Maggie's Birth Story

I'm not sure I ever got around to writing Joshua's birth story out. I think I just wrote down notes and never got to writing it all out. His story is relevant to this story, so here's a brief summary:
I had braxton hicks contractions pretty regularly for several days, but they didn't hurt. Monday, December 27th, Dave and I were shopping at Smith's (the same one where we met) and they started hurting enough that I had to stop and squat down for each one. So we went to the hospital. They checked me in, asked me all sorts of questions I was too in pain to answer. I requested an epidural first thing. It kicked in and was like a warm blanket of tingliness and happiness. They checked my progress and couldn't feel his head, so they got the ultrasound in and found his head way up in my ribs. Since it was 2 days after Christmas, my doctor was out of town and the team of doctors that turn babies was out of town, so the doctor on call said, "Well, you're going to have a C-section." He gave me a couple hours to see if Joshua would turn again, but he didn't. So Joshua was born that evening at 6:15ish via C-section. I caught a cold that day, and was miserable for many many weeks. (You try coughing with a 6" incision on your abdomen.) I also had some digestion problems (no other way to put it: I was VERY constipated) which made me miserable as well. All-in-all it was horrible. I'm realizing now that I probably had some postpartum depression--and it was the middle of winter.
Now I'll do a quick summary of Maggie's birth for those of you who want to know what happened, but don't want the gory details:
I was taking a nap Sunday, July 13th afternoon (5:30pm) and I felt what I thought might be my water breaking, so I waddled to the bathroom and discovered lots of blood. So we packed up and dropped Joshua off at Dave's parents' house and headed to the hospital (6:00pm). They hooked me up to the IV and the epidural in case I had to be whisked off for a C-section. I hadn't felt any pain with contractions yet to this point, so epidural in, I was pain-free the whole time. I sat in bed for about 3 hours, but I didn't progress from the 4cm I was at when I got to the hospital. So the doctor came and broke my water. I sat there for another 2 hours. They checked me again and I was at a 9. The doctor came and I pushed for 25 minutes and Maggie was born at 11:36pm at 7 lbs, 3 oz and 19 1/2" long. I stayed in the hospital another 48 hours and went home and recovery is going great! Maggie is great at eating and sleeping and pooping.
Ok you birth-story junkies, here are the details (seriously, if you don't want TMI, don't keep reading):
I was 39 weeks to the day. During my nap (5:30pm) I felt a squish, so I waddled to the bathroom, and two large blood clots came out, and everything was soaked with blood. I had Dave run and get me some new panties and my stash of maxi pads. I was having a few contractions, but that wasn't anything new. For the past month I'd been having braxton hicks contractions all the time. Sometimes they even were regularly 3 min apart and 1 minute long for about an hour. It was usually about dinner time though, and would go away when I ate. I called in to the doctor to see what they advised I do. The doctor on-call said, "Yeah, you should probably go in to labor and delivery and they'll check you out to see what's going on." So we finished packing the hospital bag and Joshua's over-night bag (I even remembered to spray my blood-soaked clothes with spray-n-wash before we left), put a garbage bag and towel over the passenger seat in the car just in case, and headed to Dave's parents' house to drop Joshua off. I still didn't have any pain. I'd have a contraction here-and-there, but no pain.
We got to the hospital and joked about things as we headed up to Labor and Delivery. We signed some papers, got to our room, put the funky gown on, I even went to the bathroom, and there still wasn't anyone in the room. So we stuck our heads out and asked when we'd be seen, because I was still bleeding. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't dying and baby was ok. (Just minor things really.) They came in a few minutes later and hooked me up to the heart and contraction monitors. Baby's heart-rate was steady and I was having contractions every 3 to 5 minutes. They still weren't hurting. They checked me and I was dilated to a 4. The nurse hooked up my IV with just fluids. They got the anesthesiologist in to hook me up to my epidural. I actually felt him putting it in this time--with Joshua I was too busy being in pain to notice the epidural happening.
So I was tingly numb and just hanging out in the bed listening to the "wooshwooshwooshwoosh" of baby's heartbeat for a while. My blood pressure kept dropping (epidural = blood vessels dilating = blood pressure dropping), so they pumped me full of fluids so I would stop getting nauseated. The fluids only helped a little bit, so the anesthesiologist gave me something to constrict my blood vessels some.
They checked my progress at 9:00ish-pm and I was still only at a 4. The nurse called the doctor and had her come to break my water. Then the doctor said if I still didn't progress after a couple hours, I might have to do another C-section anyway. Boo. Hiss.
