Author Archives: adamsjen39

A Mother’s Guilt 5/5/13

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Yesterday evening I left Alexandra screaming with her daddy and headed out for a six mile run. It was hot, windy and I felt awful just leaving her like that. It was 6 pm and we had already had a long day. She had her 2 month shots a few days before and didn’t do very well with them. The nurse had told me that some babies sleep a lot for a couple days and other babies fuss more. She definitely fussed rather than slept.

So she had been really fussy the last couple days and was even waking up several times through the night (she’s been sleeping through the night since she was about 4 weeks old, with few exceptions). We took her to Ann Arbor on Saturday to watch my sister in law Mackenzie, graduate from U of M. We got up sometime around 5:30 am and were on the road before 7 am. She did awesome and it was a really nice day spent with family. By the time we got home around 5:30 though it had already been a really long day and I just didn’t feel like running. Still, I knew I had 6 on the calendar and I wouldn’t feel like doing it on Sunday either so I figured I might as well get out there. As I was getting dressed she started crying, well more like wailing.

I hate hearing her cry. I mean absolutely HATE it. I read somewhere that infants cries are specifically designed to have that type of reaction in their parents so that you CAN’T ignore it. When she cries everything in me just stops being able to concentrate and all I can think of is what I can do to get her to stop crying. During those first 6 weeks many times the answer was NOTHING and that was particularly hard to swallow. I’ll admit with complete honesty that during some of those early crying fits I couldn’t get out the door fast enough to go for my 1 or 2 mile runs. For 8-16 minutes I could put my head phones on and get away from it for a while. That’s all changed now though. I wasn’t looking forward to just leaving her with her dad. I felt awful. I felt completely selfish. I must have asked him at least three times if he was SURE he could handle her. He assured me he would be ok and I went out the door, the guilt and her cries echoing behind me.

I try to use my running as true “me” time and not think about all the things I have to do or even think about my wonderful baby. On this run though I couldn’t stop thinking about her and how I felt just leaving her screaming like that. I wanted so badly to just turn around or cut my run short to just go back there and hold her in my arms. I had to keep talking myself out of it. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Tim or think he could handle it. It was just that I really felt like I was abandoning her when she needed me. I knew in my head that it was actually good for Tim to get more time with her and learn how to comfort her. It was also good for her to be able to trust others besides just her mom all the time. I told myself that it was good for me too. Whenever I got back I always missed her terribly (yes, from only being gone for 45 minutes!) and felt so much more refreshed and ready to use my energy to calm her or play with her.

I love my daughter dearly and I dread going back to work and missing out on this time with her. In all honesty though there are some days when its 3 pm and I just can’t wait for Tim to get home and give me a little break. I get all the emails about her development and make time every single day to actively play with her and work on her skills. Its incredibly rewarding when she’s happy and smiles at me and coos and enjoys tummy time and I can just see that little mind of hers working as she looks at her world in wonder. Then there are days when nothing seems to make her happy and I spend the whole day just trying to keep her from having a full on screaming fit and I maybe took a 5 minute shower where I could hear her fussing in her seat the whole time and ate lunch with one hand while she sat fussing in the chicco while I did laps around the house because the second I stopped moving she’d start crying. So when Tim comes home I gladly turn her over and get dressed and get out the door for my run and come home missing her again and find myself wanting to take her from Tim and gladly offering to help calm her when she gets upset.

I enjoy running and it keeps me healthy so I feel like in taking care of myself I’m much better able to take care of her. Hey, walking around your house while carrying an almost 12 pound baby for the better part of the day is not easy. Sometimes at the end of the day my feet and legs just ache.

Anyway, back to the run. I had all these thoughts going through my head. I wondered if Tim would be able to calm her. I worried that he wouldn’t and she’d have spent the whole 45 minutes crying and missing her mom. I worried that Tim would take it personally and feel bad for not being able to calm her down. I worried that he wouldn’t enjoy his time with her and wouldn’t bond with her the way I always hoped he would. I worried about what would happen when she goes to daycare. The list goes on and on and on….and the miles went by quickly. When my watch beeped that I had completed 3 miles it startled me. I had been so consumed with all these thoughts that I hadn’t realized how much time had actually gone by. And that’s when I let it all go. I started thinking about running and racing and how much I loved it. The last couple miles were tough. It was really hot and yet windy at the same time so it felt like I was working much harder than I should have been for an easy run. I got home and found Tim sitting on the couch with a sleeping Alexandra on his chest. I smiled and laughed at myself for my useless worry. Of course they were fine. Tim is a great dad. My endorphins were in high gear and I just stared at the two of them for a minute and thought about how great life is.

Its not just the horrible tragedies in Boston and Texas but also things going here with people I know that cause me to pause and just think. Infertility, miscarriages, complicated pregnancies, child abuse, a young mother being abducted from her place of employment are just a few. I hear about these things and I just hurt for the people that are going through it. And it makes me tear up when I look at my precious baby girl and feel incredibly thankful. Its also in these moments I realize how quickly everything can all be taken away and it makes me want to squeeze her so tight. Sure, sometimes its really hard. I think any parent that tells you its easy is lying or delusional. In fact the night before we left for Ann Arbor Alexandra was still really fussy and it had been over 48 hours since her shots.

I remember being exhausted after having dealt with her the whole day and it was late at night and we were trying to get ready for the big trip. I was holding her as she was crying and I was just pacing the upstairs bouncing her while Tim was packing and I started crying to Tim “Why is she so difficult?! She’s such a fussy baby and I’m tired Tim and I do this ALL DAY LONG and she just fusses and cries and my feet hurt and my arms hurt and its almost 11 pm and I just want to GO TO BED!” Almost immediately after I vented like that I felt guilty and held her tighter and told her I love her, even when she’s fussy because I do. So I hear about all of these terrible tragedies and it reaffirms to me how blessed we are and of everything I have to be thankful for.

So those are my thoughts after 9 weeks as a mother. Alexandra measured at 11 pounds, 12 oz and 22.5 inches tall at her 2 month appointment! She was born just under average for weight and is now just ahead of the majority of her peers so she’s eating great! Its so rewarding to see the result of your hard work (breastfeeding) paying off. Slowly but surely my body is starting to return to its pre-pregnancy shape. The scale still hasn’t budged (I’m the same weight every week that I was 2 weeks post-partum) so I’m starting to accept that this is the weight my breastfeeding body is happy at. My ab muscles are finally starting to make a reappearance after starting back up with strength training 3 weeks ago. I’ve started to include some short workouts into some of my runs to test my fitness and it has been more of an uphill climb than I anticipated but it is starting to get better. Next Saturday I will test myself by running my first 5K since having her. I wish I could say I have a good guess as to where I will finish but I really don’t know. Guess we’ll find out in less than a week!

