A Birth Story of a Different Variety

I have read so many wonderful birth stories lately and for a few weeks now I have been pondering how best to put mine into words. Mine are so very different from the kind I have been reading about and somehow don't seem like they belong in that same collection of stories! But in the end, I think I've come to the conclusion that as a mom, its important to write the story - not only to pass it on to your child, but to once again relive those moments. And as a child, one day, it will be so precious to have that story, no matter what flavor it was. I also feel like its important to share because, lets face it, not everyone ends up getting the water birth they dream about after seeing it on A Baby Story. I always figured it would be me, but in the end, I didn't have that choice. I think its wise to go into the situation with the understanding that only God knows your birth story - you may have your birth plan mapped out, but that baby is going to come how he or she is going to come... I learned that first hand (more than once!)... now on to the story..

Our first pregnancy was a surprise in itself. About 2 months into our marriage, I went into the doctor for something somewhat routine and somehow ended up finding out that there was some sort of anomaly with my female organs (they didn't know quite what at the time) and we were told that we would not be able to get pregnant and if we did by chance get pregnant, we would not carry the baby to viability. Huh. Imagine that in a new marriage!

Fast forward four years and we had just moved to Rochester, MN and begun looking into the reproductive issues to see what kind of trouble/process it would actually be for us to try to get pregnant.... and wouldn't you know?! There we are - pregnant! What?! We were followed obnoxiously closely by the high risk perinatologist team at Mayo (and I am so thankful we were - ultrasounds almost weekly!).  At our first ultrasound at 8 weeks, they gathered a team of about 9 people in the room and Steve was blushing SO hard as they did both kinds of ultrasounds and checked everything out - everyone in awe of the lady with weird parts and no one knowing just what to do with me. The doctor restricted me from any exercise and said we needed to get to 17 weeks and then go from there. Our next goal was 24 weeks... All of these milestones came and went! I had a book of ultrasound pictures to show for it ;) In the end, their team debated as to whether or not they should let me try to deliver vaginally or not - they weren't sure if it was possible due to my anatomy. Well, Josiah answered that question and showed up breech at 34 weeks. Because he was in a half-sized uterus, the doctor said it was too risky (and too painful) to try to rotate him, so he scheduled the c-section for 39 weeks.

The morning of the operation I was bouncing off the walls, and a bit fiesty (I was so hungry!). We were scheduled for 8am, but they had 2 emergency sections come first, so we didn't get in until 1pm. Hungrier yet! We hadn't decided on a name yet and the debate continued. Its a big deal, naming a person! They brought me in to give me the spinal and I couldn't understand why Steve couldn't come with. Why is that? But I didn't know to ask. (I learned after this round!) This spinal was the worst thing! The site numbing shot took NINE tries. NINE!! If you've had one before, you may know, but that is so awfull! Then the spinal kicks in and its totally fine, but still! I was squeezing that poor nurses hand right off. I cannot focus on curving my back "just right" so that it doesn't hit the wrong spot, and holding still while you continue to poke me! It would be much wiser to allow the husband in, dear nurse! Then the legs go numb and the world is happy again. They laid me down, got my upper half some warm blankets and thats all I really cared about :)

They brought Steve in, all decked out in his scrubs and cameras. They sliced open the belly, said I might feel some pulling but I didn't feel a thing. Then they warned us that the baby would be out in a minute - so we said "quick, what is his name going to be?!" and Steve said "Josiah?" and I said "sure" (we had a list of three) and out he came, peeing everywhere. They showed him to me over the "keep you from puking everywhere" curtain and then Steve vanished for quite some time. I chatted with the lovely nurse who had forgiven me for squeezing so hard. Steve came back after a bit and gave me the measurements and left again, returning a few minutes later with Josiah in hand and I got to hold him and kiss his red face. Pure Bliss.

Little did I know I was swelling up like a balloon! Pictures from the recovery area and from that day in my room show me with 20 pounds I didn't have from the moments before the operation. Clearly I took those IV fluids in or something! YIKES. SO I don't display those at home! But I was up and walking that afternoon, and enjoying every minute with this new, peaceful little bundle. Steve changed his first poopy diaper and wanted to video tape it! Those are the moments you want to remember. We sent Josiah to the hospital nursery that night knowing that it would be our last night of sleep for years to come. We talked about that nursery bill for a few years after that ;) Because I recovered so quickly, they sent us home a day early - and we both were so nervous, that they were allowing us to go home with this new baby. A little life we were now responsible for?! All they gave us were a few papers as a means of an instruction manual?! Somehow, we all survived :)

