Mirena June 8, 2007

Today I got the Mirena IUD inserted….. I almost typed “installed” like I’m a robot and I’m getting new hardware installed.  Anyway, you know what that means.  Bom Chicka Wahwah!  I know.  Not a pretty mental picture.  Back on track, people.  What it really means is that me and my husband can continue to NOT have sex just like we’ve been doing and I am even safer from getting pregnant.  Good to know!

That crap hurt like a mofo.  It was over pretty quickly.  Five minutes tops but still.  It felt like really bad menstrual cramps.  The kind where the pain shoots down your legs.  That kind.  There were two nurses in the room and one of them was observing because she had never seen it done before.  She had the most worried look on her face and then she covered her mouth with her hand.  Boy, that sure put me at ease.  After the doctor was done and I got up, there was alot of blood.  They do it while you are on your period but still this was alot.  I’m over it though.  Still a little crampy but fine.  Just thought I’d let you all know in case you might be pondering birth control options.  I researched this one alot before I did it.  Feel free to ask me anything.

Birth Announcements May 22, 2007

Tell everyone you know that is having or just had a baby.  I’m making birth announcements now.

www.fuzzyheadbaby.com

Birth Story (For Shannon) or Alternately Titled “Go Get a Snack, Marge. This Is A Long One.” May 22, 2007

The night before I was scheduled to be induced, we went to eat at Cheddar’s with my parents and my friend Tracy and her roommate. I started having intense pain in my lower back. The pain was pretty close to what a gall bladder attack feels like, only lower. It would come and then fade away and then come back fifteen or so minutes later. Back contractions. Nice. Since I was dilated at my previous visits, I thought that maybe I would go into labor during the night. We went home though and it went away. I did some last minute packing and had Elvee shave my va-jay-jay with the electric clippers. If I was going to end up pooping on the delivery table then it wasn’t going to be with a hairy booty. We went to bed around 2 and got up around 6ish. We had to be downtown for 8 and in Austin that means leaving the house at 7.

We got to the hospital a half an hour early and it was pretty cold outside that morning. My husband parked and let me out in the parking garage so that I could find my parents while he parked. I was nervous and his making laps around the garage was irritating me. So I stood outside and froze while waiting.

We went to the labor and delivery floor and checked in and got assigned to our room. I was already thinking that I wanted my epidural and I wasn’t even in labor yet. I had decided long before that this would be a pain free birth. I am not the I-am-woman-let-me-feel-this-beautiful-natural-process type person. Not-uh. Not me.

I had the most awesome nurse named Nancy that informed me that giving birth was extremely messy and I should just put my little nightgown (that should actually read huge one-size-fits-all Wal-Mart nightshirt that would scare the piss out of anyone) that I brought from home back in my bag.

I laid in the bed and she hooked me up to the fetal monitor and the contraction monitor. I have Group B Strep so I had to get an IV. I think she did that as well. Dr. Uribe showed up about an hour later and broke my water with what looked like a knitting needle. They made my Dad leave the room. Warm water gushed out went all over the blue pad they had me laying on. Everytime I moved for the next eight hours I would feel some more leak out. Nancy was right. This was messy. They started me on the Pitocin to make my contractions start and then I made sure to tell them that I wanted the epidural now, please thank you.

The epidural guy shows up and everyone has to leave except for my husband this time. I think that my parents went to lunch around this time. Lunch. I wanted lunch so bad. The doc pulls out his kit with the huge needle and he has me sit on the edge of the bed. I am supposed to hug Elvee and he supports my weight while the needle is inserted. So, I’m supposed to instruct the doc as to where the epidural needle is going if I feel it too far to one side or the other. I do. It’s too far over to the right. He moves it and we continue on. It really wasn’t all that bad. I wouldn’t want to do it again any time soon but it wasn’t deathly painful either.

I start to get numb. You can still feel though sort of. It’s very weird. You can feel pressure of the contractions but not the pain part. My parents come back from lunch and my mom starts poking me and asking “can you feel this? how about this? right here?” I make her sit down. I make a mental note to blog about it. Then the real contractions start. I have a computer monitor next to me that shows a graph that monitors the contractions. My parents are all over this thing like their lives depend on it. They apparently got medical degrees by reading Prevention magazine. I make them both sit back down.

