first. i vaguely remember my husband exclaiming she was a girl. in stead of the shock i thought i would experience (since i was SO sure she was a boy), the emotion i felt was an outpouring of joy. i didn't care that i was wrong the whole time, i just was glad she was there. i remember saying "you're a girl!! i'm sorry you have so many boy clothes!" for the next several minutes i just looked her over again and again, marveling at what a beautiful creation she is. (at one point i looked down and saw a bloody suture being strung up as my small tear was stitched up, and i felt the brief sting of the needle and then i decided it was time to focus on baby again, so i did, and quickly forgot what was going on down below.) i couldn't believe that the creation that i carried for 40 weeks and 2 days had finally arrived. despite that nothing went as planned, in the end i felt confident that i made all of the right decisions. and most importantly, she was here, safe and sound.
our world was instantly changed. 7 pounds, 12 1/2 ounces, 19 inches. so small, but so big for our lives. i confess i've never been able to wrap my head around the love our God has for his children. but when your child arrives in to the world, it is a God-like love. i love her because she is mine, and i will always love her for that reason. there is nothing she had to do to win my heart. she just exists. and we are so excited to begin this new chapter of life with her.
june marie. she was nameless for about a day. since we had expected a boy and all. i'll admit, june has no profound meaning, nothing spoken into my heart (like i had thought was for our "boy"). it was just something we liked since before i was even pregnant. i like it for many reasons, but if you would guess that it's because of how much i love june carter cash, you may or may not be correct. either way, it fits her. and june she is! sunny and bright like a florida summer. and she does love the sunshine. every day after i change her morning diaper (the first morning diaper, because there are many), we go and open the blinds in the nursery and we say hello to the sunshine and thank God for the sun. and every day i thank God for her.
~~~
i will follow shortly with my writings on the emotions of new motherhood. it is something you never comprehend until it happens. all the advice in the world is nothing compared to what just a week as a mom can teach you. but then again, i've only been doing it for three, so i can't imagine what's to come!
{disclaimer: i don't intend to be graphic in this post, but i also will not hold much back, so proceed with caution, and be prepared to know things about me that you may not want to know}
my due date came and baby was still not here. my amazing friend, anna, had us over for some hang time and probably the best foot/neck/scalp massage ever. anna (among many things) is a trained and experienced massage therapist and she knows some secret spots in the foot that can help kick labor into gear.
the next morning (saturday) i woke up to some "heavy fluids" leaking out of me. i didn't think my water had broken, because these same heavy fluids had occurred earlier in the week and led me to falsely believe i was in labor. so to further hurry this labor along, the husband and i went for a walk, while i entertained contractions every 10 minutes or so. but they weren't regular. i timed them off and on through the morning but they still weren't regular. but they were getting stronger. and i had at least 3 more changes of clothing due to my continuing fluid leak. since i'd had several bouts of false labor, i called over our neighbor who is a nurse, but she could neither confirm or deny that i was in active labor, but she said there was a good chance i'd go into labor soon. so i continued my daily tasks--got some work done, did some laundry, pausing only briefly to concentrate on breathing during contractions.
then around 2, i got out of the shower and my contractions had been coming steadily every 8 minutes. at that point i knew i was in labor (ok well i knew before that, but just didn't want to believe it). so i grabbed my bouncy ball, watched nearly a season straight of scrubs, and we continued timing. jeremy kept a written log of when they started and how long they lasted while i bounced away and practiced my breathing. around 6pm i got up to grab my water from the kitchen and a much larger fluid gush occurred. still not the huge "flood gates opening" type gush you normally hear of, but enough to make me quite sure that was my water leaking and not just pesky fluids that i experienced earlier in the week. shortly after this my contractions were 4 minutes apart and around 90 seconds long, and i could barely talk through them. so off to the hospital we went.
