Monday evening there was a baby shower held in Kiwi's honour. My sister in law did the decorating and it was super cute. I had forgotten to take my camera so I am going to have to snag some pictures from someone who had taken photos. It was sailor ship themed. On a banner it said, "Ohoy it's a boy". And she had sewn and stuffed little blue whales and had them hanging as a garland. (She herself is pregnant and she said she's going to reuse the whales and make a mobile out of them) Seriously this girl has mad-skills! I'm not doing the decorations justice with my words, just know that they were awesome and so cute! It's like a pinterest page had jumped out and became real life.
There was some very yummy food and Kiwi was spoiled with gifts. He was given many clothes and a couple of gift cards and some toys and a crocheted blanket and sweater.
I'm tired right now so it's hard to remember everything that I wanted to include in my update. At one point Kiwi wanted to eat so the attention was taken off of him and put on an adorable little girl who was trying her hardest to roll over. She had an entire room watching her (talk about pressure) but after perseverance she did it. It was so exciting!
Kiwi needed a break about half way through the party to eat some evening snack. Which of course takes a while because he's a slow good eater. I hope he didn't mind but I opened all his gifts for him. I'll make it up to him one day and allow him to open all his gifts on his own. But that might be a ways down the road.
All in all it was a wonderful shower and I really liked how people wrote Kiwi a letter of encouragement for down the road. I think I am going to make him a memory box and put them in it.
Serious cuddles with dad
This kid is so cute, I sometimes can't handle the cuteness!
The last couple of days have been crazy and kind of a blur. On Sunday afternoon after church we were heading to grab something quick to eat and take it to the park to hang out with family. Just before we left the church I called my friend to see if she had gone into labour yet. I didn't get an answer so we just assumed that she might be at the hospital already (her due date was 2 days prior) and since we were going to the hospital later that afternoon anyways (to visit B's Grandma) we would stop in on the third floor and see if my friend had been admitted. We got in the car and started to head towards KFC something we both haven't had in years. Well on our way I get a phone call. It's my friend and she is in labour. She asks me if we would be able to give her a ride to the hospital because her husband doesn't have a licence. Of course we said yes so we called our family to tell them that we weren't going to come, turns out they had changed their minds on the park too since it was starting to cloud over and get cold.
We get to my friends house and I run in to grab her. I ask her if her husband is coming along. She says no cause he's sick. I asked her if she had anyone coming to be with her at the hospital she says no. I can't believe she was planning on doing this alone so I told her that I was coming with her. B's an amazing support person and I was so dumb-founded on what to do (I've only ever been on the other side of labour). Because Kiwi needed to eat B took her up to the maternity floor. They went into the assessment room and she was hooked up to monitors. I met up with them once Kiwi was done eating. We waited there for a couple of hours and they told us that she could go home and labour there because it would be more comfortable. So we took her home and I told her that she could call me at any time to drive her back.
7pm I get a phone call. She can't take it drug free any more and she needs to get in. I had pumped one feedings worth for Kiwi so B could feed him so I was able to leave him at home. I went and got her and took her in. I tell you being there just 6 weeks ago brought on the water works and so many emotions. Note to all of you ever going to have a baby, your coach probably shouldn't be someone who just had a baby - their hormones are still all over the place and may just start crying for no reason. I much rather be on the labour side than the support person, but that's just me. I wanted to take the pain for her. They came in and checked her and said that she hadn't progressed since the last time she had been in so she could go home again. She refused because she didn't want to keep her husband up with her cries. So she was admitted. We moved into labour room 4. I helped her get 'comfortable' (as comfortable as you can get in labour. ) She had a hot shower to help progress things along. When she came out of the shower I told her to use the excercise ball to sit on and rock back and forth. This is where she was when I left at midnight. (I had to get home before Kiwi woke up for his next feeding). When I got home it was after midnight and Kiwi decided to wake up every 20mins to either eat or just for a snuggle.
6am I headed back to the hospital (stopping at my dad's place first to feed his cat and water the plants). When I got there(back to the hospital) I waked in and asked her how she was doing, she said wonderful, she had an epidural. Drugs are your friend!! Like B says, would you get a root canal without freezing? She was able to get some rest. She told me that at 1am her water had broke and that's when the contractions got even more intense. Her doctor had come in at 9 to check her. She was still only at a 4 so her doctor ordered some drug to help intensify her contractions and them to be more effective. This was because she had coupling contractions, meaning one would start and before it would finish another one would start but not be as strong so this just made for one stupid long contraction that wasn't very effective. Because she was going to get some rest I went up to the 4th floor of the hospital to visit with B's Grandma.
