Supermom Chronicles

It's been something like 2 weeks since my last post. I have seriously tried every day since then to post again. I take the computer over to the table, open it, and as soon as I start up the internet, something happens. Somebody needs to be fed, somebody has poopy pants, or somebody has marker (washable, thank goodness) all over their face, hands, legs, tabletop, wall, and oh yes, a little on the paper in front of them.





For the most part in these early newborn days, this is what James spends a lot of his time doing...






Here's another pose...










And another...he likes to stretch out after getting a full belly. Must feel good after 9 months of being wadded up in a ball...

Of course, we spend about 6-8 hours a day nursing. I'm getting ok sleep at night in spurts of 1.5 hours at a time. Things are going pretty good, though. It seems like it was harder with Cole. Maybe I feel more at peace, more settled in life this time. Or maybe it's because James is an easier baby (Cole was pretty colicky). Or maybe I'm trying to savor every moment knowing that this is the last time we will have a newborn to care for. I really DO NOT want James to grow up at all. I want to freeze him just the way he is (though "sleeping through the night" John adds). I am really enjoying mommyhood this time. I was so busy with vet school soon after Faith was born. Then life was hectic and unsettled when Cole was born. I feel like this time things are perfect. I'm really glad I've taken 3 months for maternity leave. I will return to the clinic Jan. 15.


The day I had been dreadfully terrified of for the past 9 months finally came and went...John returned to work when James was 1 week old. So I found myself in new territory alone at home as a mother of 3 kids 4 years old and younger. I was really scared of how to handle this new lifestyle, but I have to say that it's not so bad (so far). In fact, I've really enjoyed it. The days run pretty smooth, for the most part. We now run our lives on more of a schedule than ever before (I'm a new fan of meal planning a week in advance). A decent schedule=happy days=Mommy's sanity is intact. Thankfully, the kids are pretty understanding and well behaved when I have to nurse or spend time with James. This playset we bought from Craig's List 2 weeks before James was born has been a Godsend. John beefed it up, gave it a fresh coat of paint, and the kids have spent HOURS on it ever since.

My sister also thought to bring PlayDoh for the kids when she came for James' birth. This has also been a lifesaver. It's a bit messy (notice Cole likes to make 10 million little balls with his), but it keeps everybody happy and quiet while I nurse. While James sleeps, I try to include the kids in the happenings of the house. They both like to help out. Faith has been helping me cook, and surprisingly, Cole likes to help me clean. A couple of days ago, of his own volition, he picked up a washcloth and wiped down his table and the cabinet fronts in the kitchen.

So for now, all is well. I am happy. The kids are happy. There is peace in our world. I'll be busy the next couple of days mostly cooking. A couple of our neighbors had babies over the past 4 days, so I'm making meals for them (they did the same for us). We're having family over on Wednesday for Cole's birthday dinner. I'll try not to wait another 2 weeks to post again:)

These are the flowers from the clinic - thank you!

After spending the first few moments in the outside world on mommy's tummy, I wasn't too happy about getting cleaned off...

Party of five...

Aren't I gorgeous?

My first footprints. Baby toes are so cute!

Well, after almost 48 hours with no name, we finally decided on James Alexander (John came up with it in the middle of the night, a tribute to his father). No, this name was not on our final list, go figure. But the other choices just didn't fit.

Delivery day was strange and not what we expected to say the least. But all's well that ends well. We got to the hospital at 7am for induction. When I arrived, the nurses informed me that my doctor had decided to postpone pitocin until 10am since he had some morning appointments to tend to, and I tend to have speedy deliveries. So we spent the first 3 hours in the delivery room just visiting. I was hooked up to all the monitors and having pretty decent contractions every 4-5 minutes (I had been doing that for several days now).

Then they started my bag of IV fluids (no pitocin yet) around 10am. This diluted out my natural oxytocin and my contractions completely stopped. They started the pitocin at 10:42am at a very low dose and increased it every 15 minutes. Nothing. No contractions. The whole family was making jokes because we all expected this to be quick.

Finally my doctor arrived at 12:30 and broke my water (I was still 4cm dilated, 70% effaced - no real change since my arrival that morning). It took another 30+minutes before real contractions started kicking in. I remember it was 1pm when I told John to go ahead and cut the tv off in the room because things were finally starting up. Then once my contractions started, they took off in full force. They stopped increasing the pitocin because things took off so fast.

