Saturday, January 4, 2014

Baby Penelope - Delivery

So as I said before I had had a migraine for 9 days and had gone into the hospital to be observed. For the past 9 weeks I had had issues with my blood pressure and every time I had a spike they would tell me just hold on until you can't anymore. So basically they were leaving the decision up to me. I really kind of hated that because I felt like I couldn't make that decision. If I had decided I couldn't take it any longer and something were to be wrong with Penny I wouldn't be able to forgive myself. So I kept pushing myself. By this time I was laying in the hospital incredibly sick because of the pain from the migraine. The nurse came in and after awhile told me she was going to get me some Morphine. I was excited to get some relief, and she said most women feel good enough to go home after they get some morphine. So I got the shot and I went from about a 6-7 on the pain scale to about a 3. I also got even sicker and start throwing up like crazy. The nurse was a little surprised and she later said she pretty much guessed at that point I would deliver that day. So they decided to have me go and meet with the specialist. So they wheeled me down to Dr. Schemer who by the way is an amazing doctor who always listened to me and helped me feel comfortable with the growth of my baby and everything. When I went in there he did his exam and then said, 'well we were going to talk about this tomorrow anyway but with all the symptoms you are showing and how you are feeling now I feel like you need to deliver today.' I have never wanted to thank a doctor so much. I was so scared they would just send me home and say keep going until you can't take it anymore and I felt like I was already at that point. He talked to the doctor and said I needed to deliver right away.

So the checked me to see if a VBAC was a possibility and it wasn't so a c-section was the plan. They got me all ready and it seemed to be a whirlwind of events. Oh and I forgot to mention that Nathan was taking pictures of everything for a school assignment. And when I say everything I mean everything, my throwing up, the epidural, IVs, all of the prep. He even took pictures of the surgery. We went in and when she was born she wasn't crying as much as they would like so I didn't get to see her until they had worked on her for a bit. She got an 8 and 9 on her APGAR. They brought her over and let me kiss her a few times and then they took her to the NICU. When I was in recovery the new nurse was also so sweet and she made sure that they took me through the NICU so I could see Penny. I didn't get to do that with Elenor even though I was supposed to. I got to see her and touch her and then I went down to my room. and by just after 10PM Penny was in my room with me.

My parents had brought Elenor down to see me and she was on the bed with me when they brought Penny in. She looked up at me smiling and said, 'Mom she is so cute.' I then got to hold Penny it was so amazing. That feeling I will never forget it is when everything seems right and good. I loved that I didn't' have to wait two days like with Elenor. Those two days were torture so getting to hold Penny right away was just so amazing. Then Nate held her and then we helped Elenor hold her. It was so fun getting to see that. I am so glad they have each other. I then got to have the normal experience of having the baby in the room with me. I loved every minute. I then waited until the morning of the third day and I wanted to go home. I was cleared but they weren't sure if they wanted to let Penny go. Because she was Late Preterm (Born at 36 weeks) they sometimes need a little more time. But they tested her billirubin that evening at 4 and everything looked good so they let me go. My nurse had been awesome that day too and got everything done so that if the test came back good I could leave right away since I would find out just before shift change and she wanted to help me get home. It was amazing getting to leave with my baby. Just knowing I wouldn't have to go back to the hospital the next day felt amazing. I really was just so excited.

Baby Penelope - Pregnancy

Okay so basically I haven't posted since before I found out I was expecting so here is a quick / in-depth run down of my pregnancy.

