Seeing Him Through Her.

As my precious baby girl is passed out in her swing, I am sitting here reflecting on the last few days.  We all look forward to the weekends, me included.  Friday night rolled around and Jon got home from a 9 hour work day.  I was really looking forward to spending a few hours together as a family and then putting Makena to bed, enjoying a glass of wine with my husband and getting some sleep.  Well, God had other plans for us that night....

9 pm rolled around and we had just given Makena a bath, snuggled her up in her pj's, and given her her big bottle for the night.  All was going according to plan.  After she ate, she started dozing.  In the short time she's been around, we've learned that once shes asleep, she stays asleep.  Tonight, however, she wasn't asleep for more than a few minutes when she woke up screaming.  We raced to go get her and tried to console her, but no luck.  She kept arching her little back and crying.  We aren't talking the whiny, tired cry.  This was the ouch, i'm in serious pain cry.  It was clear that her reflux was full throttle and she kept choking on her swallowed milk, which I'm sure burned her throat.  Her face would turn bright red and she would choke and gasp for air.  It was terrifying. 

This continued for hours.  We did everything to try and make her comfortable.  Rocked her, bounced her on the exercise ball (her drug, ALWAYS works), held her upright, etc.  Nothing was working.  She would finally get so exhausted that she could fall asleep in Jon's arms, but then would wake up screaming 10-20 minutes later.  By midnight we figured she was probably hungry again, and every time we would try and feed her, she would try and eat but would be forced to stop after a few minutes because of the reflux.  It broke my heart. Both of our hearts.

This is one of those times where the devil weaves right in and tries to break you down.  We were so defeated and emotionally and physically drained that Jon and I started to turn on each other.  We promised to always be a team and never let a baby hurt our marriage before she got here, but in this moment we broke the rules.  Looking back, I see God so clearly in this situation.  As Christians, we are to love our husband first and our children second.  This way, your kids grow up seeing a solid, loving marriage and you two can be an example of what marriage is intended to be.  If Makena would have calmed down and gone to sleep at this point, Jon and I would have gone to bed angry with each other. 

Well, she didn't go to sleep.  She kept crying, gasping, choking and hurting.  By 3am I broke down.  I don't do well on no sleep, and after 6 hours of hearing her cry I couldn't take it anymore.  I literally fell on my knees bawling and begging God for help.  Isn't it funny how we seek Him in the tough moments? 

By this time, Jon and I got over our frustrations and came back together as a team.  We realized this may be more serious than we think so we called the doctor.  We explained the situation and because of her gasping and choking, the on-call doctor said we might want to head to the ER.  We packed the bag but decided to wait just a little longer.  Her breathing calmed down so we decided to stay awake and just watch her for a while.  She FINALLY fell into a deep sleep and seemed fully relaxed and pain-free. 

I slept on one couch, Jon on the other.  We both slept with one eye and ear open while Makena was right in between us in her bassinet.  She slept until 9am, ate, and went back to bed until noon.  She clearly was feeling a million times better and we were thankful we all survived this horrible episode. 

The point of this story isn't that Makena has reflux.  The point is that God taught Jon and I a huge lesson.  We need to stick together as a team, as a married couple, and as parents.  If she didn't experience this episode, we would have gone to bed angry.  Something we aren't okay doing. 

All day Saturday my anxiety was out of control.  Even though Makena was fine, I dreaded the night time in fear of history repeating itself.  I prayed all day that God would know how much I can handle and begged for our daughter to sleep.  Bedtime consisted of Jon and I singing her Christian songs as she fell asleep, praying for our family and reading devotionals together.  In these quiet times as a couple, my anxiety vanished.  I realized that I need to Let Go and Let God.  I try to control everything and I've finally realized I can't do that.  I rely fully on Him and am learning that "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength". 

