11 Things We've Learned As New Parents with an 11 Day Old Newborn

1. Why 11? Well I planned on writing this yesterday because I planned to write "10 Things We've Learned as a New Parents with a 10 Day Old Newborn," but the first things we learned is nothing ever goes to plan with a newborn. EVER.

2. Sleep is for Wimps.  Ok - We TOTALLY get it Moms and Dads. 

3. Everything your baby does makes them a genius. "Look how far she lifts her head! She's a genius!" 

4. POOP. POOP. POOP. Always wait for at least the second cannon ball.  There is always more.

5.  Your dog will be as sleep deprived as you are. 

6.  Sometimes when all else fails, it's ok for mom to cry alongside baby.

7.  Your house will never be clean again. Laundry will never folded again. Dishes will remain in your sink.  

8.  Give up on trying to get dressed. Spit up and milk are your new accessories. A shower is a luxury.  

9.  Outings take at least an hour to prepare for.  By the time you get out the door, it's time to nurse again.

10.  Because of reason #9, Doctor's appointments should not be a specific time, but more a 2-3 hour window to aim for.

11. There is nothing sweeter than unconditional love.   

Mabel's Birthday

I did a horrible job at not blogging about my pregnancy, but I felt the immediate urge to write down everything I could remember about Mabel's entrance into this world. I can't believe she's here. I can't believe she is 3 weeks early, born on a full moon. I apologize for the details, but really this post is for me so if your not interested, then don't read on! :)

To sum up the last 14 weeks of my pregnancy, I really can't complain. MUCH. 
Once I hit about 32 weeks, my feet and legs would get increasingly swollen by the end of each day so work got tough and tougher.  By 35-36 weeks, I felt like she was just sitting on my Pelvic floor - OUCH. The waddling began and the shoes stopped fitting. 

So how did Mabel begin her journey? I had a wonderful shower thrown for us at work on Friday.  I noticed I was getting super tired each day, so by Friday I was really starting to feel exhausted.  I never really experience Braxton Hicks, so I definitely had no signs my labor would start within 48 hours.  Jeff brought home all our presents that night and I thought to myself I will have to unpack all this stuff this weekend at some point, but it sounded so hard.  My dad and Jeff went golfing Saturday morning and I woke up pretty early because sleep was beyond uncomfortable.  I started feeling really uncomfortable as the day progressed. It felt like a giant air bubble was stuck behind Mabel - it was a weird feeling.  Mom and I worked some more of the nursery and went to my parent's house for dinner.  We sat outside by the pool and Jeff pointed out the Full Moon - I remember thinking, just another full moon no big deal.  Well I was clearly wrong! 

We went home around 10 and off to bed.  Our plan for Sunday was of course, Chargers game in the morning, I had lunch plans with Sami and then we planned to go to the hospital for a tour.  Only one of those things actually happened and definitely not the way we planned!

I woke up around 2 am and had to pee. When I headed back to bed, I started feeling some pretty intense menstrual cramps, which I sort of laughed and said well that's something I haven't felt for a while! I tried to go back to sleep, but they continued to get stronger and stronger.  I went to the bathroom again and noticed blood. By this time I woke up Jeff to let him know what was going on.  I kept saying let's not get excited, I am only 37 weeks, I could not possibly be in labor.  From our HypnoBirthing classes, we learned the first things to do in labor is rest so back to bed is what we did.  I could not sleep however, my cramps were getting stronger and lasting long.  Around 4 am, I started timing my contractions.  They were happening pretty regularly around 6-7 minutes apart. By 6 am, I made it clear we were heading to the hospital at some point. We called our doctor, mostly because I wanted our doctor to reassure us, I wasn't crazy and these weren't Braxton Hicks.  He had to push our Thursday's appt to Monday and it was the appt where we were to go over our Birth Plan.  He said to call him when I felt ready to go so I labored some more at home, listening to our HypnoBirthing affirmations and relaxation techniques.  We hadn't even packed our hospital bag yet, so poor Jeff was running around grabbing everything.  (It was really funny finding out what he packed, let's just say I don't think Mabel needed 7 caps no matter how long we would be at the hospital)

