Two and a half years later - Caroline's birth

My sister is only a couple weeks out from having her first baby.  And my little man will be a year old in just a few days.  Couple that with several birth stories I've read lately on blogs I follow and I've got babies and birth stories on my brain!

Caroline's birth happened almost 3 years ago.  I tried to write about it once and I didn't feel like I was doing it justice and quit.  But I'm determined to get it written down and recorded before any more time goes by and all the details get fuzzy. 
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As my due date got close, Aaron and I would go for long walks in the evening after work. On Monday we had walked 3 miles and Tuesday we walked 4.  During the walks both days I would get light contractions during the walk that stopped as soon as I sat down to rest.  After our walk on Tuesday we went to Five Guys to get burgers and fries for dinner and then we walked around a little more in the Town Center before getting italian ices and going home. 

Aaron fell asleep on the couch while I read some blogs, checked facebook, got some stuff ready for our Kindergarten end of the year ceremony the next day, and then watched some TV while bouncing on my exercise ball.  Around 9:30 I was sitting on the ball when I felt a pop (like a rubber band) and a small trickle of water.  It was nothing like a gush that you hear about when people tell you that your water might break.  But because of the pop & since the trickle didn't stop for a while I thought it was probably my water breaking. 

I went and checked/repacked my hospital bag, took a shower, and got some other things in order.  By about midnight I was having light contractions but they were pretty close together. I woke Aaron up from the couch and said, "I don't think you are going to work tomorrow." He was so confused and cute at first! We waited until about 2am & I called the doctor on call.  He was not very helpful, but that could have been because I woke him up. I told him that I *thought* my water had broken & I was having contractions every 5 minutes but that they were not very strong. He said I would KNOW if my water had broken and if it had I should go to the hospital.  So we went.

We had to go in through the ER and the receptionist ask my how my pain was on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being nothing and 10 being worst ever. In all honesty I was probably between a 3 and 4, but the number 7 jumped out of my mouth with no warning. They took me upstairs to L&D.

The L&D nurse did not believe that my water had broken.  She hooked me up to the monitor and I was definitely having regular contractions but they were pretty weak. She checked me for dilation and said I was at 1. DO WHAT!? At this point it was early Wednesday morning and I had been to the doctor on Monday and he checked me and said I was a 3. Either my cervix was closing or somebody was messing with me!

She told me I could walk the halls for a couple of hours to see if I made any progress or I could go home. *Here's where hindsight is 20/20 and I would have changed my plan if I had been thinking clearly.* I choose to walk.  And we did until about 5 am. When she checked me again she said I was a 4 and she would admit me! I was ecstatic about such progress! From a 1-4 in 2 hours - I was sure I was on the fast track to a baby!! She offered to let me keep walking or she would take me and hook me up to a machine & let me rest for awhile.  At this point I had been awake for over 24 hours and I was exhausted.  I should have gone home to rest when she told me I was a 1. I really think that getting some sleep then could have changed the entire outcome. (For some reason I had convinced myself that if I went home I would have to go to work the next day.  I'm ridiculous! I know!)

My plan was to lay down and rest for a little while so they could monitor the baby & my contractions and then get up and walk or rock or do anything to help manage my pain better. Somehow that never worked out. Once I got in that bed & on that machine, I didn't get up again. 

By this point the contractions were starting to get stronger but they were spacing out. I was resting between contractions - sometimes even drifting off.  Aaron was sitting on the couch across the room between contractions and he was drifting off too. 

I was feeling a little guilty that I would miss the last 3 days of the school year and especially our end of the year party with the parents. I was "dreaming" about my class when I drifted off.  Aaron said that one time I woke him up saying, "I don't care who picks them up, but somebody better pick up these crayons!" It gave him a good laugh!

At some point the contractions were getting too far apart & the doctor said that we needed to start pitocin.  It was really the last thing I wanted to do but I was too tired to argue (or form coherent sentences). And I was beginning to think that anything that would get the baby out faster was a good idea.

They started the pitocin and I hated having to be in the bed.  I figured that if they could give me something to take the edge off I could keep my mind off the pain long enough to get some more rest. But the nurse said my blood pressure was not ideal and my only pain option was an epidural. 

That was NOT my plan.

I hated being so weak in front of my husband. I wanted him to be proud of me. I wanted him to think I was strong. I wanted him to be impressed.

But I was giving up & getting the epidural. 

That was NOT my plan.
I was upset.
I cried. A lot.

To add insult to injury, the epidural was a nightmare. I'm not a tiny person. The anesthesiologist had a hard time getting the needle in the right place. He stuck me literally 15+ times. No exaggeration. I cried the entire time. I'm so glad that Aaron got to stay in the room with me, because I know that is not the practice everywhere. The doc finally got it in and they laid me back in the bed saying I should be feeling immediate relief.  And I was - on my right side.  My left side was still feeling everything.

