Winds of Change

It's been a while.  Through seas of depression, and school and work, I haven't had time to visit this little place in some time.  I have missed it.  I think that I am finally in a place where I can come here again and be honest.  There is much change happening in my life.

First, I am getting divorced.  Yes, there I've said it.  I still can't say my husband's name without getting nauseous or making a face.  He cheated.  Over a year ago.  I found out in September and still tried to make it work.  I really meant it when I said my vows.  Well, mistrust won out, and here I sit.  I moved out in early March.  In with my parents, then out again at the end of the month.  As a nurse, at least I can afford my own place, even if it's a bit excessive :).

The cheating wasn't the only thing.  He demanded that I do all of the housework.  He always had some reason that he couldn't help.  School was too demanding, and then work.  I had thought things would change when we were out of school.  how wrong I was.

and yet this is all ok.  I am glad I went through it, as it was a very humbling experience.  I have my Rowan, whom I wouldn't trade for the world.  I have a new appreciation for life now.  I feel like before, I was very superficial, very shallow.  Now I know that the shallow life is not a good way to live.  I want love in my life again, and should it be, more children.

In the last few weeks, I have connected with someone in a way that I didn't know was possible.  Yes, over the past four years, we have always had a connection.  Yes, I would see pictures of him and wonder why I couldn't have someone like him in my life, or why Kyle couldn't be more like him.  Well, Kyle has been removed from my life, luckily at a time when James and I can be together.  There is no more wondering, no more "what if" it just is. Now that I have let him in, I've fallen in love quickly and easily, the way things should be.

Life is moving forward.  There is no looking back.

Cleansing

In preparation for Dos, I have made a decision.  I want to cleanse my body of the toxins that have built up in it.  I know it's full of them, I haven't exactly been eating the healthiest lately.  I even had fast food *bows head in shame* last week.  It was an act of sheer desperation.  I needed to be rid of the headache I had, and I thought it was a lack of food and caffeine causing it.  I still don't know what it was, I haven't been in that much pain since I was pregnant with Rowan.  The past few days, I've been thinking that I need to get all of the crap out of my life.  I haven't been doing a lot of caffeine.  Usually my first night at work is the worst, and then I may or may not drink it the rest of the week.  My sleep schedule is lacking.    My food intake is horrible.  Working nights has done much to destroy my appetite.  When I do eat, it's garbage, usually saltines or graham crackers.  Then I come home, eat a bowl of cereal and go to bed.  This has to stop.  I've known about the Beachbody Ultimate Reset since around December.  It only recently became available.  I didn't really think about doing the Reset until we started talking about Dos, and me getting pregnant this summer.

We are going to Seattle this week, which means that my eating will become worse, at least for dinner.  We'll be packing breakfast and lunch out of our hotel room to save time and money.  Good thing that Ft. Lewis is close to our hotel.  Should be fun to see my old stomping ground!  My goal is to return from Seattle, and participate in the challenge group that my coach, Heather, is setting up for the reset.  This will put me finishing the Reset on June 6th, one week before our official first try.  Perfect timing, I say.

I've recently become a Beachbody Coach, so if you want more information on the Cleanse, or any of the workout programs, you can find me here

It's been a while

it's been a while since I've been here.  I feel like time is passing me by like a whirlwind, and there isn't anything I can do to stop it.  I've been very emotional over the past couple of weeks.  We have so many plans for the next year that it is hard to stomach them all.

My IUD is coming out May 24th.  We want to have our kids close together, so that is the day.  It should put them right around 2 years apart.  For some reason tonight, I can't stop flashing back to pregnancy, those first days home with Rowan, and everything that happened with them.  I can't help but wonder what went wrong.  I feel like I'm stuck sitting back watching my, and his, lives go by.  I'm constantly tired, I'm on a list waiting to be on day shift, but I don't know how long it will be.  A small hospital with a low turnover rate, and I feel stuck.   I feel like something snapped between pregnancy and having Rowan, and something did.  I set myself up for PPD, and had to fight tooth and nail to keep my head above the water in both school and motherhood.  I don't want that to happen again.  I want to be able to take my 6 weeks off without having to worry about finding a job, foreclosing on that shitty little house, and moving with a 3 month old, which was the ultimate off switch to my not so functional breasts.  What will I do differently?  Honestly, I don't think much.  I want to go natural again, although there is a part of me that would like the epidural.  I liked being up right away, and I still never want a catheter.  No thanks, not for me.  The other question is that of breastfeeding.  Do I want to try that road again?  It was hard.  I didn't produce enough.  I ended up in the hospital with a jaundiced, dehydrated baby.  No one helped me.  Not until I was in that hospital did I finally meet a lactation consultant who was willing to give me some advice.  I thought birth centers were supposed to be all granola with that shit.  I had no help.  I do think I want to try again.  I need to get over my aversion to breastfeeding and pumping in public.  Either that or never see the light of day.  I will also go over to the hospital to take some breastfeeding classes.  I know that the breastfeeding issue started me on the slippery slope that was PPD/PPA.  I'm starting to think that with #2, it might be a good idea to keep the bassinet in our room for a while...For my sanity, but we'll see.  I'm having a lot of fears and flashbacks right now, and I'm not even pregnant yet.  Hopefully it will be as quick and easy as last time, but hopefully this time it's just a tidbit easier.