Guess what?  Makena slept from 10pm-6am, ate, and fell back asleep until 10am.  We all woke up feeling refreshed, physically and spiritually.  Jon and I watched our church service online and have been enjoying the rest of the day since.  I'm so glad that God is using my daughter to draw me closer to Him.  Being a mom is the most amazing thing I've ever experienced, but its also the hardest.  Again I feel so blessed to have Jon as my team mate.  I couldn't do it without him.  And we couldn't do it without HIM. 

Baby girl Sunday morning after a full, painless night :)

One Month Check-Up

Beware: This post contains LOTS of poop talk.

Well, it’s been a month since Makena has graced this world with her presence, and I can officially say that I suck at updating this blog.  Granted, figuring out how to be a (good) mommy is a full time job.  To sum up the last month there have been lots of smiles, tears and poops.  Makena has been busy too ;)

We went in for her one-month check-up today and we learned a lot.  First off,  she weighs 10 pounds, 5 oz and is in the 80^th percentile for weight. Lol! That’s our girl!  She is 21.2 inches long and in the 50^th percentile and her head size is in the 30^th percentile.  Which makes me laugh because the OB’s kept convincing me she had a big dome and I may not be able to give birth naturally because of it!  Overall her health is GREAT and she is gaining weight like a champ.

Since day one we have had a hard time with baby girl when it comes to feeding.  At first it was because she is SUPER lazy.  I was determined to breast-feed her but she had other plans.  Luckily, without going into too much detail, I am still able to bottle-feed her my milk.  It’s hard having to pump every 3 hours but overall I’m just happy to have her on the booby milk!  That hurdle was overcome, but then I started noticing that she was having some green poops and discomfort that didn’t seem normal.  I watched it for about a week and took a mental note of what I was eating.  I cut out garlic, onions, tomatoes and other acidic foods.  That didn’t help.  I started thinking that maybe she just had gas problems because she sucks at burping.  But why the green poop? (Stay with me people…) I decided to cut out all questionable foods, including all dairy.  Long story short, her poop returned to the normal color but was not the right consistency and she was still in a ton of pain and had horrible gas problems.  Many tears (from both me and her) and long days later, I found out today that she is allergic to the protein in cow’s milk.  EFF.  This means, that best case scenario, I cut out ALL dairy the whole time I breastfeed.  If she still has blood in her poop next month, I have to stop breastfeeding all together and switch to a non-dairy formula.  Sad face.  The doctor said most babies outgrow this allergy between 9-12 months and others not until age 3-5.  Most of the time its not an allergy they live with their whole life.  Goodbye to all of my favorite foods. Hello to a skinny bod again? Grrrrr, gotta find the silver lining.

Oh! Also, I’m selling 42 ounces of breast milk on Craigslist if anyone is interested.  JOKE.  But for those moms who value the worth of “liquid gold”, it is heart breaking to have to throw so much precious frozen milk away. Sad day.

Other than this feeding issue, Makena is SUCH a blessing and truly and amazing baby.  She brings so much joy to our lives and I can’t imagine life without her now.  Jon is the best dad anyone could ever ask for.  If only she knew how lucky she was to have two parents that love her more than anything.  I fall deeper in love with my husband everyday as I watch him care for and love his daughter.  I am so lucky.

What DID I use to talk about?? 

I Finally Did It. Makena's (EXTREMELY Long) Birth Story :)

Let me start by saying this.  This story is EXTREMELY long, probably overly-detailed, and might be a little TMI.  But to be honest, I didn’t write this to share with the world.  I wrote it so that I could look back one day and remember every single moment of this experience.  Giving birth is the most surreal experience a woman could go through, and let’s face it, I have a crappy memory.  When I got pregnant I realized I asked my mom millions of questions about her experience.  I just want to make sure when Makena is pregnant with her own one day, I can answer all her questions and have this story for her to read over herself. 

I’m sad that I did such a bad job of updating my blog in the last few weeks of being pregnant.  The truth is, I avoided writing much because I was so miserable and I knew that all I would end up doing is complaining.  The days seemed forever long, Jon was working like crazy, and my gigantic belly totally wore me down mentally, physically and emotionally.  Ultimately I’m thankful she came when she did, because her birth weight (heavy girl!) is paying off now when it comes to sleeping long hours and her strength (girl is strong! Especially her neck muscles).  