We chilled out in the hospital room for another couple hours, resting, watching HGTV (It was lame house-hunters though). The nurse checked me at about 11pm and I was at a 9! Yay! She let my doctor know and started getting everything ready. I wasn't completely numb, just tingly numb so I could still feel when contractions happened and I started feeling the "pressure" they talk about. They originally said that since it's my first time pushing, I could push for an hour, hour and a half, or two hours before baby came. Then they changed their minds because baby had descended so much. Turns out they were right. I pushed for 25 minutes and baby came out!
They plopped her on my belly, she pinked up nicely right away (except her adorable purple hands and feet). She was already rooting around like crazy, but they had to do their little tests, etc. before they let me feed her. After they brought her back we snuggled and I fed her and she latched perfectly the first time.
I had only a 2nd degree tear from her chin or nose or something, so the doctor stitched that up. Then she spent a while getting the placenta out. It didn't want to come out on its own. Since I was bleeding the whole time, they thought the placenta was detaching early, but it didn't appear to be the case when they actually got it out, so they said it was just "labor bleeding" whatever that means. The doctor also said she's pretty sure I have a full-blown bicornuate uterus on the outside, too. Since I had the septum removed last year, I don't think I'll have many problems because of it. Anyway, she got all the placenta out, stitched me up, and sent us on our way.
I'm pretty sure that I was in a wheelchair for the transfer down to Mother and Baby, but it's a bit fuzzy. Maybe I was still in the bed. I do know that when they took her to the nursery to be bathed, I was in a wheelchair, upright, feeling fine. I must have still been a bit numb at that point. The point is that I felt up to going to the nursery, too.
Now on to the recovery:
I was given a nice mesh undies/glove full of ice/witch hazel pads/giant pad diaper to help the swelling go down. They had me try and pee at some point. Now I know I wasn't at all numb for this bit. Standing up felt like my bowels weighed about 20 lbs and were trying to fall out. I tried to pee, but I couldn't. I didn't even feel like I needed to pee. They checked my belly and my bladder was very distended and pushing my uterus up quite a bit on the right side. They said they'd have me try again in half an hour and if I still couldn't go they'd put a catheter in. I knew I wouldn't be able to go then either, so I opted for the catheter RIGHT NOW instead. When you have an epidural, they put a catheter in because you can't get up to pee. I doubt you can even control the muscles, so you'd probably pee yourself without it, too. Let me tell you: I was so grateful that I have been numb for every other catheter I've ever had. My poor down-there bits were all swollen and hurty and they were poking around with a catheter, stretching stuff out, trying to find my pee hole and it was NOT FUN. Anyway, they finally got it in (I have a feeling the nurse hadn't done many catheters before...she wasn't terribly confident about it.) and my bladder released 1400 CCs of urine into the bag right away. By the end of the first hour, I had filled a 2000 CC bag with urine. Let me give you some perspective: Normally when you pee a full bladder's worth of pee, it's about 400 CCs. Four hundred CCs. I peed 2000 CCs. Two THOUSAND CCs. Now that was a relief. (pun intended)
I opted to have the catheter stay in until the next morning because I wanted to have the swelling go down and be able to pee on my own and not have to go through getting another catheter if I couldn't. Owch. So I just had them help me change my "diaper" every time the ice melted. Every time I stood up, I got that 20 lb bowels feeling, so I started freaking out that maybe I needed to poop but couldn't, too and had a pretty major break-down about having to deal with that. They calmed me down and re-assured me that it was going to be OK.
The next morning I had the catheter removed. About an hour later I was able to pee on my own. It's amazing how much such a simple thing can be taken for granted. I still don't really get the urge to pee, so I have to remind myself to go pee every couple hours. I sure hope that goes away...or comes back, or whatever. A few hours after that, I pooped! Yay! So much better already than recovery with Joshua already.
Also, this time I stuck to only taking Ibuprofen and nothing stronger. No Percocet for sure. I had the option to take a different one if needed, but I never needed it.
Day 2 in the hospital was mostly spent sleeping. I got discharged in the evening and got to go home!
Saturday, July 19th I got a major pain in my right side and I thought I was dying! It went away once I took my ibuprofen again. It happened again on Sunday. I figured if it happened again on Monday, I'd call the doctor. It did. They had me come in Tuesday, but told me if I developed a fever or vomiting overnight to go directly to the ER. I went in and it wasn't hurting at all, or so I thought. The doctor pushed on my tummy though and immense pain commenced. She said it was like I had appendicitis, but no other symptoms of appendicitis. So I peed in a cup and went home. Turns out it was a bladder infection. Got some antibiotics, and now I'm almost as good as new.
Note: At this point with Joshua, I was begging my mom to stay another week because I just could not handle doing it on my own yet. I was still in major pain, exhausted to no end, and coughing up a lung.
Summary: VBAC is MUCH better than C-Section. I think I could have another baby at some point in the future if it goes like that again. Not anytime in the near future, but sometime. Especially if it's another baby like Maggie who eats, sleeps, and poops so well.