A Letter to my Daughter about the Boston Marathon 4/17

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race5Dear Alexandra,

It was Monday about 4 pm when I heard the devastating news about the attacks at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. You and I had just come in from a little walk with Sparty through the neighborhood and you were sleeping (something you rarerly do during the day). I looked at my phone and saw that I had missed text messages from family. When I started scrolling through I realized that something awful had happened and turned on the news, just as my dad (your grandpa) was calling to tell me.

With you still in your car seat sleeping, I stared at the tv screen in shock and horror at the video they were repeating over and over again.

You obviously won’t remember this day and had no idea what was going on as you slept peacefully. Someday though you will hear about the attack and I want to be able to tell you what exactly was going through my mind on that day.

The Boston Marathon is the oldest marathon in the U.S. and its run every April on Patriots Day in Boston. Patriots Day in Boston is a huge celebration, similar to New Year’s Eve in Times Square. Most residents have the day off of work (except for emergency workers and restaurant and bar employees, etc) and come out to be spectators for the marathon that is the pride and joy of their great city. It is the best spectated marathon in the US.

The Boston Marathon also happens to be a very prestigious marathon, and only those that qualify are able to run it. Some runners attempt to qualify their whole life and it has become a sort of “bucket list” event for most if not all in the running community.

Just last year, your daddy and I ran it together. It was something we had both always wanted to do, and we both happened to be qualified at the same time. I remember when we signed up even. For the first time in history, the Boston Marathon Association had a tiered registration process because the year before the race had sold out in 1 hour! I had beat my qualifying time by over 20 minutes so I was able to sign up on the first day. Daddy at that point had beat his qualifying time by under two minutes so he was in the last wave and he was certain he wasn’t going to get in. He registered on line as soon as possible that last day and we waited anxiously to get confirmation that he would make it in. When his email finally came a few days later we were elated and he was shocked! He had made it in by about 17 seconds. That is really important, because if he hadn’t made the cut off that year, we may have very well been running the marathon this year…which also would mean that you wouldn’t have been born. Sometimes its so crazy when you stop and think in life how 17 seconds could have changed the course of your life so much.

So we made it in and immediately made reservations for hotels and flights. We planned to make a whole vacation out of it and explore the city. Well, since the Boston Marathon is a big race and mommy tends to not do so well at big races, we decided to do another marathon 8 weeks before Boston to try to run a fast time. All winter mommy and daddy trained together and our winter marathon in Myrtle Beach went great for mommy, not so great for daddy when his hamstring went out at mile 20. However, after the marathon it was mommy that got hurt. I strained my IT band pretty bad and was unable to run hardly at all in the 8 weeks leading up to Boston.

A few days before we left I also came down with a severe upper respiratory infection. I was still determined to run. We had already made our reservations and signed up and everything.

Once we arrived in Boston the city started experiencing unseasonably warm weather. Temperatures were predicted to be in the low 90’s on race day and the race directors kept sending out emails urging people to not run. And then they decided to allow people to defer their entry from the race and have guaranteed entry the following year (this year). Well, we actually thought about it. I was honestly in no shape to run a marathon. But since Tim and I had made it in and decided that 2012 was the year we were running, we started to also plan a big event we wanted in 2013…the birth of a baby. I knew I shouldn’t run that year…but I also knew that I really wanted to have a baby the next year…which meant, no running the Boston Marathon. So we made the decision to run in 2012. We finished the race in over 5 hours. It was dreadful. Mommy got severely dehydrated and we ended up walking the majority of the marathon. Daddy never left my side though, and was so supportive and it was then that I really knew we could get through anything togeher, and felt more ready than ever to have a baby.

All day on Monday I was thinking about the marathon and what daddy and I had been through together the year before. I had been looking at pictures and smiling at the memory of the whole experience. After I heard that someone placed bombs along the finish line my whole day completely changed.

I thought about how happy daddy and I were to finally see that finish line and imagined that all the other runners were feeling the same way. It was such an emotional and surreal experience to cross that finish line and I thought of all the runners that will forever have that memory of a moment that should have been pure delight be tainted with the hurt that someone deliberately caused. I looked at you sleeping in your carrier and cried for those runners and for the innocent spectators that were hurt and killed. Especially when they announced that one of the victims was an 8 year old boy. I thought of how he was probably there watching his mommy or daddy and I lost it completely and wept for his family.

The fact that in different circumstances this could have been us makes it hit home that much harder and made me realize everything in my life that I have to be thankful for, especially you.

Running is such a big part of mine and daddy’s lives and we plan to take you along to so many of our races. I sometimes think about the day that you’ll be cheering for me at the finish line and how it will motivate me even more to push during that final stretch of the race.

What I want to tell you about the horrible events on Monday is that I don’t want it to ruin your joy or make you afraid. Admist all the evil there was also a lot of good that was occuring. We saw images of workers rushing in to help, runners turning and around and going back to help other runners. I’ve heard of residents of Boston offering their homes to stranded runners with nothing but the sweaty clothes on their backs that couldn’t get into their hotels. So with all the evil that exists in this world, I chose to believe there is much more good.

At anytime, anywhere we are something could happen to any one of us. I choose to trust that God will take us when we’re needed and not go about my life living in fear. Terrorists, by definition aim to cause terror in people. I will not let them. I hope someday that your daddy and I will run the Boston Marathon again, maybe even with you if you should choose to and if mine and daddy’s bodies are still able enough to run a marathon.

I love you more than you will ever know (until you have a child of your own) and want to protect you from all the bad in the world, even though I know I cannot. Live your life to the fullest every day and never forget to appreciate everything you have (or it should be EVERYONE you have since things end up being of little importance). Even if you don’t ever want to run the Boston Marathon, I hope someday you will visit the city and experience the marathon and all that magic that it contains.