I had planned on trying natural childbirth because of my history of quick labors - I figured I could do anything for a short while - WRONG! Actually, John & I did really well as far as I'm concerned. He did a great job of coaching me. There's no way I would have made it as far as I did without him. The problem was the pitocin. I remember with Cole's delivery I got a break in between unbearable contractions. This time, my uterus stayed very tight and never really released between contractions. They were literally non-stop. I couldn't hardly talk or open my eyes between contractions.

So when I asked for the epidural, my doctor was actually trying to encourage me to continue with natural childbirth (this surprised me). He checked me and I was 6cm. He said based on my previous deliveries, I would be pushing within 20 minutes. I said, "I don't care. I can't do this another 20 minutes." So in comes the anesthesiologist. After hitting a nerve root on my left side twice (not fun for me or John who got kicked pretty hard), he finally got the epidural in. It seemed to take forever - I had at least 4 contractions while he was working. Anyway, by the time I lied back down in bed, I was giddy. I remember just giggling and asking to see the kids one more time before it was time to push. And guess what? Sure enough, 16 minutes after getting the epidural, James Alexander was born. But I have no regrets. That was the happiest 16 minutes of my life.

When it came time to push, I had John & my mom with me. My doctor told my mom it wouldn't take much for this little guy to come out, and he wasn't kidding. I pushed 3 times during 1 contraction and he was out! He came out very healthy with no signs of prematurity (he was born only 15 days early). He weighed in at 7lbs 14oz, 20.5in long.

Now we're all home and pretty tired. He's a very quiet baby (thank goodness) and sleeps a lot. He is absolutely precious and I am filled with joy.

Well, my bp is high when I'm sitting up, but it goes back down to normal (or high normal) when I lie down. So my doc is OK with me continuing on until Wed as long as I stay lying down. So we're on for induction this Wed a.m. The great news is he informed me today that he got me into the hospital I originally wanted to go (same one where I delivered Cole).

My mom is here now for the next several days to help with the kids and cooking (I've got her busy in the kitchen now). My sister will also be here tomorrow through Thursday morning. So unless something worth talking about happens in the next day, you probably won't hear from me again until after his majesty's arrival!

As I was lying in bed this morning I realized that in less than 48 hours I will never be pregnant again for the rest of my life. It's a bittersweet feeling. Even though I've had my share of complications, I'll still miss feeling him inside of me. For those of you who have been pregnant, you know that special feeling of carrying your future inside of you. Everytime he moves I can't help but feel joy. Even though I've been on bedrest and now I'm bloated from the bp issues, I still look at my belly and marvel at the miracle taking place. I remember after I delivered my other 2 children there was a sense of emptiness inside that I had to adjust to afterwards. After carrying them around for so long, even though you then hold them in your arms, you still feel a little "hollow" and miss the kicks, movements and hiccups that I could set a watch by (this boy gets hiccups like clockwork every night at 10pm).

Well, my doc called this morning and said he doesn't want to wait until Wed to see how my bp is doing. He has asked that we come in this afternoon for a bp and urine check. If I'm pre-eclampsic, I guarantee he'll induce me this afternoon. So we may have a little boy sometime in the next few hours. Now all of a sudden I don't feel mentally prepared. When I woke up this morning I wasn't thinking I would deliver today. I haven't had many contractions in the past 24 hours. In fact, I actually got a really good night's sleep last night. I guess that's a blessing considering we may deliver today now. We might have a Columbus Day baby after all...

It's now 10:15am. John went to work, and I'm still at home, lying on the couch, blogging again. I had a feeling as I sat blogging this morning that it had to be a false alarm. Given my history of speedy labors and the fact that I had already been cramping for 3 hours, I was pretty sure it wasn't going anywhere. Sure enough, everything stopped around 6:45am and I went back to bed. It's odd, though. That was the exact same cramping-type of contraction I had when I went into labor with Cole. Maybe it could be soon, but I'm not going to place any bets. I'll just chill out here at home and enjoy my last moments of peace. Some of my swelling has gone down from my high blood pressure (although I'm still getting fairly high readings at home). So my hands are quite a bit more comfortable, thank goodness. Without that joint pain I'm hoping to be able to get another couple of nights of pseudo-decent sleep before sleep becomes a faded memory in life. I remember when I was a vet nurse and had gained acceptance into vet school, my boss told me that vet school would be the most sleep-deprived years of my life. Ha! If only men could breastfeed...