Walking

Well, apparently my little buddy has to stay ahead of the power curve.  This weekend, he really got a handle on walking, and now he does it all of the time.  It's pretty cute to watch.  He just amazes me more and more every day.  I love what he has brought to my life.

9 months

I can't believe it has been that long. My little peanut is so big now. A lot has happened since my last post. I finished nursing school, passed my licensure, and finally started working in October. Life has not slowed down one bit. I am enrolled in my bachelor's degree program, and have knocked out two classes with a 4.0. I just can't believe so much time has passed since this:
 On the way to my follow up appointment
 Here are some photo moments of the last 9 months.Puppy love


 Touchdown! First immersed bath, in a towel that doesn't fit anymore!
 Me and my cuddle buddy
 Holding his head up to look at me
 I miss this face!
 Meeting a puppy for the first time, they are the same age
 Tummy time!
 My happy, outdoor, morning baby!
 Drool monkey on our first Flagstaff trip:
 I really wonder what he was thinking
 More puppy love!
 Itty bitty puppy love!
 First plane trip!
 First watermelon, which led to first infant heimlich Juggling suitcases and baby got to be too much.
 He loves him some water
I love this smile
 My boys in the lake
 Happy after-bath spikey-head
His reaction to refried beans was priceless
Love puppy attack!
 "Will ya let me in already?!"
 Peek a boo, Mommy can't move!
 First time in a swing
 I can't catch the cat!
Daddy enjoys messing with me. He didn't want me bumping my head.
 First Halloween
 Best buds
 Hasn't figured out how to get out of the box And finally, the dancing baby

Oh, how the time flies!

I can't believe my little guy is 5 months old. It seems like just yesterday my water broke. That little 7 lb 4 oz baby has doubled his birth weight. He is figuring out his toys. He just loves his jumperoo. He hasn't wanted to stay on his back in almost a month. If you put him down on his back, he rolls over in less than 5 seconds. This kid is growin! He's very interested in his environment and learning to interact with it.


Oh yes, and this kid loves to eat!

There are no words....

Turning Point

This weekend marks a turning point in my life. I will be starting my preceptorship and winding down nursing school. I have about a month and a half before RN appears behind my name. My preceptorship will take place in a labor and delivery triage unit. I will be helping to tell people whether or not they are in labor. It should be fun! I have applied for a position in this unit. That is the hard part. Will I find a job? Two of my classmates are lucky and have positions, but they have worked hard in their respective hospitals to get those positions. All I can do is hope that the light shines out of my ass enough during my preceptorship that they hire me.

Some Updated Booger Pics!

Smiling

Boob Face


Lifting his head


Sleeping on Mommy


The crib Daddy is building

Relief

I just got the call. Kyle got into Eller College of Business at the University of Arizona. We weren't sure if he was going to, and were coming up with a contingency plan that involved moving to God knows where. The big deal is, this is the #1 public school for his program in this country. We were concerned that if he didn't get in, we were going to have to pay Ivy League tuition to get him into a comparable school. We also would have likely had to move to the east coast. This, however, does not have to happen. We get to stay here, in my own personal hell for two more years, and I am actually relieved.

Next time

Yes, after having a kid, there will definitely be a next time. In fact, having him solidified the fact that I not only want one, but two more. There are a few other things that I've learned from that experience as well.

1. I will hire a doula. There are a few things that I think having one would've helped with.
2. No medications, at all! The one I tried made me dumb and sick. Didn't do anything for the pain.
3. NO VISITORS!! At least not right away again. There is absolutely no way to get to know your infant, establish breastfeeding, and get any rest with visitors around. As much as they want to help, the best thing they can do is drop off food and LEAVE.

If you dismiss what I say, I will probably do the same with any advice you give. I have the biggest F-U for all of the people who said Rowan would end up sleeping with us. We put him in his bed to sleep. If he fusses, it usually only lasts a few minutes before he is asleep. He usually spends this time vocalizing to make his objections known. Not crying, just yelling. Dismissing someone else's ideas because they didn't work for you is pretty shitty. Especially when they've worked for so many people over the years.