now here's the part where i will finally divulge our (original) birth plan. had it not been for insurance difficulties, we would have liked a home birth with a midwife (yes, we are total hippies). but we didn't have $5k lying around so plan b was a midwife in a hospital. which was fine. my midwife is awesome. we love her. she made us feel completely secure in our decision to go with a natural childbirth, with as little medical intervention as possible. my decision for this was based on many factors, not because i wanted to see if i could do it. the pain was not my first concern. i wanted to be in control of my body, feel its signals, and i also wanted the least amount of health risks for me and my baby. it's a very personal decision and i don't think my way is "right," but it was right for us. and when we toured the labor and delivery wing, the nurses assured me this occurs all the time, and that i'd be free from machinery, not tied to a bed, and i could even walk the halls if i wanted. it all sounded perfect. exactly what we wanted.
so we get to the hospital around 7pm. a nurse takes us to triage and hooks me up to make sure i was actually in active labor. i think i asked "when does gina arrive?" and she gave me a look like "don't you know?" and said "oh gina isn't on call this weekend. dr. tucker will be delivering your baby."
who's dr. tucker?" i asked. "she's dr. tucker," the nurse replied. not funny. "but gina's day off is on tuesday. she should be here. she said she'd be here," i shot back, a little panicky. and then i was told that weekends don't count. the doctors have to have a life. which was totally nonsensical to me at the time. she kindly called gina anyway, but got no response. that was unplanned event number one.
then after several minutes the nurse came in and asked if there was anything that could have caused "irritation" to my lady parts, to which i answered no. her reasoning for asking was because my contractions were very strange. after each one, i was having what i earlier referred to jeremy as "contraction aftershocks." and apparently the contractions weren't doing what they needed to because i was only 2cm dilated. what a disappointing thing to hear. they were getting ready to send me back home when i mentioned (in my second confused state of the evening) how frequent my contractions were and that my water had broken. upon hearing this, the tested my "fluids" which came back positive as amniotic fluid. and if your water has broken, they have to keep you, due to risk of infection. the one good thing that came of this was that there was only one other laboring woman there that night, so we got the "vip room" (which is nothing besides the handicap access room, but it's bigger and has more windows).
then my labor nurse came in. she struck me as odd at first--strange humor, an off bedside manner, and she was a big personal space invader. while she was asking me questions, i was laboring on the yoga ball and she got so close to me that i couldn't roll the ball in one direction because of her knee. because she was so disorganized and took so long, i at least got to labor around the room and on the ball for another couple hours. then she came in, hooked me up to about 3 different machines and proceeded to explain that maybe pitocin was a good idea to speed up labor. the dreaded p-word. at that point either my husband or i explained that our birth plan was to go natural. she backed off momentarily, but i wasn't taken seriously. and because of the "variables" i had to stay on the monitors. what variables?! what does that even mean?! i had a perfect, by the books pregnancy. there was no reason i saw that i needed to be monitored, except for the occasional fetal heart rate monitor. that was unplanned event number two.
then i really started to stress out. it was becoming increasingly difficult to labor comfortably as my contractions grew stronger. our friend jessica, who sleepless with excitement was staying in touch, offered to come for moral support. as our back-up emergency #2 person, i told her to go ahead and make her way to the hospital. (i would suggest to everyone having a neutral bystander like this, especially where your guests during labor are limited in number and you have too many family members to chose between--she ended up being a lifesaver, especially as our birth plan continued to unravel.) my husband was there to take my hand squeezes while jessica distracted me while our nurse (who became increasingly irritating) came in and decided to do all of her nurse business in the middle of contractions. never have i had someone hang out with their hand in my cervix for so long. and let me tell you--lying flat on your back while trying to be as still as possible is about the worst position to be in during a contraction.