Alright, that’s enough of an intro.  Remember, I warned you…

Tuesday, February 21, 2012-

8:15am- I wake up, and my first thought was, “Dangit! I’m still pregnant!”.  Ok, to be honest, this was my first thought waking up for the whole last week.  I rolled over to try and go back to sleep when I realized I was experiencing some cramps in my lower stomach that mildly radiated around to my back.  I figured I was just making up the feeling so I ignored it and it eventually went away.  Ten minutes later the feeling starts up again! Rather than tell Jon or my mom, I texted Kim.  I figured if I spoke the word “labor” out loud, I would jinx myself.  I explained to her what was going on and she informed me this was exactly how her labor started.  Ok, now I’m getting excited!  I laid there for another hour and started timing these cramps and noticed they were consistently 8-10 minutes apart and slowwwwwwwly getting a little stronger.  I got up and told my mom and Jon about what I was feeling.  Luckily I had my 40 week appointment that day at 10:30am so I decided to shower and get ready for that.

10:30am- I show up at the doctor for my appointment, still feeling regular, mild contractions.  My doctor informed me a few weeks ago that she would be out of town from the 20-25 which was a huge bummer.  Being that today was the 21^st, I knew I would be seen by a different OB.  Dr. Pitcher was supposed to be the one to check me.  I did the usual pee test, stripped down and waited.  A few minutes later the nurse comes in and tells me that Dr. Pitcher just had to run over to the hospital for an emergency C-section and then she asked me if I could either wait 45 minutes or re-schedule.  Haha!  I sort of laughed and said, “well I’m almost 40 weeks pregnant and having regular contractions and I’m pretty sure I’m in labor so I don’t think I’m gonna be able to reschedule”.  The nurse goes, “Oh! Ok! Let me see if Dr. Street will come check you”.  I wait some more and Dr. Street comes in.  She checks me and lets me know that I am 1cm dilated and 90% effaced.  She tried to strip some of my membranes to get the process going (ouch!) and told me that she’s pretty sure I’m in pre-labor and that I’ll be coming back later on that day.  WOO HOO!! This is finally it!

Noon- We got home around noon and I immediately started walking around the house.  I told Jon that its probably gonna be a long night so he might want to try and take a nap.  He decided he would rather get one more gym session in and then take a nap if there was time.  At this point my contractions were coming every 5-6 minutes.  They told me to call the doctors office when they were 4-5 minutes apart for an hour.  I decided to enjoy a light lunch before going in, knowing that once I got to the hospital I wouldn’t be able to eat anymore. 

2:00pm- Jon had been at the gym for about 30 minutes when I texted him saying my contractions were now 4-5 minutes apart for over an hour.  I told him to finish his workout but he insisted on coming home and heading to the hospital.  He showered and we walked a lap around the neighborhood when I realized it was definitely time to call.  The nurse on the phone didn’t seem to have any sense of urgency when I told her about being 1 cm dilated and having contractions 4-5 minutes apart but when I mentioned being 90% effaced she quickly told me to head to labor and delivery.  We load up the car, say bye to Kona and head to the hospital.  The thing about my contractions was that by 2pm (6 hours into labor) they were coming on really strong, especially for only being 1 cm dilated.  I was convinced I would be 4-5 cm by the time they checked me at the hospital…

Torpedo Belly. 7 hours into labor in the waiting room.

 3:30pm- Wrong.  Still 1 freaking cm.  It took a good hour or more to get checked in, registered and into a room once we arrived at the hospital.  I put on my sweet gown and started doing laps around the labor floor.  I was starting to not be able to talk through each contraction and would have to stop and lean on Jon.  I swear they were coming every 3 minutes or less and just kept getting stronger and more painful.  

Hospital trip round one.