Dream 12/16/13

Ok, here goes. First dream was at home in NM. I woke up and it was snowing. Out on the front lawn were strewn a bunch of skis, poles, and bicycles. I guess what had happened was Alex and Daddy had been planning on going skiing, but at the last minute they couldn't go because of weather or something and Alex freaked out and chucked everything out on the lawn in the snow and had run off to sulk. Then Mari Padilla and Samantha Pompeo came by to look at the bikes. There were mountain bikes and road bikes of all sizes and kids bikes and bmx bikes--all sorts of bikes. They were test-riding all of them one by one to see what kind they liked best...in the snow.
In the second dream Joshua and I went to a huge ranch up in the mountains south of here (which I think I've dreamed about before - it's a fictional place though). It turns out the owner is a distant cousin of Daddy's and I told him that we were related. He was having a huge rodeo and a bunch of people got to dress up in old-western clothing for it to ride his horses around. Since I was related he let me dress up, too but the only clothes he had left were frumpy, bulky, nasty clothes. He declared that I got to be "the devil's bride" for the rodeo and threw a white afghan over my head. I didn't want to be that, but whatever. I guess Joshua got to dress up as the groom and that would be funny. I went to go find Joshua and he was playing with some other boys with some toy cannons that shot little baseball sized cannon balls. And that's it.

Dream 12/15/13

I can't believe it's already been 4 days since I posted a dream. I have had dreams, but they weren't terribly noteworthy. Last night I had 2 dreams again. The first one was about visiting Chelsea and Kevin in some foreign land and we went on a long walk. When we got back to their house, turns out their 2 girls had just been alone at home the whole time with the front door ajar. I was shocked, but they said they did it all the time, usually when they were napping and it was no big deal because they never left or got into any trouble or anything. Then a friend of mine stopped by to pick up something I had borrowed from her (a pen?).
The second dream I'll definitely categorize as a nightmare. It wasn't scary, or rather I wasn't scared or bothered by it in the least until the very end and it disturbed me to the point of waking. I dreamed my friend Molly and I were walking around in a city (where we lived) and we found this coin that was bigger than a nickel but smaller than a quarter and on it it said "9 cents" and it was a token to get into a secret club. Then we found a paper that had the instructions on how to get there. It was in a subway station and the paper was actually an old subway ticket. So Molly and I went to go try and find it. Molly was a klepto pick-pocket and she kept taking things from me like the coin, the paper, and a picture of Joshua. Turns out I realized that Joshua was missing and whoever had given us the coin and the paper/map had found Joshua and taken him there. We found the subway station and we had to wait until a certain train had left and the other two had arrived. Molly wanted to get on the one train because it went right to her house, but I told her we had to go find Joshua. Then we ran into the tunnel of the one that was gone and there was a little escalator that went up to the second level and there was a big empty room and then in a back, dark room there were a bunch of people playing games and eating junk food and they were all just chowing down and gambling and all sorts of ruckus. I went to go find someone that looked like they were in charge and Molly went to go look around for a game to play/something to eat. I found a huge fat guy and showed him my picture of Joshua and asked if he had seen him. He said he hadn't and I turned around and Joshua was literally right in front of him at a little table of little kids his age and they were all slumped against each other and glazed eyes and not moving. I ran over and went to pick him up and HE SAID, "Joshua! I found you!" Right before I did and he didn't really respond when I picked him up. That woke me up. It was creepy. Like he had been brain washed or something. A strange part of the dream was I felt no urgency or fear for finding Joshua until that very last moment when he was all slumpy and glazed over.

