Almost 3 Months

My sweet little boy will be three months this Sunday. Three freaking months. This is crazy to me. We are slowly getting to know each other better and better. Each day I wake up thankful to be able to spend that day bonding with my little boy. Oh, how I enjoy my days with him.

Some new milestones are:

1.     We are starting to roll over from tummy to back!!

2.     We love Mr. Monkey (aka little sock money blanket)

3.     We are starting to laugh and giggle at things. (especially when mommy yawns)

4.     We are starting to be able to be set down for short periods of time in our bouncy seat, where we like to kick our legs as hard as possible to shake the whole bouncy seat.

5.     We are starting to scoot away when having our diaper change, with a huge smile on our face.

He is constantly changing. He has taught me/teaching me to expect the unexpected. My last post I talked about how at least nighttime was  “easy” for us. (Easy as in a parenting sense) Well, we have been struggling now. Dakota was doing bedtime. It was their time to bond. It was my time to do something for me. So, usually, shower. Now, Dakota gives him a bottle, O finishes the said bottle, and then screams. Screams like he is being tortured until I come nurse him for about 10 secs then he falls asleep. Crazy baby. He has been getting up more lately. We really cant be dealing with teething yet, right?! I think, wrong…..he is drooling, the crankiness, the chewing on our entire fist until we gag, the not being able to sleep at night. I think we are there. Already. So fun.

Tonight, after the bedtime fight, I looked at Dakota and said

“I don’t know what to do”

“Me either”

“I never know what to do”

“Me either”

Well, at least we are on the same page.

(big yawn) 

Parenting is this crazy rollercoaster of unexpected events. It's tears and laughter all mixed into one. It's good days and bad days, but as long as the good outweigh the bad you are doing a good job, right? I’m sticking with that for now.

(holding hands with his friend, super cute!)

A quote from one of our favorite movies keeps coming to mind during this stage of life. Its from Just Married. Haven’t seen it?? Go, right now, and buy it. Yes, buy it. You will want to watch it one million times, it's that funny.

Seriously.

Anyways. The quote is “You never see the hard days in a photo album, but those are the ones that get you from one happy snap shot to the next”

Love this. If you don’t think parenting is hard, to be blunt, you are doing it wrong. It should be hard. You should feel those growing pains. Your family is growing and expanding. You are learning and evolving. It’s life. Life is hard, but that’s what makes it great. Every hard day with O is a bonding day. It’s a day that I learn so much about him. That I show him that I will be here every hard day, every good day, every “normal” day. If I’m not there comforting him on the hard days, I don’t deserve the smiles on the good days. I don’t ask for help on the hard days, because it’s my job to be his mom. To be his comforter. To be his companion. To be his friend. Its my favorite.

Dakota and I have such a huge responsibility when it comes to raising O. I feel that constantly. We want him to be a good, kind, loving, strong, Godly man. We want him to be someone who always stands up for good and fights evil.  We want him to be passionate about life, follow his dreams. We want the world for him, what parent doesn’t?! Every night we pray over him. Pray for his future. Pray for his future family. For his future wife. Pray he will be a leader. Pray he will stand firm in Christ. Pray that we can help guide him appropriately through life.

Our love for O is more then I could ever have comprehended before having children. Having come to the conclusion I really didn’t want kids about a year ago, I am pleasantly surprised on how great it really is.

He has changed so much the last 3 months, I cant even imagine how much he will have change in another 3 months… it really is going by to quickly. We really are trying to cherish every moment with him. 

Confessions of a New Mom

Almost three months in and time has gone so fast yet so slow at the same time. It feels like Ollie has just always been apart of our family but we are still trying to figure each other out at the same time. We are blessed to have a good baby IMO. I know how hard some parents have it.  We struggle daily, but there are always laughs and giggles in between to make it all worth it. No one likes to talk about the struggles much though. When a new baby comes everyone just smiles and congratulates…. Which is great but being a parent is hard why doesn’t anyone talk about that aspect. Yes, babies are a blessing but they are hard. The first few weeks with O were hard. The nights were hard. Eating was hard. Breastfeeding was hard. The stress was hard. The transition is hard. Getting to know your baby is hard. Recovery is hard. You brought a new human into this world. You will not know their personality right away because it takes time. It is hard.

