Blessed

I am so very blessed!  On Wednesday, my mom and my sister came over and cleaned my house for me!  I am so thankful!  I have not been able to properly dust my house in months it seems, and it is so nice to have everything clean and dust free!  While they cleaned my house, I cleaned my oven.  And then later on, mom stayed and held Baby B for me so I could nap.  Lately I'll get her down for a nap, and as soon as I lay down, she starts crying.  It makes sleep rather difficult.

The other day I came down the stairs to see all four of my kids playing/sitting/coloring, and I just thought to myself 'look at how blessed we are!  Look at those wonderful little people!  God has blessed us so much!'.  I just cannot get over it... we are a family of 6 here on earth (plus one in heaven, as my oldest two like to say).  I have given birth to these little ones... each with their own personality.  Each with their own likes and dislikes.  Each one different from anyone else in existence, and yet each of them similar to each other in one way or another.  I am a mom!

I am blessed!

Sure, it makes things difficult at times.  It's hard to get enough sleep, I get tired of doing laundry and cooking what feels like all the time, and I cannot seem to keep the house clean and clutter free for longer than one or two minutes (don't get me started on mopping the floor.  I've determined that it's just a fools' errand already, even though it does feel so nice to have clean floors even if it is only for 5 minutes tops).  But in the grand scheme of things... it doesn't matter.  These things are prime teaching tools... and not just for the kids!  I like to call my two year old a character builder.  She can sure frustrate the crazies out of me (sometimes I really feel like I'm going insane), but I have to exercise patience, love, kindness, and gentleness regardless of how I feel in that moment.  I still have a lot to learn, but I'm sure more will come as time moves on.

Life moves along.  Most often I just move along with it... but it is in those moments where I suddenly take a step back out of myself and just look at this family, these people, these blessings, when I feel full.  A small 'pause' in the fast paced world that is the life of a mom.  A moment that hits you, and then is gone, lingering in the back of the mind, making one wish they could get it back again in case you missed something. 

Here's to more moments like those.

Mom-E-xhaustion

Sometimes, I dream about being in a fairy tale.  You know, something like Sleeping Beauty... only I wish to fall asleep and have my Prince actually wait for a few days before waking me up.

 

Actually, eternal sleep doesn't sound too bad right now.

 

Speaking of 'sleep'...

 

How you know you've had an exhausting day... not even enough energy to take off your jacket and lay down somewhere besides the floor you were placed on.

 



 

Sunday was a very exhausting day for more than just me, it seems.  Baby A fell asleep in the van on the way home, and since I had to make 3 trips back and forth to get everything in the house, I put her on the floor (she woke up while I was carrying her), only to come in after carting in Baby B, the diaper bag, and various other things to find her fast asleep.  Poor peanut!

 

This has been one massively tiring week!  Baby A had her birthday, and I can still hardly believe she's 2 years old now!  I guess I should start thinking of her as a toddler now, even though she is still my lil peanut.  I baked cupcakes and cake for her, and since she just adores Olaf, we had an Olaf themed birthday.

 

 

For the first time, I 'cheated' with the cookies.  My husband found the Valentine's frozen 'bake them yourself' Pillsbury cookies with hearts in the centers of them for $1 per 24 pack, and bought 3.  I could hardly believe it!  I didn't have to do much to make cookies!  I printed a bunch of Olafs and put them on toothpicks onto the large cupcakes, then using parchment paper on top of another image of Olaf, I used white and dark chocolate to draw out a chocolate Olaf for the top of the cake.  Made a number of snowflakes similarly, and attached them to the sides of the cake afterwards.  Since I got a  bunch of Valentine's day stuff on sale, I used pink sweetheart candies to decorate the mini cupcakes and the table.  And doilies make lovely decorations, too.  I made pop cans into 3D snowflake decorations using my Snowflake cutter with my BigShot machine, and for relatively little work, we had a pretty dessert table (I was so happy).

 

I didn't want to do a big birthday party as I cannot handle a lot of people in my house all at once anymore.  Instead, we had my husband's parents over on Wednesday, his sister came down on Thursday (and we sang Happy Birthday with candles on a cupcake for her), then friends came down on Friday for supper (they have three kids all the same age as our oldest three!  The kids had a great time!).  Saturday was a baby shower for a friend of mine, and then Sunday we were going to have lunch with my family at our house, but I was so tired that my mom said we'd do it there, and I'd bring the cake (hence all the cupcakes and a cake, too.  Instead of one big party, we had 4 mini parties.  I'm so DONE).  It was hard since lately, all I want to do is hide in my house.  I absolutely love doing special cakes and themes and planning parties though... so what's a hermit wannabe to do? 

