Birth Story: part 1

Week of waiting

   I love hearing birth stories, so I thought I'd share mine.  The birth of my baby didn't go as planned, but I still think it was a good experience of labor and birth.  Most importantly, I'm just happy to have a healthy baby, and that we're both doing well.  I'm splitting up the story because I like details and the story is lengthy-- like my almost 17-hour long labor and delivery.

  The week leading up to Ty's birth was very emotional for me; first of all, I was saddened by the loss of my grandfather who died on June 1.  We had learned he had stomach cancer shortly after I found out that I was pregnant, and my grandpa tried to fight it this entire time to stay alive to meet his first great-grandson.  Unfortunately, he didn't meet him here on earth or see pictures of him after he was born, but I do feel fortunate that I was able to get another ultrasound picture of Ty when I was 39 weeks along to send to my grandfather.   But I like to think that they did meet in that small window of time.

  The other reason I was so emotional the week leading up to the birth of Ty is because I was SO bummed (super grouchy and anxious pregnant lady) that I wasn't going into labor spontaneously and within the necessary time frame that midwives and doctors see best.  I walked like crazy every day to help me prepare for this baby and all that jazz just to try to get things going.  I really wanted to have a natural childbirth experience.  Friends of mine suggested that I talk to the baby to help persuade him to come out.  One of them also suggested that this baby was like his dad and that he was just chillin' in the womb.  Ha!  I think that sounds like Greg.  But then again, both of Ty's parents were two weeks overdue...

  On Wednesday, June 3, I had an ultrasound to make sure the baby was doing well.  And I can't tell you how frustrating it was to do this ultrasound because I really wanted to have the baby in my arms at this point.  Everything looked well, and baby was still healthy.  My midwife called later that day to make a plan.  We'd go into triage on Friday, June 5, to have a non-stress done and plan for induction for June 6.  Again, I hoped for a natural childbirth experience.

   On Friday morning, I hung out in triage after a very restless night. I was tired, and triage was so boring: two hours hooked up to monitors in a scary hospital room (so many scars on the wall and such).  I really wish I had brought a book with me or took a nap (seriously, the one time I don't bring a book with me?!). The plus side of this experience is that we learned that Ty was still doing well in the womb--just chillin' out.  We decided to use Cervidil-- a cervix ripening tampon--when we learned that I was only dilated to 1 cm at the top of the cervix.  So off I went home feeling crampy--thanks to Cervidil--, grouchy, and anxious.  Greg took a nap and I tried to relax and distract myself in the basement with The Three Musketeers.  I was just frustrated with my body because it wasn't doing what it should be doing.  At one point, I decided that I needed to get out of the house, so I went on a walk with my neighbor to the library to return a book.

  I experienced unpleasant cramps that whole afternoon, and by the time I went walking I had had a few contractions that I needed to stop for on my walk.  When I got home, I noticed things changed quickly.  Apparently, Cervidil can also help one go into labor.  So as I'm messaging family members on Facebook, "If I don't go into labor tonight, I'm going to be induced sometime tomorrow,"  I was having contractions that I need to breath through about every five minutes, and I started to get uncomfortable.  I'm not sure at what point I decided to curl up in a ball in bed, but soon after I went to bed Greg had to ask me, "Do we need to call the midwife now?" After we spoke to the  midwife (and I enjoyed a lovely contraction while speaking with her), Greg gave me a blessing of comfort, and we headed out the door.

   Around 8 p.m. or about three hours after I went into active labor, we went to the hospital to be reassessed in triage.  I don't think my body does well with pain because I have never trembled so much before in my life.  My arms were shaking so badly that I felt like I had Tourette syndrome (my arms shook throughout my entire labor which was really annoying quite frankly).  As we walked up to the hospital, another woman in labor was approaching with her husband.  I felt so embarrassed because my moans of pain were quite loud while she was still able to just breath deeply through her contractions.  Those hypnobabies techniques that I sporadically practiced just went out the window...  
  So once we learned I was dilated to 4 cm, we waited for my midwife in the family waiting area and tried to watch The Big Bang Theory. After we waited for her to arrive, we then had to wait for a room. I was so ready to have privacy to go through labor especially since I was noisy in going through pressure waves. Around 11:00 p.m., my midwife broke my waters which alleviated some pressure during contractions. Shortly after that, I was hooked up to an IV and started on oxytocin since my contractions still weren't strong enough. I never thought an IV could cause that much pain, but it did. The nurse had to make her second attempt at inserting the IV into my hand. Apparently the IV insertion caused A LOT of bleeding, and Greg intentionally covered my eyes so I wouldn't faint or whatever. He even got a picture...