The struggle for us started the day we found out O was breech. We worked to hard to educate and prepare for a 100% natural birth. If you read our birth story you will find out we couldn’t of had anything further from a natural birth. We had an external aversion to have O flipped…. Then we failed our biophysical…. Then we were induced with Pit….then they broke my water….then I got more pit…. A shot of some drug….an epidural…and ultimately a c-section that I was not mentally prepared for.  The interventions began at 40 weeks and just kept coming. I am lucky to have not suffered from PPD, which was a huge concern for us. We made decisions to try and avoid getting into that situation such as encapsulation and we decided that Dakota would stay home the first week with me. Recovery from a c-section is no joke. The meds messed with me a lot. I would throw up a lot… and which with incisions that is no fun. Physically I was worn down, had little sleep, was on major pain pills, and was trying to breastfeed. I was not prepared for the mental side of recovery though. I was dealing with and still am dealing with extreme birth disappointment. No one talks about this. When you want nothing more then to give your child a natural entrance into the world and that is taken away and not possible you have to grieve over this.  It was something I couldn’t give my child. Every time I read birth stories, see a picture of a new baby born, I cry. I can’t help it. It is very emotional to know that is something that I wanted to badly to experience and may not ever be able to. Bonding with my baby was greatly affected due to my c-section. I was not able to hold my baby right away. We did not have skin-to-skin time like we were supposed to. My baby was brought into this world and spent the first moments of his life with strangers. My baby wanted to nurse but was not able to because I still needed stitched up. I know this effected how our breastfeeding relationship started.

My milk took about 4 days to “come in”. This was due to the meds and stress of my surgery. It did not come in like EVERYONE told me it would. No. It was slow. It was stressful. My baby cried a lot. We struggled a lot. O lost a pound of birth weight and everyone said, “oh, its normal for babies to lose weight. He will gain it quickly.” No. Wrong. 6 weeks later we finally made it to birth weight. This was hard. This was emotional, but I strongly believe that breast milk is so much better for babies so I fought hard for this relationship. I am lucky to have a Dr that was fully supportive of me trying. I NEVER once supplemented with formula even though specialists suggested it… I just constantly nursed my baby and pumped and supplemented with what I pumped and prayed. Prayed every time I tried to feed my baby. Prayed that the lord would meet his needs because I knew no matter what I did I could not will this to work it was the Lord that could do this. When we finally gained the weight back it was a relief but our relationship is still not easy. On top of my milk coming in slow I have discovered O has a lip tie. Which causes nursing to be more difficult. Which I know is another reason for our slow weight gain.  We see a specialist in December, until then we will work at it. My baby still nurses all the time. He wants to nurse about every hour, for about 20 mins or so. Due to his lip tie he can’t hold a pacifier in his mouth so I am his pacifier. I know he doesn’t always want to eat every hour but he wants to suck. He nurses for comfort. He nurses to bond. He nurses to eat. I made the decision to nurse on demand and that’s what I am going to do. It is hard. We don’t go very many places. I nurse before we go somewhere and nurse usually when we get somewhere. It’s hard to pump when he eats every hour. But nursing makes my baby feel secure. It comforts him. For that, I will offer up my body every min of every day to feel that bond with my baby. Our bond was interrupted with my c-section so I am so thankful we are making this work. It is hard but so worth it. So, word of advice, encourage nursing moms. We need a culture that promotes trusting women and their bodies. Our bodies are so much stronger then we believe. Every time someone questions my nursing I will defend it to the death. I question myself enough, I will always do what I think is best for my baby. We need to encourage moms/parents not question them.  I am lucky to have a mom that successfully breastfed all her babies, and a grandma that did the time. They are my heroes and were such a support. Always encouraging me. I am blessed to have them in my life.