In March I had a crazy medical problem, it is called costochondritis. Basically all of the symptoms mimic a heart attack for a woman. And I thought to myself I'm not even thirty this can't be a heart attack but it was incredibly painful. So I was on meds that you shouldn't take when pregnant and since Nathan and I wanted to have our entire pregnancy in one insurance year I figured we'd have to wait until year end to try again. Little did I know Heavenly Father had different plans because about 2.5 weeks later I got incredibly sick and thought I then had the flu. It aggravated the costochondritis and I was super annoyed. Until I looked at my calendar and realized that I should take a test and yep I was pregnant! I was really excited and also nervous since everything had been so scary with Elenor's pregnancy. So I taught Elenor to say, 'I'm going to be a big sister' and texted Nate a video of her saying that to tell him about the baby. We told our families by getting a Big Sister shirt for Elenor and just taking her to Mother's Day dinner and dessert. My mom noticed right away and was really excited. Nate's family took a little longer.... in fact after being there for over an hour we were getting ready to leave so Nate pointed it out to everyone. :) The funny part was that three years earlier on Mother's Day we had announced that we were having Elenor.

Fast forward to our 20 week appt. We went in to find out if we were having a boy or girl. Nate again was positive that we wee having a girl. I thought it was a girl but I try not to get set on one or the other because I don't want to be disappointed. Elenor was there and was excited. We found out we were having a girl and Nate immediately started teaching Elenor that her name was Penelope. I was wanting to wait in case we felt that wasn't her name but once the 3 yr old knows that baby as Penelope it was a done deal. Elenor was so excited she calls her Nelope and would tell me how 'when she gets to come home she will love me' 'Nelope needs to come home in 20 minutes' 'I was a baby in your belly too and then I was born like Nelope' She loved when Penny would kick her because that's how she knew Penny liked her. It was adorable and made me even more excited. She also had me buy binkies really early in my pregnancy because she was worried we wouldn't have any for her to give Penny when she would cry. She is such a great big sister though I will post more on that later.

At 29 weeks I had a blood pressure scare. I had a mild headache and then saw floating spots, the combination of those two is usually a sign of high blood pressure. I went into the hospital in a complete panic. This was almost 3 weeks earlier than Elenor and I didn't want to have the baby yet. I went in and was observed and had lots of tests. laying down had seemed to lower my blood pressure so bed rest began. I had a headache that slowly got worse for the remainder of my pregnancy. I would go to the hospital two more times as well for spikes I couldn't control but was able to get it down each time. Though on the third time they decided to give me steroids for the baby's lungs just to be sure she would be ready if she had to come early. I felt so much relief after getting those shots. And each day I was still pregnant made me feel so much better. When I hit the day I had delivered Elenor I felt like I would be able to handle it if I had to just because I was in familiar territory.

At my appointment with the specialist the next week he was concerned about my blood pressure and told me that at my next appointment on Nov 19th that if my blood pressure had not gone down we would need to talk about delivering the baby. I was excited that he thought there was a chance I could make it that long. I continued to have issues and was put a strict bed rest. my headache got worse and worse until I started to have a major migraine that no amount of Tylenol could touch. Finally On Sunday Nov 17th I went to bed in a lot of pain and woke up in the middle of the night several times from the pain. I called the OBGYN the next morning and they could tell I was in a lot of pain so they sent me to the hospital to be observed. The rest is really the deliver story so I'll post that one seperate. :)

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Goals That Make Me Nervous

Seriously making goals makes me nervous because it leaves room for failure. I don't care anymore if I fail I want to try and not be afraid that failing once or eighty times is the end. I want to fail and try again and not feel bad for doing it. So anyway here are some goals and I want them to be public.

1.  Alright this might sound weird but I was reading a book on clutter and he takes about how our lives are too cluttered. And that multitasking isn't a great accomplishment you are basically saying, 'I am so good at giving some of my attention to 2-4 different things at once but the whole 100% of my attention rarely is concentrated on one task. He says to stop multitasking. Now I feel that as a mom this may be impossible but I want to try for one week to not multitask. That means when I am driving in the car I will be only driving. Watching the road and knowing what I'm doing. I will get my work done while Elenor is sleeping so when she is awake I can devote all of my attention to her. So no more multitasking for one week.

2.  This one seems seriously impossible but I will not yell for 1 week. Now some may think this is so easy well you aren't me and you don't have my life so you don't understand for me this would be an amazing thing and I want it more than anything. I was reading a blog post my Mom posted a link to and these woman are just like me they yell out of their own frustration or because they are having a bad day and I don't want my personal issues to reflect in the way I speak to Elenor. I want to always speak with love even when I am being stern with her because what I am talking about is important or she is in trouble or was doing something dangerous. So I will start with a week and then hopefully I'll be able to go to two weeks and so on.