Love Always,

Mommy

Smiles and Running Post Partum 4/7

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In the last couple weeks Alexandra has been rewarding us with lots of smiles and she seems to give more and more every day. No matter how many times I’ve seen them, it still melts my heart. I love this little girl more than anything and parenting is very hard, especially when you are doing all the giving. So when they finally start to show affection for you, its completely priceless! She’s also been doing a good deal of “talking”. She makes these cute little sounds and smiles and even laughs when she’s talking to me. I try to grab a camera and capture some of it, but its like she knows and will not cooperate. So I just try to take every little thing in. Its hard to believe my maternity leave is already half over and I want to enjoy every single minute with her.
Her nighttime schedule has been pretty consistent since she was about 4 weeks old. Typically she only gets up once or twice during the night to feed. She’s been going for longer stretches, though not consistently. The night before last she went for her longest stretch…slept 6.5 hours! When she goes for longer stretches like that I do have to get up and pump because I can’t sleep feeling that “full”.
Her daytime routine is far from it. We’re still all over the board. She seems to have some days where she sleeps a lot and can even go 3-4 hours between a feeding (I don’t ever wake her to feed anymore, I let her tell me). Then there are days when she hardly sleeps at all and gets really fussy as the day goes on. These days are pretty rough. I’ve found sometimes the only way to get her to sleep is to put her in my little sling carrier. Its fantastic that I have it, but it also doesn’t allow me to take a shower and obviously I can’t get in the car and go anywhere like that. It is too bad they don’t make slings so that you can take your baby running with you!
All in all, its slowly getting easier. I’m starting to know more how to soothe her when she cries and sometimes it seems all she needs is just to see me or have me hold her and she’ll calm down. It makes me happy, but also makes it hard when Tim gets home and I want to run and cook dinner and she fusses and cries for him. I try to let him keep trying when I get done running but after hearing her scream for long enough I can’t take it anymore and usually step in. I don’t know, its probably not the best thing to do, but I can’t stand to hear her cry like that and I feel bad for Tim too. I’m sure it will get better with time.
As far as running goes, I completed my first 3 mile run on Saturday morning and surprised myself by running pretty fast. I wasn’t trying in the beginning, but I’ll admit that after I heard my pace the first mile I wanted each mile after that to be a little faster and it was. By the last mile though, I was working pretty hard, but felt good. It felt nice to be kind of pushing myself again. The rest of the day I didn’t seem to feel more physically tired than normal so I probably didn’t push it too much. Even though my incision site is still sore to the touch I feel mostly recovered from the surgery. I know it will take a while for my abs strength to come back, but I feel like I can do most things just fine. I’m not technically supposed to lift over 15 pounds until 6 weeks but when you’re at home alone all day with a baby that weighs just over 9 pounds now and frequently carry her around in her bouncy seat or car seat its kind of impossible to avoid it.
My weight has remained the exact same since 2 weeks post partum. I guess its good that its not going up (especially since I seem to ALWAYS be hungry and let myself eat to my content right now). It still doesn’t look like my body to me. I still have very little definition in my belly and after I eat or drink anything it sort of just puffs out. My hips and butt also seem to be a lot curvier than they’ve ever been before. I feel guilty admitting this, but I’ll be glad when I’m done breastfeeding and my larger than life breasts go back to their “barely there” pre-baby size. Yes, seriously. I just tell myself that its going to take time to get back into shape, but remind myself that I WILL get there.
So that’s what we’ve been up to lately!

The First Month 4/5

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We’re just over a month in, and here’s what’s been going on:

Me: My mastitis started to clear up after several days on the antibiotics. I waited until all the pain and swelling was gone before attempting to run. 9 days after antibiotics, and 3 weeks + 2 days after my c-section, I went for a run. I only went one mile to start off since it had been 59 days (yikes!) since my last run. At first it felt very awkward. It was like I was going through the motions but it felt so foreign to my body, like it forgot how to do it. A few minutes in though and I got into my rhythm and felt really good. I took it VERY easy. I did not look at my pace until I was finished because I didn’t want my competitive juices to start flowing and make me push myself. I just wanted to give my body a good test drive and see how it responded. The last run I had gone on I was 34.5 weeks pregnant and running between an 8:30 pace (on a good day) and a 9:30 pace so I had no idea where I was going to be post partum. When I finished my mile I was surprised to see I had run it in 7:59! It was just a mile, but I really was taking it very easy and FELT like I was running more like 8:30-8:45 pace so I was pleasantly surprised to see it was just under 8 minutes!
The next morning I woke up sore! It was mostly in my legs, but also in my abs. I don’t know if I’ve ever been sore from running 1 mile easy before…but I guess my body has been through a lot and the muscles took a pretty severe beating. I went for another mile run that day to try to get some of the soreness out. I finished that mile in 7:49! By Monday I was still sore so I took that day off and just went for a walk with the dog. Tuesday I did a mile again, but felt sort of tired and had some achiness in near my incision. Not too surprising, I ran a little slower, 8:07 pace. I continued with my 1 mile runs on Wednesday and Thursday and felt about the same. On Thursday though there was a dad and daughter that crossed the road at the same time as me and they were running faster than me. My competitive juices started flowing again (and I was actually glad they were still there!) and I picked it up and decided I couldn’t let them leave me in their dust! So I stayed right behind them for the remainder of my big 1 mile run and was thrilled to see I ran a 7:19! It felt harder, but not race hard. I was getting more encouraged.
On Saturday I had my best run yet. I went for my first 2 mile run and I averaged 7:09 pace for the two miles. Again, I was NOT pushing myself, just out running and enjoying being out there. I felt good, and didn’t have the soreness near my incision this time. I still have a long way to go, but its encouraging every time I step out the door and feel good.
After two weeks post partum I had lost 20 of the 26 pounds I gained during the pregnancy. I hadn’t done anything to lose the weight. I was just breastfeeding and eating when I was hungry. It was encouraging and I figured in another couple weeks I may be back to my pre-pregnancy weight. Wrong! Now that I’m 4 weeks post partum I’ve stayed exactly the same, 20 pounds down, 6 to go. I did read that when you’re breastfeeding you probably will hang onto 3 pounds or so due to the extra tissue in your breasts. So, I would like to still lose another 3 pounds, but I’m not doing anything right now to try to make that happen. Breastfeeding burns a ton of calories (up to 600 a day) and if you try dieting while breastfeeding, it can negatively affect your supply. So hopefully now that I’m running again it will just happen naturally.

Alexandra: She has been doing great! I don’t know if it’s the ranitidine, the dairy finally being out of my milk or the fact that I’m off of antibiotics, but she’s seemed to be so much happier. Yes, she still gets fussy sometimes and still has some crying spells, but its not like it was before.
She’s already got a strong personality. She’s very stubborn. When she wants something, she will not give in until she gets it. I’ve been trying to get her to take a bottle of my pumped milk since she will have to when I go back to work and I want to start building my stash. We struggled and struggled and then my sister in law suggested Dr. Browns bottles and I finally tried them and we were thrilled she took it! Then my dad watched her for us for a few hours so we could go to my nephew’s birthday party and she took it from him! Then my sister from Colorado comes to town and I thought it would be great to have her experience feeding her niece and the little stinker refused! I think she knew that I was there and wanted to nurse instead and she through a little fit until I finally caved and nursed her.
She’s starting to smile and even laugh. It’s the most beautiful thing in the world when she looks at you with those baby blues and gives you this big toothless grin. I melt every time.
She’s been getting more and more scheduled and has been sleeping longer at night. We HOPE this continues!!

3/28, one month already!

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So here’s a look at what we’ve been up to the last few weeks (can’t believe its been a month already since she was born!).

We got home on Sunday, March 3rd and that whole first week seems like such a blur. Thankfully, Tim was home with me that whole first week and I found I really needed him. Even though he couldn’t feed her, he was able to help with diaper changes and allowed me to take care of myself as well as take care of her. I was pretty sore from the surgery still. I stayed on the painkillers for a few days after going home and that helped. I noticed mostly that I still wasn’t really able to bend over. I couldn’t bend over at the end of pregnancy because I had a huge belly in the way and now it was just that it hurt. Still, I got around ok. I couldn’t drive the first week, but since Tim was home, I didn’t really need to. I was incredibly swollen! I weighed myself the day after we got home and I had only lost 8.2 pounds since giving birth (and baby was about 7.5 of that!). I could see all the extra fluid from the IV’s they gave me. My ankles and feet were swollen and my face even looked really puffy. I think overall I still looked 5 or 6 months pregnant in the belly. It takes a while for your uterus to shrink back down, but even besides that all your organs had been pressed up to make room for your enlarged uterus. Add that to the weak abdomen muscles that pull everything in tight and its no wonder things still look very pudgy. I honestly wasn’t worried about it though. I was exhausted and caught up in being a new mom.

