The Story of Miss Madeline

On September 12th, I got in my car and drove to my doctors office.  I went to check in for my first weekly appointment with my regular OBGYN only to be told to go inside the office to reschedule.  My appointment had been canceled and they hadn't had time to call me to let me know since I had an early morning appointment.

September 13th.  Went back the next day and met with my regular doctor.  He took my blood pressure 3 times and ordered me downstairs to the lab for more blood work and a urine test and a Non-Stress Test for first thing Monday morning.  There's just nothing like having a pee jug in the fridge where your milk carton should be. 

September 14th.  Got a call from the doctors office that my lab was fine but just to be on the 'safe side' my doctor wanted to a 24 hour urine test to compare to the one I did at the beginning of my pregnancy.  Back up the doctors office I go to pick up the giant stinky pee jug.

So I had to do the pee thing on Sunday and bring it back in on Monday to the lab before my non stress test.  So again, that would be September 17th that I was back at the doctors office.  At this point I was getting annoyed because then on the 18th I had an appointment that was supposed to be with my regular OB that ended up getting rescheduled with a different doctor for later in the same day because my regular doctor was going to be out of town that week.  I was throughoutly annoyed at this point spending more time at the doctors office than at home, not to mention that it was almost a half hour away from my house, so going back and forth was starting to get a little old for the gas tank as well.

So, the morning of the 18th my alarm goes off, I reach over to hit the snooze only to realize it's not my alarm but my doctor's office calling.  My first thought was at least they're calling to cancel my appointment before I get there.   "This is Dr. Leath's nurse calling, we need to cancel your appointment"  (insert eye roll here) "because we're going to need you to come over to labor and delivery and get induced today."

I believe I dropped an F'Bomb on this poor lady and possibly a "shut the front door."   Then I started to bawl my eyes out.   John was starting a 24 hour shift on staff duty.  I called him in an epic panic.  He thought I was joking.  Then I cried harder.  Once he realized he wasn't kidding, I think he went into more of a panic mode than I did.  I hung up and called my mom while he ran around trying to find someone to take his shift.  (At this time, I would like to extend a thank you to baby Maddie for getting us out of the next days FRG meeting.)

Then I called my mom crying, then she started crying.  Finally after all the boo-boo kitty tears, I cleaned up the apartment and took a shower while I waited for John to get home.  

Got to the hospital and went up to labor and delivery to check in and re-confirmed that I was actually supposed to be there because I was still pretty much in shock, especially since I was only 36 weeks along.  It had been a long standing joke between John and I that it would be hilarious if I ended up delivering before his brother since they got pregnant first but we got married first.  This turned out to not be so funny at this point.

We got checked in and they let me have one last meal since it was going to be a long process, so John ran across the street to Jimmy Johns and we got the show on the road....

Until we didn't.  After about an hour of nothing happening we waited another hour and nothing continued to happen...to me.  At that point I was place on oxygen because her heart rate kept dropping with each little pathetic contraction I was having.  After about another hour yet a different nurse came in and went elbows deep in my lady parts.  Nothing was happening still and the oxygen wasn't helping. 

20 minutes later, my doctor of the day comes in and explained the situation that I had most feared, we could tough it out and see what would happen which could go into the next day or so and then as my contractions progessed her heart rate could drop more, I could be at risk for seizures because I was so preeclamptic, or we could get it over with and have a c-section in 45 minutes.  She did a quick ultrasound to measure the baby and see where she was positioned.  She was head down and around 6 pounds.  We were ready to go. 

So in the words of Barney..."suit up!"   

John was much more thrilled than I was

So I got wheeled back, got a needle shoved into my back.  That part really wasn't as awful as I thought it would be, though it did give me an awful case of the shakes and my teeth were chattering a million miles a minute.  Not sure if it was the drugs or being scared shitless.  My arms got taped down straight out from my sides so I wouldn't be tempted to start 'helping' so I got to lay on the table strapped down like Jesus and get cut open.   