every two hours our nurse came in to check my progress. and about every two hours, i dilated a measly centimeter. when your contractions are two minutes apart and over a minute long, there is nothing more discouraging to hear. and into the wee hours of the morning, they were nearly unbearable. i could handle each one individually (while swaying back and forth, breathing, and groaning), but the thought of however many more of them it took to get me to 10 centimeters--not to mention the effort after that it would take to push out a baby--was very disheartening. i was actually sleeping for 30 second spurts between contractions from the exhaustion. and the nature of my contractions was odd. unlike the typical parabola like graphs you see with a steep incline, peak, and decline, mine shot up at almost 90 degrees, plateaued at the top for nearly the entire contraction, and then dropped off. by 5am on sunday (23 hours of labor later) when the nurse came and checked me at 5cm, it was clear that my body wasn't responding to the contractions the way it should have. i don't know why. it could have very well been the stress of the situation. but either way, that was unplanned event number three. no 6 hour labor for me. shortly after 5 am, and an emotional talk with my two labor coaches, jessica called for me to have an epidural.
by 6am, the epidural was administered and i was finally able to nap in between the noisy visits from our nurse. around 8 or 9 in the morning, the shifts changed and i finally got a kind and gentle and competent nurse. that made a big difference. but because of the epidural, my contractions had spaced out to 7 minutes apart and i wasn't dilating past 7cm. around 10am, dr. tucker came in and told me they'd waited long enough since my water had broken and i was either going to have to take pitocin or have a c-section. say hello to unplanned event number four. once again we had a big decision to make, and despite swearing to take anything except pitocin, a c-section is still major surgery, and i still wanted to deliver my child vaginally and have him or her immediately on my chest. so pitocin it was.
2 hours later i was dilated fully and ready to push. however. as soon as i had the epidural, the nurses kept commenting on how great my epidural was because i had full-function of my legs, and could even left myself up and reposition myself in bed. it wasn't soon after that i disagreed with their "great epidural" comments. because the "great" epidural wore off. i started to feel the contractions. by the time the big-time pushing started, i could feel everything. ev-er-y-thinnnggg.
the surprising thing about pushing, was that it actually was more painful to rest during pushes. pushing offered a small relief. after the baby's head was close to crowning, all i could feel between breaks was a giant baby head in my lady parts. and it is not exactly easy to "take a break" when you can feel that. i had a great team of encouragement, but at some point during my encouragement, the nurse said "you're doing great! you've been pushing about 45 minutes...most new moms push for about 2 hours." and that's about the point i said "aw, HELLLLLLLZ naw" and decided to take it up a notch. in stead of the 3 pushes per contraction, i started pumping out 4. 45 minutes was about 44 minutes more than i cared for.
i cried at 2 points during delivery: when my husband told me there was lots of curly black hair, and when our baby finally arrived. after an hour and five minutes of pushing i could feel a head start to emerge from my body. i didn't want to look, but that was ok because there was enough i could tell from what i was feeling. i gave 5 pushes on the last contraction and out SHE came!
you know those moments in lovey-dovey movies where nothing exists but the two main characters? that's exactly what it felt like. they laid her on my chest, crying, and i met my daughter. i don't even remember who told me it was a girl first. i vaguely remember my husband exclaiming she was a girl. in stead of the shock i thought i would experience (since i was SO sure she was a boy), the emotion i felt was an outpouring of joy. i didn't care that i was wrong the whole time, i just was glad she was there. i remember saying "you're a girl!! i'm sorry you have so many boy clothes!" for the next several minutes i just looked her over again and again, marveling at what a beautiful creation she is. (at one point i looked down and saw a bloody suture being strung up as my small tear was stitched up, and i felt the brief sting of the needle and then i decided it was time to focus on baby again, so i did, and quickly forgot what was going on down below.) i couldn't believe that the creation that i carried for 40 weeks and 2 days had finally arrived. despite that nothing went as planned, in the end i felt confident that i made all of the right decisions. and most importantly, she was here, safe and sound.
our world was instantly changed. 7 pounds, 12 1/2 ounces, 19 inches. so small, but so big for our lives. i confess i've never been able to wrap my head around the love our God has for his children. but when your child arrives in to the world, it is a God-like love. i love her because she is mine, and i will always love her for that reason. there is nothing she had to do to win my heart. she just exists. and we are so excited to begin this new chapter of life with her.