The night sweats were something else! I had heard that you sweat during the night, but I wasn’t totally prepared. I would wake up to feed Alexandra and look like I had just run a marathon. We’re not talking about a little perspiration. We’re talking about hair soaked, sheets wet, uncomfortable! I would get out of bed to feed Alexandra and be so cold! But I knew that was the body’s way of getting rid of all the extra fluids so I was ok with it. By that Friday when I stepped on the scale again I had lost 14.4 pounds!

Alexandra was doing great! She was breastfeeding very well, very often and she slept a lot. We took her to her first doctor’s appointment a few days after we were released from the hospital. They wanted to see her sooner because of everything that she had been through during birth. Everything was great! She was already back up to her birth weight which the doctor said was “surprising in a good way for a baby exclusively breastfeeding”.

With Tim being home and Alexandra sleeping a lot, it was a great week and we were both enjoying being new parents. Sure, we were sleep deprived, but we had expected that. I had my 30th birthday that Thursday (when she was exactly a week old). Because of everything going on in our lives it didn’t really seem like such a big deal. I didn’t put much thought into turning 30 at all or think if I had accomplished everything I had wanted to by this point in my life. I was a new mom with a wonderful daughter that I fell more and more in love with by the day. All that being said, it was the perfect day for me. Tim went out and brought home Jimmy John’s for lunch (the whole pregnancy I had to give up cold cut meats so I was so happy to enjoy my Jimy Johns again). We spent the whole day just being a family and lots of family and friends called or sent cards (or flowers from my sister and brother in law) to wish me a happy birthday. For dinner my brother and sister in law came over and we ordered Italian food. I even got Alexandra to take a bottle of pumped milk which allowed me to have a Sam Adams Cherry Wheat beer which I had also been craving during the pregnancy.

So if the first week was the “honeymoon” period, week 2 was…well if I’m honest, pretty much a nightmare, except for my little Angel of course.

Tim went back to work on Monday and I found it was a lot harder trying to manage by myself. I had all these grand ideas about keeping a perfect house and cooking great family dinners since I’d be home all day and babies sleep a lot, right?!

Suddenly our sleeping beauty started being awake A LOT more! And when she was awake, she was fussy and just wanted to feed ALL THE TIME! In our breastfeeding class they told us to always just feed whenever they want to because they could be going through a growth spurt and they will know how much they need. So I was feeding her every 30-60 minutes…and that’s from the start of one feeding to the start of the next! This continued day and night. Sometimes she would feed for 30 minutes, other times only 5 or 10. After a couple days of this I was more stressed out and exhausted than I think I have ever been in my life. If she was feeding every 30-60 minutes it meant that I was sleeping maybe 20-40 minutes at a time. Additionally, she was having tons of diapers. So I honestly felt like 24 hours a day I was in this diaper change, feed, burp, change…sleep for 20 minutes, repeat. I started reading things while I was spending so much time feeding and realized that she was over double the recommended diapers per day. They say a baby is getting enough to eat when they have 6 poopy diapers a day…she was easily going through 14 or more and they were all very wet, which I read is not good.

So I called the pediatrician. They said it could be acid reflux but that they don’t diagnose it or treat it until the baby is 3 weeks old. They suggested burping more frequently, putting towels under her bassinet mattress to raise it to a 30 degree angle, eliminating dairy from my diet (some babies immature digestive systems can’t process a protein in milk), as well as caffeine and chocolate. They also said that I was feeding her way too frequently and that was probably what was causing all the diapers. They told me to not feed her more often than every 2 hours. So I asked what to do when she cries and cries until her next feed: “you’re just going to have to find other ways to soothe her.”

So I started right away with everything they suggested. It was NOT easy. She still wanted to feed constantly so she would just cry and cry and I would want to rip my hair out waiting for 2 hours to pass. She absolutely would not sleep! When they are too tired, they can actually have a harder time falling asleep so it was just everything working against us. I felt terrible for her. She was so frustrated and seemed to be in physical pain after feedings and there was nothing I could do to comfort her. It really makes you feel like you’re failing at being a mom when you rock, kiss, talk to, sing to, dance with your baby and she just screams anyway. I started to feel like she didn’t need me for comfort…just needed the food I provided.

Well, the thing that happens when you’re establishing your breast milk supply is that it responds to demand. So since she was feeding so frequently, I started producing to keep up with her needs. Then when I started holding her off to only every 2 hours, my breasts started to get really full, engorgement. It was uncomfortable and I would have pumped to relieve it some except that I had no time to pump when I was either changing a diaper, feeding, or holding her trying to get her to stop crying.

A couple days later in the afternoon I started to really not feel great. I was freezing, even though my house was just as warm as it always was. I was exhausted and felt like I didn’t have the energy to do anything. So when I finally got Alexandra to sleep, I decided to try to sleep too. I got in my bed under the covers fully clothed and could not get warm. I attributed it to hormones since they were to blame for making me sweat like a linebacker at night. I attributed the tiredness to the fact that I hadn’t been sleeping very much. Well, I finally fell asleep for about an hour and woke up with a horrible headache. I decided to take my temperature since I was still freezing and it was 104.8! That was the highest fever I’d ever had to that point.

So immediately I checked Alexandra and Thank God her temperature was normal! So I called my doctor’s office and spoke to the on call doctor. She asked me a lot of questions about my incision but it seemed fine. She also asked me about my breasts…and at the time, they seemed normal too. She told me to take some ibuprofen and if it didn’t go down in 24 hours, call back.

Well, the fever did not break. I kept checking it at night and it was still well above 100. Sometime in the middle of the night I got up to change and feed Alexandra and as I was carrying her to the nursery I started to feel really dizzy and my feet even stumbled a bit. This terrified me because I feared that I could drop her. When I got back to bed I checked my temp again and it was 105.3! I woke up Tim and had him help me with changing her the rest of the night. Unfortunately Tim had to be gone the whole next day so I knew I was on my own. Fortunately though in the morning I had a very distinctive hard, painful lump in my left breast that was really red. That was one of the things the doctor had asked me about so I called back. I had developed mastitis, which is an infection of the breast that has to be treated with antibiotics.

There’s that saying “God never gives you more than you can handle” and on this day it was so true. Tim was gone. I felt awful and just wanted to sleep all day. Alexandra was great all day and went 3 hours in between most of her feedings and slept a lot, allowing me to do the same. The next morning when I woke up I already felt a lot better from the antibiotics. My breast was still very sore, but the fever was gone so I had some energy back. And Alexandra was back to being very fussy.

