Still here!

I'm still here!!

I promise.  :)

Worst blogger, right here.  I can't really even pretend like I have been that busy because half of all bloggers have at least one child and they still manage to post on a semi-regular or very regular basis.  Let's just call a spade a spade here... I'm lazy.  And if I have to pick between showering and blogging, I'm going to pick showering (for my husband's sake).

I started like 5 blog posts a couple of weeks ago (including Henry's birth story) and haven't finished any of them.  Awesome.

Here's a recap of what we have been up to:

We spent our first week at home trying to sleep, dealing with nursing issues, and dealing with postpartum fun.

Our second week had Phil's parents here while we continued to work through our nursing issues and figure out this new little person we had in the house.

Last week, we graduated from the lactation nurse (blog post to come) and I honestly can't remember what else we did last week.  Ok I just looked at my calendar for last week.  We also went to a dinner party at Phil's advisor's house with Henry (and he did GREAT) and I actually went to a work meeting one night.  It was the first time I had really spent time away from Henry.  It was weird.

Now we are trying to figure out some kind of routine we can get our little family on.  Like when to sleep and when to work (because I am doing work again already and Phil needs to hit his dissertation HARD).  And how to do things one-handed or while nursing.


And since I am super lazy, I haven't downloaded any pictures from our newborn shoot or my camera.  :)  So here are a couple of iPhone pictures to hold you over.  Maybe I'll work on the picture thing tomorrow.  Maybe.

I made the pictures big because I think he's the cutest baby EVER.  No bias or anything.  :)

Three

Today is our third wedding anniversary.

{Photo by Miller Photography}

In some ways, it seems like we surely have been married longer than three years.  In other ways, I feel like we have experienced enough stuff in our marriage to fill way more than three years.

Last year, our anniversary celebration was changed a little because my uncle had a heart attack and I had to cover a meeting for my dad.  We ended up taking the Taylor to the park and eating McDonald's for dinner.  It was romantic in a different kind of way.  Perfectly representing the fact that our marriage has been full of surprises and efforts to make the best out of difficult and less than ideal situations.

This year, our celebration will be less than typical as well.  Our plan is to go out to breakfast with our new little man.  Hopefully he will cooperate.  He does pretty well in the morning.

The second wedding anniversary gift is cotton.  As you may know, we interpretted that a little loosely and ended up with this:

While the traditional third wedding anniversary gift is leather, we decided we'd go a little bigger this year...

So much better than a new wallet.

And each day I am reminded more and more of just how amazing the man I married is.  As if the whole thyroid cancer experience wasn't enough, now I get to watch him be the world's best dad.

I hit the marriage jackpot.

Postpartum Days

Wow... I'm a great blogger.

I got an e-mail from our Bradley instructor asking for our birth story, so I will be working on that soon.  And I guess I am feeling brave enough to share it.  I gave the reader's digest version to one of our friends from the Bradley class last week and realized just how not super pleasant the whole experience was.  It's ok though.  Everything turned out fine.

But I do think the experience has caused my postpartum days to be a little different than what is typical.  I honestly wonder what would have been easier, this recovery or recovery from a c-section.  And I hate to complain because I know what an absolute gift it is to be pregnant and give birth to a healthy baby.  So don't think of this as complaining.  I will just say that I think one method of preventing teenage pregnancy might be to have teenage girls come spend time with some postpartum women.

So far, we are adjusting fairly well to the new little man in our lives.  We honestly had a few rough days when we first got home.  One of my not-so-normal postpartum gifts was a full body rash.  Apparently it is a hormonal thing that just takes 7 to 10 days to go away and there is really nothing you can do to make it better.  I found myself using bags of ice to just take away as much of the overwhelming desire to itch.

The rash made everything SO MUCH more dramatic.  It wasn't just that my milk wasn't coming.  My milk wasn't coming it AND I HAD AN AWFUL RASH.  It wasn't just that Henry was super fussy from being starving.  He was super fussy AND I WANTED TO RIPE MY OWN SKIN OFF.

I think it made my Baby Blues so much worse than maybe they would have been otherwise.  But thankfully I have had Phil and my parents keeping tabs on me.  I think I am doing better now.  I still have some random crying.  Like this afternoon when I cried at the ending of Con-Air.  Have you ever seen Con-Air?  The awful acting is what should have made me cry, not the story line.  Phil laughed at me when I started crying because it was so ridiculous.  Can't blame him on that one.