I have often said that I am glad I had a c-section, and I think that is really the truth. I don't know that I would have elected one, but perhaps for me it was good that I needed one? ;) I felt no pain - while I have a pretty high pain tolerance, I was able to be totally relaxed, laughing, chatting up Steve and the staff, etc. Another reason it worked well for me is that I recover well from surgeries - I was able to be up and moving that same day, which of course aided the recovery. I was able to cut my LOA short when I ended up going stir crazy, etc.. Had I been able to exercise during the pregnancy, I probably would have bounced back into my jeans better too ;) But truthfully, knowing I was not a candidate for the water birth I wanted, I don't think I would have wanted it any other way. I don't mind going through life not experiencing 48 hours of labor, not experiencing my water breaking, etc. I'm SO happy and thrilled for my lovely ladies that get to experience all of that!!! But I am content to live vicariously through all of you ;)

Library Books, Babies, Parking Tickets...

And updates on this blog! Things that are long overdue. I cannot believe it has taken me a month to get a post up. Actually, I can. The past month has been a blur. My head is foggy and my speech has literally started to slur a little. Meh. Lets get this party started! First, let me note that it is 10:00pm. I am watching a commercial for the cremation society and there is a group discussing what they are going to do with their savings over dinner with jazzy music in the background. One is vacationing in Hawaii. They are all just a little TOO excited to be saving this much money by choosing cremation. Creepy. I haven't been up this late in a while. This is my disclaimer, you have been warned - back to business.

Delia: Delia is six months now and is 18lbs 8oz. No joke. She is 88% for weight but is slowly catching up for height... I think it was closer to 20% now. Her head is off the chart still, just like her brother. She is a big girl! She is so happy though, shoving anything and everything in her mouth, babbling like crazy, and winding her body around like the hands of a clock. She is starting to sit up on her own, but not really into rolling yet (its a lot to roll!). She is eating like crazy now! She started off with cereal pretty tentatively, but once I gave her actual veggies, she just loved it! She has tried all kinds of things now and seems to love all of them. Her current obsessions are food, fists, and really anything in her mouth!

Eden: Eden is 18 months now and 22lbs. She is 10% for weight - she made the chart :) She is ridiculously smart - we just continue to be in awe of how smart she is! She loves to read I Spy books. She will point at items on one page and find them on the opposite page with no help. She is walking everywhere, getting into everything and thinks she runs the show. When daddy is home, she probably does :) She has become much more interested in her little sister and likes to sit by her and "play with her" now which is fun to watch. Her stubbornness and attitude is still very present. She still isn't talking so we continue to work with a speech therapist... Her current obsessions: Socks (she finds socks anywhere and will hold on to them for an entire day!), books and blankets (will walk/trip around the house with one for long periods of time).

Josiah: Just turned 5! Crazy! He is in 90% for height and weight! The doctor looked at him yesterday and said he must just be pure muscle because as much as he weighs there is no fat on him! Crazy. We had his teacher conferences tonight and she was so impressed with his sight words. He is reading his Spiderman books and he is just so proud! I am ready for more variety, but I can't complain ;) He just finished swimming lessons and got bumped up a level - he has become quite a fish in the water, which is so fun. We are definitely eager for spring to get him outside to burn off more of his crazy energy :) His current obsessions: Trains! Legos! Trains! Legos! Trains!

We sold our house as of today!! Praise God for that! It is such a sad thing - or mixed feelings I suppose would be a better way to say it. Our first house, and we LOVED that house. But its also such a bummer to give up something you really had such feelings for in a housing market such as this one :( In the end, we are selling the house for less than what it is worth. The sale price is more than what we owe, thankfully, but with fees and closing costs, we won't come out ahead by any means - and it just stinks that we have to end our time with this cherished home on a sour note. I think thats what it is that is making it hard..

We are moving this week! Our cousins have been completely renovating a house in Fergus Falls and we've been helping with the finishing touches and will be moving in and renting from them. SOO excited to finally be able to move in and have a space to ourselves and get settled! I think it will be great for the kids - Josiah in particular - to have that as well.  Anyways, there are a million reasons why it will be wonderful to be settling in. We plan on renting for about a year I think... we'll see what God has in store ;)

Also - medical update! I have switched medicines and I have not had a crazy headache episode for about a month or so now! I am able to drive again! Praise God for that! It has some odd side effects, but so far, the trade off seems to be worth it. Thank you all so much for your prayers!