 

I still cannot believe my lil girl is 2 already!  Where did the time go?  I just love how much she is talking, dancing (she just loves to dance to the Frozen soundtrack), and she loves to give hugs to her baby sister (and crawl all over me whenever I wish to sleep or need to nurse the baby).  Her vocabulary is quite large already, and although we haven't started potty training yet, I really want to (having two in cloth diapers is quite the task).

 

Happy Birthday, Lil A!  You are a joy to watch grow, and will forever be my squishy (even when you don't want to, haha).



Happy Birthday, Baby A!

Baby A isn't a baby anymore!  She's a toddler!  A two year old peanut of a cutie patootie (that knows how to get under her brother's skin).  Lately, we have an obsession with Olaf, dancing to music (even music nobody else hears), climbing on mommy whenever she needs to nurse the baby or take a nap, and calling everything we want turned on, 'off'. 

And the words!  When did you learn to say so many words?!?  And how on earth did I come to understand your two-year-old speech around your soother?

A favorite in this house is 'cookie'.  And it astonishes me how some of A's words come out so clearly, that I'm looking for M thinking she was the one who said them.

Here are a few fun pics over the last couple of months.

Happy Birthday, sweet little peanut!  I love you, and look forward to seeing how much more you will grow in the years to come!

Post Partum Tummy Tales

So... I found something out yesterday.  I have diastasis recti.  And not just a little bit.

Now, how did I find this out?  It is no secret that I love to research things.  Well, in my research on Monday, I found out about diastasis recti.  I remember learning about it after having my son almost 5 years ago.  Two weeks after having him, I measured myself and had only one finger width gap.  Well, in my research I read that still looking pregnant after birth can be attributed to this issue.  After dealing with some depression due to looking 6 months pregnant still, I decided to measure myself Tuesday morning. 

I got all four fingers in between mu muscle ridges.  I kind of felt like freaking out!

It all makes sense now.  The huge amount of back pain I was having in my last trimester was probably due to my muscles separating to the point of me having no more core to support it.  And the continued back pain after birth... also due to that same fact as the muscles did not come back together again.  After she was born, I remember getting up (finally) to go to the bathroom, and being hardly able to walk.  I actually had to hold my stomach in with my arms in order to make it over there.  I remembered things feeling weird each time after birth, but this was even stranger than I expected.  And it makes sense. 

10 days after I had baby B, I was in church and an older gentleman came up to me and said 'Oh, you're still pretty big, eh?', to which I replied 'just keeping it roomy in there for the next one', all the while trying not to get too upset.  This last weekend was B's baby dedication (which would be more aptly termed 'parent dedication', but I digress).  After the service, I had an older lady come up to me and sweetly ask when I was due.  I quickly brought her attention to the baby my husband was buckling into the car seat.  I know... I am still pretty big.  My stomach sticks out, I am still in maternity clothes 4 weeks after giving birth (and expect to be for awhile still), and now I don't have a baby in there to 'blame it on'.  Plus, most of the babies born this last year in our church were all first time moms who went back to no bellies within the first couple of weeks.  Yes, I know things will take a lot longer after #4.  But with everything that happens after birth, with all the healing I have to do, and with all the wonders of newborn babies (meaning lack of personal hygiene to a degree), I feel gross.  I do not feel pretty.  I have limited wardrobe, cannot wear jewelry for many reasons (a 2 year old being one of those), and it's all 'shower and go'... sometimes without the shower.  All sorts of women around me are dressed so pretty, smell wonderful with their perfume (I cannot wear perfume as I react to the stuff.  Makes me sad), makeup and hair done nicely, or even these women with beautiful baby bellies (I love pregnant bellies... they are so cute), or those who have lost weight recently and look fantastic, and it's hard to not sit and cry.  I hide in my house more than I'd like to admit, and even girls night is hard for me to go to, although I love it every time I do go. 