My midwife placing my hospital ID band on me.  Unfortunately, since I had to be induced and subsequently had a transfer of care, she couldn't deliver my baby.

The IV from hell. You can't see any blood, but I went home with dried blood on parts of my hand.

 At this point, I was thoroughly exhausted, and being tethered to a pole didn't help me out with the whole natural labor idea. I wanted to take a bath, but I was tired and so were my companions. I tried to sleep in between contractions, but that was difficult. I thought if the baby was born soon, I could manage, but not having adequate sleep to push the baby out was a concern. So around 1 a.m., I took the plunge and got an epidural.  The anesthesiologist had to play "bad cop" with me. He asked if I wanted to go through with the epidural and I said "I guess." "It's a yes or no question, Suzannah." I swallowed my pride and got the epidural. I ended up getting 1 1/2 hrs of sleep while my mother-in-law and husband slept most of the night which made me super jealous (snoring through the whole night, guys!).
    So I did get to experience labor for like seven hours without medication--although I'm pretty sure Cervidil made things a bit more intense for me sooner than expected... As my midwife said to me, "You have to play the cards you are dealt, and sometimes you get a crappy hand." Well, trembling like crazy and hooked up to Oxytocin at 10 days late in my pregnancy, I think I played my best.  Ya know, whatever happens, happens.  

Part two of this story will highlight the rest of my labor and delivery as well as my recovery.

 

41 weeks

The inquires are getting a little old now and it makes me feel like there is something wrong with me; yes, I'm still pregnant and I'll be 41 weeks pregnant tomorrow.  I don't want to call anybody any more because I'm tired of inquires.

The sympathy "ah you'll be done any time soon" and "first babies are generally late" is getting super annoying.

If I haven't mentioned anything to you about having a baby it's because I haven't had a baby yet.  Don't worry; I'll say something soon to those who want to know so badly via phone, email, or facebook.

Please just leave me alone now.

Thanks,

The on-the-verge-of-tears pregnant lady

39 Weeks

   This last weekend I had my baby shower!  I had a lovely group of friends who supported me, and attended my "Little Boy Blue" themed shower.  The party was darling.  My wonderful host took some pictures of me (at 38 weeks pregnant) after the shower, too. Here are a few photos:

Oh man, I feel so heavy in front sometimes!  I don't feel like I have enough space to contain my baby boy!  

I don't feel that my belly is THAT big until I look at this picture.  Change of perspective! 

I was reading a journal entry from when I was twenty weeks pregnant, and I thought it was funny that I wrote that I sometimes feel pregnant, but I don't always feel pregnant... Well, at 39 weeks, I definitely feel pregnant.

     I had written on the topic of my being overwhelmed with the idea of becoming a parent on Facebook several days ago, and I deleted that post soon after because I didn't purposely seek out confirmation that I would be a good parent, which was nice and very supportive, but rather, I just wanted my feelings to be understood/heard (ya know, all that teenage stuff we never grow out of).  I wanted to relate to others, not get a pat on the back so to speak. Becoming a parent is a huge step in life, and it feels overwhelming sometimes to make that change and have that change within a moment.  I guess this change I could best relate it to is the day I got married.  

   I had an idea of what I was getting into when I got married-- share my life with someone I loved, but I didn't know how much it would change me.  I didn't know how hard it would be to bare my soul to someone, but how relieving it would feel to do so especially to someone who feels the same way about me that I do about him.  I didn't know that I could be so frustrated with my husband at one minute, but then have the deepest feelings of love towards him the next minute.  I didn't know how good it would feel to be comfortable in silence with someone else.  I feel so blessed to have had these last five--almost six years--of marriage to learn and grow with Greg.  I can't imagine "growing up" with anyone else.  And I am glad for the chance to really get acquainted with myself and with Greg even though waiting to become a mother was difficult for me.