At around noon I start feeling the contractions in my back. Really bad. The pain would get really intense and I felt like I couldn’t take it anymore. By this time, I have a new nurse. There is a boom of babies being born and all the nurses are being called all over the place until more nurses arrive. The new nurse tells me that I can hit this little button to deliver more morephine to the epidural if the pain gets too bad. I can push the button every fifteen minutes. Why didn’t Nancy tell me that? I begin to like Nancy a little less. I start pushing the button. Every fifteen minutes. The pain just sticks it’s tongue out at me. My Dad is standing next to me telling me that he sees another contraction coming on the monitor. I make him sit down.

I am not progressing very far each time they check me. I get the feeling that this is going to take a while. The back pain is so intense that there is no way that I can even imagine pushing. Dr. Uribe shows up and I am in tears. He checks me again and tells me that the baby is posterior (face up) and he is still in the same position. He thinks that the baby is pretty large and it will take a while for the baby to move down, if at all. So, to sum up…. a few more hours until baby moves down, a few hours of pushing and possibility of eighth degree tear. All that and I would still more than likely end up with a C-section. How about I skip all that crap and just go straight to the section part? Dr. Uribe says okay and we start making plans. Yippy. I can see the end now.

Nancy is back and is apparently very pro natural child birth. She knows that I am starving so she plays that card. If I get a section it will be 36 hours before I can have food, she says. Shuddup, Nancy. Not helping. Nancy has also suggested that I stop eating my ice chips a few hours before I have the section. Has she lost her freaking mind? The ice chips are the only thing keeping me from hurting someone. The ice chips are my only nourishment. The ice chips love me. Everytime she isn’t looking, I eat some more ice chips. My Mom also sneaks me a cheese cracker. Just one. It was divine.

They bring Elvee an outfit to wear into surgery. It is the biggest size they have and it is way too small for him. We have to cut the arms to fit his in. He looks very uncomfortable. Like a sausage wraped in blue paper towels. It’s getting so real now. I’m about to have a baby. God.

They wheel me to surgery and Elvee is already crying. He does that. They transfer me to the surgery table and it takes alot of work. It’s very hard to move your entire body weight without the use of your legs. The table seems way too narrow to hold me. They strap my arms down next to me. The curtain goes up separating my upper body from my lower body. I feel them pushing on my tummy and I say “um, I can feel that.” The doctor wants to know if I feel pressure or pain because I should feel pressure. How am I supposed to know? I’ve never had a baby. I do know that I can feel you touching my stomach and I don’t want to feel you cut me. That I do know. Dr. Uribe shows up and says that I am not numb enough on the left side. Something about how your skin should look if you are numb enough. The ansthestist is behind me and he accepts a phone call from his wife on his cell phone. I hear him tell her that he is working late and “to get over it”. They let Elvee in the surgery room with me and he is next to my head, sitting on a stool. I ask him if they are doing anything yet and he is scared to look in case my guts are on the table next to me. I feel some pushing on my stomach so I think they may have started and just not told me. Elvee and I are discussing if we should look or not. Seconds later I feel them pulling Gage out of my ribcage area. It was the strangest sensation ever. It seemed like he was crying before he was even out all the way. It was a raspy little cry and he sounded like a puppy. He looked enormous. I was thinking he had to be at least 10 pounds.

My first thought was “huh, a baby was really in there.” I don’t know if I was expecting a sack of oranges or what I thought would come out but I was almost surprised that it was, indeed, a baby. All I could say was “wow”. Elvee was crying and going over to look at Gage and telling me how adorable he was. He scored 8 and 9 on the Apgar and he weighed in at 7 pounds, 14 ounces. They brought Gage over to me and I really thought that he looked like an alien. A cute alien that was mine to love forever, but an alien nonetheless. I was so worried about his little nose not having a bridge.

To Be Continued….

Part Two – Healing from a C-section and Being Allergic to Morphine or “My Freaking Face Itches and Please Stop Talking, Nurse Lady”

Photo Shoot May 3, 2007

You can view all of the photos from the newborn shoot that we did the other day here.

Week 7 April 28, 2007

In week 7, we somehow established a semi-routine.  Finally a sense of normalcy.  As it turns out, things do get easier just a tad at this phase and that tiny bit of ease is just the right amount for you to realize that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  I managed to take a shower while home alone, cook my husband breakfast and make dinner at various times this week.  That may not seem like much but earlier in this I could have never imagined doing those things.  I still don’t know how anyone gets out of the house alone with a baby but I’m sure that will come eventually as well.