Henry is now 11 days old and the rash is FINALLY subsiding.  My Baby Blues are getting better.  And we are starting to figure out feeding (I think I will do a separate post on that) and parts of our little man's personality.  It helps that he is SO STINKIN' CUTE!!

{Cotton LOVES Henry.  Maybe a little too much.}

{Blurry but cute}

I will work on being a better blogger.  Maybe now that the rash is almost gone.  :)

Introducing...

Henry Nicholas

{Brand New.  Photo from Annie Groves photography}

Born May 23rd

11:32 p.m.

8 lb. 2 oz.

It shouldn't have taken me so long to post that Henry was born, but I guess I didn't exactly have a "typical" labor.  I don't know.  I'm no labor expert.  All I know is that it was LONG and REALLY hard.  It took a couple of days to recover from that and we are still getting used to each other, parenting, and the joys of waiting for milk to come in.

Anyway, I am hoping that as we adjust I will be able to write some posts about everything that happened and how we are currently doing.

Maternity Leave

40 weeks and 4 days.  Still no baby.  And my boss (aka my father) told me I am done working starting today.  At least for a little while.

One inevitable thing that eventually comes up when you have a baby... what happens with your job?

Are you going to keep working?  Will you become a SAHM?  What are you doing for maternity leave?

Sometimes people ask.  Sometimes they don't.  But I think everyone is curious.  At least other women are always curious.  I know in my time as a blogger I have read several posts about new mom's plans regarding working and their new baby.

As a professional and business owner, I've had to juggle a lot of feelings regarding maternity leave and being a working mom.  One thing that  I know for sure is that being a stay at home mom for me isn't in the cards for me.  A huge part of me is insanely jealous of those moms that get to stay home with their kids all day.

I know maternity leave is important.  Not only will I physically need the time to heal from having the baby, but the baby and I will need the time to bond and work out this whole feeding and sleeping thing.  Even though I know these things, a part of me feels really guilty when it comes to maternity leave.  A part of maternity leave means that I won't be there to do my job.  And that means that someone else will have to do the tasks I would normally perform at my job.  Maybe this wouldn't be a big deal for most people.  But because I work with my dad and he and I are the only engineers, that means my dad has more work to do.

And that makes me feel guilty.

He already is the hardest working person at the company and now he has to work more because I am going to be home on maternity leave.

On the flip side, I know several women who get  months of paid maternity leave.  Their jobs actually pay them to stay home with their babies while someone else does their job.

And then there are some people I work with who have referred to maternity leave as a "vacation".  Pretty sure that recovering from pushing a human out of my body, feeding him, and bonding with him is not a vacation.  But then again, that's what you get when you work with men.  It reminds me of the following quote from Friends:

Rachel: What do you mean, you're taking over my job.
Gavin: Well, while you were on your baby vacation, I was *doing* your job.
Rachel: A vacation? My idea of a vacation does not involve something sucking on my nipples until they are raw.
Gavin: Clearly you've never been to Sandal's Paradise Island.

Or you can watch the video HERE.  It starts at about 36 seconds.

The fact that I work in a very male dominated industry doesn't help either.  I'm not sure many of the people I work with are used to an engineer being gone for long periods of time.  It's usually the engineer's wife that has the baby, not the engineer.  It's almost like I feel as if being a woman and needing maternity leave makes me less of an employee.  Like it is baggage or something.  I have no idea why I feel that way.

And I wonder if I would have the same feelings of guilt if I worked with a majority of women, instead of men.

I have shared these feelings with a few women I know and they have done their best to assure me that maternity leave is nothing to feel guilty about.  I guess there are some Scandinavian countries where women get like 2 years of paid maternity.  It's just in our country that we don't value women and childbirth.

In terms of my maternity leave... we will be playing it by ear.  I'm fairly certain I won't be having a traditional maternity leave period.  I will be working to a certain extent, whether that be from home or whatever.  And the whole time, I'll be doing my best to eliminate any guilt I may be feeling.  As my mom told me, moms always feel guilty, no matter what they do.  They feel guilty if they work.  They feel guilty if they don't.  

But after everything it took to get us here, I know I will be enjoying the time with my baby.  That is for sure.

A Letter

To my baby boy,

I've attempted to write you letters several times during this pregnancy, but the words would never come.  From the very beginning, your existence has been too good to be true.  I was starting to feel like your daddy and I weren't meant to be parents the traditional way, or maybe at all.  There really wasn't a day that went by that my heart didn't ache for a family, for you.

