Birth Story

I would say I’m sorry for my lack of blogging lately, but I really don’t feel I should need to apologize as a brand new mother of my first baby!  I finally had a few minutes here to create a post, so I’m taking advantage to share the birth story with you.

On Wednesday morning, June 22nd, at around 7ish, I thought my water broke.  I could have sworn my water broke.  I called the doctor and told them what I was experiencing, and was sent in to the hospital to get checked out.  The nurse tested the fluid and said it was positive for amniotic fluid (she tested from an external source, however).  Apparently washing with soap can cause a false positive.  The doctor checked me and said I was not leaking fluid, and I wasn’t very dilated or having contractions that I could feel.  He did order an US to check my fluid level, because if it was low he would have kept me there.  My fluid level was good, so I was sent home.

By noon that day I started to feel back pain that I realized was actually contractions, but they were coming very far apart and sporadically.  As the evening progressed, they started to come a little closer together and were unmistakable as contractions.  I was having all back labor.  At first it wasn’t so bad because I used to get bad backaches and knew this feeling, so I was able to handle them.  By 1:30am they started coming 5 minutes apart.  I waited the hour to call the doctor to see if they stayed at 5 minutes apart and steady, so at 2:30am I was calling the on-call doctor and being sent into L&D again.  I was checked and monitored, and I was sure enough having steady contractions, and I was just about 2 cm dilated, so I was admitted.  I was still handling the contractions well, but once they got my IV in (oh my God!  they tried 4 times, and bruised me badly!) they started Pitocin.  By around 6am I was dilated at 4-5 cm, and still handling contractions well.  After this, the times get a little fuzzy for me, but later in the morning I asked for Nubaine to take the edge of the contractions.  Since I hadn’t slept since 7am the day before, the doctor also ordered another drug for me which knocked me out.  I slept quite a bit and actually had trouble waking up.  Good stuff!  When I finally did wake up, the contractions were coming closer together and with the high dose of Pitocin I was on, I asked for the epidural.  I was 7 cm dilated when I finally got it at 12:45pm, after waiting almost 45 minutes from when I asked for it, and I was so scared it wasn’t going to work properly.  It finally kicked in and worked probably a little too well!  I couldn’t move my legs on my own for the life of me!  At some point I know they put an internal monitor on the baby for his heart rate, and they did give me an antibiotic since there was question of me leaking fluid, but I’m fuzzy on when that all happened.  The doctor also had to break my water – no mistake in what that felt like now!  By 3pm I was fully dilated and ready to push.  They did have to knock back the epidural a little so I could push better, but it worked out great.  I felt some of the contraction to know when to push, but I didn’t feel any pain down below.  So, push I did…for 3 hours.  He kept checking my progress, saying he’d let me go a little while longer, but baby Bean was somewhat stuck in there.  It didn’t come down to a c-section, thankfully, but I was exhausted, and I was feeling sick, so at one point we thought we might have to use a vacuum assist to get him out.  Luckily my last few pushes were good enough and pushed him right out quicker than they could even stop me to suction his mouth and nose!  Bean was born right on his due date at 6:13pm.  See the previous post for his stats.

I did have internal tearing and lots of internal bruising.  I apparently lost a decent amount of blood and had to be given 2 injections of medications for the blood loss.  I was also packed up and catheterized for a good 24 hours due to the bleeding, so unfortunately I could not get out of bed and missed out on Bean’s first bath and such in the hospital.  I am feeling much better these days, but still not 100%.  My tailbone was bruised and that still bothers me when I am up on my feet for too long or when I sit on certain chairs. 

So, I had a rough delivery, baby was born with a conehead from being stuck, but he’s worth it and I love him so much!   :)

Here he is!

Week #2 – Full Day #2

I was very unmotivated again today. I got nothing accomplished, and felt pretty blah. I guess not having hubby around puts me in a slump. I don’t like it. I am hoping tomorrow is a new day and I will be more productive.

