Safety First

I have no ambition to clean or work out... Logan got the second round of his vaccines today. He screamed for 2 hours straight! Poor guy, you can see where his leg is sore.  He's now asleep in his chair... but surprisingly, babies screaming in your ears is exhausting.  I'm going to have to get on the cleaning bandwagon though, The doc told me that now is the time I need to get on the floor and baby proof the house.  I look around on the floor and I think... Good lord... My child is going to be eating a lot of dog toys.

I had a county nurse stop by a few times to check on Logan's weight and etc. She took a look around our house and told me all of the ways he could get hurt. According to her, my house is one big death trap for children.  We would pretty much have to gut our house and redo the whole entire thing to make is safe...   I do not recall my parents or friends parents going to such great lengths... Am I crazy? Maybe the newest generation of parents count on methods that don't involve *watching* you children.  Just sit them in a room with a baby gate and leave...  While I do understand the importance of gates, making sure furniture is strapped down, and cupboard locks...  Do I *really* need to erect a wall over my open stairwell to keep my child from climbing over the couch? How about I just teach him to not climb on the couch.

With Liberty and Cupcakes for ALL!

Going home for the 4th weekend. I love going home.  I love seeing how some things never change, and how some things have changed a lot!  We are going to the fireworks in Columbus (a tradition) and to the farmer's market in Madison on Saturday (a must!). My sister's birthday is on the 7th, so I wish she was near.  3 years ago Andy proposed to me at the fireworks in Columbus. It's strange thinking how much has changed---- from my pants size, to my priorities. HaHa funny story. I will never forget that day. I wore the cutest pink capri terry cloth pants and an adorable shirt with a white hoodie. I knew I was looking messycute.  I had gone out and bought a few outfits for this exact weekend because I had a sneaking suspicion that Andy would pop the question. We went to a friends house that weekend (who will remain unnamed) and they were smoking pot. This persons Mom came out and it was obvious she had a cold.  She sat around the fire with us, and then asked her son to pass her the joint because it would make her feel better. Haha. Madicinal purposes.  Still, it amazed me the trust between the mother and son.  I hope to have that same bond (but hope to keep the illegal substances out of it). I came back to the house later that night only to discover that I had SAT in something that resembled tar.... gross I know.   I had JUST bought these cute pants!  My first thought was to call my mom and ask her how to get the stain out... but after comprising the dialouge in my head, I didn't think the conversation would end well....

"Mom, I have some light pink pants with a black tar stain on them... do you have any suggestions to getting it out?"

"Where were you sittin that you got tar on you?"

"A friends firepit."

"What are they doing with tar near a fire pit?"

"....um......building..... a road.....?"

I obviously didn't have the same bonding trust as the formentioned friend.

Needless to say, the pants got tossed after one wear... ONE WEAR!  Thus me living up to my father's joke.... "Kay, most people wash their cloths, not buy new ones everyday."

So... this year, a little older and a little wiser... I'm going to look before I sit. 

Being a Mother Changes Thigns

I've noticed a few changes that I have gone through since becoming a mom. I decided to write a few of them down while I still remember life B.C. (before child) . Enjoy!

1. My clothes just don't fit. everything is either too big or too small.

2.  When I get a haircut, I say "Anything as long as I can put it in a ponytail."

3.  I make crazy faces for over and hour, just to get him to smile once. I've never been so dedicated to a cause.

4. Smoking has NEVER been SO unattractive.

5. My body tempature has gone up at least 400 degrees, but I'm conviencd my baby isn't warm enough.

6. Everything miniature makes me giggle.

7. Poop is something I could have a 3-4 hour conversation about.

8. If the baby spits up on me, I think about the rest of my schedule and contemplate if it's even worth changing for.

9. Hearing about uncaring/unfit mothers or fathers infuriates me. It's so easy.

10.  Words like "boom boom" and "woogie woogie" have become a part of my everyday vocab.

11. When people ask me what I do in my free time, I laugh at them.

12. I no longer consider my breasts as sexual objects.

13. I decide carefully where and when I need to go out. Not because of the price of gas, but because of the time/luggage it takes.

14. I think, "Whatever, I have birthed a child, I can do what I want." is a ligitiamte reason.

15.  I have a much deeper appriciation for my mother and father

16. I have fallen in love with my husband, but for different reasons.  It's hard not to love someone that plays with babies.

17. I think about all the stupid things I did as a kid and I dread the future because I know it's comming.

18. The idea of grocery shopping by myself excites me and sounds like a luxury.

19. I don't remember what 8 hours of sleep feels like.

20. People stare at you. When you are holding a sleeping baby the coo and smile. When you are holding a fussy baby, they tsk at you because you can't calm them down. And you want to punch them in neck.

