Amelia Anne's Birth Story

Amelia Anne's birth story:

Warning this will contain my dilation number but nothing more graphic than that.  I also want to say that my birth route is mine and mine alone and worked for me and me alone.  Others choose different things and thats okay there is no "RIGHT" way to birth babies as long as they come out. So please reserve judgement for something that matters, like if your best friend is murdering people... 

Nov 2: my dr checked me at my weekly appointment I was 2 cm dilated.  She thought I would go into labor that week.. 

Indeed from Nov 2-Nov 10 I had constant on and off contractions.  Some would last for 2 hours and stall out.. Others would last shorter, get more intense and stall out.  I'd go 4 hours no contractions and bam they'd start up again.  It was EXHAUSTING.  I couldn't sleep, I could function. I felt like my body was stalling out it wanted to have baby but was too tired to do so... it was the worst week.. brutal really.. 

Nov 10: Another dr appointment.   After all the off and on contractions all week.. still. 2cm.   I was like "are you kidding me???"  My Dr had already scheduled to induce me on the 11th if I wanted it.  At that point, I WANTED IT!! 

Nov 11: 6 am, I check into the hospital It takes time to get all situated, still the 2 cm...

7:30 I start my pitocen drip and contractions begin. nice and light to start. 

8:30 my dr comes to check on me and I was dilated to a 3 so she went ahead and broke my water.  I labor more. All is well

10-11 I started to have hard long contractions that did not tickle! 

I didn't like that... I didnt like that at all.. 

 

11: I got the epidural 

4 cm... The nurse said it could take all day so just relax. So I of course did that.  Clearly I am not a dilator... 

1pm: My dr came over to check on me, see how I was doing.. She checked me and I was 10 cm and ready to push apparently! My dr asked me to do some practice pushes  I did, she said "Okay everyone, lets have a baby!!" 

So I did that.. 

My dr asked if Tait wanted to deliver, he said sure! Everyone got gowned up, and prepped for baby. I am in total shock over the entire ordeal. It was totally surreal! How is this possible? I thought I was going to be there forever now all of the sudden everything I had been dreaming about for the past 9 months, (baby coming OUT!!!!!) was happening! NOW!! 

 

Time to push! 

So I did that.. 

With in 2 contractions and 5 minuets... Tait delivered our little girl.  In 2 contractions and 5 minuets there was my love bug on my chest.  The one who had plagued me so brutally for the past 9 months was perfect and right there! There was no damage, everything went so fast and well the nurse and doctor were just as shocked as we were! 

They wiped her off on my chest and gave me a good hour of just skin to skin contact between her and I. They didnt weigh her, they didnt do anything just gave us time together.  It was precious and perfect! 

Interesting thing: 

When she was born, she didnt cry. She just looked around.  We were all freaking out about it but the dr and nurse and baby nurse were like its totally fine! When they did take her from me to do all the stuff they do, heel pricks to check her glucose levels since I had gestational diabetes... no scream, not even a whimper.. all her shots, her bath, foot prints through all of it not a peep.. Every time they took her temp or did the glucose test, which was often, she didnt make a sound. 

To date we only have heard her kind of cry twice.  

I prayed for a calm, even keeled, zen like child who would balance out Miss Emily Rose and her fire and spark and God has indeed answered my prayers.  

So in recap.. 

I may have the WORST TIME EVER growing people but I sure can birth them easily and quickly with no trauma.  

I am still in shock over the whole thing.  I was on cloud 9 for the rest of the day! I didnt care about anything because I just had my baby love, Miss Amelia Anne! She was perfect. 

So thats my funny birth story.. at least I think its funny and unbelievable.  

Diary of a Sick Prego Lady- Entry 2

Diary of a sick prego lady: Entry 2

Humbly swallowing a bitter pill 

I am deficient in a wide multitude of things.. The ability too bake... anything... ever, understanding written directions, the desire to care about how or why something works but am happy to just know it does and leave it at that, advanced math.. like fractions, technical talk, controlling my road rage.. you know, the usual things. However there is one thing I am NOT deficient in.  Doing.  I am alllllways busy doing something. ALWAYS. I HAAAAAAAAATE being unproductive and waisting time.  In fact, I have to control my OCD tendencies to not schedule out each minuet of each day. (I am guilty of this and know its unhealthy) Stopping just shy of that, I am usually a well organized and busy person. I write a schedule every day of things I want to accomplish and a game plan of how to most efficiently do my tasks. I LOVE my lists, I love crossing things off my lists even more. I am constantly moving, doing, and being as productive as physically possible. 