Our routine is slowing getting into place. Daytime is still a mess. I usually lay down with O from 1-3 and he sleeps off in and on and nurses. This is usually the only way I can get him to sleep during the day. He gets super grumpy though if we don’t do this because he NEEDS the sleep he just doesn’t like sleeping during the day. I am yet to be able to get him to sleep without holding him in my arms. I will not let him “cry it out”. It doesn’t work for our family. Slowly I know he wont always want me to hold him so for the time being I will snuggle with him and enjoy our down time.  (I get nothing done during the day if you haven’t noticed. I’m either feeding him or holding him as he sleeps. Oh well, the housework can wait for me to bond with my babe)

Nighttime is better. He goes to bed at 7 now every night. We give him a bottle at night. (I pump while he sleeps) Dakota does night time most of the time. It’s their time to bond. We do jammies, swaddle, sound machine, and bottle. Usually nighttime is super easy. He has slept in his own room in his crib since he was two weeks old. Weird kid… he hated sleeping with us! Ha-ha The first night we put him in his own crib he slept so much better! I am glad that this part was easy for us. He was sleeping from then until about 5 in the morning which was glorious but that hasn’t lasted. He usually gets up once or twice in the night now but for only about 10-15mins and right back to sleep. I decided when he was first born that every time he gets up at night I would use it as an opportunity to pray over him. I have done this ever since. It is a sweet time and some nights I guess he just needs extra prayers J He will usually sleep a total of 12 hours at night. Praise Jesus. Dakota and I get some time together at night too, which is amazing. Although, we live in a very very tiny house…..every room EXCEPT the laundry room shares a wall with O’s room. We have to tip toe around…. We watch Netflix on our Ipad in bed because the TV wakes up O. He is a light sleeper. It’s a fun, sweet time in life though. We always laugh and say some day we will look back at hiding in our room with snacks and Netflix and miss this time.

Now for work. I graduated in May. I have student loans. I can’t be a stay at home mom forever. I never thought I would love staying home with O so much. I love spending time with him. Playing with him. Even though it’s hard, most days I don’t shower, or eat much, I love every min of it. I love watching him grown and learn. I am enjoying this time so much because I know it wont last forever. I have started looking slowing. I know where I want to apply first. It has been recommended to me to run about 10 miles a week before apply. I am trying to work on this. My core is completely shot. Not only did my abs separate from growing a toddler in my belly, my abs were cut through as well. I am still not able to sit up without using my arms. I have no ab strength. So, I am working on that as well. Physically I am not where I need to be to apply for these jobs yet. So, we are working on that. I am very passionate about what I want to do but it will just take some time to get there. We struggle financial but the Lord has always provided. Every month it really is a miracle that we pay all our bills and have money for groceries, but we do. I know that right now I am supposed to be home with O. In a couple months that may not be true. I have no real plan. We are praying for this. We are used to struggling financial. Paying our bills is all that we need. We don’t need extra money. It is not about the possessions. Taking care of our baby is our number one priority. We clothe diaper and breastfeed so he is not costing us anything at this moment. Until I feel called back to work though, I will spend time with O. I will work on the physical things for when the Lord releases me from this period of time in my life. I do not feel at peace about leaving him yet though. We are praying for that peace to come once it is time for me to return to work.  Luckily, I have my mom that has offered to watch O. He seems to really enjoy her so I feel 100% comfortable leaving him with her when then time comes.

Just to put it our there, my husband is an amazing dad. I don’t think dads get enough credit sometimes. As soon as he gets home he washes his hands and holds O. He can’t wait to spend time with him. I am so excited to watch their relationship grown. Kot is an amazing husband and support to me every day as well. He just is awesome.

Being a new mom has so many struggles. It’s hard. I never knew something could be so hard, yet so rewarding. This is the hardest job ever, but it’s my favorite. Some days we cry, some days we laugh but I am thankful for every day I get to spend with O. All moms out there are super heroes to me. I have always been a feminist and I can fully understand what it takes to be a Mom now. So, you are all doing a great job. Keep up the hard work. Every mom is so different. Every baby is so different. There is no right way to raise a child. We all do our best. I may be a hippie mom that wants to implement attachment-parenting ideals and you may be a mainstream parent. So what. We should all encourages each other.  Women can be so hard on each other. Its time to just support each other. So, good job moms. I think you rock.

Birth Story

My birth story

Order and time is prob way off…. Birth time is weird,…. Its like a another world… but This is how I remember it to the best of my ability.