Time to be an adult...

I have official entered the second quarter of my life.... the big 26. Closer to 50 than last year... And yes... I do feel different.  Birthdays don't feel as exciting anymore... I was more excited that my constipated son pooped then I was my birthday (seriously.... babies scream a lot when they can't poop.) I asked my dad last year what it felt like to turn 60.  I think his response was, "The same as it felt to turn 50." Perhaps I am entering that phase of my life... where my life is marked by growing milestones then birthdays. Don't get me wrong, I still went to Cold Stone for my free ice cream. It just didn't feel as.... important.  

Andy got me a 1/2 hour whirlpool soak and a 1/2 massage for my birthday. Oh. My. God.  I have never had a professional massage before. I can see why rich people get them weekly. It was a dream. Pay the $20 bucks to go get one... Waaaaaaay better than shoes.

My first Mother's Day was something else. Until now... I never got it. I mean, I understood celebrating Mother's day... but... Mother's totally deserve it. Logan got me a Hello Kitty cordless mouse for my laoptop for Mothers day. He knew just what I wanted!! :)

Anyway.... it's time to grow up. I'm going to go take a nap. After I finish my bowl of cereal for dinner.

The eyes have it.

So I gave birth a month ago. I can’t believe that. It seems like just a few days ago (probably because of the lack of sleep).  I’ve only had one exciting moment so far, although I suspect that raising a child will bring many exciting moments.

My baby shower this weekend went very well. I can’t believe how adorable baby clothes are! So far, the thing I’ve used the most are dishwasher baskets and the diaper genie Claire gave me. (Thanks Claire!)  When I woke up that morning, I noticed Logan had a little crust in his eye. I thought nothing of it and just wiped it away with a cotton ball. At the baby shower, his eye had even more crust in it... all of the mom’s told me not to worry about it and it was just a clogged tear duct. After my shower, my mom and I went to the mall to walk around. I stopped in the bathroom to change Logan, and under the bright lights, I saw his eye was SUPER swollen! He looked like a googly eyed goldfish. I came running out of the bathroom, frantic... "Mom! Mom! Mom! Look at his eye! It’s going to fall out!"

"It’s not going to fall out, it’s just swollen, get a warm compress and put it on his eye." so I did and out of his eye came a small fountain of mucus! I freak out more.

"Settle down, we will take him to urgent care" I some how got the feeling that my mom thought I was being over dramatic.   

I think there are a few moments in life when you are allowed to act irrational. On your graduation day, when you are proposed to, on your wedding day, when you are in labor, and when you take your child to the doctor for the first time.

I zip through Madison to the urgent care before it closes. My mom tries to talk to me about other things, to calm me down... I feel like I can’t get their fast enough and I’m driving like a stunt man for Mission Impossible.  I am the person everyone is flipping off. Yellow lights now mean "hurry up or you won’t make it."

After we get to the clinic and register, we go into the doctor’s office where I have about 5 minutes to explain my entire pregnancy, labor, and Logan’s medical background (granted it’s not that long...) The doctor (who was very nice) comes it and pokes and prods EVERYWHERE except his eye.  He then tells me to hold Logan while he prys open his eye to look at it.  I can’t do it. My mom has to.  It’s then pronounced that Logan has conjunctivitis... better known as pink eye.  I feel like I’ve failed this little guy again. I stay strong while we pick up Andy, go to Walgreen’s for the eye drops, and all the way home.  I get to Andy’s house and I burst into tears. Andy thinks I’m being ridiculous (in a loving way). I’m sure Andy now frets for his son and his first day of school... first sleepover... first girlfriend... college...  Poor Andy has now confirmed he has married an emotional train wreck. Sorry babe. I know it wasn’t in the vows, but smothering my son with love isn’t something I’m willing to compromise on... except maybe at the 4 AM feeding.

Everything you wanted to know about labor (but were too afraid to ask...)

This blog was promised two weeks ago, and I figure I better write about the birthing experience before I forgot about it. I’m just kidding, I’ll never forget it. Ever.

I was 31 weeks along. Andy and I had just picked out the paint colors for the nursery. We would be painting the next weekend. I was just about to put on some shoes to take Butters for a walk that Monday afternoon. My water broke in one of those Hollywood ways... you know, you are standing there and then there is a gush. Luckily I was at home.  I kept asking myself, "wait, is that? did I? I don't even?"  I didn’t know what to do. instinct told me to call my mom.

