Being a mom of two…
Filed Under Danny, Maddi | 5 Comments
Wow.
So Danny is twelve days old. I can’t believe it. I was almost convinced I’d be pregnant forever, and here he is now, almost two weeks old. It’s crazy. Next thing I know, I’m going to be crying at his first birthday party about how it feels like just yesterday he was born…
He’s doing amazing. He’s filled out quite a bit in the last two weeks alone. His cheeks have really pudged out and he’s so darned cute! He’s looking more like his daddy than he looks like me… Oh well. Maybe one day I’ll have a baby that looks like me. Until then, I guess I get two mini-Dan clones.
He nurses like a pro too. He dosen’t seem to care if he’s hungry or not. The kid thinks he needs to be on my nipples 24/7. I went to nurse him today, and I laid down (my favorite position to nurse; laying on my side) and I accidentally fell asleep and the kid nursed/comfort nursed for FOUR HOURS! Sheesh! He does really good though, eats pretty often though, every hour to two hours. My daughter was more forgiving though, only nursing every three to four hours.
I’ve even managed to pump a decent amount. I have 21 bottles (80ml, or 2.5 ounces each) in the freezer now. I want fifty to a hundred in the freezer, and after that I may consider donating again.
Maddi is doing good. She dosen’t really show much interest in Danny. She’ll bring us his pacifier (we don’t use it much… just when my nipples are so raw that I need a reprieve from his constant sucking…) and she’ll bring blankets for him… Usually twenty at a time. She gets kind of pissed off if he won’t take the pacifier from her, but we watch her pretty carefully when she’s interacting with him…
Anyways, there’s my ten minutes of alone time for the day… Next time I’ll post more pictures.
Photos From Danny’s Birth-Day!
Filed Under Danny, photos, pregnancy | 6 Comments
In between contractions I felt fine, tired, but fine.
Giving a grin for the camera. Labor was way worse than I thought it'd be, but I managed to keep calm.
Dan and his mom while I was in labor. Dan was pissing me off because he kept hiding his face with the magazine.
When the contractions got really bad I squeezed the handrails until my knuckles turned white.
Dana held my other hand through the contractions.
I never did any classes or breathing exercises beforehand, but I figured it out and the breathing really helped.
Dan was pretty helpful while I was in labor... until he refused to get me a pretzel for afterwards . 
They were prepping me in the OR right before they cut me.
He wasn't too happy to be pulled out of me!
He definitely didn't like being introduced to the cold dry world.
Poor little guy kept his eyes closed tight! The lights are bright for someone whose been in the dark for almost ten months!
Poor guy! Here come the water works!
"What?! I was warm in there!!"
"Whoa... What is all of this!?"
The very first time I saw him...
A kiss from mommy.
I cried when I heard him cry.
I was so shocked to see that he had dark hair!
I was so happy. Dana held him, and I just smiled.
I was so shocked to see that he had dark hair!
Baby Danny!
The first time I nursed him. He knew exactly what to do!
He went to town with nursing. I just tried to focus. The drugs were really affecting me.
One of the nurses recommended skin-to-skin when I nursed him, so I tried it. It was amazing.
Dan was so proud of him. He didn't say it, but you could tell.
Dan unwrapped him for me, so we could do the skin-to-skin nursing.
I took this picture from my bed. I couldn't get over how perfect he is.
He's so perfect.
Baby Danny Photos
Filed Under Family, Love, friends, photos | 1 Comment
Baby Danny’s Long Awaited Arrival
Filed Under Uncategorized | 12 Comments
So…
On the 19th, I went in for a non-stress test on the baby, which is routine once you pass your due date. It checks the baby’s heart in relation to any contractions or movements the mom makes. What they’re looking for is decelerations and other possible problems that could indicate the baby having issues before or during the onset of labor. My results looked kind of “iffy” and my doc told me that he’s not comfortable leaving baby in there, so we decided that one way or another, he was coming out.
I went to the hospital around 1pm, and was started on a stress test, which is the same thing as a non-stress test, except they give you drugs to induce contractions and they see how the baby does in relation to those contractions. Baby did great. He was doing just fine. His heart kept up with everything, and my contractions got more and more intense.
The doc then placed internal monitoring on both the baby and I (that felt weird…) and in the process broke my waters. It didn’t break right away, but after about half an hour, it started to come in several small gushes anytime I moved or coughed or something. That was a pretty gross feeling if you ask me…
I did really well during labor (my approximate ten hours of it) and I breathed through the contractions. I didn’t ask for any drugs until the end (around 8:30pm) and when they gave me the Stadol in my IV, I couldn’t stop laughing in between contractions.
Then I started feeling really weird. All of a sudden I felt like I needed a nap… Like within moments. I all of sudden was at the point of exhaustion and just couldn’t think. I ended up getting put on oxygen. I don’t really remember what people were saying, and the doctor had to explain things to me a few times, but I wasn’t doing so hot, and baby wasn’t either. His heart kept dropping down in the 50′s which is a HORRIBLE rate for a baby…
I made it through 10 hours of labor, and almost 4cm dilated. I did really good. But, I still needed a cesarean. I was terrified, but there wasn’t any question in my mind about what I needed to do for my baby… So, in a daze, I signed the forms, and they got me back there, and baby danny was out in less than 15 minutes.