   

5:15pm-I head back to my room with less and less smiling going on now and the nurse comes back to check my progress.  You’ve got to be kidding me.  I’m still only 1 cm dilated!  I felt completely defeated.  If I’m in this much pain and I’m only 1cm, I’m going to DIE before I get this baby out of me.  Now for the extremely sucky part.  They aren’t allowed to admit you into the hospital until you are at least 3 cm, so they told me they were sending me HOME.  I started crying for a number of reasons.  First, I was in so much pain.  Second, I’ve never done this before.  If I’m in this much pain and they are sending me home, how am I supposed to know when to come back? What if I’m too late??  The nurse tells me she will give me a shot to numb the pain and told me to go home and take a nap.  Ok, no.  She gives me the shot and not only did it do NOTHING for the pain, but it made me feel all drugged out and dizzy.  Now I’m a wasted, half-coherent pregnant lady in labor. 

6:00pm- We get home and I try and take this so called nap the dumb nurse tells me to take.  I lay down on the couch but the contractions were not letting up.  Jon asked me if I wanted dinner before we go back to the hospital.  I was sort of hungry so I sent him to Panera for my last meal.  Mom was getting a few laps in around the neighborhood so I tried to stay distracted by watching tv.  At this point I started feeling like they were coming every minute or two and only getting worse.  Jon gets back and I started eating my food that smelled and looked so delicious, but I was in too much pain to get any of it down.

7:20- I remember this part clearly: Wheel of Fortune was on the tv and through my blurry vision and non-stop contractions I solved one of the puzzles.  Jon and my mom started CRACKING up.   Not more than a few minutes later though, nothing was funny anymore.  I’m convinced I started having a panic attack.  To me, in my semi-delerious state, my contractions were now one on top of the other and I had no breaks.  I started freaking out because I was sure that I was too far into labor to be at home still, but then the other part of me feared that I would get to the hospital and they would send me home again.  I felt completely helpless. 

7:40pm- This part was blurry.  Apparently Jon got on the phone and called Dr. Street.  Basically she tells us its time to come in.

I somehow manage to get up and stumble to the car, fearing the bumps and FOREVER long drive to the hospital (it was 10 minutes away...).  I later come to find out that my neighbor who lives about 5 houses down saw me and told the other neighbors he saw me and assumed I was in labor as we got into the car.  Lol, what gave it away?  Was it the yelling through the pain or the tears? Embarrassing.  The whole way there I kept saying, "I don't care if anyone thinks I'm a failure, when we get there I AM GETTING THE DRUGS!!!"

8:00pm- We get to the hospital and they take me to Triage this time.  Sort of humiliating because the FIRST time we went to the hospital, we skipped this step and went directly to a labor room.  Now its like they didn't believe that I was actually having a baby so I had to go to Triage to get checked.  I felt like I was in this damn room for 12 hours.  My mom had to go sit in the waiting room and Jon was with me.  The nurse finally came and checked me and I was at 3cm.  Thank GOD, at least they aren't sending me home!!  But only 3 cms? Really?  You'd think they would take me right to a room but no, I sat in this tiny room for almost 2 more hours before any sweet drugs were in my sight!  The main thing I remember was Jon constantly saying, "Breathe babe! Just relax through the contractions, you'll dilate faster".  Excuse my language, but....bullshit!  You lay here on this table and experience these non-stop INSANE contractions and tell me you can RELAX!!  I finally respond with, "Breathing does SHIT!".  That was my big outburst at him, he thought it was hilarious.  He stopped encouraging me to breathe after that.  All I kept saying after this was, "Where is the epidural? Why aren't they coming? Where is he?".