I'm not entirely sure that it was worse than being able to feel it full strength on both sides, but I do know that if I hadn't gotten the epidural I would have been able to get out of bed. Or move. And maybe I would have been able to find my own relief if I could have moved. But at this point half of my body was completely numb and half was in complete pain and I could not adjust myself at all to find relief. It was terrible.

The doctor, who I had never met before, came in to break my water around noon. He stuck the little orange peeler tool in there, fished around for a minute, then took it out and said, "Your water is already broken. It's not intact." I felt a bit of my spirit come back. I had been right! My water didn't gush, but it had broken last night.

Around 2pm the nurse came in and said I was an 8.  I saw a dim light at the end of the tunnel.  I had renewed hope that I could make it to the end.

Around 3:30 I thought I was feeling pressure and the pain had intensified so I ask to be checked again. This time the doctor came in. I was hoping and praying that he would say I was a 10 and the baby was ready to slide out! Instead he said I was a 6. SIX!? Are you kidding me!?  Is it closing up again? Was someone really messing with  me?!

He also said that he could let me go several more hours, but he felt the result would be the same. He saw this ending in a c-section.  Then he ask, "Do you want to do this now or wait and do it later?" Leading question much? I told him to just do it. I'd been awake for 36 hours and hadn't eaten in nearly 22 hours. I was done.

I don't remember a ton about getting ready for the c-section, except more crying on my part.  But I do remember having the shakes. I wasn't cold, but I couldn't stop them.  They had to redo my epidural and may have given me a spinal.  Either way, I didn't have any pain during the c-section, praise the Lord!

Aaron came in the operating room wearing the blue suit with our camera & video camera. He sat right next to my head and kept asking if I was ok as tears slipped out of my eyes and down my cheeks.

At 4:57pm the doctor pulled an 8 pound 9 ounce baby from my belly and said, "It's a girl!"
I looked at Aaron and said, "Are you sure?"
He said, "Yep, It's a girl!!"
What a complete and wonderful surprise! She had a wonderful set of lungs!!

After several minutes of tests and checks they wrapped her up for me to nuzzle.  Then Aaron went with her as they headed to the nursery and I got stitched up. 

I was in recovery for quite awhile.  The nurse kept telling me to breathe deeper.  Apparently I was really taking advantage of this time and sleeping which meant that I was not breathing frequently enough to please the machine I was on. I didn't get back to my room until 7pm - during shift change - the recieving nurse was not happy, and I felt bad, but she said latter that she was upset at the nurse who brought me back right at the most hectic time without even a warning.  

During that time Caroline got hungry and the nursery staff fed her a bottle. (This was a huge frustration for me because I planned to breastfeed exclusively, but luckily she caught on and the bottle didn't do any damage.)

By the time I got back to the room, we felt like we really needed to call family right away and let them know we were all healthy. Unfortunately we jumped the gun and all the family got to our room before Caroline. I hadn't even gotten a chance to meet her - to hold her. 

Aaron's parents & sister, my parents, and Dana & Michael came by that night to meet her.  We were sort of mean and wouldn't tell any of them whether we had a boy or girl until they got to the hospital.  I slipped when my parents came in though. Caroline had been taken back to the nursery for something and when they came in I said, "She's down in the nursery, but it shouldn't be too much longer." Mom caught it right away.  So we went ahead and shared the name while we were waiting for her to get back.

I am beyond grateful that Caroline and I were healthy and that there really weren't any major complications.  It may not have gone like I wanted it to, but I'm certain that God had a reason for the way things went and knew how it would turn out long before the journey started.

Even two and a half years later, I'm struggling with feeling like I missed something or that I haven't experienced all of womanhood because I didn't have a vaginal birth. I feel ridiculous even saying that because I was blessed to be able to carry 2 pregnancies (so far) and I have 2 beautiful children.  What difference does it make how they came into the world.  I remind myself constantly that I am thankful that I was able to have them at all.
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Up next, Nathan's birth story. I've got baby fever BAD! :)

Conversations with Caroline

Multiple times a day I am reminded that Caroline is hilarious!

Tonight we were trying to decide what we were going to have for dinner. I have a long established aversion to cooking on Friday nights.  Aaron and I had narrowed it down a pizza/pasta place, a mexican restaurant, or a burger place, but we just couldn't make a decision. 

Aaron decided to ask Caroline if she had a preference. He ask if she wanted pizza, pasta, tacos, or nuggets and put up one finger with each one - ending with 4 fingers out and his thumb still bent into his palm.  She walked over to him, bent all 4 fingers back down, lifted his thumb and said, "I want a biscuit!"