I know... it's only skin deep.  I have a beautiful baby to be thankful for (and I am!), and my body went through something huge (ha!  Pardon the pun)!  Power to me!  However, it is still hard.  Even with learning why my stomach is not returning to normal (I was back in most of my usual clothes by 2 weeks post partum after my first), it still bothers me.  And the work I'll have to go through in order to fix these muscles is going to take a long time, and a lot of dedication.

I just wonder if I have the dedication to do it right now?

Currently, I'm sitting here, typing away, watching my middle two children play/fight (I'm not sure which half the time), and my baby napping on the floor (thankfully, far from the action), as I wear my Curves belly band (bought the thing years ago with 'curves points' when I worked out there.  It's supposed to help you 'sweat' away extra pounds on your abdomen.  It is working well as a transverse abdominal muscle helper right now).  I am trying to do my walking exercises daily while sucking in my gut.  I am doing some of the other recommended exercises to reverse the ab separation.  And this is only day two.  With a small separation (two fingers), usually 6 weeks will see some good reversal.  Otherwise, it can take up to a year.  A year.  Of trying to remember to sit up properly, lay down correctly, suck in my gut using my transverse abs, and other small exercises (when I'd rather lay down for a nap or eat whatever item I can find in my fridge because I'm always feeling half starved).  And 4 fingers is pretty severe.

As for the fat comments... I think I am now forever afraid to ask anyone when they are due.

My Birth Story - Three Weeks Later

Baby B is here!  She arrived three weeks ago (big reason as to why I haven't blogged in that time).  I am so thankful she is here, and life just feels right, having her in our family.  I cannot remember what it was like without her now, as strange as that may sound.  Anyway, a few days after arriving home from the hospital, I had a rough draft of my birth story written out, but it was all factual and stuff.  Didn't read well.  I wanted to rewrite it... but took until today to finally do so.  Just a warning, there might be some TMI in here for those who are squeamish about that sort of thing.

Thanks again to everyone who was praying for me!  Your prayers were felt!

And now...

Baby B's Birth Story

“The baby will come today… baby has to come today!  I just know it,” said I for the 5^th day in a row.  It was 13 days past my expected due date, and I had been having false labour for almost that long already.  I did NOT want to be induced, and we all know that at 14 days overdue, induction is pushed.  Thankfully, my doctor hadn’t even suggested it yet, but the way he talked about my next appointment sounded like if I didn’t have the baby by then, we’d be scheduling one.

12:15 rolled around.  I did not expect to make it to my Thursday appointment, and decided beforehand that if I did, I’d get a sweep done.  I was 3cm and 70% effaced now.  Dr K asked me if I knew of natural ways to try to kick start labour, and suggested trying to use a pump.  At this point, I was willing to try it if it meant not needing Pitocin.  I was having false labour again, and decided to time things anyway.  6-7 minutes apart.  Once at home, even though I was tired and really wanted to nap, that seemed virtually impossible with the kids as awake as they were.  Plus, M would be coming home in less than an hour (I tried napping at my mom’s for a bit with no success due to A and these Braxton’s).  So, I pulled out the pump.

Shortly after using it, the contractions went to 5 minutes apart.  When they looked like they might be slowing down, I started another session and immediately they moved to 3 minutes apart… and much stronger.  These did not feel like before.  M had just gotten home.  I was excited… but doubtful.  I picked up the phone.  "Honey, I think labour might be starting, but it is weird… no, I don’t think you need to rush.  Yes, they are 3 minutes apart, but it feels different."  He was inside within 5 minutes.  M heard the ‘L’ word, and all of a sudden the house was full of excitement.  ‘Mom, are you in labour?  Is the baby coming?  YAY!  Let’s get ready to go!  Hurry, baby is coming, I’ll help you’.  At this point, I was praying this was for real as I really did not want to disappoint her and say ‘oops, false alarm’.  After all, you’d think I’d know the difference at this point.  I’ve had 3 kids already!

We dropped the kids off at my parents and headed to the hospital, even though I really wanted to just go for a walk or take a nap… things still didn’t feel like active labour.  We got to the hospital around 5pm. Nurse C checked me, and then asked if I could let the nurse in training check me as well, as I was easy to measure.  However, even when they both said I was 5cm and fully effaced, I was doubtful, mostly due to what happened last time.  She figured I was right on the edge of active labour, once again strange to me as usually when we get to the hospital I’m in full on active labour with the same measurements.  I went from feeling like we’d be holding our baby in about 2 hours, to ‘oh no.  How long will this one take?’  I was able to walk through the contractions with no difficulty, which I found strange.  But I was extremely tired as I hadn’t gotten my usual nap, and so, even though I knew that keeping active would be best, I went to lay down... that's when things got frustrating. 