{amazing photography by Annie Groves Photography}

Even though I knew I needed to be patient, to wait to be through with thyroid cancer so we could move forward, each day felt like forever.  Every time I heard of someone else being pregnant or having a baby, I would get angry.  I was mad it was so easy for them when it was so hard for me.  I was upset I had to have cancer.  I was disabled by how unfair the situation felt.  I couldn't understand why I was being kept from you.

And then I got a feeling.  I got my scan and blood test results both back on Tuesday.  By Thursday, I was pretty sure I was pregnant.  On Friday, I knew you were in my belly.

{amazing photography by Annie Groves Photography}

There are no words to describe how happy, excited, and overjoyed your daddy and I were.  You are the answer to our prayers and your timing couldn't have been more perfect.  Almost the second your existence was ok, you were with us.  It's as if God knew we couldn't wait any longer for you.

{amazing photography by Annie Groves Photography}

As excited as I am to meet you, a part of me is nervous for you to be born.  For the last 9 months, it has been you and me.  You've been with me every second of every day, with gentle (and not so gentle) kicks and rolls.  Constant reminders of the gift from God that you are and how lucky I am.  You're especially active during meetings, which makes me smile.  And when I start to feel nervous about how you're doing, you always move, letting me know that you're alright.  After you're born, I'll have to share you with everyone else.  I won't be able to keep you safe one hundred percent of the time and I worry for how the world will treat you.

{amazing photography by Annie Groves Photography}

There are so many prayers and hopes I have for you, little boy.  I pray you'll have your daddy's kind soul and good manners.  I pray you'll be smart and make good choices.  I pray you'll have empathy for others.  I pray you'll constantly look for the good in the world and ways you can make it better.  I pray you'll find your passion in life and work towards it.  I pray you'll find a nice person to marry and share your life with.  I pray that every day you know how much your daddy and I love you.  I pray I can be the mother you deserve me to be.  I pray that you will continue to be a gift from God to the world, just as you've been a gift from God to us.

You are my dream come true and I can't wait to meet you.


Love,

Your Momma


PS - Today is your official due date.  It's time to come out.

The dreaded "I" word

Well, my appointment showed I had progressed to....

ZERO


And the little guy still hadn't budged down one tiny bit.

All that walking and the kid hadn't budged.

Even though I still have some time before I absolute HAVE to do it, it was time to start talking about the possibility of being induced.

Phil and I took a Bradley Method birth classes a few months ago.  For those of you not familiar with the Bradley Method (also called Husband coached childbirth) it basically teaches that you should avoid unnecessary medical inventions when it comes to giving birth.  As someone who is eager to avoid an epidural and/or c-section, this is right up my alley.

I'm not sure where my fear of the epidural and c-section come from.  Maybe it is because I feel like I've had enough stuff done to my body lately.  My last body scan had me laying on a curved board for over an hour, during which I lost the feeling in my arms and legs and it FREAKED me out.  I did not like the feeling one bit.  I felt a little trapped in my own body.  The idea of having that done with an epidural just doesn't sound appealing I guess.

I'm not saying I'm going to have a natural childbirth.  I have no idea what childbirth will feel like and whether or not I will be able to handle the pain well or have the energy to sustain a long labor.  But I wanted to make sure I had all the tools possible to give me a fighting chance.  And I reserve the right to change my mind at any point, without judgement.  :)

Anyway, "induction" is kind of a dirty word in the Bradley arena.  It's not as bad as episiotomy which is basically another word for "the devil" but it is spoken with a bit of distaste in the mouth.  I think everyone is aware that Pitocin can be a bit of a game changer.

So a small part of me cringes a little at the idea of being induced.  But since this child is currently planning on starting his first day of preschool in my womb, it is a reality.  And we kind of decided that if we set an induction date, then we probably wouldn't need it (Murphy's Law).

May 26th

I will be 41 weeks and 1 day.

I feel like that is long enough to be pregnant.  I will have given it the good college try when it comes to getting this baby out naturally.  My dues will have been paid.  If the other women in my Bradley class want to judge, too bad because they have ALL had their babies already (insert jealous screams and crying fits).

Now that we have a date set, I feel so much better.  While the thought of having to be pregnant another 9 days kind of makes me want to cry, it also gives me 9 days to get him out on my own.  And it gives me 9 more days to get mentally prepared for what an induction could entail.  Get into a zen-like place.

I'm off to meditate.

9 more days, TOPS.


PS - Any comments about how awful inductions are and should be avoided like the plague are NOT welcome.  Seriously... why would you think I would want to hear that at this point?