Dream 12/10/13

Again I had 2 dreams last night. I'm wondering if I have one dream per REM cycle or if I have both dreams twice or 3 times.
The first dream was pretty vague and not too interesting. Something about picking up my grandma from Colorado with enough time to get back to New Mexico for church. Something about a train, too. That's about it.
The second dream wasn't as much of an adventure dream as I've been having recently. It was actually a business idea. The idea was to start a towel company. You know how hotels all have the plain white towels and sheets? They come around every day and take the used ones and replace with clean ones. Well, what if that was offered in apartment complexes around here, only weekly. (I'm just realizing now that where Chelsea lived in DC it was done that way.) It would be one more thing college students wouldn't have to worry about and it would be included in their rent. Well I dreamed I bought the big, nice, white, fluffy towels from Costco and the agreement was $20/apartment per month. The towels would be counted, inspected, and washed each week. If a towel was missing or damaged, the apartment would have to pay $6 for it. Then I started thinking about how we'd have to make sure and have washing products that would kill bed bugs and lice so that those wouldn't get spread rampantly around the complexes. Of course now that I'm awake, I realize that no one would want to pay $20/month when they can just buy and launder their own towels for much cheaper. In my dream though, I had started it with this apartment of girls and they kept putting camisoles and blouses in with their towels in the laundry bags that would be collected. I kept thinking, "How do you not understand that this is just for towels? Where are your towels? They need to be washed weekly or they'll get so gross."
Maybe if I own an apartment complex some day I'll make it partially furnished with couches, beds, towels, and sheets, and I'll offer the weekly laundering service. I'd have to get some of those giant washing machines and dryers. They'd cost more per month, but it'd be nice. I wouldn't mind having someone wash my towels and sheets for me weekly. That's 2 or 3 loads I wouldn't have to do myself. If they were the nice fluffy towels from Costco, too that'd be an added bonus. Next time I buy towels (I've never bought towels...we are just using those we got for our wedding and those Dave had previously and those I had that were hand-me-downs from Chelsea. They all have bleach stains from acne medicine on them.) I will get the big white fluffy ones from Costco. They will all be white so they won't get bleach stains on them and I'll be able to throw them in with my other whites with hot water to save time, energy, and water. Oh, and since they'd all be white they'd all match and they'd all go with everything (except if I decide to decorate in off-white or something--I don't see me doing that).

Dream 12/9/13

Last night I dreamed I had grown my hair out long again really quickly. I still had bangs though. They kinda swooped to one side like they never actually do. I was in high school again with one of my friends here, Mindy who I visit teach, and we were getting ready for the second day of school. I couldn't remember what time school started or if we were going to seminary or not, but I wasn't too stressed about it. We decided to not go to seminary and to be there by 7:30. I was curling my hair on the way with a curling iron AND a blow dryer at the same time. When we got there I had burned Mindy a couple times with the curling iron and had been apologizing profusely but she was still a bit mad. Then I realized I had to get my books out of my locker, because I had put them there the day before, but I could not remember where my locker was nor the combo for it. I had to go stand in a line for the office because it was the first week of school so a lot of people were having issues with stuff. It switched dreams before I got my locker combo and location. I've had similar dreams so many times about lockers and forgotten combos.
The second dream was kinda like this show Dave and I are watching together called Leverage. It has a group of thieves that help people that have been conned or hurt by people with money and/or power and the "system" doesn't help them in any way. It's a good show. It's on Netflix if anyone wants to check it out. Right, so my dream was about this guy Florian that I know in Vienna. He was with his birth parents and these baddies came and told the mom that she had to pay up or they'd come kill Florian and the dad. Dave and I were there and we were the "Leverage" people who were going to help them out of this situation.  We went through files that they had which included files on people that had been foster parents for Florian. It was people like Taylor and Jamie Cardon, and there was another family that I knew but I can't remember who it was, and then there were a few I didn't know. While we were figuring out logistics of how to help them out, I was trying to distract them by fixing them dinner, having Florian show off his trick where he can tell you what day of the week any date is (ie: Sept. 22, 1985 was a Sunday). And...that's it, I woke up.
I felt so rested this morning though, which doesn't usually happen when I have crazy dreams all night. Here's hoping today goes really well (yesterday was a doozie...)

Dream 12/8/13

I've been having some crazy dreams. I thought it'd be fun to make a record of them so I can remember how crazy they are. Since they are dreams, don't count on this being super coherent. Last night's dreams:
I was given a package to deliver because I was a war spy or something. I want to say that the package was bombs of some sort. Something crucial to help the effort. I was dropped off (think google maps view of the world, zooming in on an area) in Austria or southern Germany somewhere and I had to trek across the country to a certain area without being seen. There were other people also trying to deliver packages in other parts of the world and we were racing to try and get to our destinations first. I took trains and bikes and walked. It was like a giant game of fugitive.
Then it morphed into a different dream where I was going to school (unclear if it was high school or college, it had aspects of both). I was wearing overalls and a long sleeved shirt. I had homework to do, but I went to the football/basketball game. It was a few games of several teams on different fields at the same time and it lasted all night. By the time it was over, both my teams had lost quite miserably and it was time for school again. I had to figure out how to change my clothes, get my homework done, and get to school and I was overly tired since I had been up all night. I vaguely remember Matt and Lisa Beard at the games.

