Still figuring it all out

and Part 2

Last night I talked to a good friend on the phone who knew I was having Donald on Saturday, hadn't heard from me, looked at Facebook and decided to call because she was confused. I called her back on the way to the NICU and she said absolutely everything I needed to hear. On her advice, I decided to take a break from the Evil FB,  and I am trying to convince myself that its ok if Donald has some formula.  She cried with me on the phone and offered a slew of good advice, openly admitting that I wasn't asking for advice. But it was perfect. 

So I decided to put a frank update on Facebook that its good that Donald will be in the NICU for 5 more days and this is something he is going to outgrow. And (most importantly) if they wanted an update they can call, email or text me. My phone number is not readily available to FB friends, but my email is. Funnily enough, I didn't get that many calls today. Just a handful from people I know are concerned and love me. And I think they all understood when I only texted them back. One friend even said I didn't have to call her back. 

The NICU was fine today. The last episode was yesterday morning and all test results are coming back that he is normal. I hope tonight's nurse isn't as socially stupid as last night's. Last night's had to tell us everything as if we had never been there and when I asked the important question "Any more episodes?" she launched into detail about an almost-episode that doesn't count. And then she told us to leave our baby with his eyes open alone until the official feeding time. Grr.

Donald is cute in all the opposite ways Firstborn was. He has dark wavy thick hair like his Daddy. I think his eyes are hazel (the color keeps changing, it seems). He weighs about 3 pounds more and hasn't lost any and I swear most of those 3 pounds is above his shoulders in an extra chin, cheeks, and a very angry/thoughtful brow. There is really a creasy triangle pointing down his nose. Its awesome. Firstborn looked like a thin doll. Donald looks like an angry mob boss with long monkey fingers.

Its been kind of hard to avoid the Evil FB this evening during my pump. I can easily avoid it on my phone, but the laptop is harder. But I am almost 24 hours free, which is the longest I have gone in a long time. And I feel more like me and free for doing it.

NICU & The Evil FB Part 1

Donald is in the NICU. At approximately 22 hours old while in the nursery with the pediatrician right next to him he turned blue and was breathing really shallow. They gave him oxygen and involved the NICU right away. He had 4 total episodes yesterday, one of them less major and with us, and one episode this morning. He is being monitored constantly and the doctors are testing every possible thing and I know he will be taken care of. Its still not easy.

Sidebar: I have this friend who I have a lot of history with. She is a good friend, probably my first adult non-college friend and I love her and want to kill her at the same time. Since she had her baby she has gone insane. I mean the no-vaccine, my child is the most special child, martyr for all things motherhood insane. This child can eat squash and green beans and bananas and not much else. He's 4. I could go on and on about her but I won't. Their child has never ever been hospitalized. She had troubles with him on colic and reflux. There are about 4 times in my adult life that she has said something so insensitive and inappropriate it has upset me for weeks. We'll call her the Martyr.

Out of stress and slight lonliness because I didn't want visitors to come and not see the baby, I asked this morning on The Evil FB basically for networking with anybody who has gone through a situation like mine. I am a big fan of ask a specific question, get a specific answer. Within an hour of my posting the Martyr said "the Hep B vaccine can cause apnea if he has had that." 

This comment has upset me to no end. I will vaccinate my children. End of story. I think you are irresponsible and flipping insane if you don't. End of that story. Of course he had had that vaccine. That comment was so destructive. And in my fragile hormonal tired state I am really struggling to get over it. 

I got lots of other advice which I didn't ask for on that post and out of 12 different people who responded, ONE reffered me to someone she knows of at church. Another friend mentioned a home monitor that helped in her situation and the Martyr had to chime in on how they used one too and if she was in the room with me I think I would have screamed at her to shut up. 

But see, the Martyr and her husband are the only people who got to come visit us. They are special enough that we let them come on Donald's birthday that afternoon. And they happened to get to the hospital right when Virginia Slim and Firstborn came to meet Donald and they took pictures. For that I am eternally grateful. Ug.

