I was told this would happen…it’s unavoidable…and ever so frustrating…people that have unhelpful criticism and advice about my new baby!

I am slowly and begrudgingly figuring out that I just have to nod my head and smile when put in these situations.

It is hard though!!  🙂  I’d rather throw a Harper-esc tantrum and yell “I live with my baby, I know her better than you do!!”

What is NOT encouraging is:

• Letting me know what is wrong with my child with all certainty.
• Offering advice while adding what I am doing wrong.
• Implying in any way, shape, or form that I am hurting my baby.

What IS encouraging:

• Letting me know when I am doing a great job being a mother.
• When someone offers educated helpful advice while leaving all the criticism out.
• Asking me questions about what I like to do with my baby, instead of just doing it your way.

Whew!  Please keep the ENCOURAGING comments coming and leave the DISCOURAGING ones behind…it really will make everyone’s lives so much easier.

Needless to say I’ve been slacking with the blog. But I think I deserve a break! I’m trying to get the hang of this “being a mommy” thing!

After 5 days in the hospital, we finally got to go home! It was so odd not being in the hospitals care anymore! Now John had to be my nurse!

The first couple nights were rough for me…just because I was in pain from the c section and couldn’t get up out of bed very easily or quick like! Also, I was on medication-making me more tired than your average bear. This bear also had a baby to take care of!

I think the worst part was hearing Harper cry in the middle of the night and feeling like I couldn’t get to her fast enough…I felt guilty for letting her cry while I shimmied my way out of bed and hobbled like a mummy down the hall, occasionally stopping so as not to fall on my face.
I’m starting to realize that it’s okay If she is upset for 2 minutes while I make my way safely to her room! She will be the same kinda mad in 2 minutes as she would be in 20 seconds. Not a big deal. In reality I’m not going to be able to run to her crib in 30 seconds flat if I’m using the restroom or if I’m cleaning and need to wash my hands before touching her.

Everyday gets easier and is filled with less tiredness as we get together a better routine and develop better tricks and techniques.
For example, I have figured out that at 3am when she is eating, I can avoid a fit if I prop her bottle up so she can still eat while I simultaneously change her diaper! That’s my favorite trick because nobody wants to hear a holy meltdown at 3am. Plus it’s less recovery time to get her back to sleep if I don’t have to calm her down from diaper panic mode.
She sleeps well for a newborn I believe. She sleeps in 2 hour stints and wakes up to eat, poop, and burp. I can get this done in 15-25 minutes depending on if there is a baby breakdown or not. Then I go back to my room and pump for 15-20 minutes..:then clean the pumping equipment and set it back up for the next use. Ideally I would like to go back to sleep sooner because while she sleeps 2 hours at a time, I end up sleeping 1-1.5 hours instead of the 2.

Some of my favorite things:

The baby smell. I waited forever to smell this! I heard so much about it and now I can sniff my very own baby!
lets face it…sniffing random babies is socially awkward.

I REALLY love the face she makes when we burp her! It’s the cutest thing ever.

I like for her to sleep on my chest. I think because it’s the closest we can get and I can tell she’s most content there.

What do I miss?

I miss sleeping longs than 2 hours-BUT I do not miss the quality of sleep I got when I was pregnant. At least now, I can get real bonafide sleep! It’s glorious! And every night I get closer to sleeping on my stomach again!

I can tell you I don’t miss being pregnant. That was way hard!!! The only thing I liked was people being a little extra kind to me out in the general public! Now I’m just a normal human again haha! I can see and reach my toes again, I can walk easier without a basketball attached to me, I can fit into some normal clothes…all good!

What is it physically like after delivery?

I am so surprised at how quickly the swelling has gone down! I was really worried that I would have 30 lbs of baby weight to drop! I did peek at a scale earlier and found out I only needed to drop 12 extra lbs. this is doable!

My c section scar is so low I could wear a bikini with no worries. It’s also sealed w invisible stitches that dissolve…not like the c sections they used to do with staples.

Do I wanna share pictures of my sweet baby?

DUH!!!!!

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Picking up where I left off- at 2:30 I was prepped for an emergency c section. It was lightening fast for me. I was briskly wheeled to an operating room while John went to tell my family the situation. He wasnt allowed back in until I was completely prepped for surgery.

