Mostly-Mommy

Sorry for the lack of pictures and updates, things around here have been pretty busy lately. I know! Shocking!

My Grandma Rose, Great Aunt Wilma, Aunt Mary, Cousin Rosie, and Rosie’s friend Matt were all visiting for a couple days this week so we hung out with them a lot. Then the day after they left I came down with the flu (I think). Except when you’ve just had a baby the flu isn’t just the flu, it could be MANY other things, none of which are things that are pleasant in nature. So this morning we headed on back to see the midwife to check me out and things seem to be on the mend. She has me taking a handful of different herbal remedies to try and stave off antibiotics, the strangest of which is a daily garlic-stuffed olive. Now THAT is some delicious medicine! Not so delicious are the mass doses of Ibuprofen I’ve been taking since Friday, they have left my insides ravaged and painful. I am done with that. I’ll take the fever instead thank you very much.

In other news my mom has been an integral part of getting this breastfeeding thing worked out. We’re not totally there yet but things are absolutely going much more smoothly. She borrowed a brand new electric breast pump for me so my pumping times are greatly reduced — although I hope to not need it any more since she also picked up one of these nipple shields which is apparently made of rainbows and ground up unicorns. This thing is a freakin’ miracle and Zoey is breastfeeding exclusively now with the help of that little piece of silicone. Supposedly you should only use it under the direction of a lactation consultant but I say do whatever works for you and your baby, and this is really working for us. I hope to be able to ditch it in the near future when we get better at this nursing thing but for now it is a LIFESAVER. Especially for Mike who gets to sleep entirely through nighttime feedings now, lucky bastard.

I promise to post more pictures in the next couple of days. She is an extremely well-manored and beautiful baby so we’ll see if we can catch a little of that on film.

This is from a mass email I sent out after Zoey was born… I’m afraid this is the best I can post right now since those precious endorphins have abandoned me.

I just wanted to fill you in on all the gory details…
I checked into the hospital at noon on Thursday, got Cervidil at 3:45pm, and then they started the Pitocin at 2:30am. I didn’t have any real progress until 7am when they broke my water and I started to get regular contractions. At 11:30 they checked me because I was feeling some pretty intense contractions and I was at a 4-5 dilation and 90% effaced. My mom assured me that was real progress but I was not very encouraged (dilation of 10 is ready to push). My contractions were getting to be insanely painful then and I dropped to the floor on my hands and knees. My mom began yelling for the midwife because she could tell I was pushing. They ran into the room in just enough time to catch the baby as she came out! The midwife caught the head and unwound the cord from her neck and then my mom caught the rest of her body (my mom tells me she was VERY slippery). If my mom hadn’t been there and known what was happening Mike would have delivered her right there on the floor!
It was an incredibly fast, whirlwind birth — not at all like I was expecting but things worked out wonderfully in the end. The midwife examined the placenta and decided that I had a partial abruption because there was so much blood, and the cord was very thin. But Zoey is a healthy, happy, HUNGRY little girl and we are already completely in love with her.
What a day!

So that’s the quick and dirty of what happened. We stayed at the hospital until about 3:30pm Saturday and then headed on home. That evening Nick started feeling pretty warm and when we took his temperature he was at over 105 degrees. I tried to call the after hours nurse several times at two different hospitals, and after busy signals and no answers I called 911. Five guys all filed into Nick’s room and absolutely scared the crap out of him — when they took his temperature it was 106. They advised us to get him to the hospital immediately so Mike rushed him on over to KUMed. Before they left the paramedic said, “I don’t want to scare you, but you need to get him to the hospital NOW. At this temperature he is at great risk for brain damage.” He couldn’t scare me any more than I already was.

My mom came over and tried to help me deal with feeding and caring for Zoey while being terrified about what was going on with Nick. They decided he had an ear infection and gave him a heavy duty antibiotic, ear drops and two NSAIDS to get his fever down. And a popsicle. That was what really helped.

So we’ve had a rough weekend and are trying to adjust to life with a newborn and a sick toddler at the same time. Tonight he was so pitiful and asked to sleep in his crib — my heart is breaking for him. And my boobs are breaking for Zoey. The IV fluids have left me extremely puffy and stiff, and the poor tiny baby can’t nurse from my swollen boobs. My milk is pretty well in but this kid is HUNGRY so I’ve been pumping and supplementing her with formula when needed. I’m trying hard to keep a good attitude but my hormones are crashing and things are seeming bleaker by the minute. Both kids alternately waking up crying every five minutes isn’t helping either.

Tomorrow will be a better day.

Bored, bored bored. That’s my update.

We got to the hospital at noon and they didn’t start the Cervidil until 3:45pm. So in the meantime they had plenty of time to poke at me mercilessly — one blood draw and three attempts at an IV. They finally got it on the third try but the first one was my favorite, that was the one where they hit the nerve in my hand.

Since then not much has been happening although by my own assessment I seem to be having minor contractions every three minutes. We’ll see when they come in to check on me. Generally not the best idea to interpret all your own data and share with the internet before you really know anything, but oh well. As I said I’m kinda bored. Inductions are boring. Bored, bored, bored. Obviously, since I am BLOGGING during labor. I guess I have some spare time since I already took a nap and had my dinner. I think I’ll go to bed early, like 8pm since they’re planning to start Pitocin at around 2am.

I’ll update more later — hopefully with a great story about the fastest induction of all time. That would be cool.

Posted from Mike’s blog:

KT had her midwife appointment this morning where it was discovered that her belly is now all baby and little amniotic fluid, so she is currently at the hospital with Sarah beginning to be induced while I hang loose at home with a napping Nicholas. We were told to come back at five this evening after our initial meeting, but they called back shortly after we left and told us to come on in at noon instead. So it’s about 1:30 pm here now and I haven’t heard from KT or Sarah so I guess things are getting started. I’ll trade places with Sarah after Nick wakes up.

I just wanted to tell you that you should all go read the comments from my last post because there is a wonderful poem there written by my father-in-law Tim. He visited us in KC for a few days and yes, Roscoe was in doggie heaven. Nick, Mike and I all had a pretty good time too. I think Tim was a bit disappointed that the new little one wasn’t born while he was here but he’ll just have to make a trip back to see her later. This girl has her own agenda!