   I know motherhood is a new way to really learn about yourself, and will give you more opportunity to grow.  I just don't know how I will grow or react to new situations, and I guess that is the scary part.  But having the opportunity to watch and learn from so many wonderful mothers out there gives me hope.  I find myself excited to see myself grow and stretch into a *hopefully* better person, and I find myself ready to watch and learn how my husband grows, too.            

   So anyway, I'm sorry for the confusion at my writing the other day, and again, I truly do appreciate your support and love... I just felt slightly embarrassed by all of the attention.  

  

  Also, I wanted to include a picture of Greg from five years ago exactly.  Here he is playing Star Craft in a labor and delivery room while our good friend was in the early stages of active labor...  You gotta show your support the best way you can, right??  And Greg was kind enough to play some songs by Jack Johnson on his laptop for our friend while he was playing games with the father-to-be... I'm sure Greg will be very supportive of me while I'm in labor. 

  

38 Weeks

Huzzah!  I'm full-term now.  What a relief that I've been able to make it this far.

  I feel like my body has physically changed so much more the past couple of weeks which makes me so grateful that I have started maternity leave.  My belly is so much bigger now; I mean, I look down and all I see is my belly.  I've been sleeping well even though I now go to the bathroom 2- 3 times a night, and I am finding it more difficult to get comfortable because my pubic bone hurts so much after lying on either of my sides for a while.  I've never been a fan of sleeping on my tummy, but I just want to sleep in a different, comfortable position, and I feel so jealous that Greg can do it with ease.

  My questions of late are: when did I start drooling in my sleep and how do/did women lie on their back for several hours while they are/were in labor?!  I don't drool all the time or anything, but I've woken up occasionally with my pillow wet with drool...it feels embarrassing, but then I'm happy to know that I slept so well.  (And I'm not trying to be rude about the second question, but just from my experience of pregnancy lying on my back doesn't feel great for long.  'Course most positions don't feel great for very long...)

  Cravings: Cashew clusters from Costco, grilled cheese, watermelon, and A&W cheeseburgers.  So I guess the craving trend has pretty much been protein and fruit.  I had told a friend of mine that I really wanted some cashew clusters, and she was such a dear that she got some for me a couple of weeks ago!  I feel so loved!  The other day I had a severe headache, and all I wanted to eat was food from A&W because it sounded so good at 5 a.m. and I felt so much better the last time I had a migraine.  The last time I had a migraine, I got so hungry at one point that I asked Greg to make lunch, and he got us burgers and fries from A&W that were manna from heaven (and fortunately I felt a billion times better at this point that I didn't throw them up).

   Mothers' day this year was such a tease.  I kind of hated it.  I wasn't trying to think about myself, but I couldn't help but do so especially since I couldn't get in touch with certain people on mothers' day.  Here am I a couple of weeks away from my due date, and I don't have a baby to hold in my arms.  It just made me frustrated and more anxious to meet this little guy.    

  Lately, I've just started to prepare for this little guy a bit more.  I have my hospital bag half-way packed, I'm working on a couple of projects, I'm reading as much as I can (1/3 of the way through The Three Musketeers), and I'm attempting to keep the house clean/organized.  The other thing I want to do is make freezer meals or at least cook a bunch of meats, prep beans, etc. for meals after the baby arrives.  I just need the motivation to do it...   
 
 

Chores and personal progress

   Doing personal progress as a leader is such a different experience than doing personal progress as a youth.  As a leader, you generally have a lot of life experience at this point, and you have already done things that personal progress helps you to do like improve talents and such.  If you have been a member for most of your life, you likely have already read The Book of Mormon or received a patriarchal blessing.  I didn't realize that personal progress has many goals of giving young women some life skills like learning how to budget, prepare meals, etc.  But even as an adult, I know that I have opportunities to improve my skill set with personal progress as a motivator.  So my value project for choice and accountability is to learn how to manage my household better.  At the end of each value project, the program asks you to record your thoughts on the experience as a whole, so I thought I'd share my experience here, since blogging or writing is another talent I would like to improve (killing two birds with one stone).    