I was really disappointed that I didn’t get my VBAC. I really wanted one, but there’s more important things than just getting your way. I’d much rather have a cesarean and have a healthy baby, than to have a VBAC and something terrible happen to my baby and blame myself for the rest of my life. I’m just happy I got to try. I’m happy that I got to go as far as I did, but that I had a physician who cared enough about me and my child, to support my efforts, but be honest with me even when he knows its not something I want to hear, in regards to safety and health. I’m trying to focus on how far I did get, and how well I did do. It’s easier to think of it that way, and in terms of what I was able to do, rather than terms of what went wrong.
Baby Danny With Mommy and Dana in the OR.
Baby Danny's first time nursing. He's a PRO!
Mommy holding Baby Danny for the first time.
Daddy and Baby Danny. Daddy's so proud!
Mommy giving baby Danny a kiss in the OR.
Danny is doing great. He’s very quiet. Aside from his first born cry, I don’t think he’s cried more than a total of 30 seconds to a minute since he was born… He nurses like a champ too. I still don’t have my milk in yet, but he gets the colostrum. I didn’t have to do any convincing to get him to nurse. I put him near my boob and he went to town! He knew what he was doing! It was like a pit bull on a T-bone. Funny thing is, he’ll nurse for two hours straight! And not lazily either… He goes at it with a mad vengence and a passion! My milk should come in soon though and he’ll probably calm it down then.
Dan is really proud of Danny. You can tell just looking at him. And Dan was incredibly helpful while I was in labor. He might not have been in the room for the cesarean, but he offered a lot of mental and emotional support. A lot more than I had expected, and he’s been taking care of me since then, helping me do things, and helping me move around. He’s been amazing, and I am so lucky to have a husband like him.
My mom is driving up with Maddi in the morning. Maddi and Verna are coming up with her to meet the new baby because I won’t be sent home until Saturday at the earliest. I’m excited. I’ve missed Maddi a lot. I haven’t seen her in over two weeks. I really hope she likes her brother. The hospital gave me a small 6 inch congratulations cake, that I put in the fridge and I’m saving it for her tomorrow. She’ll enjoy some cake with us. I’ve missed her terribly.
I kind of called my mom on a whim. I just don’t care about the feud and arguments anymore. If she can put it behind her, then I’m willing to as well. Maybe meeting her grandson will help her. I feel kind of bad for her lately… She seems really depressed. Just talking to her… She seems very worn down and depressed. But I’m excited to see her too…
Anyways, I’m on a lot of drugs and I’m kind of loopy, so if none of this made any sense, I’m sorry.
Pregnant Forever.
Filed Under pregnancy | 6 Comments
Okay… I give up. I’m destined to be pregnant forever. I will forever be losing my breath and donning maternity garb and getting teased for being a whale/cow/giant (thanks, family.) I will forever be having insane cravings and random times, and passing out if I forget to drink enough water that day. I’ll forever be waddling around. I’ll forever be a source of entertainment to m daughter when she pokes my belly and it starts to wiggle and move in response. I will go down in the Guinness World Records for being the only human to carry a pregnancy for the rest of their life…
I almost got my hopes up yesterday. Contractions were 7-8 minutes apart, and more than just tight… they were sharp and they HURT and I kept feeling like I needed to go to the bathroom. Went on like that for nearly four hours, getting a little closer and closer… Then i went to sleep and the damn contractions stopped. Disappeared and only came back when I got up to go to the bathroom on one of my many bathroom trips that occur during the night…
I will be a pregnant whale forever.
Discouragement…
Filed Under pregnancy | 6 Comments
Okay. I’m 41 weeks pregnant now. That’s a week overdue. To all of you non-pregnant-never-ha-kids-readers, a week might not seem like very long to be overdue, but when you’re pregnant, it’s an eternity. Heck, every minute feels like an hour.
I’m so discouraged. I feel like I’m going to be pregnant forever. I mean, I know that I couldn’t possibly stay pregnant forever, but it sure feels like I will be. It feels like I’ll never have this baby and he’ll never get the heck out.. It’s so frustrating. I’m trying not to let it bug me, but it is.
I have a week left. If I don’t go into labor on my own in the next week… Then I have to have a cesarean on the 25th of May (I’ll be 42 weeks and 1 day). And it’s just a nightmare. I don’t want another cesarean. I really don’t. And I’m starting to feel like my dream of having a VBAC is slipping further and further away the closer I get to that date.
I just want to have this baby already…
Afraid to get excited..
Filed Under Health, pregnancy | 1 Comment
I want to get excited and think that maybe this is it… But the other side of me is rolling my eyes at my hopeful self for getting too excited too quickly.