"Hi, mom... uh... don’t read too deep into this... but how can you tell when your water breaks?"

 She laughed a bit at first, but the realized I was serious and tells me to go to the hospital.  I call Andy and ask him to come and get me

 "Now?" 

"Yes now! What are you doing that’s more important?!"

 He came to get me and in just a few minutes we were at the birthing center.  I told one of the nurses that my water broke and I am only 31 weeks along.  She asked if I was sure. Yeah. Pretty sure. She wanted to know if I had a sample of it she could smell. Umm...gross.  I guess that’s how they can tell if it’s amniotic fluid or just urine.  After a mildly disgusting undie sniff test (seriously, that's the part I can't let go of) they hooked me up to a bunch of machines that track the contractions and the baby’s heart rate. They waited only to discover my water had broken, but labor wasn't happening. I was having no contractions. I was only .5 cm dilated and had not progressed in two hours. It was like he had just popped the bubble and was sitting there.  They told me they had 24 hours to get the baby out before infections become and issue. However, they were going to have to prolong the labor as much as they could, because his lungs were not fully developed yet. They really needed to push the 24 hours mark as long as they could. They gave me an IV drug to start contractions.  Since the baby was so early, they gave me a steroid shot to help the baby’s lungs develop AND an IV antibiotic for infection because they didn’t get a chance to test for strep (something they test for at 37 weeks).  So about a dozen pokes and stabs later, the IV is in and the drugs are started.   My OB makes a short visit and informs me that she probably won't deliver the baby and it will be the OB on call. A total stranger.  She prescribes an Ambian to help me fall asleep. Thank God.

The next morning I wake up feeling no closer to delivering then I did the day before.  Nurses walked in and out all day, checking monitors and my vitals.  It was mostly boring day. I felt ridiculous even lying in bed when I felt fine. I got for a walk a few times, and they have already placed an incubator unit outside my door. I instantly hated it and felt like I had failed my son, and a machine was going to have to finish what I started. 
Dinner time came and I remember really looking forward to a chef salad with a chocolate shake (hello? still pregnant) The nurse brought in the food and said, "Sorry. The doctor ordered no more food, but the cafeteria already made it, so this is for your husband."  Andy got a really happy look on his face that was quickly wiped off from the look on mine. We had a laugh about it while he was eating it, but I'm sure he could feel the heat from my burning eyes.   Finally I start to feel contraction that are slightly painful.  About every 5 minutes I had to stop the conversations and do some deep breathing.  Each time my mom asks me "Are you having a contraction?"  Finally I snapped at her,

"If I’m breathing hard and I stop talking it’s PROBABLY a contraction!"  I feel bad about it now...

Okay so fast forward... they give me a drug to help take the edge off the contractions.  Turns out it takes the edge off everything, even what you are talking about.  I go slightly crazy and begin discussing how you never see Fozi bear anymore and how expensive chicken nuggets are.  The next thing I know, there is a nurse in the room giving me oxygen and I’m slipping in and out of consciousness. The cord had slipped around the baby's neck, but he had managed to free himself.  Whoa.
While I'm half spacing out on drugs and oxygen, the NICU doctor decides to introduce himself. I could only half understand what he was saying, but I remember thinking he seemed nice and he only said my baby would be small. Maybe 2 or 3 pounds. It wasn't until later I learned that he pulled my husband aside and said, "I don't think your wife understands how serious this is. The baby will not be breathing, there can be brain damage and infections, ruptured intestines... We can't know until the baby is born." My sweet husband decided that was information I didn't need to hear in my delusional state.

Now, when someone checks your cervix, it’s a real shock.  I’m sure that most of you do not know this but when a doctor checks your cervix to see how dilated you are they basically shove their entire hand up inside you. Imagine! a complete stranger fisting you! I know! You didn’t see that one coming! Very Very painful. And they check it every freaking hour! I swear! My birthing book really sugar coated that one. 

I kept nodding off and the extra oxygen is relaxing me, I think... hey, I can do this...  I fall asleep again...

At 12:30 in the morning I wake up in a ton of pain and some nurses starting to prep my room. Somehow they know it was time before I did.  The bed comes apart in pieces and no longer resembles a bed, but the scary stirrup seat that you are all aware of.  A giant lamp comes out of the ceiling and the Light of God is shining on your vagina.  At this point, I ask the nurse for an epidural. I’m ready for it and I’m in a ton of pain.  She tells me it’s too late.  I have to do it WITHOUT DRUGS.  Crap.  Now the pain is incredible. The worst pain I have ever felt in my life. I am crying, throwing up, and begging the doctors and nurses for anything... a Tylenol... something!  The doctors and nurses avoid my eye contact. I bet they have been in this situation before.