   I know that managing a household is an umbrella of responsibilities, but I've been specifically working on regularly cleaning my house and for a way to make my life easier.  After dealing with morning sickness and fatigue for a few months, I realized that I had a difficult time regularly cleaning my house because of the way I cleaned it wasn't very efficient since I would try to fit all of the cleaning within a couple of days every couple weeks or so, but since I no longer have the energy to do that being pregnant and having a larger home to clean, I knew that I needed to change my routine.
    So I looked for ways to simplify the chores around the house, and I found that--believe it or not--that a chore chart was the best solution.  I guess each person has their own approach to doing the chores around their house because I found a number of ideas on cleaning house regularly.  But I decided after looking through some of the chore charts that my approach was to fit certain chores within a week, and not a particular day.  Since daily schedules can sometimes be hectic within themselves, I thought it would be best to manage my time weekly based off of my weekly schedule.   So I would look at my schedule for the week, and then fill in which chores I'd do on certain days.  Since I have been in my third trimester of pregnancy, splitting up all the chores over the week has rather than doing them all on one day in the week (which can be done if necessary) has been so helpful to completing them.  

   Chore Chart:

Daily:

Dishes

Clean up kitchen counters

Clear Clutter

2-3 times a week:

One load of laundry

Sweep floors

Recycling

Odd weeks of the month:

Clean bathrooms, wash bedding/towels, wipe down windows

Even weeks of the month:

Clean the floors (vacuum, sweep/mop), dust

Once a month:

Wipe down furniture and cabinets—Week 1

Microwave and fridge—Week 2

Wipe down walls, doors, and baseboards—Week 3

Clean rugs and upholstery—Week 4

    I implemented this chart mid-February, and I have to say that I haven't been as faithful to this chart as I thought I would be, but I have been SO much better about regularly cleaning certain areas of my house like the bathrooms or floors and I'll find myself saying, "Well, I have some time, so I'll clean microwave today or I'll dust this part of the house that noticed that needs it."  I definitely feel more accomplished in this part of managing my household especially since I know the last time I cleaned a certain area of my house!  (At some point, I hope to be so good about cleaning up, that I'll have a clean kitchen at the end of the night including counters being wiped down and dishes washed, but we'll get there some day...)

  

  I know that cleaning house regularly sounds like a silly accomplishment, but I love feeling more organized and just able to relax a bit more since sometimes clutter can make me antsy or unable to focus.  I also love that I am following the Lord's counsel.  I know the Lord is speaking specifically about a temple in the following scripture, but in some respects, we can model our homes after the temple:  

  "Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God (Doctrine and Covenants 88:119)."

  I like to think that I am trying to make myself a house of order (which includes a clean house) so that I can devote myself--and not feel stressed-- to having a house of learning, for instance.  I also have tried to change my attitude towards cleaning so that instead of saying, "I need to get this done," I'll try to say, "I'd like to do this, so that I can focus on doing this project."    

   We'll see how this chore chart works after I have a baby!  This chore chart gives me some hope that I can learn how to split up my duties around the house so much better now for the future.  I recognize that cleaning isn't at the top of our priorities all the time, but I recognize that I can always adjust my approach to managing my house.         

  

Week 35

  I love that Greg and I are have a baby in the spring!  It feels kind of perfect to be in harmony with nature.