These are my goals this week. So Just to make it kind of a weekend I will try and post my update next Friday May 31st and tell you how I did.

Friday, November 9, 2012

My Elenor is Two!

Sometimes I can't believe how fast the past two years have gone. It feels like yesterday I was in the hospital knowing I was in for a journey, and then going through it was difficult. I can still feel how the Lord really carried me through the most difficult times at the NICU and truly I felt him carrying me the entire time. I felt peace even though I also went through so many other emotions. That experience all feels like it just happened, and yet, when I look at Elenor it feels so distant. She is no longer my tiny two pounder she is over twenty pounds and is just so adorable.

Some of my favorite things about her right now is she wants to be just like her mommy. If I am eating eggs she wants eggs, if I say mmm while eating eggs so does she (it's rather adorable). She loves to talk about who's stuff is who's, Mom's cereal... Elenor's cereal, Mom's nose... Elenor's nose, Mom's car... Dad's fast car... Elenor's car seat. She loves to play with her friends, in fact every time we come home she says, 'Elenor's house, Josie's house, Natalie's house.' She is a good little friend she loves to laugh and all of the kids love making her laugh because her laugh is one of the cutest things you have ever heard. She loves dancing and jumping and singing. She loves to test Mommy's patience and then she says one thing that makes my heart just melt. She can identify Spider-man and Batman in any form and we did not teach her this, but her Daddy is very proud. She loves to brush mom's hair and snuggle with me all the time. Oh and Daddy is still her own personal amusement park ride. She loves her cousins all of them though she does have a special love for Franklin. She loves to ride her princess bike all the time and would be outside all day long if I would let her, oh and she loves the water.

Some of my favorite stories from the past few days. She LOVES Donald Duck, and Pete, and then toss in all of the other characters too, but mainly those two. So we have been watching some older Disney movies because I can't take another episode of the Clubhouse because it's so repetitive. Anyway we have been watching Mickey, Donald and Goofy as the Three Musketeers. She loves this show, there is a scene where Donald gets wrapped up in some pipes and she laughs so hard. She'll gasp and giggles and gets all excited at all the right parts. We also have been watching Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas, this one has a bunch of different shorts, but one in particular Pluto runs away because Mickey yells at him and he ends up at the North Pole and the Reindeer take him in. They end up giving him a magic collar so he can go to flying practice with them. The first time she saw this she said, 'Oh Pluto need a helmet.' I about died, SO CUTE! And then she was watching it later on and was also reading a book we have about kids pretending to be superheros. She points at her book and says, 'Superhero flying... (at the TV) Pluto flying... Super Pluto (with a little giggle)' Oh how my heart melted. She loves books, oh how she loves them and I must say I purposely did that. Most of her toys are books, and I call them toys because I want her to think they are just as fun as a toy. She loves to read to herself or have us read to her. We now can give her many different books that we read to her at bedtime and she can 'read' them to us. Seriously I got giddy with that one too.

We love watching her little brain work. Kids are amazing and I must say that mine is super amazing! She is so kind and loving and just a good spirit, everyone loves her. I have had multiple friends that will babysit her even if they're busy because she is just so easy. She loves people and she loves getting to try new things, she is adventurous and curious. She LOVES babies, this girl will be an awesome big sister some day. I'm so grateful that Elenor came into my life when she did and that I was able to have the NICU experience, I know it was so hard for me and it wasn't what I wanted but it has made me a better mom. Thinking back about how I didn't get to hold my baby for two days breaks my heart but that first time I got to hold her, my world was right. I felt this overwhelming peace and couldn't hold back the tears. I will never forget that experience. I will never forget how everything was perfect for those short few minutes. Every time I held her it made me feel like I could push through another day, she gave me strength and I hope I can be a wonderful mother for her. I love my little miracle more than life itself and I would truly give anything to her. Thank you for being a wonderful blessing to me Elenor.