My boobs leaked!!

I know, funny thing to get excited about, but this low supply thing has me kinda sad. Hopefully they'll keep working.

Announcements! Check!

Finally got a picture for my announcements. Here they are!

Tonal Type Blue Baby Announcements

Shutterfly has personalized baby birth announcement cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

Hooray!

I have convinced Kyle that one more kid isn't enough. I get to do this two more times!!

hmmm...

So, they say when you choose a career path in nursing, that you generally choose one that has affected you deeply. I have always known that I wanted to go into women's health. That was a given. This past two weeks has definitely solidified that, but it's added to it as well. See, this past two weeks, I have been at war with my boobs. I want to exclusively breastfeed, but I am simply not producing enough milk. Rowan nurses on both sides, and still comes away hungry. Not to mention, the case of jaundice and dehydration that kept us in the hospital for two days last week. One good thing did come of that though. I met a wonderful lactation consultant. She was very kind and patient, and worked with me to get Rowan's latch correct, showed me some tricks with the pump, and encouraged me to keep going despite cracked purple nipples. Yesterday I went to a lactation support group, and was again met with kindness and patience. The consultant even helped me to obtain a hospital grade breast pump despite the fact that the WIC office I was using said (bitchily, I might add) that no one in the state had them.

I think this is what I want to do. I want to help people, I want to empower women to trust their bodies. I mean c'mon, I have the pain threshold of a four year old, and I was still able to have a natural childbirth (minus that icky experience with Fentanyl, but luckily that didn't last long). It was pretty funny yesterday, all the girls in the lactation group looked at me funny when I said that I didn't have an epidural, and that next time I was going completely drug free.

Oh, yeah

P.S. I no longer look like the spawn of satan.

11 days...

Wow, almost two weeks have gone by since my Sugar Booger was born. I can’t believe how fast it has gone by. I have many reasons for not being able to write sooner. One, I am now a slave to my boobs. I am having trouble with my supply coming in, so I am constantly pumping, feeding, rinse, repeat. Another, I’m back in the classroom. There is no way I’m going to stop school when I am this close to my RN. I only have a few months to go. Luckily, I have a wonderfully supportive husband who brings Rowan to me on my long day at school.

The biggest thing that kept me from writing was a two-day stay in the hospital last week. In my obsessive need to breastfeed, I failed to see that my son was getting dehydrated due to my lack of supply. I ended up with a crazy fussy baby, and was wandering the house, curious about where this demonspawn had come from. Finally on Sunday, I realized that he was dehydrated, based on lack of dirty diapers, so I sent my husband out for formula. I cried giving it to him. He took the bottle like a champ, but it was too little too late. The dehydration had exacerbated the jaundice he was experiencing, and he was admitted to the hospital the next day. After about 36 hours under the UV lamp, his bilirubin levels had returned to normal, and the IV had done the trick. We were discharged on Wednesday, early enough in the day to go home and get some stuff done, and we haven’t had any relapses. Booger is still latching on really well, and taking the bottle like a champ. I did order a supplemental nursing system to decrease the likelihood of nipple confusion. I’m just very happy to have my calm baby who only cries for diapers back.

I’m having delayed milk production, so I have to keep trying. I’m not giving up till they dry up completely. I’ll be attending a support group starting Wednesday so wish me luck!

24 hours ago...

One might wonder what I'm doing up at 330 am when I was up all night the previous night...The answer...I have a newborn. You see, 24 hours ago, I was about to decide that I was tired of the pain, tired of the pressure. 24 hours ago, I had already given myself two black eyes, broken a bunch of blood vessels in both eyes, blacked out twice, and the worst bit, tried to give up. 24 hours ago, my son was born.

It seems fitting to stay up for a few minutes right now to write his birth story; the amazingly quick, but horrifically painful venture that let him into this world.

It all started at 9:20 pm on Wednesday. We were going to bed, because that's what us early bird types do. I hadn't slept the night before, and we had gone running around all over town that day. I was pretty pooped. I remember saying to Kyle, "I can't wait till he's here, I just want to hold him," right before turning off my light and rolling over to go to sleep. I felt a strange popping sensation low in my uterus. I had time to think, "What the f....." before I felt a gush, and quickly rolled out of bed onto the floor. So glad I maintained some agility throughout my pregnancy. I managed to make it off of the bed without drenching the mattress. I had to call my midwife right away. I was group B strep positive, so I would have to receive antibiotics throughout labor. She told me to head to the birth center, so we gathered all of our stuff, got in the car, and headed over. About 5 minutes into the car ride, I was kneeling on the seat, hugging the back of it. My contractions had started. While not too bad, they were definitely taking the wind out of me.

