Welcome Back

Wow, I can hardly believe it has been so long since I have posted here. I have surely been enjoying motherhood and it has been keeping me too busy to post. On that note, I recently started missing writing some of my crazy life down and want to pick it back up. This blog is mostly kept for myself anyways and reading back on old posts reminded me of so many things I had forgotten and I know I'll keep forgetting lots more moments as the time just flies by.

Eli is almost 10 months now and could not be more fun. He is so happy and so far such an easy baby! He is going through a little sleep regression phase but I'm sure I PRAY that it will pass soon. I don't even know where to start to pick this back up so I'll post maybe a few milestones that we have hit and where we are to this day.

1) Cooing and noise making
2) Smiling
3) Laughing
4) Holding his bottle
5) Eating solids (first food was avocado)
6) Sitting up
7) Sleeping through the night (at least some nights)
8) Eating finger foods
9) Saying "dada" and repeating noises
10) Responds to commands
11) Pulls up on things
12) Stands with support
13) Travels around (he chooses to roll rather than crawl so far)
14) Has 6 teeth!

I am working at the store still but our days off together tend to go like this:

Eli's Ten Month Old Routine:
7:30 wake up
7:45 bottle
Playtime
8:30 bottle
Playtime and outing
11/12ish Lunch
12:00/1:00ish bottle & nap
2:00-3:00ish wake up 
Playtime and/or outing
5:00ish Dinner
Playtime
Story time
Bath time
7:30-8:30 Bedtime

I love our days like this and they are even more fun with "dada" is off with us. Sadly this day probably happens 2x's a week or so but I also get lots of half days with him or days at the store with him. I have so much I want to share on here but I think I will keep it at this for now and try to catch you up one post at a time.

~Danielle <3

Week 1 Post Partum

What a crazy week the first week was! Mark was off all week with me and that was wonderful. It was nice to enjoy our first days as a family all together. Giedo got used to Eli fairly quickly and the first week, while emotional, was fairly easy.

Eli was tired from joining the world and he slept a lot. He woke up at night a decent amount but we expected that and were as prepared for that as we could be. He sleeps in the bassinet next to our bed. Thankfully Eli fed very well from day one. He breastfeeds like a champ so we had no problems there. We opted not to have him bathed in the hospital so we have him his first bath on day two of being home. He didn't care for it because it was a sponge bath. We had to wait on his cord stump to fall off and his little pee pee to heal from his circ.. It was so much fun dressing him in his tiny clothes and just admiring every little bit of him. He had perfect skin, perfect hair...perfect everything.

I was sore for the first few days like I had done a crazy hard workout and was recovering from it. I used all the supplies the hospital gave me for "downstairs" care and that was sore too but not too much so. I was on a mild pain medicine (motrin) and only took that for the first week. By the end of the week I didn't feel I needed it anymore. I was over prepared for my postpartum healing. I expected tons of pain and misery for a few weeks at least but there was hardly pain and no misery at all. I didn't use my padciles, I didn't need them. I am thankful for my easy recovery and don't regret over preparing.

Physically I left the hospital and weighed in at 175. By the end of week one I was 159. I also took my measurements. Small of waist: 34.5", hips: 40", belly: 38.5", under bust: 33.5", thigh: 24", bicep (small): 11.5". I felt so small when I left the hospital and compared to how I went in I was! At the end of the first week I couldn't believe how much my tummy had gone down!

One day postpartum!

1 week postpartum!

Emotionally the first week (and second week) were really tough for me. I hadn't expected to love this little baby so much and I found myself overwhelmed with worry, guilt, and happiness. I was unreasonibly worried that something would happen to our precious baby and even had a few horrible dreams that didn't help. I felt guilty for disliking my pregnancy and hating my body during it. I would look at him and cry thinking how could I be so selfish and vain. I thought that if I could go back I would love every minute of being pregnant knowing it would bring me the most perfect baby boy. I also felt guilty for feeling so unsure of all of this. I wasn't sure I wanted to be a mom...especially not at this time and during that first week of him being here I was hating myself for ever feeling that way. Now that he is one month...these feelings have passed and can see things more clearly and realistically but those first few weeks of postpartum hormones are a doozy! I also felt overwhelming happiness and love that I didn't even think possible. Almost an obsession with Eli. I am pretty sure I even googled "I'm obsessed with my newborn". Haha, now being a month out I still feel so much love and happiness but I'd be lying if I said I didn't pout when waking up for the 3rd time at night and in the first two weeks I felt like I would happily not even blink my eyes to watch him and happily give up every minute of night of sleep to keep him happy and healthy. Now...though I still would do anything to keep him happy and healthy...I am not always "happy" to get up for the 2am, 4am and 6am feeding.