Love,
Mom

Friday, September 28, 2012

My Quest to Be Better #2

Well things are still going well but not as well as I would like. Isn't that always the case? I think once we start gaining momentum of any kind Satan tries to slap us in the face as hard as he can. And sometimes he slaps kind of hard over and over again.

I have been a rock star wife with keeping my house clean this past week. I mean I kept it clean, and I even baby sat twice for two different families that each had two kids. So three kids in my house two out of the five days this week and it was still clean. I stayed up on the dishes and I was feeling really good about myself. (I still am about this) But then Satan decided that I needed some slaps...

Slap #1 - This one I feel was the hardest slap) Elenor went down for a nap and when she woke up Nate went in to get her. Well apparently sometime before she fell asleep she pooped in her diaper, proceeded to pull the poop out of her diaper and rub it on her dress and all of her legs. Not to mention the poop that was already ALL over her hands and arms. There are pictures that I will upload once they are on my computer. I go upstairs and being the mom that I am I don't even hesitate. It's bath time. So while Nate starts a load of laundry, I start soaking my baby so I can clean off all of the poop. Let's just say there is a reason why we naturally love our children SO much right from the beginning. So when they are covered with poop we can still think they are cute, and really be mad. I feel I handled it well but through the bath I could feel my frustration mount every time Elenor would splash some of the poop water on me or when I was trying to make sure all of the poop chunks were gone so we could give her the actual bath and she decided it was the perfect time to bed over and try and get her hair wet... In The Poop Water!

Slap #2 - When you start to clean your house or think of all the things you need to deep clean do you sometimes feel overwhelmed? I hope so because I hope I'm not alone in this feeling. As I started to think about all of the things that would now need to be scrubbed because of this poop incident I was so overwhlemed i wanted to cry. I realized that even though I had done well on my dishes and on my living room there is always just so much more. And there fore I started to seriously put myself down. This will not invite the spirit like I want but also my house may not be inviting the spirit right now. So Satan got me he got me to tear myself down A LOT! But then I was sent a wonderful little reminder of his love for me.

There apparently is a weekly topic on KSL called Motherhood Matters. I was drawn to the article because it was comparing Motherhood to being a Quarterback. She talked about how everyone relies on the quarterback and we are supposed to know all of the plays and be able to read the opponent and make a plan that will help our family beat them (schedules, homework, etc) But that sometimes a quarterback needs to call an audible. There is an unexpected change in the defense and we have to read it and make our best decision possible. Yell out the new play and hope for the best. But because of our knowledge we have a great shot of making the right call especially for out own families. Well I didn't mention that the poop fiasco happened twenty minutes before Elenor had a doctor's appointment. I called an audible and handled everything well. I am capable of getting it done when it comes to my family. I read the defense and I made the right call. Anyway if you want to read more of her stuff I really like it. Her website is called MOMentity.

Slap #3 - I was hit with a wave of exhaustion that has seriously wiped me out. I'm about to have a visit from Aunto Flo and have been on the verge of massive exhaustion already so combine the two and all I want to do is sleep. I have wanted to sleep more than I have wanted anything, including keeping up on my house. And because I have been choosing sleep I am put right back into that guilt cycle of feeling like I'm not doing enough. Top that off with a screaming toddler who is teething, wants more than anything to sit on her princess toilet even though she refuses to actually go to the bathroom on it. Well Thanks Satan for the triple slap but I am ready for a break from the slaps for now.

So in another sweet answer to my own fears and shortcomings I found this blog post from MOMentity. It says what I am feeling far better than I could. Man I really have to find a way to realize that not being perfect is really just so amazing. So here's to my imperfect form of mothering that Heavenly Father has decided is exactly the kind of parenting Elenor needs. I'm so glad that my form of imperfection is just right for her. I will be the perfect mom for her as long as I am trying and that's really awesome to think of it in that context.