She had been telling me that she wanted a biscuit since lunch time and I had explained to her that I would make biscuits on Saturday morning for breakfast.  She decided to try her luck with Daddy and see if he could make her biscuit request a reality before the morning.

After she made her request for a biscuit she got the remote, turned the TV off, and turned the lights off. "Let's go in my car now." she said like if she hurried us out the door we wouldn't have time to decide on anything else and would be forced to get her a biscuit!

*For the record - we had mexican! :)

Sleep Deprived

This handsome little Moose refuses to sleep! Well, I should rephrase that, he refuses to fall asleep on his own and stay asleep once he is laid down alone.

 

He's an incredibly happy and easy baby with everything else.  He eats like a champ.  He entertains himself and plays well alone.  He loves his sister and laughs at all her crazy antics that mommy does not understand.  His snuggles can cure my grumpiest mood.  And that smile is like sunshine! But this kid does not sleep.  

I've been in denial about his sleep issues for pretty much his whole life.  My mom has been hoping and praying that I'd have a kid with sleep issues to pay me back for all that I put her through.  Well we got extremely lucky with Scoot.  I don't know what I did or didn't do, but she was a great sleeper.  She could put herself to sleep starting at about 4 months - just lay her in the crib and close the door - magic! She would wake up in the middle of the night, but as soon as I snuggled her or nursed her she was back out. And that usually only happened once a night around 4 am (after she'd already been asleep 9 hours).  By the time she was 10 months old she was sleeping through the night 7 pm - 6 am with 2 - 2 hour naps. It was a first time mommy's dream!

Now Mr. Moose, he's a completely different story! He has no self-soothing skills and needs to be cuddled until he falls asleep. Up until about 3 weeks ago, once you cuddled him to sleep, you could lay him down and he would stay asleep. But it has been getting worse. You never know what is going to happen when you lay him down.  Will he stay asleep? Whine and wiggle, but not really wake up? Melt down into total hysterics?  Maybe if that was happening at bed time around 8 pm and then he slept through the night I wouldn't have anything to complain about.  But he's doing that at 8 pm, 11pm, and 4 am. And he has been demanding to be nursed back to sleep in the middle of the night. 

Nap time isn't much better, but a nice 3 hour stretch of sleep in the afternoon actually seems like a win.  Whereas it feels like a total failure at 11pm. 

I'm desperate to teach him some self-soothing skills, but I have no idea how.  And my sleep deprived brain cant think of any way to fix this.

And if this makes no sense- just know I wrote it in 3 parts around the cuddling & nursing of an exhausted baby.  Which is pretty much the way we've been living life the last 2-3 weeks. 

pink painted flower box

A brand new Michael's craft store opened 2 miles from my house last week.  I'm in big trouble now with all that crafty goodness so close at hand!  It didn't help that on my maiden voyage to the new store I had a 20% off entire purchase coupon!

I got a bunch of random supplies for various projects I want to try.  And as a spur of the moment purchase I bought a little wooden box shaped like a flower for $1.  At Bible school earlier in the summer Scoot painted a little wooden bird house and she has played with it constantly.  She even has a little toy bird that she puts in there to go "nighnight." Its adorable.  And this girl seriously loves any kind of bag/box/purse that she can put treasures in. 

So today was the day that I decided to be brave and get out the paint.  Scoot has never painted with me before so I didn't know exactly how messy to expect it to get.  At first she was upset that the paint was getting on her hands and arms, but once she got over that, she went to town with that paint! She LOVED it!  Long after the box was as covered as it was going to get she was asking for more paint.  I must say that her box turned out pretty cute too.  I hope she has tons of fun playing with it and storing all her precious treasures in there!

A few tips on painting with a toddler...

*Contain the mess! - I put her in her high chair to paint and it worked perfectly!

*Limit color choices - She was just as interested in mixing the paint on her plate as she was putting the paint on the box.  We used 4 shades of pink and even though she mixed them all together, it turned out beautiful.  If I had given her 4 different colors and she mixed them all together it would have turned into a muddy brown color. 

*Strip 'em down! - She did get paint on her arms and belly which was fine since I had taken her shirt off before we started.  A paint smock would have worked too, but it was just as easy to take the clothes off at home.



When Scoot was born I was a first time mom and went back to work the day she turned 10 weeks old. 

This second time around I'm an experienced mom and I'm staying home now.  In other words, it should be a tad bit easier.  Granted I do also have a 2 year old fighting the 5 month old for my attention, but overall Scoot has been so super good.  She transitioned seamlessly from only child to big sister. 