I have been dreaming for months about this story. Previously, I wrote about my “ideal” birth. How my husband and I educated ourselves and prayed for a natural childbirth to bring our first son into the world. I write this finding my birth story the furthest thing from natural and including almost every type of medical intervention…. And I would like to say I am at peace with that. As much as we planned, as much as we learned, as much as we prayed, we still had no control. God is in control and it gave me so much peace throughout this experience. So here we go….

Friday August 23:

I woke up after a terrible nights sleep. I maybe got a total of four hours. It was awful. I was tired but had a doctors appoint to get to. I go ready and thought that hopefully I would have time for a nap that afternoon. I was 41 weeks and one day and I knew my appointment would be the “induction” talk. I had tried everything to get this kid to come…. EVERYTHING. He wasn’t moving lower, I wasn’t really having any contractions anymore and I knew the inevitable would happen. I went to my appointment and everything was great, blood pressure fine, baby heart rate fine, dilation the same….of course. I had my membranes stripped and then began the talk. I have a doctor that I truly trust and told him I wanted to wait until 42 weeks to be induced. He said he applauded my conservative approach and would agree to it if my biophysical came back with a perfect score and that baby was healthy.

I quickly left the doctors office to head to the store to get food for my best friends shower that was the following day. I grabbed the food, grabbed some lunch, dropped everything at the house in a hurry and got up to the hospital for my biophysical. As I was leaving the house I noticed how dirty my floors were, such a pet pev of mine…. “I will clean them when I return, this won’t take long” I thought……

I arrived at the hospital and went into radiology. These sonos were so routine at this point I was ready to get in and get out. Usually they last like 10 mins…. This one did not, the tech kept looking, kept searching, and was concerned at my babies lack of movement. (he was asleep) He had been moving all morning and I knew he was fine but still she had to fail me on my biophysical. So up the stairs I went to labor and delivery for “observation”. I kept telling everyone my baby was fine, I could feel him move, but no one wanted to take chances, which I am very happy for. They hooked me up to monitors and I made a quick phone call to the hubs. Being as loving as he is, he wanted to drop everything and run to the hospital to be with my while I was being observed. I told him no, that everything was fine and I would be out in a little bit. After about an hour of observation I hear the resident outside my curtain talking to my doctor on the phone about me. NOT A GOOD IDEA PEOPLE. I heard her say, “ok, we will start the pitocin” My heart lept out of my chest, all of my monitors started going off  and my nurse ran in asking what was wrong…. Through tears I explained that I heard the dr talking about inducing me RIGHT NOW. I was freaking out. They had to take my heart monitor off because it was continuously going off. The resident came in and told me I was going to be induced and not be going home today. I was bawling my eyes out, no no no, not pit please please anything but pit…. I fought and fought for other options. Begged them to break my water, try cervadil, anything. I did NOT want pit. I was told pit was the only thing for my circumstance and that was that.

I needed to call my husband but my phone was dying. The poor intern that had been helping take my vitals felt so bad for me as I was crying alone in my hospital bed. He gave me his phone and charger and told me to take as long as I needed. I called my husband and could hardly get through the tears to tell him what I was happening. I could hear it in his voice he was freaking out too but would never let me know. He started his way home to get our hospital bag and everything in order and would be there shortly. I called my doula who calmed me down, and said she would be on her way shortly.

So, alone I sat, full of anxiety and just prayed and prayed and prayed. All I truly cared about was my baby and I just wanted him to be ok. The anesthesiologist came in to go over everything (I had previously met her and not really cared for her) and was very comforting… and gently told me she knew this wasn’t what I wanted but we are ultimately not in control. I enjoyed that she was speaking truth to me and  just continued to pray for peace.

They took me to my labor room and my husband showed up. I started contracting on my own consistently (stress) so they decided to let me labor on my own for awhile before starting pit. We walked and talked together for hours and I really got calmed down… the contractions weren’t getting stronger though so we had to head back to the room to start the pit.

The thing about pit was that I was stuck in the bed, I couldn’t really move, couldn’t use the bath, had to be monitored… it is very limiting to help with pain control… but we began the pit…. And kept uping it and uping it and uping it….. nothing….. contractions got stronger but not super strong and I was not progressing ….. About two in the morning after no progress they came in and broke my water…. Oh lord did I have a lot of water….. This was the point that the pain hit me…. Hard. Contractions hit so hard that I could barley breath. I wanted to walk, I wanted the bath and I couldn’t leave the damn bed. I was so frustrated and in so much pain. This went on forever….. with no progress….. I had contractions lasting as long as 6 mins because of the stupid pit,,,, and no progress. Things get really fuzzy because the pain was so intense, I remember screaming “My pelvis is breaking, Im telling you this baby is going to break my pelvis” My back was in so much pain. I just wanted warm water that’s all I wanted.