At that point, time basically stood still and I could feel was slight pushing and pulling as they were cutting and digging around down there.  I'm not sure how long it took exactly but at 6pm on the dot, little miss Madeline Grace came into the world...a whole lot tinier than anyone expected.

 

Maddie was all of 4 pounds 4 ounces and 16 inches long.  Ontop of being 4 weeks early, her cord was knotted up and apparently my placenta looked old and worn out.  I didn't look but I'll take their word for it.  John stood up and looked over the curtain for about 15 seconds before he decided that was enough.  

We stayed in the hospital for 5 days, my ass (yes, literally my ass) has never been in so much pain.  My butt hurt worse from the bed than I ever did from the actually surgery.   I was glad to get out of there and go back to real life.

You want me to do what and where!??!

There are two things that scare me about having a baby.

1.  Having a c-section, mostly because of the whole moving and packing and moving and unpacking business that we're in right now.  Knowing I would be completely useless is an awful thought during this time.  At least if I have a normal birth I can painfully waddle around and put away dishes at an incredibly slow pace.

2.  and/or not having a vagina left after giving birth.  

Lets put it this way, one of the main things I do to relax is get in some form of water.  If I have a headache, I lay in the shower, cover my face and let the steam do its job.  My back hurts, I get in the tub and soak.  My legs hurt from being pregnant, I go float around in the pool.  Ideally, I wanted one of those crazy hippie labors where I could be all mother earthly and in the water and squirt out a kid.  John said that after watching a water birth on TV that it's horrible and disgusting and no one should want to sit in a tub with poop and a placenta.  My mom said I need a 'real' doctor and not some Kareem Paula Abdoula helping me give birth in a kiddie pool in the living room of our apartment.

Anyways, insurance isn't a fan of the "hippie dippie" method and I'm giving birth at a hospital, where I'm going to assume there are no kiddie pools, but secretly I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  If anything I know my room will have a shower and I'm packing extra fluffy BLACK towels in my hospital bag.  I'm not letting anything stain my nice white towels from home.  So hopefully I'll at least be able to hang out in there for a hot minute.


I figured the water thing would help me keep my muscles relaxed and keep me comfortable and all of that good stuff.   Then I thought back to a long while ago.  My parents were out with some of their friends after their adult bowling league and my mom accidentally butt dialed me.  They were talking about childbirth and having an episiotomy  (delightful conversation to have over burritos and margaritas, I know.)

Up until now I never thought about those kinds of things before.  In the back of my head I knew what it was but I seriously thought it was a giant cut that just made one giant GIANT GIANT gaping hole down yonder.  So a while ago I looked it all up.  Thank god that's not the case...but bad things can happen and you could end up with a giant giant hole down there.  Then I thought about "what happens if that happens and you have to poop?"  I must prevent my lady area from turning into the Grand Canyon.

That led me finding out about this thing called perineal massage.

When the instructions start out with "make sure your nails are smooth"  you know you're in for a treat.  The next part said you can do it yourself or have your partner help you.  Apparently I'm supposed to then be okay with throwing some olive oil down there and going at it.  (All I need is some vinegar and we could make a salad dressing!)  All I can imagine at this point is John in his chef coat, sitting at the end of the bed with a bottle of vegetable oil in one of those squirt bottles they use at Subway.  Then you're supposed to hook your thumbs UP THERE and stretch.  All I could think of was the end of Braveheart and I just couldn't do it anymore. 

After being completely traumatized by the mental images I conjured up,  I'm pretty much just crossing my fingers and hoping for the best on this one.  This baby hasn't really tortured me at all and I'm hoping she continues to bring her A game for labor and delivery.  She can cry, scream, projectile vomit, poop out the top of her onesie once she gets here, but I hope she's gentle on my lady bits...and then I hope I'm alseep for those other things..well at least the poop part.  John should have to get to deal with something gross. 

Oh the homonee-es!