Well... for the past 17 weeks, I've been a total waist of space it seems like. There are no itineraries, no meal plans, no cooking, no satisfaction of crossing anything off a list.  There is no list.  I think I am a rock star if I shower. A once  daily ritual is now every other day at best, IF I can bring myself to go through the effort of actually doing it.  Most days, its just too much to ask.   I know I am growing a human blah blah blah.. I don't want to hear it. Spare me. Only true fellow doer's understand.. 

Swallowing my bitter pill is ASKIng for help, Asking for someone to please just watch emily for a hour or two while I take a nap, Asking for help in packing, moving, and unpacking because I just don't have anything in me to do it myself.  We just moved into a new fabulous apartment on Thursday. Under normal cheryl doer rules, I would have set a goal for myself to have 99% of everything unpacked and in its spot by Friday night sunset.  I would have achieved it too.  But no, I still have boxes everywhere, I cant find anything, I unpack 3 boxes and than have to lay down because that was very exhausting.  30-45 minuets later I regain strength to stand back up. As I do my body screams and says "NOOOOO DONT DO IT!!!" but the doer in me pushes through. 3 maybe 4 more boxes if they are small.. and rest again.  I HATE being dependent on others to do things for me that I am perfectly capable of doing myself.  in the past, I would have just suffered through, silently doing what has to be done by my own self imposed deadlines.  But as I slowly grow and mature.. and I do me VERY slowly... I am making changes and trying to humbly swallow my pride and OCD tendencies, and asking for help. Furthermore making myself be okay with accepting and receiving help.

So know, if I do ask you for help in any way, its a HUGE step for me to d so.  It will pain my soul a little each time.  But I hope in the end I will be a much better human for doing so.  I look at my life over the past 17 weeks and feel totally overwhelmed with Tait being gone so much for the rest of the year and next, i cant imagine surviving with a newborn as well as a vibrant 3 year old with out.. HELP... 

I am learning humbleness through my sever bouts of habitually throwing up and lack of energy motivation or effort, by asking for help. 

Diary of a sick prego lady- Entry 1

Diary of a sick prego lady

Entry 1: Throwing up in public and peeing your pants.. 

While it may seem strange to have a first entry while at the beginning of my 2nd trimester, I am sure the entries that follow will show that up until this point, it was not physically possible to journal at all. 

As many of you know by now, pregnancy is beyond NOT kind to me.  While I do not wish my little person a way for a second, I do wish I could magically fast forward to November and get this kid out.. 

I still can not keep most food down with out the help of medication.  Do I like taking it? NOPE.. Can I eat a morsel of bread or drink water and keep it down with out it? NOPE! So for the sake of actually growing my human, I have no choice.  When I was growing Emily, I took this medication until the day I delivered.  As long as I took it, I was okay and could eat enough to grow a happy healthy human.  

This kid on the other hand, I am not so lucky.  Even WITH the medication there is a 50/50 chance that it will be rejected immediately.  

Here is the story of the evening: 

I have been craving a french dip/Philly for dinners.  Its the ONLY thing I want.  I have successfully ate them all week with only one small episode where I thought rejection was going to happen but it did not.  

Well, tonight we went to Sheri's because their french dip has been rocking my world, I ate, I loved, and as I was telling a story about how my nausea med was running out and I called to have it refilled, they told me i had no more refills and so they have to call my dr and blah blah..  in the middle of my story, I felt the twinge I get on my left side half way down my side.  The sign that things are going to probably go poorly very quickly.  

I was on the inside of the booth and practically pushed tait out of my way and ran to the bathroom.  A disgusting 2 stall bathroom where a huge group of girls came in right after me.  Apparently they are on a road trip and hadn't stopped for  awhile.. so I have this huge line of people, in a small bathroom while I proceed to throw up everything I had just ate while at the same time forcefully peeing my pants.  

Wanting to die, embarrassed, humiliated, traumatized, I pull myself together with what little dignity I had left,  and open the door of my stall, and see the faces of several people looking at me, appalled and probably as traumatized as I was.  

I got the keys from tait and sat out in the car while he paid our bill .. 