june marie. she was nameless for about a day. since we had expected a boy and all. i'll admit, june has no profound meaning, nothing spoken into my heart (like i had thought was for our "boy"). it was just something we liked since before i was even pregnant. i like it for many reasons, but if you would guess that it's because of how much i love june carter cash, you may or may not be correct. either way, it fits her. and june she is! sunny and bright like a florida summer. and she does love the sunshine. every day after i change her morning diaper (the first morning diaper, because there are many), we go and open the blinds in the nursery and we say hello to the sunshine and thank God for the sun. and every day i thank God for her.
~~~
i will follow shortly with my writings on the emotions of new motherhood. it is something you never comprehend until it happens. all the advice in the world is nothing compared to what just a week as a mom can teach you. but then again, i've only been doing it for three, so i can't imagine what's to come!
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
hey baby, let's meet up
the day is almost here. i officially have 2 days until my due date. and i have to say i'm a little surprised. i really didn't think i'd make it this long. just about everyone (including me) thought this little guy/girl was coming early. and i guess technically i still have time to be "early" but now i'm starting to wonder if i'll be late. ?!
i've had several bouts of "false labor" where for about 2 or so hours i'll have semi-regular and somewhat painful contractions. tummy as hard as a rock, back ache, lower belly cramps--all of what people say the onset of labor feels like. and then it passes. when the time actually comes, i may not even know i'm in true labor. it will be like "the boy that cried wolf," only more like "the baby who cried 'i want out!' "
i don't know if it's that i'm physically ready for this baby to be here, because i still feel really good. minus the whole peeing five times a night deal, i'm actually sleeping better at night (well most nights anyway). i think more of the mental approach of my due date, coupled with the transformation my house has made into a baby haven, have both made it extremely hard to accept that it could still be two weeks before this rascal is here. two weeks...ugh.
my nesting has reached out of control proportions. i've done almost everything imagineable. the only thing stopping me from vacuuming (again) and waxing my wood floors is knowing that i have to be on full alert at work still. because when the weekends come around, i have no fears of exhausting myself. and i have. last sunday i vacuumed and wiped down all my baseboards, mopped all the floors, cleaned all the blinds and window sills, dusted everything, magic-erasered the walls and door frames, and did 4 loads of laundry (one including my final load of baby items). by 3pm i was quite regretful of all this. i wanted to saw my legs off at the waist, they hurt so bad. i've also roamed the halls at 3am thinking of ways to reconfigure my kitchen eat-in area, and i've stood in the nursery at 12am wondering what else i could fold or hang or wash...
annnd, slowly but surely the "nursery" is almost finally complete! here are some poor-quality phone photos for your enjoyment:
that orange 1880s french chair is named "charlotte" and she's one of my prized possessions. she is not a nursery chair per se, but she looks good there...and i don't have another chair that fits in there. there is, after all, still a queen bed, night stand, and dresser crammed into the room. oh, and a cute book shelf (not pictured) with baby books and stuffed animals that we've been gifted.
thanks to my sweet friend, anna, who's baby shower decorations all have been hung, or will be hung, in my nursery. it was so great not having to spend time deciding what to put on the walls! and she is so crafty!
that bunny is the bunny from the book "goodnight moon" and he just so happens to match my crib bedding perfectly!
i'm quite happy with how it all turned out :)
on another note, i'm also ready to have this baby so i can meet the person i've been carrying around for nine months! that's right, i said person. a living individual, created by God, being formed into a baby from the time of conception. besides what i'm told, i know this to be true because of how connected i am to what's inside me. from the very beginning of my pregnancy, i've been sensitized to certain things in life--not because of pregnancy, but because of the person i'm carrying and who this baby will be. i'm certain of it. i can't explain it. it just is.