I went to bed extremely late last night, which means I got up fairly late today. The kitties didn’t pester me for food yesterday morning, but you better believe Dusty decided to let me know when I had enough sleep for his grumbly belly this morning. One or both of them usually can get pesty in the morning when they want food (“Tubs” is on a diet, so unfortunately for little Dusty, he follows the same feeding now, which usually means no free for all on the food overnight), but this morning Dusty was a whole new level of annoying. He decided to skip pawing my legs and go straight for the head today. Not sure exactly what he was after or trying to accomplish, but he kept standing at my head on my pillow and digging between the pillow under my head and the one propped up against the wall.

The rest of my early afternoon consisted of catching up on “Persons Unknown”. I watched the first three episodes now, and it’s a little slow moving and weird, but I am totally into it. I couldn’t stop from watching all 3 episodes on demand, and excited now to see the next episode. Any of you watching that show? What do you think about it?

I headed out to return my free movie from redbox, and make a quick Target stop. I managed to beat the horrendous thunderstorm to get to my car, but driving home was altogether different. My wipers were going double speed, and I still couldn’t see! The lightning was striking a little too close for comfort to my car, and the thunder was booming so loudly that it scared me! It looked like a waterfall outside. I managed to make it in the house when the rain slowed a tiny bit.

This evening I spent at baton practice, teaching some of the older but newer or newest members. It felt good to be doing something, since I don’t always have a “job” at every practice due to the number of instructors. They’re a good group of girls, and I would love to teach them a new routine, or at least collaborate on one with one of the other instructors. We shall see what becomes of that, however. My hope is to at least be able to collaborate.

The scale was nice to me today and yesterday, but I’m still not back at my lowest weight because this past week/weekend really did me in. I’m not sure how nice it will be to me tomorrow though, since we went somewhere to eat after practice that didn’t really have any great options for low calorie eating.

Now onto “hump day” – hopefully the days after that will go so quickly that I’ll wonder where the time has gone. Hopefully I will also be more motivated to get things accomplished tomorrow.

Getting To Know You Sunday

The questions…

1. If you could have one of Superman's, powers which one would you want? Superhuman strength..Flight..Superhuman speed..X-Ray vision..etc

Probably X-Ray vision, cause even though I don’t like to admit it, I can get curious, sometimes nosy.  Flight would be awesome though too.

2. The best thing I ever won is....?

Um, not really sure….I don’t tend to win much, and the only thing that’s standing out in my mind at the moment is when I was 7 and won first place in my novice 2 baton category at NBTA Nationals in Notre Dame, IN – that felt awesome!

3. Have you ever skyped with a bloggy friend?

No, I’ve never skyped with anyone, since I don’t even really know what skype is or how to use it….Facebook can sometimes even be a challenge for me still!

4. What is your favorite Summer month?

July – you’ve got 4th of July fireworks and sometimes picnics, my birthday on the 17th, my hubby’s birthday on the 29th, and July 21st is when we officially became a couple almost 11 years ago (we met online almost a year before that, met in person that week, became a couple on the 21st, and have now been married for almost 3 years!)

5. Pool, Lake, or Ocean?

Definitely pool, ‘cause I always get a mouthful of saltwater in the ocean and can’t stand it, but I used to love the “lake” at one of the campgrounds we used to go to when I was really little.

6. One of my favorite Summer memories is.....?

Many favorite summer memories – every year I went with my baton group to Wildwood, NJ to perform on/off the boardwalk.  It’s something we looked forward to every summer, and they are definitely like my second family, and we have made so many great memories from those trips.  Sadly, we won’t be going this year.   :(

7. What's your favorite secret bargain?

Um, not really sure I have one.  I shop at Wal-Mart all the time, so right there most of everything I buy is a bargain compared to other stores.

8. Do you plan on or have you been watching the World Cup?

No – I used to be an Athletic Trainer, and got my fill of watching sports that way.  Not a fan of watching any sport on TV.