Steve is still loving his job. He enjoys the commute for the most part, though it makes for longer days on the homefront. We'll rent for this year and see what we think about the commute after that - then decide if we want to live a little closer to his job...

The internet is crazy slow tonight out here, so I will have to try adding pictures tomorrow - sorry! And wow. Its almost eleven now. I can't believe my eyes are still open ;)

I get by with a little help from my friends...

Somehow even being laid up doesn't equal any down time, so I am just now finding time to get to this little note about my wonderful weekend with my lovely ladies. Miss K and Miss S, you are incredible friends. Thank you so much for being such blessings in my life - and exactly what I needed in this season.

Is this creepy or what?

Okay, so I flew out of the big 'ol Hector International Airport on Friday. Why do they call it that, by the way? You cannot fly international from Fargo unless you are going to Winnipeg. The name is quite a reach, a bit pretentious to say the least. Walking through security was quite a riot. After passing through, the "guard" came around to the two people in front of me. He pointed to their suitcases, told them where their liquids were and said to make sure they remove them next time. Is there any other airport in the world that would let you walk through with anything liquid hiding out? I've been called out for lipgloss before - and that was in a purse which they then took out and personally inspected. They didn't even open these suitcases. SO I'm feeling pretty safe... My mom got me there in the beginnings of a snowstorm - I was so paranoid that this weekend of respite was going to be cancelled by stupid snow. I got to MSP and my connecting flight just in time. My husband was coming home connecting in MSP to fargo and got turned back to Sioux Falls. He ended up on a cot in the airport. I was much more fortunate ;)
I got my first dose of culture from the driver on the way to Miss K's house. We jammed out to Spanish radio with random bursts of "Single Ladies" while he tried to tell me all kinds of things I couldn't understand. He got me to the right place though, and I only briefly held on to the handles in fear ;) And waiting for me was this lovely girl:

Love this girl.

We went to this great Italian place for dinner that night. Lots of catching up and excellent food. We got into pajamas and began a weekend of crime show marathons. I've recently become addicted to crime shows after we came to live with my parents. Now I can't get enough! So this was perfect. Other than making sure Steve got on/off his plane, I turned off all communication. Silence was so great, and just what I needed.

The convertible we dreamed of....

The next day we slept in. My version included waking up multiple times thinking I should be hearing babies wanting to be picked up, but still. It was bliss. I eventually got up and lounged with a book. A BOOK! Loved it. Then we headed in to "town". I kept calling it town which she laughed at every time. We walked. A LOT. I kept thinking about how much Josiah would love all that we were doing. The subway. The Taxi. The bus! He would be overjoyed.

On the Little People bus.

Me with Spiderman's bum in the background.

What does this have to do with cancer??

We saw all of the main attractions, which I'd seen before but it was fun to not be there just to be a tourist. We went to this amazing Mexican restaurant called the Lime Jungle. It reminded me of a Chipotle, only a bigger menu and I must say, the food was much better! We passed the Chipotle on the way there and I was so tempted to get a burrito since I no longer have easy access to those - so glad I walked those ten extra blocks! We went to all of the necessary shops including Anthropologie (YIKES, a new addiction?!?!). We went to FAO and happened to show up at the BIG piano just in time for a show. Did you know that they perform shows on this thing? It was incredible. And these kids get paid to jump around on this piano all day. Nice. Again, I walked around thinking about how Josiah would be drooling through the whole store. And then to ToysRUs - another Josiah paradise. We just had to ride the ferris wheel - it was worth the wait in line surrounded by all the little kids. I must admit I was slightly annoyed that the girl in front of us got the Barbie Convertible though! We were stuck with the Little People school bus. It was worth it though....until the ride never ended. They switched operators in the middle of our ride and I am pretty sure they forgot about us. We were on this thing FOREVER. Every time we would come down we kept saying "this must be us" and then it wasn't. We started to get a little freaked out after ten minutes on this thing! Eventually they let us off and we then went to get some very important pictures for my boys. Bigger than life Chewbacca made of legos, and real-life Spiderman and Ironman. Turns out the real-life guys won't let you take their pictures for free, so we walked away a few feet and K set up a shot with them in the background. Good enough for me.
In Times Square we found all kinds of  'culture'. See the picture of the guy in florescent underwear? There were three of them, one was some kind of leader. They were out in freezing cold weather acting like they were shooting some sort of exercise video? He kept hollering about how "ya'll were feeling that burn" and telling some mysterious audience how to stretch it out. They had two little guys (clothed, luckily) with signs about how cancer affects so many millions every year. I am not making light of cancer, by any means... but what in the world does this scenario have to do with cancer?
We walked not even 100 feet when we were stopped by this lovely gentlemen who gave us this great offer: "Ladies, how about we get drunk and make bad some bad decisions?". So tempting - HA! If only I would have busted out the camera for a pose with this guy. Next time.
We got some cheesecake from Juniors - famous for a reason. It was delicious. And then, THEN we went to see Mary Poppins on Broadway. I had never been to a Broadway show, and of course my girl Friday knows where to get great tickets for great prices, so we ended up in the 12th row! I had goosebumps when Mary Poppins flew off over our heads with her umbrella. It was AMAZING! I still get giddy just thinking about it. I can't wait to see another show. Or see that one again. Either way I am hooked. All in all, it was an incredible day.

