July 16th

July 16th changed my life.  So did the 2 days of labor before that!

I had every intention of immediately journaling about my wonderful, natural childbirth.  I really did!  But when things didn't go my way (or actually went exactly the opposite) I just couldn't bring myself to talk or write about it for a long time.  I think it was a full month before I could have a really short conversation with someone about it without crying my eyes out.

Let me stop here to take a moment to say that July 16th was the best day of my life.  But in many other ways, it's something that I've had to 'mourn' as well.  And I know that there are only a handful of women who understand this feeling and I'm fine with that.  If you want to judge me - you'll do it whether I like it or not.

So yes, I have a wonderfully healthy and beautiful baby boy!  He's my everything and I'm so terribly attached to him that it makes my heart ache to have to go to work during the week.  And while our journey together through pregnancy was pretty great.... our labor was a true trial.  His birth taught me so much.

I went with a midwifery group in the hopes that I'd have an intervention-free labor and birth.  If I could've had things my way - I would've had a homebirth.  But I respected my husband's reservations and compromised by going to a hospital that had birthing 'suites' where you could deliver in a tub.  So the pregnancy went really well and I enjoyed seeing my midwives for checkups.  That is, until my very last prenatal visit.  I was 8 days overdue and was scheduled for an ultrasound to check on the placenta.  I always knew that I'd go over my due date..... it's pretty 'normal' for a first time mom to see her due date come and go with no baby to show for it.  But I just really 'knew' that I was going to be baking my little one for a bit longer than the norm.

My baby was never big on moving in utero.  He moved here and there but he slept a whole lot.  There was never any alarm during my entire pregnancy because we were both healthy and his heartbeat was perfect.  Well - apparently it turns into a "your baby could die" situation when people want to talk you into an induction.  So yeah, my baby only moved a tiny bit during his last ultrasound - and his cord was around his neck, twice.  Those 2 things might have been just fine..... but he was also estimated at 9 lbs 9 oz and that's what sent my midwives into a tizzy.  And they actually did pull the 'dead baby' card on me.  So Mike and I agreed to the induction after unsuccessfully trying to convince them to let me just go home for the night to relax.  And they agreed to let me have dinner that night!  HAH!

Yeah..... my dinner was chicken broth and an ice pop.  Suck on that one!

Fast forward one full night of Pitocin and nothing has happened (not even any sleeping on my part).  A different midwife came in the morning to check on me.  She washed her hands and immediately got ready to give me a pelvic exam.  Well - good morning to you, too!  The exam she gave me was the most physical one I've had in my life and I truly do feel that I was abused in some way.  I was sobbing through the entire thing and trying to push her off..... but she kept at it and got snippy with me because I was making her job tough.  The result?  She broke my water with her hand.  That's right!  She didn't use one of those nice little poking tools because she knew I wouldn't agree to having my water broken. Instead - she did it herself without asking.  She claimed it was "spontaneous" and that's what was put into my records.  But I call bullshit.

After that, I HAD to deliver my baby within 48 hours.

So after over 30 hours of laboring without pain meds, my baby wasn't any closer to coming out (even though I was 7 cm dilated).  And his heart rate was so steady that it actually surprised the OB that was on call.  Usually a baby's heart rate will drop a bit during contractions.  But not MY baby.  It was almost as if he wasn't really bothered at all by my laboring nonsense and he was just sleeping away in my womb.  I really believe that it just wasn't his time yet.  But the midwives will swear that it's because of how big he was.  So at 5:57pm on July 16th, my baby was born via c-section.  And yes, he was large!  He weighed 9 lbs 8 oz and was extremely healthy.

Whenever people hear that I had a large baby, they immediately think that it's a good thing I had a c-section.  And I guess a lot of women wouldn't want to push a large baby out of their nether regions.  But I'm not your typical gal - I'd take a natural, spontaneous childbirth over a c-section any day!

And one thing I'll never forget about July 16th.... at around 3pm.... My husband hugged and sobbed with me over my disappointment.  But almost 3 hours later, we were smiling and on cloud nine!

I've pulled through a ton of emotions and have made it to the other side.

Almost There!

Picture time!

37 weeks - Full Term!

Here are pictures of the nursery:

Mike painted that giraffe to match the bedding!!  

There's also now a glider & ottoman in the corner and a green rug on the floor.

I'm so thrilled with how the nursery came out!  It took us a long time, but it was definitely worth it.  I just love sitting in there now and looking around.  Now we just need the baby to complete the room!  LOL

And I am SO ready to meet our little one!  I've finally hit the uncomfortable stage in this pregnancy and I can no longer get any sleep at all.  Even naps are challenging due to a pain I'm having in my hand and arm.  Whenever I lay down, it gets terribly painful and I can't rest a bit!  I've been told that this might continue after the baby is born.... but I'm hoping it at least gets a tiny bit better then!

And all of the newborn clothes and bedding are cleaned and put away.  I also completely stocked our deep freezer with meals we can heat up after the baby arrives.  I still can't believe we filled that thing up!  So now I don't have anything else to keep me busy!  Don't get me wrong, our schedule is still completely filled with doctor appointments and other errands.  But whenever I'm relaxing at home at night it seems odd that I don't have more to do around here!  Haha!  I guess it's the calm before the storm!

Right now I have only TEN days until my due date!  I can't believe it's coming up!!!!

Baby Shower!

Life is so busy and time is flying by! Let's start off with some pictures....

28 weeks

32 weeks

Me and my sister at my baby shower!