By 10 am I was ready to head to the hospital.  My contractions were about 3 minutes apart and lasting between 1-2 minutes.  The car ride over sucked.  HATED every moment of it, but I knew if I got there I could go back to my laboring techniques.  We got to the hospital, of course not pre-registered so we had to go through a bunch of questions.  Jeff forgot to grab my ID so we figured we would try and get as far as we could without it.  By the look of me, I don't think they wouldn't let me in.  After about 20 minutes they checked us in to Triage.  In order to admitted you need to be about 3-4 cms dilated. Obviously I had hoped to be at this point.  She measured me and I was at a 1. A 1! I couldn't believe it, it had been about 9 hours and I thought it to be impossible.  The only positive news was I was 100% effaced, basically meaning I was progressing. Just SLOWLY.  The nurse called my doctor who told her to just have me wait in Triage for about 45 minutes and check me again. Otherwise the nurse said I will need to go back home.  I was not getting back in the car and I definitely was not going home.  Mind you being in Triage absolutely sucked.  It's a tiny little room with one chair and lots of noise around.  Jeff played my affirmations and relaxation tapes for me and I focused on my breathing.  I was pleasantly surprised when my doctor walked in the door to check on me.  (My doctor is the best)  He brought my spirits up, walking in and asking, "So you're trying to have a baby today huh? Must be the Full Moon." BINGO!
Before he checked me he was very honest and said if I had not progressed as it had only been about 45 mins since I walked in he said this could go on for a few days and even weeks.  There was absolutely NO way I would go through these contractions for a couple of days. I was beyond determined at this point. He checked me and said ok you are 3 cms, let's admit you. If I wasn't in the middle of contracting I would have jumped up and hugged him.

Well as positive as that news was the nurse came back to let us know they were at max capacity and had to move 2 postpartum moms/babies downstairs before I could get a room. Not what a woman in labor wants to hear.  My HypnoBirthing techniques were beyond helpful, but nothing could prepare me for 3 hours in Triage.  I hated every minute.  By the time they let me into our room, it was 2 pm. I immediately labored in the tub, but could not get comfortable so by this time I had been laboring for 12 hours.  I decided I needed to get checked again and if I was at my magic number, I could continue, otherwise I needed to request an epidural.  In our Birth Plan I specifically requested they only check me on request, not to ask me my pain level and to not offer me any medications.  She checked me and I was only at a 4.  I decided the only way I could relax was to get the epidural and so that's what I did and I am 100% happy about that decision.  The epidural was a breeze, labor for 12 hours is a lot of work, a needle in my back was nothing. My water broke during it and the nurse checked me and I was already at a 5. I knew things would progress faster. At this point, I had Jeff call my mom to head over and my amazing sister in law Lori walked in as well.  For the next few hours, we all relaxed and took in the day.  I felt like I could finally focus on the reality of having a baby.  My nurse didn't check me until about 5:30 and I was about 7-8 cms.  Now that was a number I could handle.  We were having this baby any time now.  She checked me about an hour later and I was about 9-1/2 cms and the prepping began! My doctor was called and I could feel the excitement in the room.  My doctor came in soon after and I started pushing.  However, my contractions slowed down and I was having a hard time getting started so my doctor decided to leave me with just the nurses. I was having an easier time with my nurse team for some reason.  Well remember the mention of a full moon? Well my doctor had 2 other woman pushing at the same time as me.  One of which was laboring without an epidural. They said he would be about 5-10 mins and I totally understood with that one.  My nurses began having me breath Mabel down, but I couldn't push.  I literally had to hold her in.  What I didn't expect is the 10 mins my doctor was supposed to be gone turned into an hour. Yes, an HOUR.  Holding my baby in while she was in the Birth Canal.  If it wasn't for my wonderful team that surrounded me, I don't know how I could have done it.  I remained so calm. Mabel was ok, I was ok we were just going to get through this.  By the time my doctor came back, we were ALL ready. Jeff reminded me that I kept my sense of humor the whole time, even commenting to my doctor right before pushing, "I guess this isn't Braxton Hicks, huh?"   