that being said, i feel like the person that our baby will be (whether boy or girl) carries a lot of my husband's traits, and most of all, the heart he has for people. he finds compassion within him that makes me look cold-hearted. sometimes i comically say "his heart is bigger than his brain" because, well, sometimes it is. i would much sooner tell a drug addict to get the you-know-what off my porch before i let them borrow my phone. i can be kind or generous when i don't feel like it, but it is a learned behavior. i have to remind myself that i am called to be these things. for him it comes naturally.
bringing a child into this world will not be an easy task. sometimes i look down at my belly and say "i'm sorry, baby, for what this world has for you" because it is ever-changing and there are so many dark things that will fight for my child. it's hard to prepare for that. but somehow, i know my child has that nearly-stupid love for people in him. it may take a while for him to find it, but it's there. and the reason i say "him" is because i've been 90% sure since i found out that i was pregnant that my baby is a boy. and because of how much my baby will be like his dad. so even if it is a girl, she will be like her dad in that aspect...we just don't have a name for her!
so, no, we still don't have a girl name. we have a handful of names that we like, so i suppose if they surprise me and say "it's a girl!" and then they said "no really, she's a girl" after i tell them to check again, we'll have a tough decision to make! if she is a girl, hopefully i'll know when i see her!
so come on out, baby! we're ready for you. in every way possible.
Friday, January 11, 2013
pregnancy senioritis
i've hit a wall. i'm done. not with pregnancy, though. i love carrying a baby. yes, i am one of those rare women who loves being pregnant. sure it has it's disadvantages, but in general i've been very blessed in pregnancy.
i'm done with everything else. everything that's keeping me from focusing on these last few weeks as a pregnant woman. i'm done with work. i'm done with favors. i'm done with being polite. i'm done with to-do lists. what i'd really like to tell everyone is "no. i'm not putting anything else on my schedule to get done until this baby comes, because, in case you forgot, i could have a baby any minute." (this, of course, excludes time with friends because i like that, and i won't get much of it soon.)
i'm also working up until my due date. that's always been the plan. am i a crazy person? i think so. because i didn't realize that during your last month of pregnancy you only have half a brain. i don't know the science behind it, i don't know if it's been proven or not, but i'm telling you, it's true. i do things that seem perfectly logical only to later completely question my own rationale. it came in small bouts earlier in pregnancy, but now it's constant. i can look at someone with my full attention, listen to the words that come out of their mouth, digest it, and forget it the next day.
i feel exactly like i did my senior years of high school and college--senioritis as they call it. i'm just done.
on another note, if all of this stress doesn't send me into early labor, i am perfectly on track for a baby in two weeks. all the things in my body that change and progress to prepare me for pushing a human out of my you-know-what are progressing exactly as they should. i have a "textbook" pregnancy, apparently. at work we like to play a "where is baby?" game, because sometimes he or she looks to have dropped and then 2 days later will move up high again. so every morning i come in and the girls gather around my belly to take a look.
speaking of my co-workers, they are so awesome. monday we were supposed to get together for a "girls night" and it ended up being a surprise baby shower for me! it was so sweet! and good to spend time with them outside of work's stressful environment. i also had a small shower last weekend with close family and friends, which was also wonderful. you should see the decorations i got to bring home and hang in my nursery! and all the great stuff i got! we are so blessed. my husband thinks we've gotten more for the baby than we did at our wedding. i think he's right! (sorry i have no pictures up yet--things are still making their way into place.)
one of my favorite baby things is the swing. it looks so comfortable and plays soothing nature sounds. it makes me want to be a baby. sometimes i stand next to it and turn on the sound-maker so baby can hear it...ok, and maybe because i like it, too. maybe when he or she is here it will be a familiar sound and it can be a place of peace (and quiet)!
we have also had a small financial blessing come our way. i knew it would happen. i knew that something had to happen because God always takes care of us--always--i just didn't know when or how. i had gotten to the point where i didn't even want to look at our financial situation for the upcoming months. now we can breathe a little while i'm on maternity leave!