When I came back down all things had gone crazy again. Her epidural had worn off and the drug that intensifies the contractions was in full force. I jumped into coach mode real fast and helped her with her breathing, giving her water between each contraction, putting a cold cloth on her forehead and changing it to a colder cloth between every second contraction, holding her hand and cheering her on. (All tips I had gotten from B!) Her nurse was amazing! I really liked her. She had also stepped in as a coach especially when I would have to stop to nurse Kiwi. Oh yeah, did I leave that part out. When I had gone back in the morning I had Kiwi with me because B had to work. I put on my moby wrap and strapped him in nice and close to my chest where he slept most of the day except when he woke up to eat. I used the moby wrap because than it freed up both my hands and I was a more affective coach. The special doctor (because I don't know how to spell) that deals with the epidural came by and gave her another drug that would help bring back relief for my friend. It took 20 mins to kick in - I'm sure that felt like years for my friend. Once it kicked in she could still feel pressure in her pelvis but the pain of the contractions was gone. (I never got to experience this pleasure state because I was already passed the pushing stage in my labour before I received my epidural). She was able to rest between each contraction but still needed to breath through the actual contractions.
At 12:15 she had the feeling of needing to push so they called the doctor. 20 minutes later her doctor arrived and it was push time. She pushed for just over an hour. At one point I told her that she was so close to the finish line and the doctor said, It's not a race, and I told her, it's a slow motion race, at that the doctor laughed. At one point the resident said he forgot that there was even a baby in the room already because Kiwi was so quiet. He literally slept the entire time, so snuggled in to my chest. I totally recommend the moby wrap! At 1:55pm her daughter was born. It was maybe 10 minutes after she was born that Kiwi started to fuss so I took him out to the waiting area. Perfect timing -after he was settled I came back to the room to hang out for a little bit and then I had to head home because I needed to get ready for the baby shower the church was holding for me that evening. I got home and I fed Kiwi and rocked him, grabbed a 10 minute nap since I was running on a 2 hour sleep and then quickly got ready and headed to the church. It was a crazy 2 days for sure! Needless to say today I'm wrecked and it was another action packed day. OY! But that can be for another blog post. Lots of blog material that's for sure. So come back for updates cause there should be a few in the next couple of days while things are fresh in my mind.
I'm still shocked that she was thinking of doing that journey alone. I get that there are doctors and nurses there but it's nice to have someone you know, care and trust for to be there for you. I don't know, it's crazy! So I didn't know that that's what my weekend was going to look like, let alone that I would be coaching someone through labour (especially with a baby strapped to my chest) 6 weeks after going through it myself.
Yesterday I went to pick up B from work because we were going to some friends' house for dinner. When I arrived he needed another 5 or so minutes so I decided that I would jump in the back of the car to sit beside Kiwi while I waited. While I was sitting beside him the car started to feel funny. I looked up and realized that we were rolling backwards. I had forgotten to pull up the E-brake. In a state of panic I jumped out of the car and tried to push it forwards, the downward slop behind me was too much for me to push against so I ran as fast as I could around the car (yelling for help as I ran) and jumped in the front seat and pushed on the brake. Luckily it was after hours and there was nobody around (usually the parking lot is crazy busy). I turned on the car, drove it back into the parking spot and pulled the E-brake up as far as it could go - a little bit of over compensating I know. My hands were shaking so bad that I decided that B would be the driver over to our friends house. It was seriously the worst feeling I've ever felt knowing that I put my baby in danger like that. The weird thing is that that was the second time in so many days that I had forgotten to pull the E-brake up and I never forget. What is going on with my brain?! I wish it would come back where ever it went.
I'm just so happy that nobody was hurt and nothing was wrecked in my absentmindedness.
I'm back! I am excited to be back because it has been 4 long weeks without a computer. Well I would borrow B's computer but not near long enough to do a blog update. I could have done one, technically, during a night feeding, but really I wasn't in the mind set nor had the energy to do one than.
Things are going well at the homestead. Kiwi and I have gone on many adventures. We try to hit up B's work once a week for lunch (Although we missed last week). Kiwi is growing so strong. He is able to hold up his head for quite some time now. He has started cooing and it's just the cutest thing. He smiles frequently and has even started to giggle. He loves bath time (except when his head is wet). He thinks it's so funny when we play with his lower lip. I hope this lasts into the days when we have to wipe his face after a meal. Yeah right, keep dreaming Michelle.