I'm not sure what is worse at this point.  The incredible keep me up all night brain that doesn't stop no thanks to lack of sleep or the insane heartburn that keeps me up at night that at this point 4 tums kinda-sorta helps.  It's a horrible cycle.  My days consist of sleeping and my nights consist of tossing and turning and playing stupid SimCity Social on Facebook.  (The fact that I'm addicted to that game pisses me off..it's not even a game where you can beat people!  It just goes on FOREVER!) 

The inability to shut my brain off has had me going INSANE lately.  I can't sleep because I can't stop thinking, I can't stop thinking because I can't sleep.  I can't sleep because I can't get comfy.  I can't get comfy because I'm 33 weeks pregnant, it's 2am and still over 90 degrees outside.  It's also over 90 million degrees in the back of my throat no thanks to incredible heartburn.  John says he has a cure for that...pervert.

My biggest pregnancy dilemma hasn't been vomiting up my toenails, it hasn't been weird food cravings, I really don't even think I've been THAT hormonal.   (okay...well aside from all the night time crazy, I don't really find myself going from happy to sad to happy to totally batshit crazy too often)  No.  My biggest issue has been over STUPID CRIB BEDDING.  I think it stems from the fact that long before I was ever pregnant the idea of setting up the best most awesome, coolest, most beautifully great nursery ever was the one thing that made me have super baby fever.  Then came pinterest.  Mother Trucking Pinterest.  Where I can find drinks to make for parties I'll probably never have and replan the wedding I already had, lovedm and adored (there's always a vow renewal one day...in 20 years when something cooler than the internet exists) and look up baby things until my brain is mush and all I can do is turn to John and point at the screen and say 'me likey.' 

So let me start at the beginning of this journey to the land of bedding hell.  John and I went and registered for baby bedding the day we found out we were going to be having a girl.  We drove an hour out of our way to go this store out here that they have back home so it would be easy for my mom to buy us stuff.  Everything was so pukey and over the top.  Then I found IT.  It was stars, it was pretty cute in the pictures, it didn't seem horrible in the package, and it wouldn't cost as much as some of the elaborate bedding sets that cost more than our monthly rent.

And then there's my mother "You're getting blue bedding...for a girl!?!"  Okay, until I was about 15 my room looked like a bottle of Pepto threw up all over the place.  We're talking walls, carpet, border, bedding, it looked like "a pink nightmare."  Then I decided I wanted my room to be blue...and so it was changed.  Blue is my 'signature color'  (how many movie references can my tired little brain put into one blog post..I spot at least 3 since the beginning) Anyways, I esentially told her to "shove it and that's what I want so neener"  and it wasn't brought up again for quite a few months...aka NOW.

"Are you sure that's what you want?"  She says.  "It's not very girlish," she says.  

2 weeks after that  (which brings me now to the past week)

"Mom!  I hate the shit I picked out!"  I think this stemmed from the fact that the high chair I picked out on my registry super sucked once it got here and that had to be returned as did the pack n play.  

So I go on a new search every corner of the interwebs search!  I was determined to do a blue stars and moons nursery.  In the mail one day last week a cute little flyer came for Pottery Barn Kids.  It was a sign!  So I went on their website and was like "wtf, mate, this crap is ugly!"  Grown up Pottery Barn is 100x better.  (Just ask Rachel and Pheobe.)  So then (no) thanks to Google I went on more bedding websites than I had ever heard of, not to mention the standard babiesrus, target, and walmart.  After looking through over what has to be 1000 different bedding sets and more ruffles, tulle and big brown flaccid bows that I could stand, eventually, I found three things I liked.  My mother found three things she didn't.  Her opinions in order were "Oh Courtney, ew."   "No, No, NO!"  and "That looks so faded, it's like 10 different people have already use it!  Gross." 

Then we came across one website that did custom bedding.  I could be happy I thought, I could get what I want, I thought.  And then I scrolled just a titch further down.  In exchange for this bedding I could trade my child...and then I would no longer need the bedding.  Well, feck.

So around 10pm tonight my time (central) I started the journey again.  I looked at border that I had intended to use in this nursery and said "hmm, maybe I can find a different way to do stars and moons, but with out this crap."  In an attempt to get myself away from the "hot mess bedding."  So then I went and said "well, I use pinterest for just about everything these days to do with little miss baby bean, lets see what I can drum up for nursery ideas."