Terrific/Terrible Twos - Joshua 2 1/2 years old

Out of Joshua's long long life, the past 6 months or so have been my favorite so far. I love that Joshua talks well enough that he can explain to me what he wants, when he wants it. Or if he isn't feeling well he can tell me what hurts, usually. It's fun to be able to tell him something and he understands more than I think.
He has a great sense of humor and is such a silly kid. He goofs around and says the funniest things. He is currently rolling a back massager thing on my belly. "Mom, roll you! On your belly! See?"
He has become a cuddly kid, which is great, because I love cuddling. Up til now he has hated being hugged or cuddled, or anything inbetween, which was fun when I would try to get him to go to sleep at church as a baby.
We go on at LEAST 2 walks a day at his begging request. Going on a walk is up there with watching TV and eating cake and ice cream. He'll come in first thing in the morning and say, "I want to go for a walk and watch TV, k?" or "I want to eat cake and ice cream and go for a walk, k?" On our walk, usually just round the block, he insists on bringing our small, cheepo umbrella stroller so he can push it. We go up every "ramp" along the way.
He loves people (as he has his whole life) and points to people anywhere we go and asks, "Who's thAAaat?" On the same note, he is very curious about everything and will point to almost everything wherever we are and say, "What's thAAAaat?" until he learns the name of it.
A couple of weeks ago he learned how to give raspberries. So now, when he pretends to go to work he'll say, "I'll be right back. I'm going to work. Bye!" Then he will come up to me and give me a hug, a kiss, a raspberry, and butterfly kisses, always in that order, and then will be on his way. For some reason this week he is also on a licking kick, which is just gross.
He still loves cars and trucks and trains. He'll talk about each car we pass and tell me the color and whether it's a car, truck, semi, garbage truck, bus, etc. If there's a UPS truck within a mile, he'll spot it and point to it and exclaim, "UPS TRUCK!!!!" He actually gets UPS and BYU mixed up so sometime it's, "BYU TRUCK!!!" Or once Grandma mentioned that his chair was "BYU Blue" and he said, "No, BYU is brown."
Joshua is potty trained! YAY! He only wears a diaper at night, but usually keeps it dry. We'll try doing underpants at night one of these days when I feel up to doing laundry every day if he wets the bed.
I had to have Joshua in with me in the bathroom when I showered today and first he sat on the potty (so he was completely bare bum for the rest of this), filled the sink up with water and splashed in it, took off the little drain thing in the sink, put it back on, took the last roll of tp (in the room, we have more in storage) and rinsed it off in the sink so it was all soggy. Then he decided he actually needed to go potty, so he sat on it again and pooped. So by the time I was out of the shower I had a poopy bummed toddler with no toilet paper to wipe him. Oh the learning process of toddlers.
Just an update: Right now he's opening our mail for us while sitting on my lap as I type this.
Now, with all the cute stuff, there's also the stuff that makes me want to just shut him in his room all day.
He bites. No warning, no reason, and really hard. Luckily it's usually just Dave or me, and not other people. (knock on wood)
Like I said earlier, he's obsessed with licking, so I constantly have toddler spit drying on me.
He hits. This one is every
He gets sooooooo whiney!
He absolutely cannot play by himself. The only way he'll play with his toys, which are all in his room, is if someone is in there sitting with him. Is there a way to teach a child to do independent play? Do I just shut him in his room til he plays by himself? I think he insists on having someone there because he narrates everything he does the whole time.
He has a VERY short attention span, even for a toddler. I can't use the big square babysitter like Chelsea because he'll watch for like 5 minutes and then lose interest, even if it's his favorite movie (Cars). If you sit with him to watch something it's more like 15 to 20 minutes, but that defeats the purpose a little bit, unless you're trying to sleep a little bit more on those early mornings.
He's really good at not listening. Sometimes I think his ears are painted on.
Mealtimes are like pulling teeth from a hippo. (see above biting) My finger is still aching from the latest lunchtime bite. The only thing he will eat on his own, without me feeding it to him is yogurt. Everything else he'll take one or two bites and then just stand up in his chair, get down and run away, hit the table with his fork, etc. I used to make him eat everything I served him, but then the last few bites were just agonizing and I realized he gets extra frustrating to feed when he's full (makes sense, right?) so I only make him take one more bite at that point.
Most of the obnoxious things are normal developmental things for a toddler though, so I try not to get too frustrated and just focus on all the fun stuff we do instead.