i've made a full recovery from my hospital stay with food poisoning. i did have horrible cankles and some mean acid reflux from all the fluid they pumped into me while there. but they have both resided, thank goodness. back to normal! my strep b test came back negative which means i've got the "ok" to labor at home as long as i feel comfortable. i've been practicing my breathing and my yoga ball exercises, and i've started a list of music i may find comforting during labor (if any).
so here's hoping the next two weeks go by much smoother than the last. baby will be here sooner than i know it!
also i'll gladly take bets on the sex of the baby :)
i'm done with everything else. everything that's keeping me from focusing on these last few weeks as a pregnant woman. i'm done with work. i'm done with favors. i'm done with being polite. i'm done with to-do lists. what i'd really like to tell everyone is "no. i'm not putting anything else on my schedule to get done until this baby comes, because, in case you forgot, i could have a baby any minute." (this, of course, excludes time with friends because i like that, and i won't get much of it soon.)
i'm also working up until my due date. that's always been the plan. am i a crazy person? i think so. because i didn't realize that during your last month of pregnancy you only have half a brain. i don't know the science behind it, i don't know if it's been proven or not, but i'm telling you, it's true. i do things that seem perfectly logical only to later completely question my own rationale. it came in small bouts earlier in pregnancy, but now it's constant. i can look at someone with my full attention, listen to the words that come out of their mouth, digest it, and forget it the next day.
i feel exactly like i did my senior years of high school and college--senioritis as they call it. i'm just done.
on another note, if all of this stress doesn't send me into early labor, i am perfectly on track for a baby in two weeks. all the things in my body that change and progress to prepare me for pushing a human out of my you-know-what are progressing exactly as they should. i have a "textbook" pregnancy, apparently. at work we like to play a "where is baby?" game, because sometimes he or she looks to have dropped and then 2 days later will move up high again. so every morning i come in and the girls gather around my belly to take a look.
speaking of my co-workers, they are so awesome. monday we were supposed to get together for a "girls night" and it ended up being a surprise baby shower for me! it was so sweet! and good to spend time with them outside of work's stressful environment. i also had a small shower last weekend with close family and friends, which was also wonderful. you should see the decorations i got to bring home and hang in my nursery! and all the great stuff i got! we are so blessed. my husband thinks we've gotten more for the baby than we did at our wedding. i think he's right! (sorry i have no pictures up yet--things are still making their way into place.)
one of my favorite baby things is the swing. it looks so comfortable and plays soothing nature sounds. it makes me want to be a baby. sometimes i stand next to it and turn on the sound-maker so baby can hear it...ok, and maybe because i like it, too. maybe when he or she is here it will be a familiar sound and it can be a place of peace (and quiet)!
we have also had a small financial blessing come our way. i knew it would happen. i knew that something had to happen because God always takes care of us--always--i just didn't know when or how. i had gotten to the point where i didn't even want to look at our financial situation for the upcoming months. now we can breathe a little while i'm on maternity leave!
i've made a full recovery from my hospital stay with food poisoning. i did have horrible cankles and some mean acid reflux from all the fluid they pumped into me while there. but they have both resided, thank goodness. back to normal! my strep b test came back negative which means i've got the "ok" to labor at home as long as i feel comfortable. i've been practicing my breathing and my yoga ball exercises, and i've started a list of music i may find comforting during labor (if any).
so here's hoping the next two weeks go by much smoother than the last. baby will be here sooner than i know it!
also i'll gladly take bets on the sex of the baby :)
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
my birthday trip to the ER
a few days before my birthday my husband asked me if i wanted a party on my birthday. i said "no, because i wouldn't know what to do with a party. my birthday has never been a big deal!" (this is the plight of the "christmas birthdays"--everyone is coming off the tail end of christmas and by the time your birthday rolls around, few people are in town, and if they are they don't have much of an inclination to go to another celebration. my poor sister's is actually january 1st. so we're both used to it.)
my 27th birthday quickly turned into a huge deal, but not the way i would have preferred.