The contractions moved to 6 minutes apart, and then kept changing from 3, to 6, to 1 or 2 minutes apart… some weaker than others, all the while feeling like false labour with strong contractions this time.  I started asking about an epidural, even though I was afraid it might slow labour, but I wanted to sleep so badly.  They checked me again around 8pm.  Nurse C got a strange look on her face, and then asked to check me during a contraction. I was about 6 cm (she said there was no change before when she checked me).  At this point, knowing my body was exhausted, I was asking for a pause button so I could take a nap and start over.  I was ready to give up… only 1 cm in 3 hours?  Feeling defeated, I went to the washroom.  The epidural tech came in but I didn't know that (she became my nurse, and told me she was the tech after delivery).  They wanted to check me again to see if I could get the epidural, even though it hadn’t been long.  I waddled over to the bed, and then tried to sit.  “Um,” I said as I stood back up, shaking my head.  I could not sit, or lay down.  I stood by the bed, leaning forward through contractions, not knowing what to do, wondering why contractions still felt the way they did, and thinking I must still only be 6, maybe 7 cm.  I was beginning to wonder what would happen if I needed a caesarean, and I remember telling the baby to get into position, “You are coming out TODAY”.  After what felt like a few more minutes, but could have been an hour for all I knew, I forced myself to lie down.  The nurse checked me again.

“Oh!” she said with some surprise in her voice, “you are 9 cm now… maybe more!”  I heard a voice in my head that said 'You've got this'.   But now that I was lying down, I did not want to get back up.  I figured only one more contraction should get me there, anyway.  It didn't. 

At this point, things were crazy… almost surreal.  The contractions were 'ok'.  I could deal with them.  They didn't feel like 9cm, as usually by 7 or 8 I’m asking for the gas or something… anything, to help me cope.  I didn’t want the gas.  At one point, just after a contraction, I looked up at the new nurse in front of me and told her "now the baby is hiccupping.  Seriously… she’s hiccupping!"  Throughout, she had been kicking and moving, and the nurses were having trouble checking her heartbeat. She decided to kick the Doppler a few times, too… just to let them know she was having none of that.  Something else that I found really different from my other deliveries was that during the contractions I could hear what everyone was saying and understand it all.  They whispered, but I still zoned in on it.  I even read the forms they were writing things in as they moved by with them.  ‘So, I went to the bathroom at 8:20pm.  Interesting.  I wonder what time it is now?’  There were always two nurses in the room with me at this point, and they swapped out the equipment they had brought in while I was in the bathroom, to a bunch of other stuff.  I also remember seeing the doctor 'hiding' in the corner sometime shortly after being checked... they must have called him in.

Time doesn’t pass the same when you are in labour.  I had no concept of it.  I only remember things taking much longer than I was expecting to get from ‘almost there’ to ‘pushing’.  I could hear the nurses talking to the doctor, as well as a doctor in training, saying she could hear that my contractions were progressing things by the sound of my voice.  I moaned through all of them, something I did not do with my other babies.  When I felt my body finally start to push, I waited for the gush I had with my previous two babies.  Nothing.  I moved to hands and knees before the next pushing contraction… still no waters.  ‘Wow… that is one strong bag’, I thought, wondering why I wasn’t feeling her descend further.   I heard the doc ask to break my water.  Another contraction passed.  “Will breaking the water make her come sooner?  If it would make things happen faster, yes”.  No crowning after 3 contractions… it was disheartening.  I never even noticed him breaking it, but then they wanted me to lie down again so they could get her heartbeat.  I could feel her move down with the next pushing contraction, but then I felt her move back in after it ended.  I briefly wanted to cry… and then I got angry.

“No!  You are coming OUT!”