It only took 2 push sessions and beautiful Mabel was out and on my chest.  Her first moments was a cute little sneeze. I could not believe what I just did, it's a surreal moment. One I will always remember and cherish.  We had our amazing golden hour with her on my chest and I requested any tests would be done on my chest.  

So, on November 17th, 2013 at 9:23 pm we had a beautiful baby girl enter our lives weighing 7 lbs, 9 oz. (notice all the odd numbers?!?!) 

I could not have asked for a better birth story.  My HypnoBirthing classes taught me that no matter what happens, make your child's birth the best story it can be.  Being 3 weeks early, we barely had a Birth Plan, no hospital bag packed and no nursery quite ready, but Jeff and I did discuss the type of labor we would want and it went almost exactly to plan.  (Minus the 3 hour wait in Triage and having to hold her in for an hour!)

So now, we are living in "BabyMoon" Bliss! There are plenty of sleepless nights and frustrations ahead of us, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. 

Our new reality!

10 Facts about RIGHT NOW.

• It's August, the dog days of summer are here.

• I am fully aware I will be in my second and third trimester during the hottest, muggiest time of the year in San Diego and I am so not looking forward to this.

• Our vacation to St. Maarten could not come soon enough. We need a vacation. We also need a Babymoon.  Most people have their families join their Babymoon’s right?!....no one?

• Other than a ridiculous amount of clothes, we also bought Mabel’s Crib & Dresser.  Even though we will not be setting it up anytime soon, I cannot wait to see everything come together. 

• I stare at Mabel’s Sonogram picture 46x a day.  

• My days have gotten 46x better.

• I love referring to our spare bedroom now as “Mabel’s room”

• Mabel kicks are the best pick me up.  The other night Jeff was able to feel how strong her kicks are getting.

• The realization that we are going to be parents does not feel real at all. 

Sweet baby girl

• Penny is completely unaware of how much her world is going to change, nor will she understand.  That dog has brought Jeff and I together in ways I never thought a dog could. She has taught us the beginning stages of how to parent, what our parenting skills will be like and how to compromise on our differences.  She may be a dog, but Penny is way more than that.  I think only dog owners can truly understand what that type of love is. 

We're halfway?!?!

Let me start off by saying, wow I cannot believe I have not blogged about my pregnancy at all. I really thought I would be one of those woman who would take a picture and blog every single week.  Little did I realize, the more I grow, the less inclined I am to take a photo. Which means, the less I wanted to talk about it. So here we go, I would like to look back at laugh at myself in a few years so I must start somewhere!!

Week 20: Halfway! And yesterday, the MOST wonderful day happened, we found out we are having a little girl. A GIRL! I can't believe it.  I secretly thought it was a girl.  I fell in love with the name Mabel and although I never pictured myself with a girl, I pictured myself with my little Mabel.  Mabel means adorable.  When I was younger, I loved the show Mad About You. To this day, I will sit and watch episodes, I just love it.  They had a little girl on the show and they named her Mabel after Helen Hunt's characters very controlling mom stated, "Mothers Always Bring Extra Love."

I love the name Mabel.  As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I hoped to be able to one day have a Mabel and yesterday we were able to see our beautiful little girl. 

So now, I know absolutely nothing about having a little girl, other than the fact that I am a girl.  I laugh because I know my daughter will be the girl whose mom just can't do her hair cute so she is forced to go to school with her hair in a ponytail everyday. 

I'll show you the only ultrasound picture we have of her from yesterday. It's of her cute little bum and legs.  We have the full anatomy scan next week and I can't wait to have more pictures, but for now I want to frame this shot, because I know she has the cutest bum in the world. (I realize I have already become THAT mom)

I told you the cutest bum in town!

Ok so recap on weeks 4 - 20!!

