Thursday, November 26, 2009

Three Things

So I didn't want to make one of those lists that lists a million different things I'm grateful for, even if I am grateful for a million different things.

**Side note: Confession: I do not take the time to read such lists. Confession over. Side note over**

But I couldn't let this day of Thanksgiving pass without letting all of you know about some of the specific things I'm grateful for. I decided to go with the top three things I'm thankful for today.

They are as follows:

1) The 5 minutes a day I get to cuddle with Dallin.

2) The bridge of Maddy's nose. Totally my favorite part of her to kiss.

3) Sleep. In any and all amounts.

Life is good. Gratitude abounds.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Optional Reading: Birth

Not that all my other posts are not optional, of course. This one is just a little extra optional, since it contains blood and guts and words like "placenta." Plus, I'm sure some of you could just really care less.

Which is fine. I'm just a writer...so I write about things. Especially big things. And this was a big thing.

Friday the 13th was a rough day for me. Not because I had anything more pressing to do than an eye doctor appointment in the morning followed by a breakfast of two cookies and some hot chocolate from Paradise Bakery, but because I was just in...discomfort all day.

About 4:30 is when the walking began. Dallin quit work a little early, and we went for a nice, long walk. Then we took a break, and went for another walk. This one ended up being about 3 miles long, taking us to the Marketside close to our house so we could get some applesauce, which was the only thing I really wanted to eat that I'd heard was "early labor friendly."

I hadn't showered all day, so after we ate, I took a shower. It felt great in every way...except at the end, at which point I started feeling some amazing pressure down there that led me to believe that the night might turn out to be very exciting after all. This was about 8:20ish, and we started timing the contractions for reals while I...did my hair. Hey, I had to do something. And if my mom was going to be involved in the next several hours, you can bet there was going to be some serious picture taking going on.

Anyway, my contractions were less than 5 minutes apart for the next hour or so, so we figured it was time to go. I was a little worried they would send us back, because the contractions I was having, even then, were not necessarily painful. I mean, I could talk through them and everything. It was not what I was expecting, which was to be doubled over writhing in pain. That means that our drive to the hospital was not what Dallin was expecting, either. I think he'd been holding out for an "excuse" to speed to the hospital, but alas, it was really not necessary.

We got to the hospital around 10:00, and waited for a few minutes in triage for them to come check me out. I was at a 6, on my way to a 7. We were there to stay. They called my doctor who said I was good for an epidural whenever I wanted it, but I was still handling the contractions pretty well, so I decided to hold off for now. I got hooked up to an IV which made me incredibly shivery all the way to the labor and delivery room.

P.S. Have you ever had penicillin through an IV? Oh. My. Pain. I had to have penicillin through my IV to combat the evil Group B Strep that I tested positive for. So I wasn't really complaining, since the cause was so noble. But oh my stars, if that stuff didn't burn like the dickens in my arm. An ice pack helped, as did time...but...wow.

So there we were in the L&D room. A doctor (not mine- a resident) came to check me out again, and confirmed what the triage nurse had said. My mom and sister showed up, and Dallin went to get some food. This was about 12 or 12:30, and while Dallin was gone, things REALLY started picking up. It must have been the two cervix checks I'd had or something, because I was suddenly in some seriously intensified pain. The contractions were coming hard, and they were coming fast. I was going to need that epidural, stat.

Dallin got back and we notified whoever needed to be notified to stick a needle in my back. Let me tell you, I got that guy's name and address and sent him bouquet of daisies and a $50 Visa gift card for what he did. Or at least, I really, really should have. I don't think I've ever made a friend so quickly in my whole life.

The epidural brought blissful relief, and Dallin and I took a nap from about 1 to 3:30 or so. When I woke up, I was afraid we'd still have a ways to go, since epidurals typically slow things down, but it was soon discovered that I was at a 9 and that my water was (finally!) at the breaking point. Like, literally. It broke right after she checked it.

So my doctor was called. I guess he usually spends his o n call nights at the hospital, but he chose this particular night to be at home, so we had another 20 minutes or so to go before we started pushing. Baby did not agree. Baby wanted mommy to push RIGHT NOW. And while I was grateful that the epidural was not taking away any and all feeling below my waist, I was NOT grateful for that feeling of the need to push. It did NOT go away. I was afraid the baby was just going to plop out before anyone could do anything.

Ha. I laugh at that now.

Let me tell you why: because babies need to be pushed. Like, really, pushed. Like...really, really pushed. Do you get what I'm saying? You have to really, really push to get them out.

I started pushing around 4:25. Thankfully, I only had to push for about half an hour.