 

They say the first two weeks are the hardest emotionally and I'd agree with that. The baby blues took me a little into the third week and every once in a while I have an irrational thought or cry but each week things get better and I feel like I am learning more every day. Despite that, Eli is such a joy and so adorable. I love watching him look at new things and make new little faces. I don't want to rush or waste any of this precious time!

 

~Danielle 

Birth Story Part 2

...When we got to the hospital they reviewed our information and got us checked in. They had all my information from when I was 16 and still had me down as a minor at my parents house. We got all that corrected and the nurse that was there said she was looking forward to us coming in because she saw we  took a Bradley classes and her daughter was interested in using the Bradley method to have her child. She was almost almost off duty though so she wouldn't be attending our birth.

I had changed into a hospital gown and felt really awkward with the back being open. Also my water was still leaking so I was really uncomfortable not being able to really cover all that up. A new nurse came in and introduced herself. She was the sweetest thing ever and was very positive about our birth plan. That was great but then the doctor came in and she was awful. I could vent about her for pages but I'll just say she was very disapproving of our plan and told us so in a very demeaning way. Thankfully when she left after that original horrible meeting she never came back until Eli was on his way out.

After she left the room we got hooked up to the monitors and things seemed to be going good. Contractions were strong and long but still 3 minutes or so apart. They were so uncomfortable laying down but I was told I just needed to be monitored for 20 minutes at a time and then I could take the monitors off and move about. Eli's heartbeat would slow down during a contraction and resume to normal after and the doctor wanted his heartbeat to slow down during, speed up after, and then resume so they made me stay on the monitors. The nurse told me after each contraction to push on my belly and wiggle it some to get Eli to react and get his heart rate up. A few hours later, I would guess around 11pm or so Eli gave us a scare and his heart rate dropped to down to 40. The nurse came running in and telling me to move around. I was in the middle of a bad contraction and didn't know what was going on but I did as she said and then she said his heart rate had dropped. I asked her if I could please stand and even though they don't typically want that when you have the monitors on and she allowed it. Eli's heart rate did exactly as it should the rest of the time.

The contractions by this time were so awful. Mark would try to be sure I drank some water in between but it was so hard to even do that. I stood up on the side of the bed swaying my hips and leaned over the bed with each contraction. I would look at Mark and say "Help me..." but he didn't know what to do and I didn't know what I wanted him to do. At one point I helplessly told Mark that maybe I should just get the epidural. I told him that it could be so many more hours of this and I didn't know if I could make it. He brushed it off and didn't really respond. On the inside I was thinking "Damn...he didn't take the bait"! I was wanting so relief! It wasn't long after that I started feeling like I needed to push with the contractions.

The nurse came in and I told her I was feeling like I needed to push and she offered to check me. I was scared to get checked because what if my check said I was no where near ready. Despite that I said yes and I laid down on the bed. She said I was 9.5 cm and everything else was ready. She left us to labor just a bit longer and I was encouraged by the 9.5cm but I had also heard of people pushing for hours before their baby came so I was still expecting a long road ahead.

Contractions continued to be very long, even the nurse made a comment on how long they were. Well over a minute and coming almost non stop by this point. The whole time I was pregnant I was looking for a description of what strong contractions felt like and I wish I hadn't waited so long to write this out so I could give a better description myself. Some said they were like strong period cramps and I guess they had a little bit of that feeling to them times about 20. I could describe them as that mixed with when you eat something that disagrees with you and you have to go to the bathroom so bad you can't hardly hold it and get goosebumps and bad abdominal pain until you get to the bathroom...that pain times about 10! Hows that for TMI but anywho, I also had pretty bad  back labor that was a very sharp. It was sharp pain all across my lower back with each contraction and I didn't really expect a sharp pain.