1st Trimester (Weeks 4-12): Most woman will be very upset to know, I had no morning sickness.  I was completely exhausted from day one until the second trimester.  It took me FOREVER to wake up every morning and I was easily in bed by 8:30 ( I would have gone to bed by 7:30 if Jeff would have let me)
We took a trip to New York towards my last 2 weeks in the 1st Trimester and I was sooooo tired.  I loved our trip, but I could barely keep up!!

2nd Trimester: I was very excited to welcome the 2nd Trimester.  Not only would it get me to feel more confident about my pregnancy, but the energy I had not seen in weeks had started to come back.  I could actually do laundry and wash dishes and clean my house again.  It was heaven. Yes, chores were heaven!!

By week 17, I have started to feel our little girl kick.  Jeff has also been able to start now that I hit 20 weeks, he has felt the little jabs.  It's really special!

At 20 weeks, I am halfway and Mabel is the size of a banana and weighs about 10.6 ounces according to my Baby apps.  Almost a pound! Grow baby girl grow!! I have become increasingly hungry each and everyday.  Even after I eat, I need to eat more.   

19 weeks!

We have started Penny back up in training, "Mommy Preparedness Class" She gets to learn how to walk next to a stroller and basically train her to know the baby is not a squeak toy. I am not worried, these two will be best friends.
We will be starting our Birthing Classes in the next month or so, which I am very excited for and even more so because we changed doctors and our new doctor is 100% behind the Hypnobirthing classes we would like to take.  He knows the instructor and really supports this method.  Huge sigh of relief!

And then comes baby...

We are so excited!!

Arriving December 6th, 2013

A week of bad luck...but don't worry, be happy!

This was not my week to say the least!!

We started the week off finding out that my wonderfully, loyal car I have driven since I was 16 is now considered totaled due to my VERY minor fender bender last week. It is just my luck that my very first accident would be one that I completely total my car. I literally hit a car going 5 miles an hour.  However, the damage is worth significantly more than the car itself.  Go me!!

Goodbye! :(

Well if that wasn't a great way to start a morning, I drove to my parents house to borrow my dad's car who were off enjoying a week vacation in paradise.  When I went to lunch that day, my dad's car had a flat tire.  GREAT! So after taking the car across the street to Costco I walked back to work and broke my shoe.  It was just like in the movies, you know when a woman breaks her heel and her dream man comes running after her to save her from the oncoming traffic....except reality happened and I just looked like a idiot standing in the middle of an intersection with a broken heel, a flat tire and a totaled car in the shop.  I didn't think it could get much worse, but I reached for my sunglasses to hide from the embarrassment only to realize they had snapped in half.  

Needless to say, my week didn't get much better, but I have to thank Jeff for trying his hardest to make everything ok.  He came home from work while I was making dinner and started playing this music video.  I would be lost without his humor.

Thank you Jeff!

Seattle!

Jeff is in Seattle for 3 weeks and I got the chance to fly up there to visit him to explore the city!  He is considering transferring up to that office, so we wanted to see if Seattle was for us. It was a really great weekend and the city is beautiful.  It didn't rain once while I was there, but Jeff said it's been raining a lot this week.  Oh well!
I do have to say, no matter how many Starbucks you think your city has, I have NEVER seen so many than Seattle. This is where it all started, but wow, there was literally one on every block and then inside every building.  To top it off, every Starbucks had a line!!

The First Starbucks!

The view from the Space Needle

This was a pretty awesome tour! We walked all around underground the city!

The BEST crepe!

The famous fish market!

They really do throw the fish right over your head!

The Gum Wall!

Crossfit

So Jeff started this workout called Crossfit in October.  He wakes up every morning during the week at 5 am and gets his work in.  I think it's safe to say, he likes it! A few weeks ago they had a competition.  Since Jeff was new he was in the JV level and he ended up getting 1st place! I was so proud of him! It is a crazy type of workout, I don't think most people would be up for it, but Jeff loves it and he is really good at it!

 See him in the middle?!