Hello cupcakes. Love at first bite.

The next day we went to SoHo. Random place for lunch which we made fun of the rest of the day. Then we started our cupcake tour. Those little pieces of heaven are everywhere these days and it was just necessary that we would taste test them all and compare. Our favorites were this little cart on some random street "Cafe Angelique's" where this fairy godmother handed us scrumptious bites of the moistest cupcakes ever - Red Velvet and Chocolate Cannoli. Second place was this incredible french toast cupcake - not nearly as moist but such a good idea for a cupcake! I'm pretty sure my little town needs a cupcake cart. It would make the world smile. We tried 4 places in all. (Because you have to make sure your sample size is large enough or your test results aren't really valid).

Peanut Butter Cup(cake). Not our overall winner, but delicious.

We then went to Old Navy. I know, I felt a little lame asking about Old Navy being surrounded by such great stores. But I knew they were having this amazing sale, so she humored me. AND we ended up getting these great pea coats for $10!! We found a few fabulous CHEAP things there, so it was worth it. And then we went back into the city to hit up all of the stores from the day before. Well, not really, but for some reason I am the kind of person that loves something in a store and talks myself out of it... only to be haunted by it all night and then drag everyone back the next day because I should have just bought it in the first place. Oh man. This pitcher at Anthropologie was just beautiful and I had birthday money so it wasn't even like I was paying for it ;) And then we hit up the Lego store for a treat for Josiah and Steve and then another cupcake store (HA!) and got treats there for the girls. We left fairly early and got pizza and pajamas (we had our box of dessert samplings from the cupcake store!). Miss S arrived shortly after and we spent the evening catching up in between bad jokes on the Golden Globes. It was so great. These are ladies I can just be lazy with and go months without seeing (unfortunately) but feel like it was just yesterday. And these are ladies that can make me LAUGH. This weekend was just such a God-thing. He knew exactly what I needed in this moment and provided for me. Yum.

Lunch. Mmmm.

The next day we got a great lunch and went to get mani/pedi's at this little mini-spa. It was great - even though by this point by foot was in so much pain I was fighting tears with every step. Boo. We got our hands and toes all pretty and it was great. I can't remember the last time I painted my nails. I haven't painted my toes since before Delia was born. It just feels so nice to be 'pampered' and also just to have these perfect purple nails for a day (managed to get my first chip that night racing for the plane! boo). We then found our final cupcake shop on our way back to K's house to get our stuff. ;)

Self portraits on the subway.

We were WAY late leaving for the airport...and then we got lost... We are two very smart individuals. We were looking at all of the signs and following a GPS. I swear there wasn't a sign! I got to LaGuardia after the plane had already started loading. Oh crap. I had initially asked for assistance (ie wheelchair), but she looked at my ticket and said we wouldn't make it unless we ran. So run we did. She pushed me to the front of the line for security, and luckily I wasn't checking any bags. And then we ran to the gate (her running, me hopping and cursing every time my toe hit down). I was the last person to board and off we went. Phew! (Although I don't think I would have minded missing that flight - staying a little longer would have been fine)...
Planes were delayed on the way home, and then there was yet another snow event, so I didn't get home until about 2am. I was so very happy to see those 3 smiley faces the next morning, but I couldn't help but think about how loud it was! And so chaotic! Clearly, I need these getaways more often. You come home to your family - and I'm not cold-hearted, of course I missed them - and life just hits you in the face instantly. Wouldn't it be great if there was a recovery room? Like after surgery you get to warm up to facing reality with heated blankets and ice chips? Sometimes I wish I had a room like that in my house.
I can't wait to go back ;)