The next week was probably one of the hardest I’ve gone through. It tested me in a way that no endurance event I’ve ever done has. I love my little girl, and that never wavered through anything. However, I felt like my sanity was slowing slipping away day by day. I wasn’t sleeping and I started to dread the nights because they brought the hope of getting some sleep and I was always disappointed. The days were long and I couldn’t wait for Tim to get home from work so that I could have a break. Sometimes she would just cry and cry and cry and a couple times I just put her down in her bassinet and closed the door and sat right outside and put my head in my hands and slumped down and cried myself for 5 minutes before I could go back in and try everything all over again. Over the weekend Tim got to see what I was talking about. By Sunday afternoon he had already made the decision he couldn’t go to work on Monday, that he needed to help me. I was beyond thankful! I called the pediatrician again on Monday morning and they had us come in the same day.

They ended up diagnosing her with acid reflux, even though she wasn’t quite 3 weeks old. We got a prescription for ranitidine and with it, a full jar of hope! I knew it wouldn’t be an immediate fix (they say it takes a few days) but there was hopefully some relief in the near future. So we gave her the medicine (which is flavored MINT for a baby?) which she hated and spit out immediately after I put it in her mouth. Thankfully, I have an awesome sister in law that also dealt with a baby with acid reflux and told me that pharmacy can put grape flavor in it. So I took it back, the pharmacist gave me a hard time, but finally added it anyway (I was not going to take no for an answer) and Alexandra has been taking it much better ever since.

It didn’t work right away and during those days I remember I got through it by repeating to myself over and over again “this is not forever, its only temporary”. I knew even if the meds didn’t help, that colic doesn’t last forever in babies. I imagined that I was going through some kind of boot camp. There’s an end in sight and you won’t be getting by on 20 minutes four times a night forever. That seemed to make it at least bearable.

Finally, after a few days we did see a remarkable improvement! The first night she slept for 3 hours straight I wanted to cry in happiness! She was spitting up and vomiting a lot less and not always looking like she was in so much pain after feedings. She still seemed to have painful gas/bowel movements and that kept her fussy, but it wasn’t nearly as bad. Additionally, we would have “good days” and “bad days” but the bad days weren’t nearly as bad as they were before. I was wondering/hoping that some of her digestive discomfort was due to the antibiotics I was on and that once I was done with them, she would improve. Any little bit of hope you can cling to when dealing with a colicky baby can make a huge difference in your mental health.

The Hospital Stay, 3/22/13

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The days following Alexandra’s birth were the happiest and scariest of my life.  It was a wild roller coaster of emotions.

We knew they were treating Alexandra as though she had an infection until they had the results.  A pediatrician met with us later on Thursday and explained everything that was going on.  They didn’t know what kind of infection my uterus had but they had my placenta and were doing tests on it to find out.  They had me and Alexandra both on lots of antibiotics.  The first day I was hooked up to an IV and a catheter.  I was given a lot of drugs to control the pain.  I had an ice bag over my incision that I couldn’t even feel.  I felt groggy, but happy to have my baby.  Later on in the day the nurse helped me get up and walk around the room a bit.

Alexandra was wonderful.  We had some visitors and she mostly just slept.

That first night was awesome and scary.  We opted to keep her in our room overnight since we had already spent so much time away from her.  I woke her up every 2 to 3 hours to feed and she did quite well.  It was a group effort though since I couldn’t really get out of bed on my own, Tim had to help with everything.  I think I dozed off and got maybe 15-20 minutes of sleep at a time because I kept looking at her to make sure she was still breathing.  Sometimes she was wide awake and would just stare at me, wide eyed and it brought tears to my eyes just thinking about how wonderful she is.  I didn’t think anything on earth could be any cuter than she was when she looked at me with those big blue eyes and squirmed around kicking up her feet.

She hadn’t really cried a lot yet, so suddenly at 2 am when she started screaming it took Tim and I by surprise and we kind of looked at each other like “what do we do?”  She had just been fed so I didn’t think she was hungry.  We both seemed to realize at the same time that it could be her diaper.  If there had been a camera in that room that night capturing what ensued it would have been hilarious!  It was like the blind leading the blind.  She hadn’t had a dirty diaper yet and we had no idea where the new diapers were or wipes or anything!  We got it done, and I have to admit that we naively believed that we were navigating the challenges of parenthood quite well.  HA!

The next day we received some mixed news.  Alexandra’s white blood cells were showing some immature cells which typically is a sign of stress.  The pediatrician explained that it could be just from the stressful birth, but it was definitely an abnormal result.  I was still running a fever, but luckily her temperature was normal every time they checked.  They wouldn’t have cultures until sometime on Saturday.

Alexandra was a great little baby though and seemed so healthy, which the doctors kept telling us was a great sign!

I will offer some advice for first time parents that I heard and wished I’d followed more.  We had so many visitors, which was great, and we enjoyed having everyone there and seeing her.  But they would bring me meals and if someone was there I felt impolite eating in front of them so I’d let the food sit and then by the time I could eat it, it had been out too long.  Finally though I got past my guilt and just started eating in front of people.  Don’t be shy either about kicking people out of the room to feed.  Its so important to establish a schedule and your milk supply and the baby is too young to wake herself up and let you know its time to feed.

Saturday morning was awful.  Shortly after my breakfast Tim headed over to our house for the first time since we left early Thursday morning.  The nurse came in and said they needed Alexandra for a little bit to take more blood cultures and give her her antibiotics.  She was scheduled to have pictures in an hour and the nurse said she’d be back by then.  I figured it would give me time to get in a shower so I said ok.  I got out of the shower, no baby.  I got dressed and ready, no baby.  The photographer came to the room and I had to tell her we weren’t ready yet.  I waited and waited.  I hadn’t left the room yet and even though I was off my IV now and could, Tim was still at home and I felt strange leaving all our stuff in our room with no one.  I paced around the room and finally couldn’t stand it anymore and walked outside to the nursery.

What I saw I will unfortunately never forget.  My 2 day old baby was on a table where a nurse was holding down her foot as she screamed, white in the face, fists in the air.  There was blood on the blankets, her feet were wrapped in bloody bandages and her hands had big bruises.  She had been gone for 2 and a half hours.  I asked what was going on and they told me that she wouldn’t stop kicking so they had to hold her foot down while the IV went in.  They also said her blood kept clotting in the tube so they had to keep poking and repoking her and taking more blood for the lab.  I couldn’t help it.  I broke down and started crying right there.  I held onto her little hand and looked at her angry face and tried talking to her while they gave her the IV but when they had to poke her bruised hand again, I had to leave.  I felt sick.  I wanted to be there for her, but I just bawled.  I can’t explain just how horrible it was to watch her in so much pain.  She had been enduring that for 2 and a half hours!!!  My heart broke for her.  She was only 2 days old and it wasn’t fair that she had to go through this.  I knew it was for her own good, but she didn’t.  I felt horribly guilty too that it was my infection that caused all of this.