earlier in the day, my husband was hard at work scrubbing down our new baby-mobile. it was given to us for practically nothing (and we are so grateful!), but the little car has been road hard and hung up wet. it needs quite a bit of elbow grease. so while he was doing that, i gave into the urge i had from the second i woke up that morning to get things cleaned up around the house. the nesting hormone had moved in for the day and i spent the better half of it organizing and cleaning (yet somehow parts of our house still look like a disaster--at least baby's portion is clean and organized). needless to say i definitely overdid it. my legs were aching so badly by the end of the day.
eventually dinner time rolled around and i had to make the decision of where to eat. i toyed with the idea of franco's (i wanted some dang italian), and really we should have gone there. it's family owned and we know it's good, but for some reason i decided i wanted to have something new and different. both of us have only been to carrabbas once so we decided that was the place. i boxed up more than half of my chicken and pasta and we headed home so i could prop up my previously mentioned aching legs. within 30 minutes of arriving home, i knew something was wrong.
what ensued over the next 4 hours was the most violently ill experience i've ever had. the noises that came out of my body....ugh. after being unable to keep down gatorade or even water, my husband threw on a coat and packed me up to head to the ER. i was reluctant for several reasons. 1: i hate being sick outside of my own home. it's uncomfortable and embarrassing. 2: the last ER trip we had last year with my husband was horrible--i generally associate ERs with being one of the most miserable places on earth. and 3: i didn't know if i could last the car ride. but i did. and if i hadn't been 36 weeks pregnant and afraid whatever was hurting me was hurting my baby, i never would have agreed (although he probably would have picked me up and forced me anyway).
we arrived at west florida hospital and a very nice man greeted me at the door and asked what was wrong. my husband explained and i was immediately admitted (you say the word "pregnant lady" and people rush around you like royalty). they took me up to labor and delivery so baby could be monitored. i (of course) had to pee in a cup and they determined that i was extremely dehydrated and ran an iv with fluids. 2 bags later and still no change. baby looked fine, but i was having braxton hicks contractions every 5 minutes. while this is normally not of concern, left untreated could actually cause early labor, due to my extreme dehydration. they gave me some anti-nausea medicine which helped tremendously. after that one wore off, they gave me finagrin and then i was finally able to sleep a little and take my mind off of how much my aching muscles (from the day's activities, violent vomiting, and fever) ached even more in a hospital bed.
bag after bag was dripped into me and slowly my urine was showing less keytones (i had to show none before leaving). during this time my amazing husband (who had nothing to sit on but a rickety lab stool, while running on no sleep) helped me disconnect from my machinery and pee however many times i had to do that, made sure i was comfortable (or as comfortable as possible), and grabbed a nurse whenever needed. he was such a trooper. i am a blessed woman. as sick as i was, i was surprised i wasn't crying for my mama, but he did such a great job that i didn't want for much (except my own bed).
and i spoke of the amazing labor and delivery staff in my last post, but i will say it again: they are wonderful. my experience at west florida hospital has been nothing but good. the ER staff was amazing, the labor and delivery staff was amazing--even though it's the furthest hospital from our house, it will be my choice from now on. a completely different story from our sacred heart ER experience last year.
so seven bags of fluid and 12 hours later, my urine finally tested for no keytones. yay! and the contractions were much less frequent and much weaker. baby is staying put until he or she is ready to come into this world. for which i am so relieved! because even though baby would have survived just fine at 36 weeks, i told my husband i did not have enough energy to deliver a baby after all that!
i am in my own bed now, sleeping a lot and trying to get plenty of fluids. my muscles are still achey but my fever broke sometime last night, so i'm on the up and up! for those of you that knew, thank you for the thoughts and prayers. for those that didn't--i'm sorry! we had little time to worry about much else. i am just thankful to be journeying into these last few weeks of pregnancy safely, with a baby who is probably also very glad to be done with all the commotion!
and i will also not be eating carrabbas anytime soon.
happy new year and a belated "thanks" for the birthday wishes :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)