On my end I was in the operating room trying to either focus on the bright light above me or breathing. I was transferred onto the operating table…which was super scary because if thy had dropped me I couldn’t feel my legs! After working at a hospital for a good while I knew that I was in good hands. I knew these people did this everyday and wouldn’t let me fall in the floor. That really helped to think about the experience they had. There was SO much going on in the room. I think there were 6-8 people involved in my care.
I was visibly scared and shaking (the anesthesiologist asked me if I was cold…no sir…I’m freaking out!!! -so he must’ve given me something for my nerves. I just assume this because he asked a minute later if I felt any better-and I only slightly did, but was more drowsy than before. Which was fine. It allowed me to just shut my eyes and try to concentrate on not being cut open!

2:52- I hear Johns voice and open my eyes to see him walk past the curtain and sit down at my head and he comforted me-although he looked a little majorly
freaked out. Apparently I was already open on the table when he walked in-I was unaware! And nobody warned him!

2:53- I am told I will feel pressure-which I didn’t! I could feel that my body was being moved a lot because it shook my head, but none of that pressure I’d been told so much about.

2:54- We hear Harper cry for the first time!!!!! It was so fast!!!! I looks at John and he tells me she is here!! They lift her above the curtain so I could see that she was okay…she was perfect, I wasn’t worried that a single thing was wrong! Things are blurry after that. I remember John getting up and taking pictures on my phone. I was able to watch him on a flat screen by my face that was pointed at Harper.

Shortly after she was brought over to my face so I could kiss her and officially say hi. She was so pretty.

After that big production she was sent along with her daddy to my hospital room while I was being sewn up.
John says this took forever, and he was really scared for me because he had seen me cut open and how shaken I was-but I had no concept of time. I just shut my eyes and thought about what she was like and thought about how she would act and how it would feel to be with her. I knew she was safe with daddy so I never worried about that.
I think around 45 minutes later I was taken to my room where John and Harper were waiting on me! She was crying and I just cried all over again and watched her get cleaned up and examined. They brought her over to me so I could have her on my bare chest. I can’t explain how it felt to hold her and finally be with her or how I felt about John and seeing how much he loved her. It’s just something one has to experience to know what it feels like!

She must’ve been hungry because she almost immediately nursed. I don’t think either of us knew what we were doing but I felt better thinking she had eaten a little.

We were finally taken to our new room and allowed to tell our family to come meet Harper! Everyone came up and held her and took endless pictures! I was really excited for everyone to finally meet her…I was so glad they could now touch her with their own hands!

After the smoke had cleared and the camera flashes died down, everyone went home and we got to spend our first night together as a new family. 🙂 John and I both decided that she was perfect!

I guess I should leave off where my story last ended…even though that was 3.5 days ago and one baby later.

The morning after I last blogged was a little crazy. LUCKILY…John took notes for me while I was just plain incapable of doing so!

Here we go.

Tuesday am around 6:45 my nurse came in to remove my foley bulb and see if I was dilated and how much. She let me know that the doctor would be in shortly to break my water and start pitocin.
As soon as the nurse walked out I turned green. All of these procedures I was about to go through we’re terrifying to think about! I’ve never gotten sick from being nervous-until Tuesday! Yuck.
An hour later my doctor walks in. She breaks my water (which didn’t hurt). She let me know I was 3 cm dialated.

Not more than an hour later (around 8:50) I started to feel contractions. It was like nothing I’d ever felt before… So intense and Painful… John said I was being strong, but I was so scared. If this was going to feel worse, I wasn’t sure I could handle it.

About 15 minutes later- The doctor checked me and realized I had passed my mucus plug and was still dilated at 3 cm. my contractions were 2 minutes apart and I was being monitored by nurses every second. This was good, but the baby hadn’t dropped into my pelvis yet. She was super high up in my tummy.

