Posted by: danageekmom on: November 18, 2011
My doctor called an end to the game of chicken with my blood pressure at week 37. This meant that Mouse would be full term and hopefully avoid my BP blowing while in labor and delivery again. So that meant I was scheduled to be induces on Wednesday November 9th. Dr. Suk told me to be at the hospital by 7am that morning.
Knowing what I know now I would have insisted that we stop at McDonald’s and get the the largest breakfast I could get my swollen hands on.
I got suited up in the hospital johnny and into bed while Jason put my things away and scoped out the comfy chair. Dr. Suk arrived and decided my BP was low enough that I could walk so she decided to break my water. After messing around for a few moments and testing my ability to not slap her when she’s causing me pain, Suk wasn’t sure she’d gotten the job done so she ordered the Pitocin.
They got the IV started and after spending the better part of 2 months doing not much of anything I wanted to get up and walk so my nurse hooked me up to the portable monitors and Jason and I did out laps in the hallway. Being who he is he timed my laps and was impressed with my split times. Labor started slow and I was actually impressed with how I was doing and enjoying a far different labor than with Kyle. I could speak and move without vomiting. I even labored in the tub for a while.
During our walk we noticed something very important. The room I was given was the same room I had Bug in which was really odd because we passed more than a few empty rooms on the way down. It would be tempting to have another baby just to see if I got the same room again. Jason doesn’t think that’s funny.
It really wasn’t until mid-afternoon when I was starting to wonder if this was going to go as we’d planned and Ivy would be born by dinner time. It turns out she decided she wouldn’t make her debut until breakfast the next day.
I’d get into a pattern of really great and strong contractions and then it would fall apart and there just wasn’t much pressure on my cervix to open it up. By 10pm Suk was ready to call it and have an OB come in for a c-section. By then labor had gone on for 13 hours and I wasn’t going past a 4. Of course now when the OB checked I’d progressed to a 5.
My doctor decided to let me labor another two hours and see if I got any further. If not, c-section. If I did we’d let it go on. Well I did progress, but, of course, I didn’t get too far. Just far enough that she didn’t want to go to a c-section but not far enough for me to feel like the end was anywhere near. That’s when I had my first break down. I was getting no where fast and I knew I’d still have to actually push. I also hadn’t eaten since 5:30 am the now previous day and because a c-section was looming I was also not allowed even ice chips anymore.
I napped on and off, rolled over when the nurse came in to help and had to have my epidural upped once. My Pitocan was being adjusted on a regular basis to keep me contracting harder in the hopes Mouse’s head would finally drop more and put more pressure on my cervix.
It took another eight and a half hours and by that time I was beyond tired, frustrated, hungry and mentally exhausted. I finally had it, I broke down sobbing and pretty much told Suk I was done with labor. I had decided either I was going to push this baby out or she was calling the OB to do a c-section if I wasn’t fully dilated. Jason was sure I wasn’t going to have enough in me to push. I was pretty sure he was right but I was at a 10 so I had to at least try.
Somehow I managed, after 21 hours of labor, almost 24 hours in the hospital and 23 hours since eating, to push. In between pushes I napped and 45 minutes, just past 24 hours after I was admitted Ivy was born.
When the nurses went to weigh her they realized that she wasn’t breathing. I wasn’t sure how serious it was until my doctor left me in the hands of the floor resident and she began to do chest compressions on my daughter. Then I heard them call for a crash cart. There were people flooding into the room, including the NICU doctor and they were all around my daughter with looks of concern on their faces. All I could do was hold Jason’s hand squeeze.
I don’t know that I breathed until I heard a nurse say “I got it.” And I didn’t move until I saw my doctors face. She’s a damn good poker player in a lot of ways but once I saw the relief on her face I knew that, while Ivy might be sick, she wasn’t in danger anymore.
They bundled her up and put her in my arms and Jason and I spent time saying hello to her before they took her to the NICU.
It seemed like forever before the doctor came back but the news was fantastic. Ivy was pink and breathing. Her vitals were great and unless there was a problem she was only going to stay in NICU for 8 hours.
I, on the other hand, was not doing well. I wasn’t able to keep any thing down and when I got out of bed I came extremely close to passing out and also ended up with an emergency team in the room. I was put back into bed and slept.
