New Seasons

I haven't written in a while because one-I have been busily finishing up my last term of all course work and two-every time I think about blogging all I can think to blog about is sleep (or lack of). By the grace of God I have made it through two terms of school with an infant. I have also had tons of help from family and my husband. Through it all still though, I am so glad that I am studying to a be a midwife. I know that God has put a desire in my heart to be a mom and a midwife and He is providing the time for me to do both. Since I started a Bible study in September I have been working hard to be diligent with my time so that I can spend time with my husband and friends while still getting school work completed on time. Some weeks I do better than others. I am becoming slightly braver when it comes to going out of the apartment with Colin. I have been to the grocery store multiple times, gone to the mall and even breastfed at the mall in an open area (with one of those nursing cover things...didn't say I was a lot more brave) because the nursing room just plain grossed me out. Moms have told me that they have left full carts at the grocery store when their child started to melt down. Well, I have to say that I am one of those moms that heads to the check out with my screaming baby because I did not make the trip to Wal-mart for nothing! I just want to tell the other people in the store who are staring at me "Moms have to shop too!" Now, I'm not going to keep browsing the aisles while my baby is hungry or tired, but I want to at least buy what I have already put in my cart.

All that to say, times are changing! I am slowly integrated my "mom" self with my other selves. Brian actually said yesterday to a friend, "We are slowly learning how to do the things we did before Colin with Colin." So just as I am moving past the novice stage, I have to deal with a new monster-day care. Right now the plan is to have Colin in day care while Brian is working and I start clinicals. We found a nice, clean, and safe day care. The only downside is that they have pretty much refused to use cloth diapers. They had some bad experiences in the past, so I guess I can understand. I am just praying that they will open up to the idea because those of you who use cloth diapers know that it really isn't all that bad. So after much anxiety and (even more) sleepless nights Colin had his first afternoon of day care.  He came home in one piece. Both afternoons that I have picked him up he has been asleep in the teacher's arms while being rocked. So that makes me feel slightly better about the whole day care situation.

I am working hard to let go of the anxiety I have about his wellbeing and health. I know that he is a healthy boy and he will be make it through germ exposures and sleeping on his stomach, but it is hard to really know it, know it. Praise God for his Word that has taught me more about His power, protection, and love over the past few months. What a God who sent His perfect son to the earth as a human so that he might relate to us. Not only relate to us, but to die on the cross for our sins once and for all.

Hebrews 10:19-25
¹⁹ Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰ by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, ²¹ and since we have a great priest over the house of God, ²² let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. ²³ Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. ²⁴ And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, ²⁵ not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Let me take that energy that I spend worrying and use it serve and encourage others and praise God for his marvelous gifts.

Pacifier Pickle

During pregnancy and after birth the jury was still out for me on pacifier use. I knew I didn't want to give one to Colin for sure until breastfeeding was well established, but did I want him to have one at all? I went to my source for all things breastfeeding-The La Leche League. (More on LLLI in a later post I hope). I found an article about pacifier use. Sucking can be calming to babies, but they also claim that pacifier use can decrease milk supply in the mom because the baby spends less time at the breast. Then another article from the American Academy of Pediatrics said that it doesn't affect breastfeeding if not introduced before the first week and can decrease the risk of SIDS. What do you do when you receive conflicting information? Make a decision you can live with I guess. So I decided to wait as long as possible. Then, when Colin was a few days shy of 3 weeks he had been screaming for a long while and he would not calm down and I told Brian to get the pacifier- now! After all my internal struggles of deciding whether or not to give him a pacifier-he wouldn't take it.

Epilogue

Colin will take the pacifier occasionally now if he is not already too frantic. The pacifier decision led me to think about the other decisions we as parents make. Some trivial and some more important. What do you do when your baby poops and then promptly falls asleep? Do you wake them up to change it immediately or let them sleep a while? When they are sleeping do you do things that you want to get done or things that need to get done? As one parenting dilemma is resolved, another one pops up.