  I think I am pretty much ready to have this baby.  Okay, I'm just ready to be done being pregnant now.  I am excited to meet this boy, and I'm almost at a point where I just don't want to experience any more symptoms of pregnancy.  Sure, I'll take them in stride, but I just want my body to be normal again.  The one thing I have enjoyed throughout this pregnancy is feeling the baby move.  That has to be the best part about being pregnant.  But even then I hate that panicky feeling that I sometimes get when I haven't felt the baby move in a while--which, fortunately, doesn't happen very often.  Sometimes I'll be around Greg when I tell the baby he needs to move for me, and Greg will tease and say, "Your mom always wakes me up, too."  And when the baby pokes back at me really hard, Greg will say that I "deserve" it because I keep 'poking' and rubbing at the baby.  (Greg: "How would you like someone to rub your face all the time?" Proceeds to rub my face.  "Do you like it?" "I mostly rub his backside and his bum since those are the parts that are most accessible since he's head down!")  But it's definitely the worst when I'm alone attempting to feel the baby move, and I am trying to recall the last time I felt the baby move.

  Cravings: I'm not sure.  Cheese?  Peanut butter?  Bananas? All I have wanted is to eat things that I haven't been eating regularly lately, so I've been trying to switch up our menu a bit by incorporating new recipes into our menu.  Greg didn't enjoy tuna casserole as much as I did which has bummed me out.  (But it'll be a recipe I'll keep around for when he goes to conferences, etc.)  I got so tired of pancakes for breakfast that I started eating oatmeal.  Guys...oatmeal...at least I found a decent recipe here which I did change up a bit.  I attempted to make meatball subs on homemade Artisan bread which was good over all, but they turned out like Sloppy Joe's because everything kept falling out!  Kudos to sandwich artists out there.

  We are still stuck on names at this point.  I think we will be those parents who send in the baby's name a few weeks after they are born.  Picking out names when I was 14 years old was so much easier; I mean I came up with like 8 names that I liked--not that I necessarily wanted 8 kids!  Of course, they were either classic, old-fashioned names like Francis or Eleanor or they were non-English names like Nikolai or Natasha. (I had just read War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and my mom had just learned we had Russian ancestors while doing genealogy. OK?)  As a teenager, I loved gleaning from other cultures (and I still love that idea).
   Greg and I had a couple of names in mind, and once we found out the gender of the baby, I told Greg what I thought his name should be, and Greg was on board with my idea.  However, not everyone in our family has the same opinion towards this name which has stressed me out.  I know I can't please everyone, so I just decided names are something we're keeping between ourselves from now on until the paperwork is filled out.  I know that whatever name we end up choosing will be because we, the parents-to-be, like the name and this is our child.  For now Lucky, Chewbacca, and Lehi are the names we are sharing.
 ; )

  On a happier note, the baby's room is coming together slowly.  I kept the same paper decorations I originally had in there because I love how the colors brighten the room.  I love this blue-green chair we found at a garage sale last summer.  The dresser with the blue drawers also fits this room so well!

I just stuffed pretty much everything in the closet!  So two bins full of clothes that don't fit in the dresser, blankets/sleepers, stroller, car seat, bathtub, play mat, and baby carrier.

So many toys!  I don't have bins for them yet, so I just left them on the bouncer chair.  (You can see Greg's red 20-sided die that he had hanging in a rear-view mirror has been demoted to baby toy. Haha! We're raising a nerd...) 

Last of all, a picture of my belly.  I never feel really pregnant until I see the side view of myself in the mirror...     

Hopefully only five more weeks to go! 

Rant: proper terminology

 I find myself frustrated that women don't use the proper terms for their own genitalia.  Va-jay-jay??  Come on.

 The other day, I was reading an article about the five milestones in pregnancy that women don't often speak of.  One of the milestones is the point where you can no longer see your crotch or as the author of the article called it: the 'va-jay-jay'.  I have also noticed lately women using this term or similar terms in articles or blog posts quite a bit, and it bothers me.  First of all, what's wrong with using proper terminology and actually naming your body parts correctly?  Are women that uncomfortable with their bodies that they can't use proper terminology?  Second of all, the external female genitalia is collectively known as the vulva, not the vagina (which I believe the va-jay-jay is the slang for).  I've never been able to see my vagina without using a mirror and even then I can't even see the entirety of it.

 I realize that male and female genitalia have numerous slang terms, but when pointing out our own body parts, shouldn't we use the correct term for it?  Shouldn't we be able to name that particular part correctly, too?