And there it was.  It was amazing.  It was tiffany blue walls, with a butterfly mobile (which I had seen the exact same one with stars available on etsy), the bedding was white, with a touch of pink and a little bit of aqua.   The blanket would be perfect for rocking the baby to sleep because it didn't look too fluffy or heavy or covered in hideousness.  And then I looked harder.  I had seen it before....but where?  My mind raced over the 234878 different websites and designs that I had been staring at every night for the past week and a half.  I even wrote a comment on this lady's year old blog.  I believe it was something along the lines of "I hate my life, love your nursery, where is bedding at so I can stop freaking out about having my kid sleep in a drawer"  I hit send.  And that's when the whores came out.  It clicked.  

MOTHER TRUCKIN POTTERYBARN! 

ASS-HOOLLLLLLLEESSSS.

If they would have at least decorated the room half as cute or nicely for the pictures of the nursery stuff as they do grown up Pottery Barn, my life would have been fan-friggin-tastical this whole last week.  As I write this at 3am my mother currently has no idea about any of this.

3:15am and now that this blog is done, I feel like I can finally get some sleep...except John's alarm is going to go off in 15 minutes.  Or right now so we can hit the snooze 2 or 3 times.  And now the cat is on the bed meowing.  I don't know if I should laugh or cry.  All I know is I might get to sleep somewhere around 4-ish.  I guess I better get used to it though, late night mom duty will probably just about as fun as bedding duty, but at least by that time everything will be here!

And this is just to make myself feel better.  

Good nite...or I guess I could say good morning. 

So much to do...so little time.

Things are beginning to get more and more hectic around these parts.

This past weekend husband had a 4 day weekend and we finally had our first real house guest...and to think we've only been here almost a year!  My best friend that had been stationed in Korea for the last year came down to visit us for the weekend.  Her and her husband are both stationed at Fort Riley KS now so it's nice to be back in the same country.  Mr. and Mrs. LT as I like to call them.  She's an MP and he blows stuff up...or so I think.  Last time I saw her was when I was the Maid of Honor who had to dine and dash at her wedding in 2010!   (Figures of all the Saturdays in year she had to pick the same one to get married on as my cousin...and it was a blast going to their wedding in my MOH gown, just glad the dresses at my cousins wedding weren't similar or the same color.)  She never got to make it to mine since she was already in Korea when my wedding rolled around next spring so it was awesome so play catch up and get to hang out again.  We've been best friends longer than most people stay married and aside from family the only person that I've known and kept in touch with for a lengthy amount of time would be husband and that's still nowhere near as long.  And of course, did we take pictures of anything?  Hahaha no.    That's the one thing I'm so terrible about and need to get on the ball with....these are two of the 4 pictures that were taken over the course of the weekend.

31 weeks pregnant...apparently.  Still lacking that baby belly.

This man has a panda on the back of his crotch rocket....

So we're getting into the end and time is dragging by slower and slower every single day...except at the same time it's not.  We're preparing for the arrival of the baby and trying to get everything ready to move when they finally decide to let us know when they're going to have on post housing available for us.  It could be before my due date, it could be after, all I know is that we're starting to pack already because I know pretty soon I won't be able.  Getting out of bed is getting harder and I sound like a seal going "Ow, Ow, Ow, Ow" every time the baby moves and likes to sit in one particular spot that makes it feel like my butt is going to break off from my body and shoots pain all the way down my leg.  So I might not look 31 weeks pregnant but I'm totally feeling it.

Miss Kojo has been following me around for the last few days since some of the boxes and plastic totes were brought out.  She's moved across the country just as much as we have and I'm sure she's thinking she's going to get shoved into her box for another 2 day car trip.  I especially enjoy when I'm trying to carry a box and she lays directly in my path causing me to almost trip.  "Maybe if mom breaks her legs we won't have to move."  Nice try.  I'm on to you and your evil ways. 