Yesterday marked the first day that Kiwi was babysat. I took him over to his grandparents' house (B's parents). B had gotten me a 90 minute relaxation massage. I was really nervous that Kiwi would get hungry while I was away, because I would be gone for just over 2 hours with the travel time, so I pumped 10 ounces of milk, in which he only consumed one. A little over kill on my part. But you never know, sometimes he wants to eat for a 45 minute stretch so I thought it would be better to be safe than sorry and have a very grumpy little man for the Grandparents to try and console. The day after (today) I received an email from Kiwi's grandpa (B's dad) and in it there was a picture of what they did during their time together. So cute!
Tonight we started his bedtime routine. We'll see if this helps with stretching out his times between feedings in the night time. If not I really don't mind getting up to feed him. It's only for a short time and won't last forever. But I've heard that having a routine really helps so it's worth a try. Our evening looked like this.
6:30 - bath time (this came a little earlier than originally planned due to a poop explosion)
7:00 - feeding
7:15 - story and song
7:25 - lay down in crib
7:35 - second round of feeding
7:50 - burped by daddy/cuddles and fell asleep on daddy's chest
8:00 - put back in crib
It's now 10pm and he's still asleep. We will see how long this goes on for. I think tomorrow or the next day or in the near future I'm going to pick up the book "baby whisperer" or sleep whisperer or something like that. I've seen it at the used baby store on the west side. I was reading some of the things online and the reviews and I think it's best to go with that route rather than the "baby wise". I really didn't like the things I was reading in baby wise, just seems so dis-engaged and disconnected. I think, for myself, a gentler direction is better. I'm in no way judging those who use the baby wise approach, just don't think it's the right route for me. And I've gotta listen to my mommy instincts, that's why they're there right?
Tomorrow marks 6 weeks that Kiwi has been in our lives (on the outside). I can't believe how fast time has been going.
Wow, it has been a long time since I updated, not on lack of material either, but my computer is still in the shop and so I have to wait until B gets home from work to use his computer. However it's his work computer so my time on it is limited so I have not been able to update. I know, no excuses. Today, however, B has gone to back to bed so I have free reign of the computer so I am taking this opportunity to update my blog! Woot!
Last night B spoiled me by taking the night shift with Kiwi. I got a full nights sleep, except when I woke up at 4:30 and realized I hadn't been woken up yet so I came out to the living room to find them both fast asleep. B on the couch and Kiwi in his swing. I went back to bed and didn't get up until 7!! Boy am I one lucky mama!
I just started pumping my milk last week. The first time I used it I was only able to get 2-4oz in an hour of pumping. Enough for a mini-feed. Fast forward to today (my fourth time using it) and we got nearly 8oz in 25 mins. Woot!! So exciting. I love that it frees me up a bit and gives B some extra bonding time with his son.
Kiwi has been growing like a weed. Which reminds me I need to weed the garden. He is now at 11 pounds 3oz, at least that's what he weighed last Tuesday so it's most likely more now. He is a good little eater and there is no confusion between chest and bottle. Smart little gaffer! He is smiling a lot more and even giggles once and a while. I am so looking forward to when these are in response to something and not so random!
We had our first day in the park on Wednesday. B's Grandma is in the hospital recovering from a hip surgery so we all got together and had a picnic in the park that is right behind the hospital. That was Grandma was able to be wheeled over. It was so nice out and it was great to be surrounded with almost all the nieces and nephews on that side. My one niece kept the ball away from my nephew and he just thought it was the most fun game. It was really funny to watch because you could tell she was just trying to steal the ball, but he thought it was a game.
Kiwi will be a month old as of tomorrow! I can't believe it's been a month already. I know I use to make fun of the people who would say that before, but now having lived in these shoes I totally get it. Time does just slip away.
My recovery from the c-section is slow. Probably because I keep trying to do things and by the end of the day my stomach is so sore. I really can't help it though. I feel like during the day there are so many things that can be done and they don't require that much energy. But I guess doing a lot of little things add up and then I pay the price at the end of the day. The biggest culprit is the baby carrier! It's so heavy and I feel it in my stomach every time I carry it. But really what am I suppose to do? Leave him in the car? Or take him out of it each time? (Which sounds like a reasonable solution, but he's usually sleeping in it by the time we get to our destination and I don't want to wake him up).
On a bright note though, I am down 35 pounds from my pregnancy weight, which puts me 26 pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight! only 16 pounds to go until I'm at my goal weight. I am excited about this because I have yet to be allowed to exercise. I am looking forward to going swimming and going for long walks with the stroller! I might even join bootcamp again in the fall.
Well that's about all I can think of for now. I know there's a lot more but I can't think of it right now.
Until next time,
Michelle