Sleep

Sleep has been getting better, mostly thanks to my mom who gets up with Colin when he is crying and not needing to breastfeed. Brian also helped over the weekend, but during the week we try to let him sleep since he is working with heavy machinery. :) This morning is the first morning that I was able to go back to sleep after the last early morning feeding...so yay for sleeping in until 5:15! While working night shift has helped me function a little better during the day after not getting much sleep, I am still noticing some of the effects of sleep deprivation. This weekend I went to take a shower  and the water was cold. Sometimes our warm water runs out and we had done laundry all day so I decided to try the other shower because we think that it might run off a different water heater (due to living in an apartment building). Thankfully it was warm because I really do not like cold showers and was so sleepy I probably would have skipped it all together! The next day I went to take a shower again in our shower and it felt cold, I started to turn the knob and realized that I had been turning it the wrong way the night before...to colder instead of hotter...no wonder it wasn't getting warmer. Guess I was sleepy.

Colin and I also survived our first (and only so far) outing alone together to the post office! I was a little nervous and even though the drive is about 2 minutes I kept repeating to myself "take the baby, take the baby" because he was sleeping and I did not want to forget him in the back seat! Thankfully I was second in line and he slept the whole time and no one tried to touch him.

Maybe sometime soon I'll make the blog look a little fancier since I have now posted twice, which means I may actually post on a regular basis.