This past Saturday (5/15/10), I had my surprise baby shower! My sister came by my house on Friday afternoon to let me know about it because my in-laws were scheduled to arrive that evening to stay with us for the weekend. How exciting!!! Mike was in on all of the plans so there was no worry with being prepared. Plus, I had a feeling the shower would be coming up soon and I already knew we were going to have house guests. And I had a blast at the shower! All of the women seemed to get along so well! And now we have some baby stuff to play with! Haha!

On Sunday, Mike's family left to head up to Boston, MA and we went to our regular Bradley class. I absolutely love all of the couples in our class.... We all get along so well and have very similar views when it comes to childbirth and raising kids. After our class we all went out for some yummy Thai food and we had a blast. I really hope that we all keep in touch because they're all so fun!

In other news: It turned out that Pace tore the ACL on her right, rear leg. And that required surgery. It was a rough 2 weeks of recovery with a soft cast on and about 20 staples. Luckily, she's doing SO much better now and can put a bit of weight on that leg. Though we still have to limit her activity for about another 5 weeks.

Tonight I have another regular midwife appointment and hopefully I'll be able to take some pictures of the nursery now that it's done!!!

A Month in Review

I'm a bit late in posting this but I guess it's better late than never!

This picture was taken 4 weeks ago:

24 weeks

And so much has happened since my last post....

Mike is definitely feeling the baby move a lot more and this little one likes to jump around JUST when I get settled into bed for the night. I don't really mind it though because it relaxes me to know that he/she is doing well in there!

We have also started our Bradley Method classes and have gone to 2 already. It's a total of 8 sessions that are 3 hours each. So this Sunday will be our 3rd. I think it's great because it sort of gets Mike more involved in learning about the whole birthing process and how to be a coach. It's also nice that he's reading Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way along with me. At the very least, it creates nice discussion topics for us to hash over before our big day. Which, I can't believe, is only 2.5 months away!!

Mike's still working away at painting the nursery and so far I'm thrilled with his work! I think it's going to look amazing.

I finally got to plant a garden in my yard!! I'm so excited because this is the first spring at the house and so I had to plan things out and do a lot of work. It felt good to be out there being active. I'll have to take some pictures once things start to bloom! Hopefully this weekend I'll get around to planting veggies and herbs as well. It would be so incredibly nice to be able to cook with what I've grown.

Unfortunately, Pace (our dog) hasn't been fairing too well lately. She's had a bum leg for a few weeks now and the vet thinks it may be a torn ACL. If it is, she'll need surgery. So she's going in on Saturday for blood work and then on Tuesday for x-rays and sedation to investigate. I really hate the idea of surgery but I'm not sure there's any alternative. So, I guess we'll just have to see what the tests show.

Other than that, I have a midwife appointment on Monday. That's when I'll be doing the glucose tolerance test to see if I'm at risk for gestational diabetes. I really hope I pass this one so that I don't have to do the 3 hour test! And then I start going to the midwife every 2 weeks! I can't believe we're already to the point of biweekly appointments!

Movement

Within this last week, I've definitely felt a lot more movement from the baby. Now that I know these feelings are the baby, I'm pretty sure I've felt him/her for at least 2 weeks now. It's more of a thump-thump near my bladder and nothing like what is described in books; No 'butterflies' or 'bubbles' here. And it all makes sense now because the baby is currently sitting on my cervix. It's a little distracting when I'm at work because there's just NO way I can concentrate when I'm thinking about this little bean squirming around in there! I just wish I could feel the movement on the outside of my stomach so that Mike could experience it in some way, too. But I'm sure that's just right around the corner for us.

Planning things are starting to come along. We've set up our 2 registries and I'm glad to have established those. At first it was daunting and we had no idea where to begin. Luckily for me, I have an awesome sister who just LIVES for stuff like this. So I made her come out with us and she guided us a bit on what we'll need. I'm still shocked at how much we picked out. At first I thought our list would be so insanely short because we're getting a ton of hand-me-down furniture. But we somehow managed to fill it up quickly with other ridiculously cute items.

I was a bit miffed that neither store carried cloth diaper supplies in their locations. What happened to the 'green' trend? Is it still that rare to cloth diaper babies??? Luckily for us, both stores carry SOME supplies online so I went and added those on for our internet-savvy fans. And even MORE luckily for us.... I recently reconnected with a high school friend who cloth diapers her infant!! She was so generous and gave me all of her used newborn and infant diapers because her son has moved on to a larger size (reduce, reuse, recycle!). Wow, I'm just so crazily blessed! I guess now I'm really committed to this project! ;-)

Other than that, Mike started painting the nursery! I'll post pictures once that comes along a little more.

21 weeks, 5 days pregnant!

21 Week Ultrasound

Here's our adorable baby at 21 weeks:

Mike and I went in for the ultrasound at 8am today and this little baby was NOT ready to wake up. I guess he/she takes after mom! There were little movements but the technician was hoping to get him/her to flip around for another angle. So she had me moving around and she kept nudging my stomach to no avail.

The coolest part, in my opinion, was that we got to see the little tongue moving. Apparently the baby is practicing swallowing and sucking. Way too cool! And then he/she started sucking on those little fingers! And everything checked out great. Baby is right on track and measuring perfectly! We even got to see a little foot, with all 5 toes!

In about a week we should have a DVD with even more ultrasound shots. I'm really excited to see what those look like!

Introduction

Instead of flooding Facebook and Twitter with updates on my pregnancy, I decided to create a blog! This way, people can come by and see my updates if they're interested.

My due date is July 8th and I get my big anatomy ultrasound on February 24th. That's when we'll be able to see if the baby is healthy and has all of his/her parts. But we're still going to keep the gender a surprise.... unless he/she decides to show us inadvertently!

Thanks for your support and interest in our journey!

Ultrasound at 11 weeks, 4 days

20 weeks