One of the scariest moments of my life was when they told me they could see the head. I looked in the graciously provided mirror and saw a little circle of skin, maybe like 2 inches wide. I remember thinking that was my baby's head - her whole head. I then remember thinking I was either giving birth to the smallest baby ever, 8 of the smallest babies ever, or the 15 dalmatian puppies from 101 Dalmatians.

Of course, if any of those scenarios had been the case, it probably wouldn't have hurt so much.

When the head was about halfway out (so I could tell that it was normal sized), they asked me if I wanted to reach down and touch it.

Um, no. Moving on.

Once the head was out, the rest was pretty easy peasy. One more big push for the shoulders and the little darlin squelched right out. They confirmed that it was, in fact, a girl. She cried. Man, that cry was beautiful. I cried. They wiped her down a bit and handed her to me. I held her and kissed her and got who knows what on my face and arms in the process. I didn't especially care.

After that...well, if you've had a baby, you know, and if you haven't, you don't want to. Nastiness ensued...cords, placenta, stitches...so so fun. I'll spare you any gory details, which means that this paragraph is over because really anything I could say would be pretty gory.

Well, I gotta say - birth is beautiful. It's not pretty, but it really is beautiful.

And of course, so totally and completely, 100% worth it.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Madelyn Harris

On March 2, 2009, I took a pregnancy test. There were two pink lines.

On March 3, I took another pregnancy test. This one just said "Pregnant." Later that night, I told my husband. I remember hoping he was as happy as he seemed to be.



On March 31, we saw our baby for the first time. It had a heartbeat.



On April 28, we heard the heartbeat.

On June 17, we had an ultrasound. We were told our baby was a boy. A healthy, growing boy. We were ecstatic.

In July, I finally got a bump.



On July 21, another ultrasound confirmed that everything was going smoothly.

In August, we got a new house, complete with nursery. Serious shopping began.



In September, I bought my first and only pair of maternity pants.

On October 7, another ultrasound put baby's gender in question.

On November 9, baby's gender was confirmed - to be female.

At 10:00 pm on Friday, November 13, the day before my due date, we arrived at the hospital.


At 4:25 am, I started pushing.

And at 4:56 am, Madelyn Harris came into the world, at 7 lbs 9 oz and 18.5 inches long.



I do want to share more details about the whole labor and delivery process, for those of you who want to know. But that will come later. For now I just want to say this:

In the past nine months, I have been sick, tired, and in pain. I've been hungry for things I couldn't eat, and in need of medicine that I was afraid to take. I've been depressed, elated, and everything in between. I've been excited, terrified, worried, anxious, giddy, confused, and restless. I've had days when I felt enormous, and others when I worried about being too small. I've worn clothes that didn't fit, cried for no reason, and been unable to walk. I've had pain in my head, back, boobs, stomach, fingers, and feet. Dallin's put up with all of it.

Have you ever heard the saying "Roads are for journeys, not destinations?" Or anything like that?

Well I'm here to tell you that that is a bunch of bull. What good is a road, or a journey for that matter, without a destination?

My pregnant road this past nine months has most certainly not been about the "journey." It wasn't about "experiencing" something.

It was about that moment, at 4:56 am on November 14, when I saw my little girl's face, and heard her cry, and kissed her cheek, and knew that she was mine.



Welcome to the world, sweet baby girl. We've reached one destination together - let our next jouney begin.

Monday, November 9, 2009

OH BOT: The Saga Ends

I go to the doctor every week now.

We are friends.

At least, we are USUALLY friends.

But when I go in on Thursday and Doctor tells me he wants me to have an ultrasound at the HOSPITAL on Friday because he thinks my baby and I are just too dang small, well, our friendship suffers.

And then when the hospital can't get us in until Monday for whatever silly scheduling reason, my friendship with the hospital suffers too.

I'm just losing friends, here.

I worried all weekend. Of course I did. Wouldn't you be worried if the doctor decided you needed yet another ultrasound? Even though you've already had an extra one because you were too small? And even though that extra one went just fine? And even though the doctor said that, more likely than not, it's just a small baby?

Well, I was worried.

So we went to the hospital today to have our ultrasound done by a fancy-schmancy hospital ultrasound technician.

Want to know what she found out?

1) My baby, once and for all, is NOT too small. Baby weighs about 7 pounds 2 ounces as of today. All the measurements maybe set me back about 4 days or so, but that's negligible.

2) Baby is sitting low and coming high. Head is way way down in my pelvis and bum is way up in my ribs.

3) Baby is a girl.

Yeah, read it again. I had to.

Baby is a GIRL.

Not a boy.

A GIRL.

No boy.

GIRL.

Boy? No. Girl? Yes.

It's a girl.

Ultrasound lady was sure. At least, sure enough to bet her next paycheck on it. It was like, not even a question in her mind.