Under Construction – Part 2

Well, I was at least able to revert back to my old design with my hubby’s help (thank you hun, you’re my hero!).  :)    I’m back to the drawing board with a new design for this blog though, but with the issues I had, I have learned a little from my mistakes, and will have to do some more research and learning before I can really make some changes.  I don’t want to be someone who changes my blog design constantly (even though I sometimes tire of things easily, and that might be fun…) because I feel your blog layout/design is how you’re recognized, sort of a signature.  So, even though change may be necessary every now and again with it, I’d like to keep those changes to a minimal number of times.  So for now, here it is again, even if it is a little drab.  I still like it better than how my attempt came out.  It will change someday though – keep an eye out for it!

Under Construction

Bear with me – I am attempting to create a new look for my blog! I created a new background all by myself, and I loved the look of it without the blog part, but when I applied it to my blog, it didn’t exactly come out as I expected. So, as I said before, I am new to all of this stuff, especially this part of it, please bear with me through my changes! It’s late now and I can’t mess with it much more at the moment, so I will have to work on it more tomorrow. Unfortunately, I also don’t quite know how to revert back to my most recent template, since it was a freebie I found online, can’t remember where I found it, and made enough changes that I don’t think I can simply “undo” to get back to it. :( Hopefully I’ll figure it all out and am happy with what I end up creating or choosing from someone else’s creativity. Any pointers or suggestions of great, FREE, blog designs, please share with me!

Getting to Know You Sunday

I found out about this “blog carnival” through another friend’s blog, and thought I would give it a go this week!

If you are reading this and like this kind of post, check out the originator (love her blog! she does a few of these kinds of posts) and join in!

First off – my hubby should be very proud of me for this; it’s the first time I incorporated someone else’s button and used the code correctly all on my own without his help and tutorials! I’m not a computer savvy person, and have needed his help numerous times with my blogging, since I am still fairly new and still learning. On to the questions:

1. If a person has a booger in their nose. and you can see it, do you tell them? – Only if it’s my hubby or my parents, otherwise I just try not to to stare or look grossed out!
2. What are you passionate about? – dancing and baton twirling…I started baton when I was 5 and dance when I was 7, and nowadays I love teaching both!
3. How long have you been blogging? – I started a different blog to share creative ideas for special occasions (weddings, baby showers, birthday parties, bridal showers, etc.) back in 2008, but I didn’t do much with it so far, so serious blogging has been since April – still fairly new
4. What is your favorite "summer" drink? – iced tea and as for alcoholic, it doesn’t really change from season to season and depends on what I’m thirsty for: fuzzy navel, Malibu and Coke, sour melon, or sometimes a Bahama Mama…as long as it’s typically sweet and fruity!
5. What is your favorite type of music? – no favorites really, but not a big fan of country or hardcore rap….right now my favorite song to hear has been “Hey Soul Sister” by Train
6. Something I do before I go to bed is......? – watch TV, even though they say it’s bad for your quality of sleep, but most of the time it helps me clear my mind and become sleepy
7. My Summer vacation plans are...? – none at the moment, really….day trip to Bethany Beach with my twirling group if there’s enough seats on the bus, but other than that we haven’t decided on anything yet, and with having a new outdoor space built, we might not be able to afford any type of real vacation anywhere
8. My favorite must have, can't live without, beauty product is? – I hardly ever wear makeup (only when I dress up for special occasions), so everyday product that I would still consider in the beauty category would be my hairspray and detangler spray.

Now I better link this up before it’s too late!

I have a sweet tooth....but what is blog candy?!

So, I'm still trying to figure out everything I want to learn and know how to do with this blog. This blog will have a variety of posts, including my crafts. I was looking at other crafters blogs today, and discovered "blog candy". I'm still not quite sure what that's all about, but maybe that's something in my blog's future (far future, however)! If you know anything about blog candy, or have any other suggestions or tips to share with me about blogging, feel free to share.

Time to get started!

Hello and welcome to my new personal blog! Here you will find posts about myself, my life, my hobbies, and even my kitties! I'm still learning about all of this blogging "stuff", so bear with me to start. It is late now, however, so look for more to come soon! Just wanted to welcome you here for now.......goodnight!