Because he was early, there were more people in my delivery room than normal. At one point, I believe I saw about ten people in the room, Andy being the only one that I recognized.  They tell me it’s time to start pushing. No. I don’t want to. It’s gonna hurt. But I started anyway.  TLC's "The Baby Story" did NOT get it right. I must have watched that show a hundred times and the mother's are always so ready and prepared and happy. But giving birth it the only time in your life when 10 strangers will watch you pee yourself, puke, crap yourself, scream bloody murder, and bleed all over everything.

I did a good job not yelling at Andy or saying anything like "You did this to me!" Instead, I just asked that he stop breathing on me.  It was 1:30 in the morning and his breath didn’t smell that great.
As far as what it looked like... sorry kids, I couldn’t tell you. I had my eyes shut almost the entire time.  At one point, the doctor told me that "He has hair!" 
"I don’t give a shit if he has hair right now." I imagined that I looked something like the girl in the exorcist movie.

36 hours of labor and 15 minutes of pushing later, out came a beautiful bundle of baby boy. They threw him on my chest long enough for me to say "Oh My God" before they whisked him away. Almost everyone (including my husband) left the room. Just the OB and a nurse stayed behind to stitch me up.  I had the foresight to request extra stitches if needed. I just barely recall the nurse joking with the OB and asking if she was "sewing a quilt".  I passed out from the pain.  Whirls of colors happened around me, and more pokes and pricks everywhere on my body. Information was given to me, but I’ll be damned if I can remember any of it. 

Someone woke me up two hours later and told me they needed to work out some of the blood in your uterus.  A nurse then begins beating you on the stomach and kneading you like bread dough... ALSO something that was not in my baby books. Then they make you pee.  I didn't want anything else coming out of there. No, I don't want to go!  I got up and stumbled to the bathroom, my center of gravity wasn't the same. She gave me some instructions on how to care for the tear that they stitched up. She then tells me that I have to eat and shower before I can go into the NICU. I realized that is the first time someone had mentioned him to me. No one even told me how much he weighed or what time he was born.  Andy came in to help me get ready for a shower. He doesn't say much about the baby, he gets teary eyed and says there are a lot of tube hooked up to him right now.  I let the hot water rush all over my body and I thought to myself... why the hell did I get pregnant? I am never doing that again. That was the worst experience of my entire life. I have never been in so much pain before.  I feel like I need to defend this statement. I was 7 months along when I went into labor. I was not ready. I was not at the point that I wanted him out. I hardly got to see the baby before they took him away. In my hormonal and irrational mind, I was still pregnant and there was no baby yet.


Showered, cleaned and fed, I am now allowed to see my baby.  I walk to the NICU and see this little guy with tubes taped everywhere. I start to cry a little. I feel like I failed him again and I instantly can’t believe how selfish I am.  In that instant, all of the pain I just went through feels like nothing, and totally worth it.  I am a mom. This little guy needs me more than anyone has ever needed me before.  I will be a mother for the rest of my life. Wow.


I finally see my original OB and NICU doctor again.  They have very happy news. My son was 5 pounds 6 ounces when he was born. His lungs were viable after 24 of ventilation, and while he had bad jaundice, that was all they could see.  Everything about my son was small but perfect. My OB joked that it was a small blessing he was early, because he probably would have been a 13 pound baby by my due date!!!  I had already been in the hospital 3 days. I had to stay 2 more days per state mandated standards, and Logan needed to stay yet another week.  I turned to my husband and asked, "So... ready to go paint that baby room?"

quick update post birth

Sorry for not updating. My brain is mush at the moment due to not getting more than 3 hours of sleep at a time. I will give you a short update. My boobs are sore, my stitches are sore, my eyes are dry.... Logan is good, doc appointment today. He came home on monday, but with a biliblanket, so hopefully that will go today. He hates bathtime and getting his diaper changed.  He startles when he hears the diaper wipe box close, but doesn’t flinch when the dog barks and howls. He was weighed yesterday and is now 5lbs. 4 oz. so he lost a little. His premie pants are too big for him and look like MC Hammer pants. Diapers are expensive and it’s frustrating/funny when you change him then HEAR him poop as soon as you lie him down.  Laundry has trippled, I don’t know how.  I constantly feel like I need to entertain him, but all he can do is sleep right now. I panic whenever he moves. ???? I don’t know why. :) Oh... and I love him so much, all I want to do is stare at him.