This has created the need for some serious mind rewiring in the past couple hours.

Not that we're not thrilled - my baby is healthy! - but it's just...not what was expected!

It is quite a difficult concept to grasp.

Girl. Girl. Girl girl girl.

Girl is a weird word.

Girl.

I have some clothes to exchange.

Thankfully, the nursery will work either way. P.S. I got bedding for the nursery (finally) and am totally and completely in love with it. The decor is proceeding quite nicely. I will have to show you pictures someday.

For today, my mind is shifting from blue to pink. Right now we're kind of in a weird purple-y stage.

So hopefully my OH BOT saga is over. I mean, this baby had better be a girl now. If a boy pops out, well, I might just have some kind of mental explosion.

Which would be unfortunate.

5 days until the due date! Any guesses as to when our little princess will arrive?

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Underfed

Does this look like an underfed belly to you?


Well, it doesn't to me.

But apparently, it does to some people.

Last week, I was meeting up with a dear friend at the mall to have some lunch. I got there before she did, and there weren't very many people in the food court, so I claimed a table and sat down to wait for her.

An old lady, with a rather large sandwich from Paradise Bakery, sat down at the next table. I pulled out my phone and started playing a game where a little cow climbs high in the sky, jumping from cloud to cloud, trying to rescue his cow friends that have been abducted by aliens.

I love my phone.

Anyway, several minutes later, and my game skillz are interrupted.

"Do you have something to eat?"

I look up. It's the old lady from the next table over. She's looking at me with a concerned expression on her face.

"Oh - I'm meeting a friend here for lunch!"

I'm thinking maybe she doesn't like that I'm just sitting at the table, taking up space in the food court that someone could be using for eating. That does seem a bit silly, however, seeing as how there are several empty tables all around us.

"But you will have something to eat, won't you?"

"Um, yes. We're going to have Chick-Fil-A." *Side note: I love Chick-Fil-A. Side note over.*

"Ok..." She still sounds wary. "I just wanted to make sure you were going to eat something."

"Oh. Yeah, I will."

"Ok." And she walks back to her table.

I find myself wondering about this.

So either she really was upset that I was taking up a table in the food court, or she thought I was a poor, underfed pregnant woman who couldn't afford to eat and had to either (a) sit in the food court and just smell the food, hoping that it would satisfy my desperate hunger, or (b) sit in the food court and wait for a nice old lady to offer to buy me some food.

I was hungry. Maybe I was just showing it too much.

I also kind of think I should have started crying and said that I didn't know if I was going to be able to eat ever again.

Now that would have been blog worthy.

Anyway, thank you, old lady, for caring about me and my unborn child. You'll be happy to know that I absolutely devoured my waffle fries.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Halloween n Stuff

I think Dallin has a Halloween picture of both of us, together, on his phone.

Dallin is downstairs, working.

I am upstairs, blogging.

The distance is just too great.

So you get pictures of each of us, in turn.

Here is Dallin. He is a baker:


And here I am. I am also a baker. But I have an oven. And what is baking in my lovely oven?

A bun.


Ha ha! Get it?

We ooze of cleverness.

I know, these pictures suck. Maybe I'll put Dallin's pictures on here later. But if you know me, you're probably not betting on it.

So, Halloween.

A series of unfortunate e-mails that I received on Friday night led me to something of a nervous breakdown this weekend. I had a freak out party in my head about baby and money and who knows what else, but it seemed like the world was going to come crashing down.

It didn't. Don't worry.

However, ASU football suffered a(nother) devastating loss, this time against the Cal Golden Bears. We really should have won...we were very close to winning...so that was sad.

I am also fairly to moderately positive that I did not consume any food the entire day that had any sort of nutritional value to it. Yes, I think that's about accurate.

We did get to go to a fun party that night, at which we got to show off our costumes and play a few games, one of which was the donut-on-a-string eating contest (pictured above). Dallin and I did not compete against each other, but we did claim victory in our respective meets. Maybe we should have gone head-to-head...between you and me, I could have taken him.

We finished off the evening with a showing of Pirates of the Caribbean (the first one, duh), which led to a late bedtime.

And then there was (very) early church. We all know how I feel about that.

After (very) early church, I slept off my nervous breakdown a lil bit while Dallin proved that he IS in fact the most incredible person on the planet. He did this by basically cleaning the entire house, including doing some much needed organization in the baby's room.

I heart him.

Also, Happy November! It is very difficult for me to wrap my head around the fact that our baby will be here this month. My due date is in less than two weeks. Less than two weeks, people! Do you know how much time that is not? A lot.

I may or may not be incredibly, irrationally excited about this. I'll let you know which.

So how is everyone?