Gage seems to cry alot less now all of a sudden.  I don’t know if it is because I finally figured out which formula/bottle combination works for his little tummy or if it’s because he can see better, but whatever.  I’ll take it.  His crying bothers me alot less now too so maybe he can sense my calming down.  When he first came home, I would cry if he cried.  Now I can tell the different crys apart and know if he is actually in pain or just trying to get my attention.

This week he has started cooing.  Little “ooohs” here and there.  He also smiles on a pretty regular basis as well.  He has pretty good head control and will be holding his head up completely pretty soon, I think.  He makes this pouty lip face that is completely hilarious when something upsets him.  He has discovered his hands and he sticks them in his mouth and sucks on them all the time.  He is still extremely noisy though.  I don’t think that is going to change.  He grunts and gurgles and lets you know how he feels about every little thing.  He eats every three hours like clockwork.  He hardly ever goes more than that.  I cannot wait until he drops the middle of the night feeding.  I have a feeling it won’t be any time soon though.

We are having professional photos done today at our house so I will be posting some really good ones of him soon.

Loves April 13, 2007

Wish I Could Nap April 7, 2007

Lots of photos uploaded to flickr.

There’s Exhausted and Then There’s Parenthood April 2, 2007

Things I Did Not Anticipate:

• Things not coming naturally to baby. Did you know that baby’s have to learn to do basic stuff? It’s not anything you can even help them learn. Gage grunts and turns really red and looks like he is in major distress sometimes. It’s called The Grunting Baby Syndrome. He has to learn how to poop.

• Noisy baby. He is the noisiest thing I have ever been around. When he’s not grunting or crying, then he’s farting. They sound like cartoon poots. How can a butt that tiny make all that noise?

• The insurmountable pile of bottles, laundry, and dirty diapers. I spend the whole day washing and sterilizing bottles or making bottles or feeding bottles. If I’m not doing that, I’m doing laundry because this little person pees and spits up on everything you put near him. He also fills a trash can a day with dirty diapers.

• Sleep deprevation. You know before you go into this having kids thing that you will never sleep again. You know it ahead of time and you are prepared for it. However, until it smacks you dead in the face you aren’t fully aware of how hard it is to deal with. I think I may have slept 10 hours total the first week I had him. I was going out of my mind. If I didn’t have my family helping me with the baby, I honestly would have had a breakdown. I cannot even remember what it felt like to go to bed and just sleep a normal night’s sleep.

• Monotany of feeding, diapers. You love your baby. You really do. Every little grunt and sigh is so adorable. However, it gets boring. I feel like everyday is a repeat of the one before. I know that he will start to do new cool stuff pretty soon and that’s what keeps me going.

• Breastfeeding/pumping being so difficult. Ugh. I could go on for days on this one and I will in the near future. You think people have been doing it for millions of years and it’s just intuitive but it isn’t. Oh, how it isn’t.

• Guilt. You feel guilty about every damn thing. Guilty if you make them cry. Guilty about breastfeeding or not breastfeeding. Guilty if they are awake and you are sleeping. I know this also gets better and I’m sure hormones play into this one but it still really surprised me.

• My husband being so good at this.  He really is a life saver for me.  I don’t worry at all if I have to go sleep and he is watching the baby.  He loves doing it too.  I didn’t change one diaper the whole first week that we had Gage.

• Losing all of my baby weight so soon.  As of probably last week or so, all the weight that I gained while pregnant (and then some) is gone.  I gained 25 pounds pregnant and I’ve lost 32.  Part of it is that you don’t have time to even think about eating and then you basically rush to finish when you do eat.  I still have alot of jiggle to work on but no extra pounds.

• My life before this little man came into it seems like years ago and it’s only been four weeks.  It’s very surreal to think of how much it has all changed so quickly.  It’s good change though.

Update March 24, 2007

I will try to get my thoughts together and update soon.  I had no idea it was this hard to have a baby in the house.  NO IDEA.  Here’s a pic to tide you over.  He is practicing smiling these days.  He’s so cute and loveable and hilarious.  Thank you all for checking in on me.  You can always see pics as I upload them to flickr as well.

Perfection March 10, 2007

Gage Marcus is here.  I had him on Monday at 5:56pm via C-Section.  I’ll post the long birth story soon, guys, I promise.  Time is just slipping past me these past few days.  It’s the craziest thing.

He weighed in at 7 pounds and 14 ounces and is 20.5 inches long.  We are so in love with this little guy.

Thank you all so much for your emails.  I took this pic with my camera phone so it’s not the best but I love it.  I’ll post more soon.