With Scoot I breastfed exclusively until she was 10 months and then with formula supplements until 11 months.  I was working and had to pump at least once during my work day and once at night.  It was not easy, but I was committed.  It made me feel closer to this sweet girl that I left at the babysitters house 9 hours a day.

This time I've been toying with the idea of quitting sooner rather than later.  Even though it should be easier this time.  I'm home and don't have to pump.  He's right here with me all the time so it should be easy to keep it up.  And since I've done it before I should be a pro by now. 

It has been easy, very easy.  But for mostly selfish reasons, I'm ready to be done.  At 5 months.  I want to take some of my meds that I'm not allowed to take while breastfeeding, but that make me feel better and more like myself.  I want someone else to be able to feed him once in awhile.  And I want my boobs to stop leaking all over the place any time I hear any baby cry. 

But tonight I tried to give him a bottle of formula before bed.....  and he would have NONE of that ridiculousness!  He's had a bottle many times before, but it's always been pumped breast milk.  So apparently I have some work to do before I can even think about weaning him to formula and getting my boobs back. 

All the technology that I've grown accustomed to using is ruining my in-person socialization skills! 

I'm super good at writing a witty email or chatting somebody up on facebook.  My text messages are friendly and funny. 

However, in person, I'm a blubbering, incoherent, not even mildly funny idiot. 

Not having the chance to edit myself scares me into silence.  All of the sudden I can't think of a single interesting thing that anyone would be interested in talking about for more than .6 seconds. 

I'd say most of this comes from having an introverted personality and being generally shy going back as long as I can remember.  But I certainly don't think that technology is helping me at all.  With my computer/phone/tablet I can sit comfortably at home and chat or not.  I can edit myself.  I don't have to feel the sting of embarrassment for being so quiet. 

Tonight, this all stems from a particularly bad experience from almost a year ago.  A year.  Really.  And I'm still thinking about it.  Truth is, I think about it a lot more than I'd like to admit to myself or you.  It started out well enough.  Dinner with my hubby, one of my best friends Robby, and his new girlfriend.  It sounded great until we got there and I suddenly remembered that I'm terrible at meeting new people because I just can't talk to them.  And I'm deathly afraid that they'll think I'm an idiot.  And every moment that I don't say something interesting and funny, I get more afraid of saying something stupid.  So I'm quiet.  And then this perfectly wonderful new person thinks that I don't like them.  Ahhh, it sounds so dumb when I write it out. 

Robby got engaged to his wonderful girlfriend tonight.  And even though we are good friends, we haven't hung out again since that dinner a year ago.  Because I did not make a good impression that night.  I did a terrible job at making a new friend.  Even though we have a lot in common and should have had a lot to talk about, I sat there quietly listening to everyone else talk.  It was not a fun night, and I really don't blame them for not wanting to hang out with us again.  (How in the world do I have any friends in real life?!)  I'm just sad tonight because I feel my 15 year friendship with Robby slipping away because I'm not good at making new friends and did not make a good 1st impression with his soon to be wife. 

Oh and guess what.... tomorrow I get to go to brunch with a friend/cousin-in-law who I have communicated with 99% of the time through social media!  Oh what fun.  Let the nervousness begin.... NOW!

I've got a creative itch, but I'm overwhelmed with choices and don't feel good at anything.  I have several quilt projects I want/need to finish, but it's too hot to quilt right now.  Especially with your a/c on the fritz and the insane humidity.  I would LOVE to try my hand at sewing some clothes for Scoot, but for some reason, I'm paralyzed with fear.

My ultimate goal is to find something that I can do to satisfy my creative itch that is also good enough to sell.  Something that someone else will want to pay their hard earned money for.  I'm to wishy-washy to commit to any one thing though. 

I have had a lot of fun making preschool busy bags for Scoot.  And I'd love to share them with other people, but they are so easy to do, that I don't see anybody paying me to do it for them. 

I've thought about making some kind of book bags for school age kids.  Putting together an activity bag based on a popular/quality children's book, but again, I'm afraid to start.  I actually keep myself awake at night thinking of activities to do with certain books and how I could put them together into a kit, but I just don't follow through. 

A big part of it is that I've been missing school/teaching.  With all the back to school stuff out and the commercials, I've been getting nostalgic.  I think about the kids I taught and the kids I'm not going to be teaching this year.  I want to get back to it, but I LOVE being home with my kids and I'm not ready to give that up either. 

Basically I'm a huge mess.  My brain is running in half a million different directions.  Without using my creative side, I feel like I'm missing something.  And on top of all that, I'm developing an addiction to online kids clothing resell groups! My husband and paypal do not approve!