A few hours later I was ok enough to have an aid take me to NICU to see my baby girl who was doing fantastic and she was with me in my room again by dinner.
When she’s 16 and I tell her she can’t have the car I’m going to make her read this.
Posted by: danageekmom on: October 28, 2011
I have to confess I am probably one of the worlds worst bloggers. Even when I was younger I’d start a diary and keep it for a while then just stop writing in it. I guess it was partly knowing someone might read my most personal thoughts and realizing those thoughts were boring as hell is what always did it.
In this case it’s the discipline to sit down and do it that’s lacking. Oddly right now discipline is the word of the king in this house as Bug is currently making me think I might possibly be speaking in some odd language that I only think is English, that he cannot understand.
So far this second pregnancy has made a lie of my first trimester statement that “I don’t even feel pregnant”. The pregnancy of Jelly Bean is officialy high risk as my blood pressure decided to stay elevated. The good news is that it’s not pre-eclampsia. It is however not the ideal.
The last month and a half has been spent attempting to “take it slow” while I go to weekly doctor appointments, bi weekly non stress tests and blood work every few weeks. I should have my own parking spot at Suk’s office, or at least be included in the Drug Rep lunches.
All this has shown that my daughter is growing well despite my BP. It also means she’ll miss being pre-mature by a week. I’m going to be induced in 10 days to avoid actually going into the danger zone.
So, there’s going to be a new face at the Thanksgiving table this year and Bug is waiting to his baby sister to arrive. He’s got his own baby he’s taking care of, when he’s not sitting on it’s head. He’s also been looking over the tiny things going into his room. I give him 3 days before he asks if we can take her back to Target.
Posted by: danageekmom on: September 3, 2011
Like most kids his age Bug likes to try to get out of going to sleep by asking to go potty, for a drink or a story. He’s getting somewhat creative in his requests though. Like the night he kept bobbing and weaving his way around Geekdad finally crawling into my lap to announce he could not go to sleep because he had to “Watch The Doctor with mama”.
Yes, at the time I was watching Doctor Who. He did sit and watch it with me. The best part? He knows Chris, David and Matt are all The Doctor. Just the other night Geekdad was on the desk top and was reading something. Bug went around the corner and I heard him say “That’s The Doctor!”. Geekdad asked him if I’d put him up to it.
I think as a parent we all enjoy it when our kids show interest in our interests. It’s something we can share and enjoy together. Geekdad and Bug watch a lot of sports together and Bug seems to really be starting to like football. He also watches daddy play Batman on the Xbox 360 and he now loves Batman, or so he tells me.
We all know we pass our genetics on to our kids. Just watching Bug I can see a lot of his dad and me in him but he doesn’t choose those things. He’s choosing to ask to watch sports with his daddy or to Star Wars with us. It’s the start of a child showing something beyond the parroted please and thank yous are sinking in. We are shaping this tiny person for better or worse.
By Christmas I hope I can get him to say Time And Relative Dimensions In Space.
Posted by: danageekmom on: August 18, 2011
After answering the question “how’s this pregnancy going?” and telling everyone that this time around has been going great and I hardly feel pregnant 24 weeks and 5 days threw a wrench on things and my blood pressure ended up putting me on bed rest for almost a week and a “short leash” (quote the doctor), for the foreseeable future with the promise of more bed rest if my blood pressure goes back up.
When we spoke about having another child we figured we’d give it a chance, it had been so hard with Bug and we really expected to spend a few months trying and half expected to still be one child parents at the end of it. Never in a light year had either of us expected to find out we were going to have another baby after two months.
After the positive pregnancy test, ok 6 tests, I geared up to puke for the next 9 months but that didn’t happen either. I didn’t get so tired I feel asleep at 4am, I didn’t spend hours obsessing over certain foods. Just food in general. The pregnancy was what every women dreams of for herself. Sure the doctor and I both talked about watching my BP, we figured it “might” happen but neither one of us really expected it to happen until it did.
On the whole I’m so lucky that it looks like I’ll just end up on meds and close monitoring the rest of my pregnancy it really could be so much worse and I remind myself of that. It’s still annoying as hell though.