The nurse tells me to push really hard to get that baby out.  Another contraction hit and I felt her crowning again.  When it ended, I was asked if I wanted to feel the head.  I wanted to… I really did.  “No,” I said, afraid she'd go back in.  Plus, I was so tired; I just wanted to breathe through this break.  Next push, and her head came out.  The nurse on my right said "one more good push, get the shoulders out".  I waited for the contraction, and then I felt her arrive! 

It was as if knowing that hard work was done gave me renewed energy.  I was so alert when they put her on my chest at 9:44pm.  I saw her bright eyes, vernix covering her back and head (which told me she wasn't nearly as overdue as the date would suggest), and I pulled her a bit further up to see if I could get her to my breast.  I was so happy I felt I could burst!  It took a while before I felt the contraction for the placenta, and felt my body push it out. 

Then it all happened again.

There was a gush and the nurses went crazy.  The lights went on.  Dr. K was asking why I didn't already have an IV, and the nurse told him I had asked not to have it.  I was able to hold the baby for a little while longer (I did my best to ignore everyone else) while they put an IV into one hand, hooked up another in my arm, a pill in my butt, but thankfully no catheter.  The nurses mentioned how easy it was to put the IV in.  The shakes started again as they took the baby to weigh, measure, and clean up, but they were not as bad as with my last birth.  I heard them say she was 8lbs, 4oz, 51cm long (I quickly calculated 20 inches), and her head circumference was 35cm.  They commented on how chunky she was, and wanted to grab the other scale to compare as they figured this one must be wrong.  It wasn't.  My husband said "so, she didn’t actually haemorrhage this time?"  Yes.  Yes I had.  I was happy when they gave the little one back to me.  She immediately started suckling and 'crawling' her way up my chest.  The nurse was so impressed with how active she was, and was calling the other nurse over to watch.  “Look, this is what you call casual nursing!  Years ago they would insist you need to be sitting up to nurse.”  Baby got a good latch with no help from me and fed 40 minutes each side. 

While the nurse was impressed with baby, she was not impressed with my uterus.  It would firm up, and then get 'boggy' again each time they would check it.  They kept checking me all through the night, keeping the one IV on, trying to bring the drip down bit by bit.  I was really thankful when they were able to remove the needles (the one in my arm had actually bent).  My back hurt terribly.  The one nurse figured I likely had some back labour.  "She was moving so much in there, I can imagine your back would be very sore".   I had baby skin to skin all night long, hoping that it would also help.  Baby was content and quiet, just this little 'head' visible around the blanket.  Yeah, that bassinet maybe had her in it for a grand total of 15 minutes the entire time I was at the hospital.

Nurse R came in the next morning after I had my blood test.  “You lost a lot of blood,” she told me.  I asked how much, and she hesitated a bit.  “Well, it was over 1L with everything weighed overnight.”  “Oh… that’s not bad!”  Honestly, I didn’t feel like I’d haemorrhaged.  I had more energy than I was expecting (except for being tired with no sleep).  She said she was surprised by my haemoglobin count.  It was higher than expected, at 111 points, but I was to stay a second night.  By the time I left the hospital (before lunch on Saturday), it was 125.  To put this in perspective, the average levels for pregnancy are 120-160, and my level at 28 weeks was only about 120! 

I feel so relaxed with Baby B.  No stress to figure out what is wrong, she is mostly content when in my arms, and she sleeps ok at night… although for the first couple of nights at home she wouldn’t let me sleep unless I held her in bed.  By the time she was 1 week old, she was back to her birth weight.  We had an issue with the cord stump as it was a bit smelly and then fell off at 6 days due to the clamp being left on and hooking on something, but after about a week, everything was normal again.

I am so thankful for what God did through all this!  We had a prayer chain going, and I could feel it!  I am sore and part of me never wants to give birth again (I wanted so badly to ‘give up’ and sleep), but it was, in all, a good (although wacky) birth.  We are healthy, God answered prayer, and I actually had a natural labour and delivery… no laughing gas necessary!  I feel empowered by that thought… but not enough to want to do it again… at least not for a few years.  ;) 

Thank you, Lord, for all of my children.  And thank you for taking care of me.

 

My last belly pic.  Man, was I huge!

 

 Little baby B, chubby cheeks and all <3 bram="" in="" like="" looks="" much="" p="" picture="" she="" so="" this="">

 

 My oldest two, checking out their newest sister.  And A is sitting with me.  (love!)

 

My girls!

 

Baby B, 3 days old.