10:00pm- I'm now in a labor room and have an IV hooked up and fetal heart rate monitor following Makena's beats. But STILL no epidural. Is this some sick joke?  I'm literally about to die.  I know, you're thinking I'm just being overly dramatic but I swear to you this was not your normal labor.  Those people that tell you they didn't know they were in labor and then they find out they are like 6cm? Either they are lying or I was just very unlucky!  The pain never let up. By this time I was now at 5cm dilated.
Thirty minutes later God himself walked into that room in the form of a tall Asian man.  He was in no hurry.  Those anesthesiologists think they have so much control! And they do. They really, really do.  He got me ready and told me I had to sit completely still through my contraction if I wanted him to do it right.  HOLY OUCH.  The prick of the needle was not fun but it was way worse having to stay totally still through a contraction while he poked me.  At first I only felt relief on one side so they laid me on my opposite side.  AND THEN....all was right in the world.  My legs slowly started numbing and the contractions became lighter and lighter until I could almost completely feel nothing.  I have to admit, losing control from your waist down is not something I enjoyed, but I'm already saying now that I plan on doing it again with the next baby.  My legs were dead weight and I needed the nurse to physically pick them up if I wanted to change positions.   Now I could finally relax and just wait.

Wednesday, February 22

12:00am-By this point I have started dilating 1cm per hour and am at 7cm, and I continued this way until I hit almost 10cm at 3:00am.  I spent those 5 hours trying to get some sleep (didn't happen, how can I sleep when I'm about to meet my baby?) and resting.  Jon and my mom relaxed as well and we enjoyed some nice mellow music that Jon put together before we got to the hospital.

3:00am- Dr. Street comes in to check me and she informs me that I am almost fully dilated.  I figured I was close because I was starting to feel some pressure in my butt area (hey, I warned you).  I stopped pressing the magic button on the epidural about 30 minutes earlier so that it would start to wear off and I could feel some of the sensations and desire to push.  She told me to give her a practice push and then we would go from there.  I put my game face on and gave it a go.  She was very impressed with my pushing and my simple response was, "thanks, I'm a really good pooper", and that was that.  We planned on it just being Jon and I in the room when it came time to pushing, but we talked about it and Jon invited my mom to stay and be a part of the experience.  It meant so much to me and I know it meant the world to my mom.  Jon grabbed one leg, a nurse grabbed the other, and my mom supported my neck as I started my first real push.  The doctor counted to ten (which really took her like 15 seconds...she counted SO slow!) and I took a deep breath and did that two more times per contraction.  I put everything I had into each push, and when I felt like I was pushing my hardest, I pushed just a little bit harder.  Everyone was shocked at how great I was doing and that motivated me so much.  About 2 more pushes and her head was coming out.  The doctor asked if I wanted to feel, but I was too determined to get her out to stop.  I did, however, agree to having a mirror so I could see it all.  Some people think this is gross but until you try it, don't knock it!  Being able to see your progress in the form of a human being coming out of you is pure motivation. 

3:31am-Another push and her head was out, one more and here comes the rest of her body.  The relief I felt once her shoulders were out was insane! I let out a quiet scream and just started bawling, overwhelmed with love and happiness.  I'm in tears as I write this because I still remember that feeling so clearly.  Nothing I can ever fully explain in words.   They held her up and I got to soak her cuteness in for a second, she was perfect.  Jon cut the cord and they took her over to get weighed and cleaned off right away.  She weighed 9 lbs 8 oz and was 20 inches long.  They swaddled her and brought her over to me.  I remember her being so calm and peaceful as she just stared up at me, looking me right in my eyes like she knew who I was.  I touched her little hand and her fingers curled around mine and she just held on tight.  We bonded so much in that moment.  For the next few minutes Jon and I just sat and embraced our baby and our new life.  I wish I could say the pain of labor was immediately erased from my mind once she was in my arms, but it didn’t really work that way.  Especially when the doctor is kneading your poor uterus like dough….ouch! I can say that she was worth every second of it though, and I would do it again in a second.

moment captured!!

It's been a crazy month of learning how to live this new life but I wouldn't have it any other way.  I would write about all the details over the last 4 weeks but lets face it...I don't have the time just yet!  Just check out my billions of pictures on Facebook, they tell the story. 

Congratulations, you made it to the end! I hope to be better about updating from here on out :)