Well, it's 5:40am and I'm trying to figure out if labor is starting. The challenge with being in preterm labor for the past 16+ weeks is figuring out when real labor begins. Of course, when I really get into it I'll know. But right now I'm in that not-so-sure stage. With Cole my contractions changed from an overall tightness everywhere to a deep cramp. The cramps kept coming and eventually there was no question I was in labor. Well about 2 hours ago I started getting those deep cramps. But I've had a few of those in the night before (usually brought on by changing positions in bed). This morning is different, though, because I've continued to have these cramps for the last 1-1/2 hours. But they're somewhat irregular. Basically 8-10 min apart but varying in intensity. It just hasn't reached that definite point of no return. If there is no post later today, it's probably because we went to the hospital:)

This picture has absolutely nothing to do with this post, but isn't she cute?! We bought a new digital camera yesterday, and after figuring out the basics I snuck up on Ginger sleeping - so precious! Too bad she's a PITA (pain in the a**) most of the time she's awake. She's not that bad, she's just still got a lot of puppy in her (and a little too much basset hound, too). I'm a beagle junkie. Bassets are cute to look at in the clinic (hence the picture on my blog wallpaper), but I lived with a really stubborn, not too intelligent one for 14 years of my childhood. Loved her, but boy was she lacking in the brain cell department. Anyway, getting a decent camera was (I thought) the last hurdle before we were ready to finally have this baby. Read on...

I'm 37 weeks today! That makes this "FT-day" (full-term) - yeah! The plan for the last 16 weeks of bedrest was to get up today, jump for joy, run around the neighborhood and celebrate until I go into labor. I'm still 4cm dilated, so it shouldn't take too much to get me going. Well I should have known better. If there's nothing else that motherhood has taught me it's that we can't rely on a PLAN. Kids find a way to change the best laid plans, and all 3 of my kids started this while they were still in the womb.

I decided yesterday that I was close enough to 37 weeks to go ahead and get up. I'm tired of being bed-ridden and I've got a lot to do. I made a massive grocery list for John, my plan being to cook yesterday and all day today to make a lot of freezable meals for us to eat after his majesty's arrival. I made 2 meals yesterday, did some piddly cleaning around the house and went with John to Circuit City to buy the new camera. At some point while I was cooking I realized that my legs were really hurting. My feet felt like they were going to explode and there was a sharp pain traveling up my right thigh. My hands were starting to hurt and later when I was reading a book I noticed my vision in my right eye was a little blurry. Last night as I tried to get comfortable in bed for the 3oth time the joints in my hands hurt so bad it was hard to move. I really sympathize for arthritis sufferers. But heck, I'm 9 months pregnant and I've been lying down for the last 4 of them. So I chalked all this up to being extremely out of shape and typical swelling of pregnancy.

Unfortunately, I've met my newest PITA: PIH (pregnancy-induced hypertension). I gained 5 lbs this past week (normal is 1-2), so 3-4 lbs is water weight. My blood pressure has been creeping up the last 2 visits, but today it was 156/96. Both upper and lower values are officially high and now we are on the lookout for pre-eclampsia. I developed PIH with Faith, but was past 38 weeks so was sent immediately to the hospital for induction. With Cole, I had an occasional high reading, but I was already on bedrest for preterm labor (PTL) and so my bp stabilized. I had to monitor it at home for awhile, but it stayed within normal limits. My doctor said today that I may have had PIH sooner with this pregnancy had I not been on bedrest for PTL. So guess what my orders are? STRICT BEDREST. Good grief, you've got to be kidding...expletive, expletive.

Now comes the irony. A few people have asked me along the way what will happen once my bedrest was over at 37 weeks. "Will they induce you?" was actually a common question, to which I laughingly replied, "No, I'll just stand up, walk around for awhile and the baby will come out." This is all based, of course, on my last experience with PTL (Cole) and the fact that I'm already 4cm and the fact that everytime I stand up I have a lot of contractions. BUT, after nearly 17 weeks of bedrest trying to prevent labor, next Wed, Oct 11, I am scheduled for induction at 7:30am at South Austin Hospital. So one way or another, I will no longer be pregnant 6 days from now.

Could I go into labor before then? Sure, but the odds are low because I'll still be on strict bedrest. Without standing up and allowing the baby to put pressure down on my cervix, it's unlikely that things will get going on their own. Bummer. I feel like I'm being somewhat robbed of my final birth experience. I was really looking forward to the excitement of going into labor and rushing to the hospital. I know that may sound crazy or frivolous, but my experience of going into labor with Cole was one of the most exciting moments of my life. I know I'll get over this feeling soon. I'm tremendously grateful to have a healthy full-term baby. Once he's here, it won't matter how he got here. But just for today, I feel a little let down.