Contractions
7:25
7:35—10 minutes
7:44—9 minutes
7:54—10 minutes
8:03—9 minutes
8:13—10 minutes
8:23—10 minutes
8:30—7 minutes
8:36—6 minutes
8:45—9 minutes
8:55—10 minutes
9:00—5 minutes
9:04—4 minutes
9:14—10 minutes
9:28—14 minutes
9:37—9 minutes
9:47—10 minutes
9:53—6 minutes
10:00—7 minutes
I almost want to say that I think this is it… I’m getting a lower backache that’s persistant and it hurts! So, maybe that’s a good sign! It could be! We’ll see!
Switched Hotels..
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So, we’ve been staying at one hotel since we got up here and just rebooking it on priceline every night using the “name your own price” feature. Which is cool. You enter your price, and your credit card information and it assigns you to a hotel that will accept your offer… The only downside is that you don’t get to know which hotel you’re in until after you commit to buy the room. Well, the first ten days we were here, it assigned us to the one hotel, but then when I went to redo it, it assigned us to a different one! Which was a nightmare!
Dan is going back to Soldotna today, to officiate in his mother’s wedding… I’m supposed to stay up here. He was just going to leave, but since we had to redo the hotel… We had to go all the way across own (after packing up our room and everything) and get checked in at the new hotel… And they wouldn’t have a room open until three. So, I asked the lady if I could hang out in the lobby until then so Dan could leave.
Thankfully they got me a room way before three! They were able to have me in one by eleven. So I didn’t have to sit in the lobby talking to tourists for very long! Just a couple hours.
I forgot to grab the laptop though, so I’m using the computer in the business center. Kind of weird. Sticky keyboard and a very stubborn mouse. Oh well. It happens, I guess.
Meanwhile, no baby yet!
Castor Oil?! Idiots…
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So, before I start, I know that castor oil works for some people and their babies are just fine, and yada yada yada. And I’ll admit, I tried castor oil when I was pregnant with my daughter… Thankfully I only took one tablespoon and it just made me nauseaus. Afterwards, someone told me to take more, and I researched it and actually found out it was DANGEROUS.
Now, I use a few pregnancy sites… And on one of them, the women were talking about take four tablespoons every four hours! I posted about the dangerous and I was pretty much bitched out because “You don’t have a med degree. And until you can prove you do, shut up.” Keep in mind, castor oil is a poison… Which is why it has the laxative effect… Your body is attempting to cleanse itself from the poison! And just like anything else the mother ingests (drugs, alcohol, etc) it crosses over to the baby, and can have a laxative effect on the baby, causing them to pass meconium in utero. And as many people know, meconium is DANGEROUS. It can cause respiratory distress if the baby inhales it while in utero, and this distress can lead to oxygen deprivation which can lead to BRAIN DAMAGE.
Castor oil is DANGEROUS.
I am overdue. I know it’s miserable and I know it sucks, but there is NO WAY I would intentionally endanger my child just because I’m sick of being pregnant. Some of these women are two or three weeks away from their due dates! It’s INSANE. How would you feel if something happened to your baby as a result of your impatience?! How guilty would you feel if something terrible happened to your baby and it was YOUR fault?!
Gah.
Some. People. Are. IDIOTS.
Doctor’s Appointment At 40 Weeks and 5 Days.
Filed Under pregnancy | 2 Comments
So, I went to the doctor and they did an exam. He said I’m still only one centimeter dilated, but the cervix is pretty soft, and it’s moved from a back position to a mid-position, which is progress! He seems pretty optimistic about it all. I asked him if he thinks I made progress since last week, and he said yes. He also told me not to worry about dilation too much, because I could easily go into labor and into the hospital at only one centimeter dilated, because dilation is often the last thing that happens, especially in “primigravidas,” or women who have never given birth (this includes women who have never given birth vaginally) before. The only thing being undilated right now means, is that I can’t really have my membranes sweeped (he tried) and I’m not a candidate for a mild induction. So, I could easily completely efface, and stay where I am dilation-wise, and be in active labor even at one centimeter!
I had a contraction when I was in his office, and the doctor said he would consider it a moderate one, and there’s one more “level” of contractions… The ones that make you curl your toes, stop to catch your breath, and have difficulty functioning throughout th contraction because it takes so much focus. When I get those about 5-6 minutes apart, he said that I need to come in to the hospital.
The pains have gotten much more intense, especially since last night. The contractions are harder, but on top of that, the inner pains and cervical pains have increased in frequency to three or four times how often they were before, as well as three or four times how uncomfortable they were.
I haven’t gone walking yet today (I went to bed at 1am last night, and got up at 6, took a shower and headed to the doctor’s office around 8). After the appointment, we searched around town in search for wiper blade refills (mine had totally gone to hell…Especially considering I didn’t even know you could replace or refill them) and after going three different places, we found some that will work and when we got back to the hotel around noon, I went to sleep. I needed a nap.
I still plan on doing at least three miles again today. I’m not going to slack off! I need to keep it up. My doctor seemed very impressed when I told him how much I’m walking! So, hopefully it helps. He encouraged me to keep it up, and hopefully baby will agree with the doctor and come out!
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