Anyways...the urge to push got stronger and she checked again. I was all ready but a small stubborn lip of cervix that I had to wait on. She said she could get the doctor to move it or we could wait it out. I had never been in so much pain in my life but I did not want to doctor to interfere until absolutely nessesary because she was such a....well you know. I waited it out and I could literally not stop myself from pushing when a contraction came. I tried not to but it was so hard. She brought in the head nurse who confirmed the lip of cervix was still there...d*** it. At this point I was getting a little ridiculous. Everyone said I did great and composed myself well but I was panting through the contractions and could not control my breath like I was supposed to. The nurse tried to help me saying "breath for your baby" and I would give it my all, which worked for about 10 seconds. They had me changing in all different positions to try to get the cervix to be gone and they kept encouraging me saying as soon as I can push with the contractions Eli would be here in no time. They told me my contractions were very effective and that I was doing a great job. I think they were telling me that knowing I could hardly take it anymore.

Again, each contraction brought on pushing and they finally checked again and told me it the lip of cervix was gone. I took that as go time but they told me to try my hardest not to push until the doctor came in. ...If you've read any other birth stories or given birth yourself, you know that is impossible. Seriously, how can you NOT push. The doctor was paged and in the room in no time along with about 10 other people, a huge spotlight, three new tables and equipment...it was kind of ridiculous. Mark and I still kind of laugh about how as soon as they said "get the doctor" our room went from relatively calm and peaceful to a full blown out stage show! My body was pushing hard with each contraction and the doctor said "stop pushing, I need to get dressed"...too bad at that point I didn't care. The head nurse and our nurse were on both sides of me and FINALLY I got the go ahead to push. They told me when to push and counted to ten encouraging me to push as hard and long as I could with each one. The nurses were sweet and encouraging while I was pushing and told me I was doing great. The doctor had a different method though and told me that since I wanted to "go natural" I was scarred to push hard because I didn't want to feel the pain. (She must know me so well...) It was hard not to snap back at her...but I believe I did say I am not scared and I'm trying my best.

I continued to push and they said he was almost here. The nurses encouraged me to reach down and feel Eli's head. I didn't really want to but I figured I had come this far and might as well "embrace" the whole thing. Right after that the doctor said, "I can do an episiotomy, just a small cut, and on the next push you will meet your baby." I looked up at the "angel" nurse and she just had this look of approval on her face. With that and the bribe that with a "small cut" I would meet Eli I said yes. She did the cut which I could tell she did but there was no pain with it and the next contraction I pushed as hard as I could and his head made his way out...with another really strong push the rest of him made it into the world. The doctor held him up for me to see and he was so beautiful and tiny. I didn't know what I would think when I first saw him and I was overwhelmed but had immediate love for him. They toweled him off real quick and placed him on me. I wanted to cry (I could cry right now typing this) but I didn't. I don't think my body had energy to cry. I was so exhausted and had just been through so much. I looked for Mark who was behind me and asked him "what are you thinking?". He was in awe and sort of speechless I think. I told him I loved him...there was so much going on in the room and I do regret I didn't look to him more while pushing. The doctor gave me some stitches (being sure to throw in some other rude comments) and I got a small shot of pitocin in my leg to help with the placenta and to help the bleeding. I could feel the placenta coming out and it was mildly uncomfortable but who cares when you have your baby. Plus...mild discomfort after all that is a walk in the park!

From the time I started actively pushing to the time Eli came out was a mere 6 minutes! Everyone said when you can push with the contractions there is so much relief. And while I agree that it was way better to work with your body than try not to push it was very hard work. Pushing was more uncomfortable and harder than I thought it would be. I am so thankful I didn't have to push for much longer. I can't imagine pushing for hours.

Eventually the room cleared out and Mark and I had a little time with Eli by ourselves. I think we were just overwhelmed, exhausted, happy... I don't remember us saying that much but I know we were so proud of everything! Eli seemed so small, peaceful, and perfect. I had so much love for him right away, it was almost too much! After a short time we brought in our families. They had been waiting there since about 6:30pm and it was after 3am.

It was such a crazy experience. It was not what I expected but I didn't know what to expect. I'll do another post on my hindsight of it all but if anything I am proud. I can't say that enough because it describes how I feel about everything. I am proud of Mark, proud of me, proud of Eli and so thankful to God for everything and how everything worked out.

The pictures below are a little out of order. I also brought my "good" camera and took some of Eli in the hospital before we left to go home but these are all from our phone. 

Right after being born.

Right after birth.

Us leaving the hospital as a family of 3.

Eli & me at the hospital.

We had just arrived at the hospital and got changed and ready!

Eli getting ready to go home.

My sweet baby. He sucked on his bottom lip a lot at the hospital.

Getting weighed!