I called Tim so upset and told him that I needed him to be here.  I was an emotional mess the rest of the day.  Finally, we received some great news.  All of her cultures came back negative!  They wanted to keep me one more day due to my fever just going down, but we were ok to go home on Sunday!  Of course I cried again, this time tears of joy.  They had the results from my placenta back and had determined I had group B strep in my uterus.  They test all pregnant women for this at 36 weeks and my test was negative, so how I had it undetected I guess I’ll never know.  While the pediatrician assured us this was great news, he also told us that she could still develop the infection a week later.  He told us we had to be very diligent about watching her for signs and fever and immediately take her in at the sign that anything was wrong.  He also cautioned that there is a lot of nasty flu going around this year.  He told us we should keep her away from public places, not let people touch her without washing their hands and not let anyone who is sick be around her at all.  I asked how long and he looked at me with all seriousness and said “June.”  That’s just what an over protective parent needs to hear, LOL!

So finally, on Sunday afternoon we wrapped up our little girl, put her in her car seat and took her to her new home!  Best day ever!

My Birth Story, 3/16/13

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What a crazy few weeks it has been! I ended up having my baby girl 4 days after my last post! Here’s the story, all the details, and hopefully I can get through it without crying too much (those post partum hormones are no joke).

Wednesday, February 27th I started having some early signs of labor. I won’t get into the TMI details of this, but it was enough to start getting my hopes up that something would happen soon. I went to work, I got a low back ache during lunch. After work I decided to work out. I hit the eliptical and was planning on doing my usual 30 minutes but I just didn’t feel good. I kept watching the clock waiting for it to be over and I had this pain in my pelvis which I assumed was the baby’s head. After 20 minutes, I’d had enough so I finished the last 10 mins by walking on the treadmill. Even walking on the treadmill felt uncomfortable.

During my drive home I started having some cramping in my abdomen. I got home, cooked and ate dinner and then Tim and I went downstairs to watch tv. I started having more regular and painful contractions so we started getting excited! We timed them for a couple hours, but then, as usual, they tapered off and finally stopped.

Frustrated for getting our hopes up yet again, Tim and I went to bed about 10:30 p.m.

At exactly midnight I woke up suddenly with intense pain in my abdomen. I tried ignoring it and going back to sleep but after a few minutes realized that would be impossible! I went downstairs without waking Tim and started timing my contractions. They were already 1-3 minutes long and only 30-40 seconds apart. I was starting to get excited and then they got really painful. It was so strong that during a contraction I couldn’t move, I had to be hunched over the chair gripping the handles. In between contractions I crept upstairs and woke up Tim at 12:40 am. I told him we needed to get ready to go to the hospital. He started rushing around gathering up last minute things as I called the on call doctor. She heard me talk through a contraction and told me to come in.

I had always imagined that in the begining labor wouldn’t be too hard and I’d have time to shower and finish packing my things. That was not at all how this went. My contractions were hard and strong from the begining and I barely was able to round up my last minute things in between contractions.

On the drive to the hospital Tim still didn’t believe it was real. He thought it was another false alarm. I was acutely aware of how real it was. It was the worst pain I’ve experienced in my life! Whenever I had a contraction I’d grab onto the handle and I couldn’t talk. Tim would try to talk to me and I just couldn’t do it. Even in between contractions I had a lot of pain in my uterus. It seemed like I had no break.

We arrived at the hospital about 1:15 and I was in such pain. I remember thinking how much I didn’t think it would be like this. I was in constant pain and one contraction would be on top of the next. I knew that if I had hours and hours of this I’d be miserable. So I found myself already requesting an epidural. We had to wait for the anesthesiologist, which took a couple hours. A couple of horrible hours.

I was dressed in the hospital gown, which is open in the back, and during my contractions I was sitting up on the bed on all fours with my head pressed into a pillow and my bare butt hanging in the air with all kinds of people walking in and out of my room and I didn’t care. That’s how bad it was.

When we finally got the anesthesiologist and I got the epidural it was immediate relief. My coworker put it best in regards to her epidural, “I wanted to enjoy my daughter’s birth”. I was not enjoying anything. I was hating every minute. After the epidural, I could see my contractions continue on the monitor, but I couldn’t feel them at all. I finally relaxed. I was no longer able to get out of the hospital bed because I couldn’t feel my legs, but honestly, I didn’t care. I was finally enjoying the birth experience. We called my parents around 5 am when I knew they would be up and then Tim and I started dozing off.

At 6:30 am everything changed. I spiked a fever and Alexandra’s heart rate went from the 150’s to the 180’s. They took samples of my blood and came back and told me that I had an infection in my uterus and that they needed to do an emergency c-section to get her out ASAP. They said it was a dangerous environment and were afraid that we could lose her. That was all I needed to hear. I signed off on everything and after they left the room I started crying. The tears weren’t for me. I hadn’t wanted a c-section before because of the prolonged recovery, but in that moment I didn’t care about any of that I just worried that she would be ok. Tim was very reassuring and I quickly called my sister and asked her to pray. She was reassuring to. I got off the phone and Tim was already dressed in scrubs and they were coming in to prepare me for surgery.

My doctor arrived at 7 am and soon after I was wheeled into the operating room. The anesthesiologist gave me a stronger epidural so I wouldn’t feel the surgery but could still be awake. I saw the curtain, and Tim said there was a mirror so I could watch, but I stayed focused on Tim’s face beside me the entire time. I was fighting back tears and I was shaking horribly in my upper body. I kept trying to relax and trying not to shake because I was afraid it would make a tough surgery. I apologized and they told me it was normal.

The surgery was completely painless. It felt awkward a couple of times when I felt pulling from my abdomen but no pain. My doctors even joked with me, telling me that I had strong abs and they were hard to cut through. It made me laugh a little. Then finally, at 7:25 am I heard the most wonderful sound…a baby crying. I looked at Tim and said “Do we have a baby?” I was crying. When he said yes, I think I was the happiest I’ve been in my entire life. They quickly swung her around to let me look at her for just a second before they took her to clean her up. She was covered in the white stuff and screaming and looked absolutely beautiful. Tim went with them as they cleaned her up and I guess there was a lot of clean up because she had a huge bowel movement inside my uterus (a sign of distress). They had to pump it out of her stomach and get it out of her nose and mouth. After they cleaned her up, they brought her to me again and placed her across my chest for a few minutes. She was perfect and I cried as I looked in her deep blue eyes and they stared back at me in wonder. Then they whisked her off to the nursery so they could immediately start her on antibiotics and take the blood cultures to determine if she had an infection. Tim went with her, and that was where I wanted him to be.

When they closed me back up, it seemed to take forever. I still had no pain and now that Alexandra was out safely, they gave me some morphine for after the epidural wore off. I just wanted to see my baby again.