It’s hard to realize until you can’t anymore how often you get up during a lazy day. I mean, it’s easy to think it’ll be fun to do nothing until you need a cup of water or get hungry. Then it gets annoying. Because asking for a cup of water or a sandwich when you’re over 5 makes you feel a little, well, like you can’t take care of yourself. It’s even worse when you know your bathroom needs to be cleaned or the cats need water.
This all started though just went I figured nothing could really go wrong. I was moving along, gaining little weight, working out and enjoying my almost mom squared status. I had always thought if my BP was going to go up this time it would go up way earlier. I never saw this coming. Things had been going too great. The monthly appointment was almost boring with the lack of issues. I was more concerned about the bother of going into labor at Thanksgiving. Now I’m just shooting for Thanksgiving.
I’ll take this though because at the end of it I get a little baby girl to dress in pink and purple and sparkles.
Posted by: danageekmom on: August 15, 2011
While I was pregnant with Bug my BP was high. It was high through the whole pregnancy and fairly consistent so my doctor watched me and we took it a visit at a time. This time around I’m much thinner, eat much better, work out and drink lots of water so watching my BP was really a caution given my history.
Or so I thought. On Thursday I developed contractions that would start if I was on my feet more than 20 to 30 minutes at a time. On Saturday a headache that wouldn’t go away took hold. I took it easy all weekend, well as easy as one can with a 3 year old bouncing off of walls can.
Today after a call to my doctor she suggested that I should come in to get my BP checked because the headache worried her much more than the contractions which she thinks are probably round ligament paint. Personally I’m thinking more Braxton Hicks. Not that this at all matters.
I go to her office and a nurse takes me to a room and takes my BP, she goes to show it to the doctor who then wants a urine sample. You know that can’t really be a good thing right? After a cup of water and a few moments of waiting the nurse has what she needs and comes back to see me after Doc has gone over that with the BP.
The verdict? Go home, bed rest until Wednesday when I have another appointment. She’s pretty sure this is only a precaution and that after a few days off my feet my BP will go down. I really hope so because, let me tell you, the idea of a doctor telling you that you can’t cook or clean is really awesome. The reality is that I don’t have a maid or a live in nanny.
And you know, you really don’t realize how much you do during the average day at home until you can’t. Do you know how long it actually takes to cook a box of mac n cheese? Or how long it really takes to shower? Luckily I’m not on total bed rest so I can get up, go to the bathroom, shower and chill on the couch. I cannot imagine how bad it would be if I couldn’t even get up to get a glass of water on my own. Kudos for you mom’s who have.
In the mean time, Jelly Bean is gonna stick tight and has been having a fantastic day rolling around in her mommy’s tummy. And I’m making the mistake of watching the food network.
Posted by: danageekmom on: August 14, 2011
Well, another show I really enjoy was canceled this week. One day after the SyFy network said it would be picked up for another season. Now that Eureka is going to go off the air I’ll never be able to work at GD. I’ve even got Bug saying “oh great” just like Carter.
I’ve always wanted to eat at Vincent’s place too. How cool would it have been to walk in and order what ever it was I wanted. That’s, like, the best thing ever for a pregnant women. Not that I’ve had specific cravings all that much this time around. It’s been more like food, gimmie food and gimmie food now!
Of course now that I’m going to be a mom to two I might now want to work with Fargo and the gang. Far too many problems there that cause lock downs.
Posted by: danageekmom on: April 30, 2011
Bug’s yelling at James the Engine because he ran off the tracks. He’s really mad at James and put him in a time out. This was after he spit enough water into his bowl of strawberries, that he begged for, to fill it almost to the top. I really miss the “terrible” two’s. It’s not the two’s that kill you, it’s the three’s and who ever came up with the whole terrible two thing aught to be sentenced to a room full of three year old for a week.
After all the time and effort we went into to get Bug talking there are times when I beg him to please stop yelling. It’s almost like the more verbal he gets the more he has to act like a wild child. He’s still working through the whole he’s not the boss of me thing. The second most frequent time out he gets is for turning off the TV when I refused to give into his demands for Thomas. Or Bob the Builder as he seems to be into now.