Mark managed to capture one of the

<3 Danielle

Our Birth Story Part 1

He's here, he's here, he's finally here!!!

I can't believe as I type this I have our precious baby boy in my arms. In fact it is his one week birthday! This past week has been the most amazing week of my life and I can't even describe how I am feeling, however, I will try to explain in my 1 week postpartum post that I plan to type up tonight as well assuming the little man allows it. For now I want to give you our birth story. I'll try to make a long story short but not too short I mean after all, that is what you clicked this open to read.

I can't believe I have my own birth story to share now and that it turned out as well as it did. We were trying everything we could to get little Eli to come before my Dr. appointment on Friday, Feb 9th knowing the Dr. would want to induce, but Eli was being stubborn. On Wed. the 7th we were calling our Bradley teacher asking for any last minute  natural induction ideas she could offer and we told her that our Dr. was not going to let us go much longer because to him we were already in week 42. She suggested a labor inducing massage, some herbal supplement that we couldn't find, and lastly an "induction cocktail" that our local birth center gives their past due patients.

Mark booked me the massage at the Charleston Holistic Center for Thursday, the next day, and it was amazing. She worked certain pressure points that supposedly help induce labor. That night we also mixed up the cocktail which contained a horrible mixture of apricot juice, white champagne, almond butter, and castor oil. We blended the mixture and I managed to down the whole thing at about 10:00pm. I was told if it was going to work it would in about 2-6 hours. We joke that we were doing all kinds of voodoo nonsense to get this child to come. I had also sent out prayer request to my loved ones and friends that Eli please make his way on his own.

At 1:00am on Friday morning I woke up and had to go to the bathroom...like big time if you know what I mean. When that fun experience was over I went to sleep in our living room because Mark was snoring and I started having contractions that I tried not to get too excited about. I was quite used to false alarms but I started timing them anyways and they were about 5-6 minutes apart. I tried to sleep but woke up about every hour and would time the contractions to make sure they weren't going anywhere and sure enough they stuck around.

Timing contractions...there's an app for that! 

At 6am a painful contraction woke me up and it felt different than my other ones that felt like the braxton hicks. The pain was also in my back with each one. I started timing and they were 3-5 minutes apart. Mark had a long work day the day before so I decided to wait a bit to wake him up but by 7am they were pretty consistently 3 min apart and I was having to breath through them. I woke Mark up saying I'm pretty sure today is the day. I showed him my contraction timer and we both just knew we'd be meeting our baby in no time.

We hadn't packed our hospital bag figuring we'd do it when I went into labor but I was having to stop during each contraction and lean over the bed and breath. Contractions stayed 3 minutes apart and at about 8ish we texted our family and said today is probably the day and that we'd keep in touch. We called my Dr. at 9am since we had an apt at 10am and he said to come in now so they could check me since he knew I didn't want to go to the hospital.

On the way to the Dr.

When we arrived he said my water had broke, I was 4cm and in early labor. I was a little sad we weren't further along but at least the day was here. They hooked me up to monitor my contractions for about 20 minutes and then he gave us the go ahead to go to the hospital or go home and then the hospital. My contractions had slowed down to about 5 min apart again so we went home.

I look like death...fat death but Mark is giving a thumbs up. We are both ready! 

At home I labored, and labored, and labored some more. Mark and I both said to each other that worse case is we meet our little man at 8pm. That was our guess....HA! Anyways....I wondered around the house leaning over anything as soon as a contraction hit. I labored on the exercise ball but it was really uncomfortable when a contraction came. I took a warm bath around 4:30 and after that we decided we would go to the hospital at 6. I don't know why we choose then...I think we just wanted another step forward. I wanted to wait until the last minute but we had no idea it would take so long.

I had a little emotional meltdown on the way to the hospital knowing that it was the last time we would leave our house as a family of two but Mark comforted me and we got excited about little Eli.....

To be continued...

I'll stop there because obviously I can't make this long story short and I don't want to wear you out. ;)


Danielle

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign!

 Today we are 40 weeks and 5 days pregnant. In my last post I mentioned that at the last Dr. appointment he said I was 2cm dilated, 80% effaced, and Eli's head was in the perfect position. I know this doesn't mean much but it is nice to hear of some progress. It is enough to keep a positive attitude and know he won't stay in forever.

4 days overdue!

4 days overdue!