We arrived at the birth center at 10:15, and headed into a cozy little bedroom type set up, complete with tub. On the next contraction, I ended up on my hands and knees, so my midwife, Fran, handed me a kidney bean shaped birth ball to lean on. That ball, and some counter pressure from Kyle got me through the first couple of hours. The first time Fran checked me, I was 3cm and 80% effaced. I was shocked. I had checked my cervix right before my water broke, and it was closed. That should have been a good sign.

The next two hours were the most painful of my life. I decided it was time to get in the tub after about 2 and a half hours. I was in some really nasty pain and not getting much of a break between contractions. I ended up consenting to one dose of narcotics, which I won't do again. All it did was make me not care for about 20 minutes, and made me throw up. It did nothing to dull the pain. The next thing I knew, I was begging for an epidural. The contractions were fast and hard, and I was exhausted. I couldn't take it anymore, and I just wanted to rest. Pathetic, right?

Fran, being the wonderful midwife that she is, said, "We can do whatever you want, but just let me check you." I was amazed to find out I was 8cm. I knew that even if I made it to the hospital, the relief I was begging for wouldn't happen, so I got back into the tub. I was in transition, the time when most women want to give up. I decided that if I wasn't going to get meds, I was going to scream and let fly a few cuss words...It did make me feel better. I was in the tub for about another 45 minutes when I started feeling the urge to push. Fran checked me, and there was just a little bit of cervix left in the way. She helped to push it out of the way as I pushed. I started pushing with each contraction in the tub, until after one, I got the sensation that I was just waking up. The second time of "waking up" I decided that the tub was no longer an option. I got out of the tub and moved to the bed. It turned out that, both instances of blacking out were caused by me pushing wrong. This was also when I gave myself the two black eyes and made many blood vessels in my upper body just burst!

Finally, with the help of Fran, I was able to figure out how to properly push. I started feeling progress, and was able to get more into what I was doing. I was sleeping for the short lapses of time between contractions, and still wanted to give up, but I knew it was far too late for that. I finally ended up getting pissed. Rowan was crowning, and it felt like his head was going to make my crotch shatter into 1000 pieces. I hated the way it felt. I got mad. I pushed. And then the contractions stopped. I think 2-3 minutes went by before the last contraction hit me. That made me really pissed. On the last contraction, I grabbed my legs and PUSHED! I pushed like it was the last thing I would ever do. Nothing else mattered. I didn't feel tired, I didn't feel like quitting. I wanted that baby out, and I wanted him out now. Well, that's what I got. On the 4th push, I felt something slippery go shooting out. From what Kyle told me later, he really did shoot out. Once his head slipped free, the rest of him followed.

Fran caught him, set him on me and threw some warm blankets over us. It took him a couple of minutes to let out some cries, but he was definitely breathing. He was cooing right away. It sounded like he was saying "hi" over and over again in this sweet little high -pitched voice. I asked Fran why I felt so cross eyed and couldn't really see right. That's when I found out about the blood vessels. I tried and tried to get him to latch on, but couldn't. That battle has only just been won.

6 hours of labor. That's all it took. Statistically first time births last an average of 16 hours. Not me. I got to do things the short, painful way. It was definitely all worth it. Some pictures to bring you to the moment.

Wondering

Hmm, Fridays have been baby days for the last few weeks. Every Friday, something happens that makes me think this baby will be here very soon. Today? I have a ton of energy, I've seen the bloody show, and I woke up to some nasty contractions rather than the full bladder that usually wakes me. Now I'm just trying to keep busy and not get my hopes up too much.

Ugh

Wow, I feel mentally stuck between a rock and a hard place. Now that baby has dropped, and my mucous plug is out, I feel an almost constant pressure on my cervix. I checked yesterday, and I had hardly dilated. Still, it feels like he is just going to fall out at any moment. I really can't wait until next Saturday, when I can rest assured that if I go into labor, I will be able to deliver at the birth center rather than the hospital. Right now I feel almost as though I'm walking on eggshells, and that any little thing is going to send me into an early labor. Last night, Kyle and I went for a walk, and I started cramping so bad that I really wondered if labor had started. I relaxed, but hardly slept at all. Between this stupid sinus thing, and being nearly done with pregnancy, sleep seems to be a luxury of the past. Luckily I function ok that way. I got more done in the nursery today. The video monitor is set up, and much of the stuff is either set up or put away. There is still a little bit left in the laundry. Now this little dude feels like he's going to hiccup his way right out of me....