The most frequent? Oh that would be for not listening to me. And this blog post interrupted to a loud demand for popcorn at 9:30 am. During his time out he decided he needed a nap. That’s his new get out of jail free card, a nap. So, anyway, he likes to pretend he doesn’t hear me when I tell him something or ask him something. I know he’s not having a problem hearing in general because I can play the Thomas theme song at the lowest volume and he’ll be in his bed room and still hear it. Of course, Geekdad does the same thing.
At least once a week I think about why we’re doing this again. I know Jelly Bean will be his own person (yes, I think it’s a boy again) just like Bug is his. And that’s the answer. Jelly Bean will give us all new ways of looking at something. He’ll have his own little habits we’ll laugh over just like his big brother.
He’ll have his own shows he’ll demand, his own special toy or blanket. I’ll have my special moments with just him, just like with Bug. He’ll have his own smile, voice and laugh. And his own way of making me want to pull out my gray hair.
Posted by: danageekmom on: March 22, 2011
A while ago I began talking about maybe having another baby. It was one of those “in the future” things. Geekdad said that he’d be a go for another kid, someday. A few months ago we made the decision to try to have another baby, with the thought that we’d give it a year then move on. I’d had a hard enough time getting pregnant with Bug and we knew the second time around would probably not be a walk in the park. Well aside from the actual trying to make the baby.
So yeah, I’m going to have another baby in November. Two months of trying and somehow we managed to have a home run. I really, really hadn’t thought that we had actually done it this month. I bought new capri’s, in smaller sizes, and a bottle of wine. Yep, can’t wear ‘em and I can’t drink it, though that bottle of wine is so coming to the hospital with me.
I’m feeling really good right now, some ligament pains and a tiny bit of nauseousness right now. And either I’m gaining weight or I’ve already got baby pudge going on. Pants are a tad tighter yesterday and today.
Bug is gonna be a big brother.
Posted by: danageekmom on: March 5, 2011
Last week I was talking to a co-worker about “The List”. Now, if you’re married you know what mysterious list I’m talking about. If you’re not you might know, but you don’t know.
The list is sort of like that current movie <i>Hall Pass</i>, sort of. It’s not a full week of acting like you’re 20 something again, but The List is your fictitious hall pass for a night or weekend. I think most married couples have a List they talk about from time to time and their list probably changes from year to year. Some couples have a three count for their list, others even go up to ten. I’m not sure what our numbers are, I think up to five. Though, honestly, Geekdad keeps telling me he has no List that I’m the only one for him. I call him a dirty liar.
The thing is, no matter how fantastically happy you are, and trust me I am, in your marriage or relationship, there is always that whole idea that someone else finds you just as hot and sexy and fun as your spouse. He or she has too think you’re hotter than the sun, still it’s fun to think that someone who’s never seen you puke or pick your nose might find you attractive.
I have a theory on The List. Happy couples have them and talk about them. Unhappy couples hide them. I think that it’s part of a healthy relationship and intimacy to be able to talk about anything with the person you’re with. It shows a lot of trust you have in one another to be able to hear about The List and for someone to talk about The List because sometimes their’s no rhyme or reason to who’s on the list and that can get a little embarrassing.
For the record Justin Beiber and Edward Cullen are not on my list. Not even close and not I’m not telling you who is on my List.
Posted by: danageekmom on: March 3, 2011
I have no idea why but last night I got it into my head that I wanted to be part of the tweetverse again. The thing about me, which Geekdad can attest to, is that when I get something in my head that I want or I want to do I don’t let it go. So I gave in and grabbed an app for my phone again and started tweeting again.
One one level I really don’t get the whole tweeting thing. Does the world really care that I like Special K cereal and if I need coffee (both, by the way are true)? No the probably don’t but there is some pull, it’s like some weird Tourette’s thing.
Humans want the inside scoop on others. We like gossip and we like knowing things other people shouldn’t know about each other. Why else would we watch “reality” tv and read the gossip rags. Twitter is sort of like an ok way for us to eavesdrop on other people, celebrity and neighbor alike.
It’s also a way for us to get attention from others. More than getting the inside dirt on the people around us, mostly so we can feel better about ourselves, we enjoy talking about ourselves. It’s fun for us to sit there and go on and on about how awesome we are. Because what is going on in our world is the most. important. thing. ever. EVER.
So, because I feel the need to snoop and babble about my own insanely fantastic self I started tweeting again.