After they were done, they wheeled me into my recovery room and this was one of the worst parts. I was still violently shaking and started throwing up. My shoulder, neck and jaw started to really ache due to all my shaking. I couldn’t move my legs, knew that I had just been cut open, and didn’t have Tim or my baby with me. Finally though, a couple hours later my vomiting and nausea had subsided and both Tim and Alexandra came into my room. They unwrapped her and put her skin to skin on my chest to try to initiate bonding but my eager little girl went straight for my breast, latched on like a champ and started nursing to the surprise of the nurse. It was the best thing in the world. I was still very worried about her having an infection, but she seemed so perfect and so healthy that I just let myself enjoy it for the time being. I held her and stared at her and watched her nurse and realized how incredible it was that my body carried her for 9.5 months and now was still nourishing her. I realized in that moment that nothing in life had ever made me this happy before. Everything that I had been through, it was so worth it. She was suddenly everything to me and I just wanted to hold and protect her forever. I was in love instantly.

So that is the long version of how Alexandra Adams entered the world. The doctors described her immediately as “feisty” and I couldn’t have been more proud. She entered the world on her own time and entered it kicking and screaming despite some pretty scary circumstances. The birth was not anything I’d ever imagined, so I guess that’s why its important not to get tied to a detailed birth plan. I had had a relatively easy, uncomplicated pregnancy and was very healthy. My doctor had said I was a great candidate for a med free, vaginal delivery and everything turned out to be just the opposite. I’d do it over and over again to get her. She’s my perfect little angel. I don’t think that anyone in the world could ever love anyone more than I love my little jumping bean. I’ll post more about how things have been going since her birth as I get more time.

 

 

2/24, no baby yet

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Its been a full week since my last post. There hasn’t really been a whole lot happening.

I was able to do a new exercise in this past week that made me really happy. I had been scared to try the eliptical because its so similar to running and I figured it would hurt my hip. I decided to give it a try though after I did try to run on the treadmill for a quarter mile and my hip pain came back. The eliptical felt great! I was getting so tired of the bike, so it was really nice to do something different, especially something that lets me really get my heart rate up and break a good sweat.

I honestly thought I’d have the baby by this point. Everyone warned me that first time moms often go past their due date but because my mom and grandma both delivered so early, I just really wished myself into thinking I’d be the same. It helped me to get through weeks 34-37 when I had to stop running, but now that I’m still very pregnant at almost 39 weeks its made for a very LONG last couple weeks.

At my appointment on Monday I was terribly disapointed when my doctor told me I was still at 1cm dilation. Almost to the point of tears but not quite. Then the next couple days things started to feel like they were happening again and I got real excited. But every day I’d wake up and go to work and go home and go to bed and do it all again the next day.

Thankfully, my co-workers through me a fun surprise shower at work on Thursday and it was really nice and brought a little joy to my week.

I don’t want to just complain, but the last few weeks of labor can be incredibly hard. I’m uncomfortable, as I suspect all mothers to be are at this stage. Everything becomes a challenge. Showering, trying to shave your legs, putting on your underwear, pants and socks! Getting out of bed, out of a chair, out of the car…that bump just gets in the way!

Not to mention that your physical appearance alone is a conversation piece for everyone! Some people really enjoy this part, but I often get uncomforable when a lot of attention is on me so often I just want to turn the conversation to anything else. Luckily, no stranger has ever tried to touch my belly, but it seems ok for everyone to comment on it.

When just about EVERY stranger you come into contact with asks if you’re due soon you feel like you must look like a blimp…until you tell them you’re due date and then they start telling you how “small” you look? And its just hard to know how to take it.

Tim’s having a hard time too. He’s really anxious for me to have the baby and I sometimes feel like I’m disapointing him because I have nothing new to tell him. I know I’m not, obviously I can’t control when I go into labor, but I can’t help but want to see the joy on his face when I tell him its happening, and I can’t miss the disapointment when he asks me how I’m doing and I have nothing exciting to share.

Then there’s the sleep…or lack of it. I feel like I barely sleep at all anymore and I wake up so tired, even on the weekends that I kind of just hurt. My eyes look terrible every day, they hurt and I try to nap when I get the opportunity and I mostly just lay there wishing sleep to come.

But the worst part for me is all these “false hopes” I keep getting. Yesterday for example we had a really nice dinner at my in laws. After dinner I had some pretty bad cramping and backache and started to have my first painful contractions. I got excited and when Tim and I got home we actually started to time them. The second one was 14 minutes apart, then 10 minutes, then 20 minutes…then 40 and then they stopped altogether. I hoped that maybe if I went to sleep I’d wake up in the middle of the night with regular contractions but I just woke up in the night without any contractions.

I know, I know…I’m SO close! Patience has never been something I’m good at, though I do try. I’m thankful that I have carried a healthy baby to term and have had an uncomplicated pregnancy. I’m so thankful for that and remind myself of this fact every time I start to get real down about still being pregnant.

To me its similar to the last part of a marathon. In the early miles you don’t waste a lot of energy. You kind of just go along at an easy pace so as to save all your mental and physical energy for the end when you need it. You reach the halfway point and it feels like a huge milestone and it sort of gives you a mental boost knowing that you’re halfway there. The fatigue is starting to set in but you’re still going strong. You hit mile 16 and its getting harder but you’ve already made it so far and there is now only 10 miles to go. You have to start drawing on those energy reserves at this point but its still managable. You make it to mile 20 and things are really starting to hurt. You’re really drawing on those energy reserves now and have to break down the race into much smaller and more manageable bits…focus on the next mile marker…then the next one. With a 5K to go you’re so close so you start really expending that mental energy and maybe even get a little adrenaline boost. You’re excited, it will all be over very soon.

One mile to go! You’re literally ALMOST there, but you’re not yet either. Everything in your body hurts. All you can think about is how great its going to feel crossing that finish line. You just passed mile marker 25 and you look at your watch again and you’re only at 25.1…time seems to slow down substantially. You’re using up all your remaining reserves and when you think you’re getting so close you realize you’re not even to the half mile marker yet. Where is the fricken finish line? You start to get frustrated. You just ran over 25 miles and your body is struggling so much with less than a mile to go! The last mile of the marathon is always the hardest for me. That’s how I’m feeling right now. I know that I’m so close I can almost hear her crying yet I still feel like it just can’t get here soon enough. And the fact that other people that are due around the same time have gone early and delivered healthy babies…well…that makes it even harder. “No fair! How come they get to have their little one already and I’m still over here uncomfortably waiting?!”

So this is my mental state right now. I will get there and when I do it will all be so worth it. Until then, I will continue to exercise as often as possible because it does seem to be one of the only things that really makes me incredibly happy for the duration and then for a few hours later. And I will remind myself to be thankful for all of my blessings.