An hour later I am STILL 3 cm dialated. The doctor placed an internal pressure catheter to monitor my contractions closer. I thought this would be no big deal-but it HURT!!!!! I don’t know the logistics of why…maybe it was because I was already in terrible pain. It’s a kind of pain that you can’t even speak through. The kind of agony that is hard to even breathe through. I kept holding my breath because even breathing movements made it seem worse. I see women on tv screaming at their partners during this-there’s NO WAY I could scream… I kept thinking how could this feeling get worse??? I am only at 3 cm and I was sure I was going to die! I started to cry at every contraction. I was sweating uncontrollably and shaking in between them. The doctor could see how much pain I was in and we started to talk epidural. She said that was fine as long as I received an ultrasound to make sure that harpers head was directed downward. It was. Thank god!!!! They told me it would be a couple of minutes and the doctor would place my epidural. I BEGGED for more pain medicine to get me through those few minutes! It really felt like life of death-like if I had to wait 2 minutes I would just not make it.
I’m not sure I’ll ever forget the name of that glorious man who made the rest of labor pain free. The epidural was placed in about 2 minutes and didn’t hurt! People freak out over that procedure…but it was smooth sailing!
Within a minute I was feeling relieved. By the time I laid back in the bed I couldn’t feel my legs. It was awesome.

In johns notes- at 10:15 -“Mommy peed her pants”

11:52 – the doctor checked me again- NO change. Still 3 cm 😦 its so discouraging to hear your body isnt doing what it was made to do.

12:30 – my parents arrive!

1:26- I’m at 4 cm. finally some change!!! But Harper still hadn’t dropped into my pelvis. No bueno. To coax her down the doctor was going to add a TON of fluid to my tummy. This was gross. It was probably 10 lbs of fluid…and y’all, what goes in must come out. EEWWWW!!! But it didn’t hurt. So whatever! Let’s do it!

2:15- I finally reach 7 cm, 100% effaced, and Harper is dropping down low! I can feel that!!!!! Thank good was things are going our way. I alert everyone of the positive change!

2:30- after observing that Harper was responding negatively to my contractions with a dropping heart rate, my doctor informed us that we were immediately being sent to have a c section. She informed us that things were going to move very fast from here on out. My heart sank. For one thing, I had labored for 7 hours and was finally progressing…for another-it’s a surgery. That I will stay conscious through. I was terrified all over again. I fell apart. And had no time to put myself back Together before I was whisked off to the surgery room. I have never shaken so violently in my life. I looked like I had been stuck in the snow for 5 hours! I just could not control it-it was crazy!!! I’m pretty sure seeing me that scared freaked John out. Not to mention they didn’t let him walk with us to the operating room-he had to wait until they came to get him.

I’ll have to continue the story tomorrow when John can help me with all the details of the rest! Clearly it resulted in the cutest most advanced baby in the world.

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Well I guess we all knew she would have to be served an eviction notice.

Well, miss Harper…you have just been served.

Today seemed uneventful. We woke up around 8-9. John had his coffee while I snuggled in my pillow mountain in the bed for an hour. after a good pillow motor boating I decided to get out of bed and fluff my hair.
After all-I was promised sushi before my doctors appointment.
We ate at rock n roll sushi -and it was DELISH. Best place in the ham for sushi I think! The waiter casually told us we would probably have a baby today. Haha, Jeremy…I know better. She never wants to come out!

Fast forward we go through the usual checks at the doctors office. She noticed I was still measuring a little small so she said shed send me for a casual ultrasound just to see what Harper was up to. No big deal. This happens every couple of weeks.
Before we left for the ultrasound she set us up an induction date! How exciting. We can FINALLY see the light at the end of this pregnancy tunnel!

December 6th. That’s when we would meet Harper! Woohoo!

We skip and hop to ultrasound.

Then we get to see our chubby baby.

Hello chubby bunny!!!!
Get this. The ultrasound tech let us know she has BIG HAIR! Many of you may not know that I have a blonde Afro if humidity allows. GIANT hair. Always have. It’s much cuter on a baby than an adult. I digress.

Then…the ultrasound tech let us know that Harper was measuring 3 weeks behind and we needed to head back over to talk to the doctor. Odd-they never send me back. I honestly thought that meant I’d be pregnant another month to let her grow. (please no more of this pregnancy stuff!!!)

The doctor lets us know that we will be sent to labor and delivery. WHAT? I mean I know I want her now-but I thought I’d have more mental preparation to drive myself nuts worrying about D day! Now I have to cram all the anxiety into a day!

Luckily I had our bags packed! Like I do every week.

So here we lay in the hospital with foley bulb inserted (OUCH).

And we wait. I have a feeling this part of the process will be hard so keep us in your thoughts. Especially John…he may have to visit the battered women’s shelter.

Updates to come if I’m not in too much pain!:)