In between packing and trying not to kill myself with the cat it seems all I do is pee.  Sometimes it's when I laugh.  Sometimes it's when I sneeze.  Sometimes I even make it to the bathroom.  Needless to say, I've been doing a lot of laundry and going through a lot of toilet paper. 

Then again, if I'm not packing, dying, or peeing, I also seem to be eating a lot.  I'm not really one to snack a lot, most of the junk food in our house belongs to husband.  At any given time there is usually 2 boxes of fruit snacks, 4 bags of chips, and something chocolatey from Hostess in our pantry.  He gets to eat like that because when he looks at food he looses 5 pounds.  (Jerk.)  But lately I cannot get enough of Little Debbie's Cosmic Brownies or Rice Krispie Treats and I generally don't have a sweet tooth.  The only other thing I've craved during my pregnancy has been healthy stuff like apples and avocado so go figure.  Must be all those extra girlie hormones floating around in there.  

So for now my days will continue to be fast, yet drag and drag on while I toss and turn, try and get comfortable and try not to cross the line of turning up the TV too loud to drown out the person snoring next to me but not wake them up at the same time.  I guess there's always the couch, but between the heating pad and 6 pillows it takes to make it semi-comfortable at night...it's almost not worth the effort.  Also if my next post takes a while because I get sent to prison for suffocating my husband...it was worth it.  I'm going to have to make a video of him snoring and post it.  I think he thinks he works at lumber mill.  

Goodnite.  Hopefully.   

Happy-ish Thoughts and Other Things

So I'm sitting here bored out of my mind waiting for the right time to head out and go grocery shopping.  I hate when John gets paid in the middle of week.  It's always a pain in the butt to schedule shopping time to be done around the time John gets home from work.  Bringing groceries up the stairs is bad enough, but being 30 weeks pregnant and having someone inside you karate chopping your lungs on top of 104 degree heat...never a good time.   I'd have no problem going on Saturday if we wanted to eat Ramen Noodles and Cream of Mushroom Soup with a Cherrio Crumb Topping...needless to say it's pretty slim pickin's around here so today I must venture out into the grown up world to get shopping carts shoved up my butt because people at grocery stores are just rude.  And here I just thought it was a Detroit thing....along with their hurry up and honk at the red light attitude. 

In happy-ish news...I did have to have my 3 hour glucose test done because I barely failed my 1 hour.  I had it done almost a week ago and I have yet to get a phone call.  Having worked in a doctors office before, generally no news is good news.  Considering I got a phone call a few hours after my first go round I'm pretty sure everything is okie dokies on that front.   The test wasn't as awful as I thought it was going to be.  Don't get me wrong sitting in the waiting room of the lab for 3 hours was no picnic.  But John was there since his SGT was feeling nice that day so he ended up getting a 3 day weekend out of my misery.  I was worried about having to eat no food for over 12 hours, get vials of blood stolen from me and then sent back on my merry way down the freeway for a half hour. 

And in even happier news.  I am 100% in love with being pregnant.  Minus the fact that if I'm on my feet too long my body hurts a little the next day, I'm pretty excited that I finally have an ass and hips!  I finally found where the 7 pounds I've gained have gone to!  Usually getting a fat ass would make most people sad, but considering for the last 26 years all my butt fat went to my boobs, I'm so happy to be evening out 13 years after puberty. 

Also my belly button is like the incredible shrinking pond, which when I think of it getting smaller for some reason I associate this cartoon from being a kid with it.  Poor fishies are gonna have no place to go!  I was really hoping to avoid the turkey thermometer belly button...but we'll see how that goes.  I know some people think they're so cute...I have an innie.  I like my innie.  I might even be a little freaked out if little bean ends up with an outtie.  

 

Well, now that I feel like I've sufficiently wasted enough time between the blog and blow drying my hair I guess I'll be heading out for the store.  Maybe I'll stop at some other places a long the way and drag it out.  But I'm pretty sure there's a spicy chicken sandwich at Wendy's calling my name for stop number one.