Colin's Birth

I have always enjoyed reading birth stories—I think it helps me feel encouraged to be a better nurse, to be a better future nurse-midwife, and while I was pregnant to be inspired for my own child’s birth.  So here is our story. It probably is too detailed for some, but what can you expect from a labor nurse who loved watching the Miracle of Life in 7^th grade? During the week leading up to Colin’s birth I had a live audio presentation I had to make on Monday, another assignment due Wednesday, and then a work baby shower on Friday evening so I knew I wanted to make it through that week before he made his appearance! Originally, I also wanted to make it through the weekend so I could see Harry Potter, but decided I wouldn’t be able to sit through it comfortably anyways. At my doctor’s appointment that Tuesday I was dilated a fingertip, was 50-60% effaced, and he (which we did not know beforehand) was at a -2 station. I had been having lots of Braxton-Hicks contractions and a rare contraction that was uncomfortable. On Thursday after I woke up from sleeping after work, I was feeling a little cramping with accompanying stomach symptoms. I figured it was just from sleeping terribly and being 37 weeks pregnant. Thursday night I felt some more cramping, but was not getting too excited because women come into the hospital all the time for cramping and then don’t give birth for another 2 weeks. Friday morning I was pretty tired, but not feeling as crampy. I was not feeling as hungry as usual which I thought was weird, but still tried to eat in case labor was coming! A friend who is also pregnant who I work with for whom the baby shower was also for and I went to lunch and Target and by the time I got home I was feeling a little more yucky. I took a short nap and when I woke up felt a lot of cramping and felt like I needed to take a bath to make it better. I took a quick bath and then Brian took me to work for the baby shower. I was just contracting occasionally during the shower, but not terribly. When I got home about 7ish I told Brian I was having contractions, but I could still talk and work through them. He wanted to start timing them with the fancy Itouch App. They were about 4-6 minutes apart and 20-30 seconds long. I thought it would be a good idea anyways to put away all the nice baby things that my wonderful coworkers so thoughtfully blessed us with! At about 8:30 or so we decided Brian should go to the store to get a bassinette pad that we never got and some food. I started packing our bag for the hospital too, just in case. I had made a list before, but knew that I would have plenty of time to pack when I started contracting! I went to bed about 1030 or so, the contractions had gotten a little stronger and a little closer together. I listened to my labor play list and relaxed through them. They must have spaced out at some point because I woke up and hit the contraction timer and it had been an hour. It was about midnight and I got up to use the bathroom and had a little bloody show. I was starting to think this could be labor! I decided to get up and do something else for a while because I felt like I couldn’t rest. I tried to eat a few snacks throughout the night and sat on the birthing ball and read for class and just kept changing positions. Somewhere in there I called triage to get their opinion on whether it was labor or not, which is really funny because you don’t really know if you were in early labor or false labor until afterwards and it is especially hard to tell over the phone if someone is in labor or not! I did not know whether or not to call my parents yet to tell them to head this way. They were only 3ish hours away opposed to the normal 8. I woke Brian up at 4 or so to evaluate if my contractions had gotten stronger in his opinion. I was having a slightly more difficult time talking through them so he thought I should call my parents. They decided to get up and get ready and then call me before they left. I also called the charge nurse to see who my nurse might be if I decided to come in. She said that she was going to have to find someone else to work anyways and so she called a fellow night shift nurse to see if she would come in and be my nurse. We started watching a Lie to Me which ended up being a kind of dark episode so I wanted to watch something else so we went with Where the Heart Is. We got about 20 minutes into it and my contractions were about 2-4 minutes apart and lasting 40-50 seconds. Brian was getting a little nervous and I was curious too so we decided just to go and see where things were at. We got to the hospital about 7ish and my nurse checked me and I was a 2/85%/-2. Well…I said all along I wanted to get to the hospital and be a 6. I was slightly disappointed, but felt like I was in labor and that was change from Tuesday so I decided to walk since it was more comfortable and then come back in a little while and see if things had changed. When I walked the contractions got stronger and when I got checked again a little before 9, I was a 3/90/-2. So yay change! My nurse just started  a saline lock with no fluids per my request and I just hydrated with water and Gatorade. Went through all the admit questions while the baby was on the monitor to make sure he was okay. My doctor came in about 930 maybe and I was a 4 and stretchy to a 5! Yay! On a side note, I had talked to my doctor about what I wanted for the birth and his only stipulation was no rap music. I could definitely comply with that. So he didn’t break my water as would normally happen. Since baby looked good on the monitor I was able to be without them for almost the whole time, with just the occasional listen. The contractions were getting a little stronger and I kept changing positions and walking. A few hours later the nurse checked me and I was still a 4. Bummer. My doctor called at some point and said that if I was still a 4 at 1 pm then he would recommend having my water broken. I was a tiny bit more than a 4 then and my water was leaking so we decided to not have him come. I kept on changing positions and walking… a little bit later I was a 5…and then still a 5…so I did everything I could to change, I squatted, lunged, walked faster. My bag of water was still partially intact so I was hoping it would break the rest of the way on its own, but I knew it would get more painful after that…but after only changing 1 cm in 8 hours, I said that my doctor could come finish breaking my water. He got there about 530 and broke my water and then things got really intense! Before that I felt totally in control even though the contractions hurt. After that I felt way out of control. My nurse and Brian were helping me relax and focus, but it was really hard. At this point I told Brian that my mom and his mom could come in because delivery was probably getting somewhat close. They were all great. They rubbed my legs and told me how strong I was. They all knew I really didn’t want an epidural or pain medication and none of them suggested it at anytime! Brian did so great, I am so proud of him for all the support he gave me throughout my pregnancy and labor. A little bit after my water broke I asked my nurse to check me and I was a 7.5…I really wanted to be completely dilated then and was so ready to give birth that I told my nurse to call my doctor and tell him to come and use forceps to deliver my baby! He is really talented at using forceps, but that situation was slightly implausible. I continued to dilate and throw up and change positions frequently and attempt to breathe and make noises through contractions. I had read a lot that making your mouth in an O shape helped to open things up and I was all for that. So I tried to focus on that and rubbing my legs and telling myself it will get better. It was hard to think in the future though when the contractions would stop. I kept saying I just wanted a break! I also told my mom and mother-in-law that their natural labors were not as hard as mine! I guess that was transition talking. I was finally dilated almost completely and started pushing a little after 8 pm and made good progress. When he came down more some of the pressure was relieved on my hips and it felt so much better to push. My doctor came in at some point before he was born. I wanted to give birth on my side and I ended up being kind of half on my back and half on my side with my nurse holding my left leg and someone asked if I wanted to be more on my side, but I said I couldn’t move. I was also asked if I wanted a mirror, but I had to close my eyes to push so I didn’t think I would be able to see anyways. My doctor asked me if I wanted a pudendal block which would numb just the exit, but I told him I felt everything so far I want to feel the rest! It was really nice of him to offer though! I pushed really hard, but at the end tried to breathe some so that I wouldn’t tear too badly. He was born and Brian announced that it was a boy! I was so happy and relieved. I tore just a little and did OK my doctor to use lidocaine to sew me up. Every person in the room during the birth was wonderful! I am so glad every single one of them was there. The charge nurse even videoed for us.  About 20 minutes after the birth I got up and got cleaned up and then breastfed Colin for 40 minutes. The granddads came in at some point too and got to hold the new grandbaby. It was such a special day that I wouldn’t trade for anything. I am so thankful for the opportunity to give birth and have a son. He is such a blessing already. It is wonderful to think that God already has such big plans for Colin and they started with his birth. God placed the perfect people there to support us.