At this point they gave me a shot of something to calm me down, cut the pit to see if my body would take over, and let me into the bath. Oh, sweet relief. I could breath, I could think. The warm water was so comforting. We had all the lights out and I got a glimpse of what I wanted my birth to be like. This was manageable. The pain was there, but the water relieved it so much. I got so relaxed I almost fell asleep. They only allowed me in there for 20 mins though and then back to the bed.

At some point the contractions started not being strong enough again and they started the pit…. Again. They gave me an epidural in hopes that it would help me progress. They then monitored how strong the contractions were since I wasn’t progressing. We were getting really high on the pit again and I started shaking uncontrollably. I felt super nauseous and  my babes heart rate started acting funny. Too many drugs….. they cut the pit because I was not reacting well to it and baby was not either….all this time on it hadn’t done much anyway.

I was so frustrated, so tired, and so done. I had every intervention possible to try and get this baby to come “naturally”… nothing was working, my body was not responding to it, the baby wasn’t moving down, and I wasn’t progressing….. I had been awake for over 30 hours, hadn’t eaten for about 22 hours and had been in labor for about 22 hours.

After we cut the pit,  we were talking about what to do. My sweet baby’s heart started dropping…. Nurses and doctors were flooding the room, hooking me up to oxygen and telling me calm down (really??!!) I was so scared, I just wanted my little boy to be ok.

They got everything back in order, baby’s heart rate went back to normal and then the laborist came in to talk to me. She gave me two options, start the pit again, or c-section. Since we had tried pit twice, and I was not reacting well, and my baby was clearly stressed at this point I choose the c-section. I was completely at peace with ith. Dakota kept asking “are you sure….” I explained to him that I trust my baby and my body… something isn’t right, there is a reason I am not progressing, there is a reason nothing is working and I want to trust that and my baby. I would not start pit again and risk the stress on my baby.

We started prepping for surgery, they made me drink this nasty stuff that I threw up…. And started pumping more meds in me. I got crazy light headed, couldn’t focus my eyes, words became hard to form… but I was at peace…. My baby was now coming. We got in the operating room, my poor husband had to take a min (he was freaking out… don’t blame him) they put the sheet up and started my c-section. I was so nauseous and kept almost throwing up that they kept having to up the meds…. At one point I started feeling some slight pain where they were cutting and freaked out… and they gave me more meds. Soon enough, I heard a cry, and tears came…. All I wanted was to know he was ok…. Please someone tell me he is healthy….. I heard doctors and nurses start talking to each other “wow, that’s a big head…” “ whoa… that’s a big baby”….

I was sad that everyone got to see my baby and I couldn’t….. I just wanted to hold him but I couldn’t…. I couldn’t even see him. The nurse took a photo with our phone and showed me…. Oh, my sweet chubby boy. He was healthy, he was ok, and I could breath.

The stitched me up, gave me my baby and wheeled me to recovery. I was so drugged and everything is a blur but I remember seeing my baby and the feeling of relief when I knew he was health…. As in 10lbs 2 oz healthy…. Then we all knew why I was not progressing, why he never could fully engage into my pelvis…. He was way to big for my to birth.

As much as I did not want any intervention, any drugs and did not want a surgery, I’m thankful for the medical staff that helped me have a healthy baby. Recovering from a major surgery with a new born is not ideal but people do it all the time. I am now home and able to enjoy my baby. This has been such an amazing first week home… I am so thankful to have such a loving and caring husband that stayed home and took care of us this week. I could not have done it without him. If anything this experience has made me fall in love with him all over again to see how much he cares about our little boy, and how much he wants to take care and provide for me and him.

The Lord was with us through the whole experience, from sending my favorite nurse Mindy to come in and pray with us…. To having my doctor quote scripture and pray over our baby. Such an amazing experience to feel the Lord present through it all once again.