Why am I sharing this extremely embarrassing story so publicly?  Because, I am miserable, this is not a rare occurrence (which is why i rarely leave the house) and I have to find the humor in this whole ordeal otherwise I might not make it to November. its important to me that my dear friends know exactly what I am going through.  I am not making this stuff up, when I say pregnancy is not kind to me, I really just mean it.  Sadly this is not the most traumatizing thing that has happened thus far, however, it IS the most public one.  Back to being a hermit invalid... 

Again, Public service announcement:

I am not interested in tricks and suggestions here on different things I can do to help things.  I don't want to hear them.   

This is just a story I am sharing because I am a sharer.  

Rumor Control/ Public Service Announcement

Rumor Control: 

Random things have already gotten back to me which are painfully not even close too being true so I thought I'd break my silence from my BLOG and go ahead and put some rumors to rest.. here we go: 

1.  Me not wearing my wedding rings:

This has nothing to do with my marital status, I dont like to wear rings while I am prego because if my hands swell and I cant get my rings off, I have a true panic attack and freak out! Think of those who are claustrophobic, their panic attack in small spaces, is how I feel when I cant get my rings off.. So to prohibit stress in my life.. for 9 mos, you will rarely see me in rings..  

2. Tait and I rarely being at church and rarely at the same time:

Again, has nothing to do with our marital status, No we are not separated, No we are not divorcing, No we dont hate each other and refuse to be in the same building together.  None of these things are true.. Do we have our issues? you bet! but that has ZERO impact on our church attendance.  

Tait goes to china every 2 months for at least 2 weeks.   Brutal.  Based on his depart and return schedule, he might or might not be there. 

Pregnancy is NOT kind to me.  (more on this later) Sometimes I just cant make it, there or anywhere for that matter.  Plus taking care of miss Emily Rose adds to stress and sometimes it just cant happen.  I detest it to my soul missing church. It is the worst thing of all time, I don't enjoy it at all.  But God knows I am not avoiding just because. Please know if I am not at church its because the little person I am growing is sucking the life out of me and I just cant.. 

3. Moving:

Due to a variety of factors which need not be discussed, we have decided to move closer to my mom and my sister for their help both while I am prego and after baby is born.  Especially with Tait's travel schedule both this year and next.  We have put in an application and have been approved at a very nice apartment complex, while we will be losing some things from our current place, the location and my needs ended up winning out.  Our lease is up here May 31st and we will move into our new place early June.  During the gap we will be living with mom and dad.  I know its kind of ridiculous that I have to post this especially our itinerary but .. sadly, this needed to be made public because there is much interest and confusion on the topic.  Why anyone cares so much abut where we live and what time table it will be done on, is FAR beyond me.  But there it is folks.  Our plan.. 

This is really a public service announcement more than a rumor bust.  It's really in EVERYONES best interest that you read this and DO pass it along.. 

4. "You should be over that by now" 

As stated before, Pregnancy is NOT kind to me.  It wasn't with emily.  I had to take medication to keep food down until the day I delivered.  This pregnancy seems to be WAY harder than Emily was.  While I was prego with Emily, people constantly said "you should be over that by now" in a horrified tone.  After a while, I wanted to punch them all in the face.  Sometimes I did threaten it with a harsh warning.  There were two little old ladies in the late 80s / early 90s that constantly harassed me and gave me "treatment advice" while I never warned them off, my fist would tighten every time.  I really dont want to hear it

So do yourself a favor.  Dont say "you should be over that by now" and really, I dont want your remedies that worked like a charm for you.  Good for you.... I am glad that chomping on some ginger root/ eating soda crackers,/sniffing shapries/ doing a cartwheel and than drinking orange tea/putting a dob of chapstick  on your pressure points on your elbow/ hopping up and down on one foot and singing show tunes worked.. FOR YOU..  I am not interested in advice, I am interested in prayers that my kid is safe happy healthy and perfect and that I am well enough to care for Emily.  THATSS what I need to hear.. 

 Feel free to warn as many people as possible and spread this fact #4 all around.  You have my permission.  

Also, if you hear things from anyone, and I mean ANYONE, family included, it might be wise to check with myself or Tait before going and telling anyone else...   If I wanted things to be public, I would make them so, if we are still mulling around ideas, (like we were until 2 days ago about moving)  I probably am not going to say much until a decision is made except to maybe a few close and personal friends who I trust to help bounce some things off of for outsider opinion.  Those people know who they are.  

Just some sound advice all around..