About 2 days after my appointment, for the first time, I really got my hopes up and thought that "tonight might be the night". I had a very busy day at work and did way more physical activity and lifting than I probably should have but in my head I was thinking "the worst thing that could happen is it brings on a baby, and really, that would be great". Mark was closing that night so after work I picked up some Chinese food, got home, and sat down on the couch. 

I had been having some pretty strong contractions at work but I am so used to the braxton hicks contractions I didn't think much of it. Sitting on the couch was not very comfortable so I sat on my exercise ball and watched TV and finished eating. Contractions continued and so I thought I might, just for the fun of it, start timing them. They were coming and going between 5 & 15 minutes apart lasting a minute or more. I went to the rest room and (TMI alert) lost my mucus plug. Timeout...could they come up with a nastier name for that thing. Can't we just call it a plug?! I got all excited because it was another sign but thought "Who will I share this information with? No one wants to hear about a mucus plug. GROSS."

Anyways...so that happened and I couldn't help but start to get my hopes up even though I also knew losing the plug does not mean immediate labor. I continued to time my contractions and for 45 minutes they came and went with no more than 5 minutes between them and all of them lasting a minute or more. I started getting anxious and excited. Mark called and I shared with him all these signs and he too got excited. I didn't pull him from work because I was still trying to tell myself it was nothing even though all the signs seemed to point in the right direction and I was secretly thrilled!

Shortly after our phone conversation I had a 10 minute lapse between contractions....then a 12 minute lapse...3 min...15 min...8 min...and then....then I gave up. I don't know what happened to the 5 min apart contractions but they left me. I decided to stop timing, perhaps I was jinxing myself.

Mark came home a little bit later and was very excited. He thought that night would be the night as well. I woke up several times that night, a couple of times with a strong contraction and Mark was awake asking how I was feeling each time.

The next morning we were both off work and I didn't have one single contraction all morning. I couldn't help but feel really disappointed all day. We made the most of our day and our time together. We tried to give each other positive words of wisdom but I know we were both really disappointed.

From that experience of "false labor" I can tell you that I will not be doing any more timing of contractions "just for fun" until those suckers are on top of each other! I have since gotten over it and am back to just waiting and knowing he'll come when he will come. Also I know we only have a short amount of time with just Mark, Giedo, and me so we might as well enjoy it while we can.

Our Nursery!

Did you think with my lapse of posting that Eli had joined us??? Well, he hasn't yet but we are patiently waiting his arrival. At my last doctors appointment some progress was made. I was 2cm dilated and 80% effaced which really means nothing but at this point in the game it is nice to hear of some progress going on. 

Anyways...I'll save all that for another post. The real reason you probably clicked open this post is to see our nursery and so here ya go!

Red Dresser! Remember we almost lost it while bringing it home. 

It wasn't easy to find Cat in the Hat accessories but when we came across one we bought it! 

I love looking at his crib! 

Rocker area between his little bookshelf and changing table. 

Fames waiting on his pictures. 

This toy is super cute. It has a rattle, crinkle noise, a mirror. It came from Amazon. 

It took forever to find the right yellow curtains and these are a little stiffer than I would like but they are still cute and the right color. 

Marks godmother painted one of these stools for him and each of his brothers ...then Eli got one too!!! 

This child has SO many books!

We bought him a little bank but we can't figure out how to open it! Haha!

We ordered a set of 3 Cat in the Hat bins, this is the smallest one....

and this is the largest one! We are using this one as his toy bin. 

I love the quote wall! 

I painted this with my friend Jenny at a ceramics place. It's cute. 

His mobile. (Amazon purchase) 

His sheets, which also match his lamp. (Amazon) 

All together view! 

We decided against bumpers and most of the crib accessories.  I've heard mixed reports on those things and we thought simpler was better for our little man. 

All together....The empty wall space between his dresser and crib is waiting on a big canvas print of  Eli when he gets his first little photo shoot. 

All together...

You'll have to excuse the slight distortion on these. I was using a very wide angle lens to try to get the whole room in the shot. 

One of my friends painted these for Eli. They turned out GREAT! 

We are so happy with our nursery and it is complete except the few places we will put some of his newborn photos after his first photo shoot. Last night Mark and I just sat in his nursery talking about how much we liked it and how ready we are for Eli to be here. We looked through all his drawers, his closet, and his changing table for like the 100th time and just got excited. We also got his little bag ready for the hospital. If he only knew what he had to look forward too I feel confident he would be here by now!

Thanks!
Danielle