Grandma's 90th!

My Grandma turned 90 in January!  She has not been feeling well lately and we were unable to take her out to dinner, but we made the best of it by bringing the party to her! I think she looks so great!

My brother buys her lottery scratchers every year. Sadly we did not win!

Just a bit of an update?

Well hello blog world, remember me?? It’s been a little bit since my last post…

I feel like I crawled into a dark, eerie cave and I am finally coming out it to see the daylight. The past 8 months have been quite frankly a blur, but I feel like I am ready to talk about it.

This past October, Jeff and I celebrated 8 years together. The morning of our anniversary, I took a positive pregnancy test and our lives immediately changed. We were ecstatic. I was completely shocked and probably took about 20 more tests over the next week just to confirm. I just couldn’t believe it was real. This was ACTUALLY happening to us. I will never forget the moment we found out. Jeff’s face will be a memory I will always cherish. He was so giddy, we had no idea what was ahead of us, but in that moment, this little plastic stick had changed our future forever. I went to the doctor to confirm, but yes, we were having a baby!

We scheduled our first ultrasound for the day after Thanksgiving. Black Friday could not have been more appropriate. At 10 weeks, we found out we lost our little “Almond.” The fetus no longer had a heartbeat. I felt my heart break. I had so many emotions going through me. Our baby was there. Its heart beat inside me and then it stopped. Just like that, it was over. It was like a cruel trick my body played on me as if it never happened.

It’s been about three months now and I don’t think the pain of the reality will ever go away. I have found to stay close those who can really empathize with our pain. Others try to minimize the situation as if it’s going to cheer you up to just “move on.” I understand how it can be hard for those who have never had any issues to relate to something like this at no fault of their own. I wish I could take this pain from future couples who experience this. It’s an awful feeling.

Jeff has been nothing short of wonderful in his support. I often forget that this is happening to him too. He lost this little future as well. We were in this together and it doesn’t stop after our loss. In order to move ahead we must stick together. I can understand how tragedies can drift couples apart. We all grieve so differently. It’s easy to resent your partner for not grieving the exact same way you are. What’s important is that you support each other through their grief.

I must admit, there are days where I can’t seem to shake reality. I often find myself lost in my own head trying to figure out a way to change what happened. The best advice, my Mom gave me was to experience my grief headfirst and to let it happen. Not to pretend it’s not there. When I get sad, be sad and know its okay to feel sad. If I get angry, be angry and know its okay to be angry.

I was reading a book called, “Tiny Beautiful Things” by Cheryl Strayed. The author wrote as an advice columnist for a website and the book is a collection of those stories. One woman wrote to her about her recent miscarriage. She lost her baby at 6 months and it had been over year and she just could not get through it. She felt stuck. I could literally feel the woman’s pain right from the page. Here’s some of what Cheryl said in response:

“You will never stop loving your daughter. You will never forget her. You will always know her name. Nobody can intervene and make that right and nobody will. Nobody can take it back with silence or push it away with words. Nobody will protect you from your suffering. You can’t cry it away or punch it away or even therapy it away. It’s just there, and you have to survive it. You have to endure it. You have to live through it and love it and move on and be better for it and run as far as you can in the direction of your best and happiest dreams across the bridge that built by your own desire to heal. Therapists and friends and other people who live on Planet My Baby Died can help you along the way, but the healing – the genuine healing, the actual real deal down on your knees in the mud change is entirely and absolutely up to you.”

This paragraph hit me hard. I knew exactly what my mom meant at that moment. The only way to get through heartache is to survive it, endure it and move on in a positive direction. Easier said than done, but I know this is what I have to do. I could sit here and be stuck, but if I don’t have the courage to be “unstuck” I will never see the opportunities right in front of me.

Life certainly has not gone to the plan Jeff and I had hoped for, but that doesn’t mean we will give up. I look up to my husband’s strength. As much as it pains me to say, I know there is a reason to why everything happens. I do not know why this happened to us, but I do know I’m learning each and everyday how to heal.