Sunday Funday & Still Counting…2/17/13

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For the most part it was a pretty uneventful week. I continued with the biking and my hip continued to feel better to the point that I entertained thoughts of trying to run. However, after walking my dog over a mile and feeling how sore my hip was after that I decided it wasn’t worth the risk, plus I’ve got to be close to the end, right?!

Friday something very scary happened. I’ve suffered from migraine headaches since age 12 and they usually follow the same predictable pattern. About 15 to 20 minutes before the headache comes on I get fuzzy spots or zig zag lines in either one or both eyes. Usually it starts small, hardly noticeable like a letter on a page that you can’t quite see by looking at directly. Then it grows until you can barely see anything out of one or both of your eyes. If you take your medicine at that point, usually the severity of the headache can be greatly reduced, but never cures it completely. You kind of still need to just let it run its course.

Anyway, I was afraid that once I was pregnant I may have a lot of them because they can be triggered by hormones. Much to my pleasant surprise I hadn’t had a single one since becoming pregnant! Until Friday.

I was in a meeting at work and suddenly things got really strange. People were talking and I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I was hearing the words but it was like my brain was refusing to interpret them. Feeling foolish, I pretended to nod in agreement when I had no idea what was said. And then when it was my turn to speak, different words seemed to be coming out of my mouth. I tried covering it up but I was getting so scared. I tried thinking of the names of the people in the room with me and couldn’t remember them. I had my laptop with me and got an email from Tim and tried reading it and I kept jumbling his words and making out sentances that didn’t make sense. I wondered if I was having a stroke.

After a few minutes the confusion seemed to pass and I could again make out words and remember people’s names but it scared me. Then suddenly I got the too familiar zig zag lines in front of my right eye and thought “Could that have all been part of the migraine?” I sat through the rest of the meeting in a fog and went into my next feeling the same way. I knew a horrible headache was on its way too. In my next meeting, after my visual disturbance had gone away, my right hand went completely numb. What was going on?? Then my eye disturbance came back!! Nothing about this was typical so I told my co-worker I didn’t feel well and called my doctor’s office on the way home.

They had me come in that afternoon and checked my blood pressure to make sure I wasn’t developing pre-eclampsia. Blood pressure was normal, baby’s heart rate was good and I felt relieved. The doctor said that sometimes migraines can have stroke like symptoms but it was good that I called since this was unusual for me and it could have been something serious. She gave me a prescription that was safe to take during pregnancy and I picked it up on my way home. Yikes! What a scary day!

Saturday I was feeling back to normal with only a slight headache whenever I coughed or sneezed. I did my 45 minute bike ride and cleaned the entire house from top to bottom! We hadn’t made any plans for this weekend because we weren’t sure if and when Alexandra was going to arrive. It was snowy and nasty out anyway, and it felt good to get so much done.

Today will be a similar day for me and Tim. We’ll run lots of errands and try to keep busy. Its getting harder and harder to think about anything else but her arrival. I haven’t felt any more significant contractions or crampiness so I have no idea how things are progressing. I did have a lot of rib pain yesterday. I’m not sure if its her feet pushing out my rib cage or what, but it hurts and it doesn’t let up much when I can get her to change positions. I feel like she’s HUGE in there! I can feel what seems to be her back all the way up by my sternum and when she squirms I think I feel her little knees untuck somewhat and I just think “how does she have ANY room!”

I’ll post my 36 week (9 month)belly shot. My torso is so short I really do feel like I’m just ALL BABY and its getting pretty uncomfortable.
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37 weeks and counting 2/12/13

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Yesterday was a big milestone! I made it to full term!

Things have actually been going pretty well lately. It was so nice having my sister come in over the weekend! I was able to bike in our basement for 45 minutes on Saturday before she arrived and then I picked her up and we got ready and headed over to my friend Val’s for my 3rd and final baby shower! It was a co-ed shower so Tim was there too and we had a great time! We have such great friends and family and it was just so nice to relax and have fun and not be so anxious. 🙂

Sunday was a little odd…despite not getting to bed until shortly after midnight, I couldn’t sleep past 5 am (that was when I finally looked at the clock, who knows how long I had been lying there trying to fall back asleep). I finally got up and started going through coupons and organizing and creating spreadsheets of all our registry items we needed still and where the best deal was. I was kind of obsessed.

After my sister got up, we went to breakfast, and I won’t get into everything that went wrong but we got a free meal out of it (sort of) and it ended up taking way more time than we anticipated so there wasn’t much to do before Lindsay had to get ready to leave. 😦

After dropping off Lindsay at the airport Tim and I went to all three places we were registered and bought the rest of the items we felt we needed before Alexandra arrives. It was kind of hectic but we were a great team and he always dropped me off and picked me up at the door and pushed the cart around. I still got a lot of walking in but surprisingly my hip seemed to feel better than its been feeling. It still hurt, but it was much easier for me to walk around than it even was the day before.

I was having some pretty irregular contractions at various points throughout the day. They seemed a little stronger than the other BH contractions but still weren’t anything I was really concerned about. I also had a slight lower backache and some menstrual like cramping but overall felt pretty good.

I was exhausted by the end of the night though and fell asleep some time after 9 pm. Woke up sometime before 4 am though on Monday morning feeling like I drank a 5 hour energy drink! I got up and started doing baby laundry and finished writing all my thank you cards and hopped on the bike and rode for half an hour before I showered, ate breakfast and got ready for my appointment.

At the appointment we did the strep B test and she checked me for dilated and effacement. I was 1cm dilated and 50% effaced. I was happy that I had started making some progress towards delivery but know that it doesn’t mean much since women can stay dilated for several weeks.

I tried driving into work after the appointment, but the roads were getting really bad and I saw an 8 car accident and a semi truck start to jack knife trying to slow down. So I turned around and drove back home and worked there the rest of the day.

I would say that yesterday I didn’t really notice too many contractions, but still had that menstrual cramping sensation every now and again.

Tim stayed late and did a workout on the treadmills at work and I put together our stroller and cooked dinner while waiting for him. After dinner, we went and checked out all the features on the stroller, practiced folding and unfolding and put the baby car seat in it. It doesn’t seem like a lot but it was already 9 pm by the time we got done and I was exhausted. He looked like he wanted to try installing the car seat and I said “No way!” and got ready for bed.

Today I’m back at work and rode the bike during my lunch for 30 minutes again. I’m really excited because my hip has continued to feel a little better every single day. I even got off the bike and walked for a quarter mile on the treadmill just to see how it felt and it didn’t really hurt at all. It made me think that maybe I can try running again soon. I don’t want to set myself back and not be able to walk, so I may still wait a few days and see if I can walk some more before I even think of running.

As for everything with Alexandra…all the contractions I was feeling and crampiness seem to have gone away today and I just feel normal again. My energy spurt is completely gone and I slept until my alarm went off at 6 am this morning and woke up exhausted.

When I’m walking around I can feel her head real low in my pelvis, even to the point it kind of hurts my bladder. I guess there really is no way to tell when you’re going to go into labor and the more I try to find signs the more I’ll probably be disapointed when nothing happens.