I really wish I hadn't put anything on Facebook since yesterday, but I felt like I needed to tell the loving people who were worried about us.

Anyway, I have faith that Donald is going to be ok. Tests point to it being something he is going to grow out of. He won't be released until he goes 5 days without an episode. I will likely get a monitor. 

Despite getting a panic monitor I feel faithful and confident it will work out. It did when Firstborn went to Vanderbilt and that was just as traumatic and scary.

As for me, the delivery was amazingly quick. Dr broke my water at 7:30 and my 8.5 pound Donald came out with 2 pushes by 9:49. I freaked a little with the epidural but it worked out. Donald needed chest compressions when he was first born too. But I didn't panic.

And Dear Old Dad looks at me all the time and says "Its all going to be ok".

I know there is more to say, but we are going back to the hospital to feed Donald and pump. Tomorrow is a new day and I am sleeping in my bed tonight.

 

Bedrest Day 19. The end.

8:36 pm. Friday, May 18.

Have about 2 inches left of a hot fudge milkshake from Sonic. 

Need to be at the hospital at 4 am tomorrow morning.

Man, that milkshake was delish.

I lost 4 pounds since my Tuesday doctor visit. I have managed to stay under 300 pounds. I am 5'10". I know the weight loss was because of my movie extravaganza yesterday.  My ankles were almost human-sized at the doctor. The nice ultrasound tech told me that his weight was estimated at 7 lbs 3 oz. That's outside of tiny scary preemie size range, which is good. 

The bag is packed. The critical baby stuff is out and ready. 

Fruits of my non-labored bed rest:

(Pretend I inserted a picture of 4 pairs of mittens here. Phone was taking its dear sweet time and I need to move on to take a shower and get some sleep.)

The mittens are for children in Afghanistan.

I savored every second of watching Firstborn get his bath, books and bottle before bed. He was very sweet and cute today. I'm an older child, and my heart breaks a little for him. But his fun factor will be way higher than Donald's for a while, even though Donald's cuddle factor will be way higher. And I know it will work out and I will love them each for their differences and similarities.

Donald, thanks for showing me how far my body can go pregnancy-wise. And I know I won't always think this, but thanks for coming so close to Firstborn. (And please oh please be a good nursing baby.) 

I have had an overwhelming sense of calm, pride and gratitude lately, knowing that I have blessings better than I ever imagined I would.

Cool.

Bedrest Day 18

Awesome Things of the Day:

Shaved legs.

Two naps.

A 13 month old baby who played well by himself in the basement while I watched Toy Story movies.

Feet that are not that swollen.

Four pairs of completely finished mittens.

And the possible pending delivery of a Sonic milkshake very soon.

Bedrest Day 17

I was just looking back at posts I wrote around the time Firstborn was born. They are so sweet. I'm not sure what happened. I haven't had an uninterrupted night's sleep since then. Maybe that's it. Firstborn has been better at sleeping through the night lately though, but my discomfort and mean angry bladder don't let me.

We went to Target briefly today. I made padcicles. And I just repacked and took stock of my hospital bag. I had a good idea today for getting through tomorrow - spend the day in the basement while Firstborn crawls around playing and watching Disney movies. I have the two Cars movies and Toy Story 3 borrowed from a friend. Maybe Dear Old Dad will find the first two Toy Story movies for me. I'm pretty comfortable in the recliners in the basement and can load up with pillows, finish the mittens and feel like I have "accomplished" something.  And tomorrow night I will shave my legs. It will be legendary.

The last Arrival Specialist visit is on Friday morning. I'm hoping he has me come to the hospital that night to start the meds for being induced and give me an Ambien. Before we go to the hospital I'm going to have Dear Old Dad take pics of me in that same silly tent of a maternity dress. I am absolutely sure my belly is bigger this time.  I am 9 days more pregnant than I was with Firstborn. I took some mirror pics last night. 

I was feeling reflective earlier about the month of May. May 2011 I was reeling from that Vanderbilt Children's hospital visit on Mother's Day and watched myself fail at breastfeeding. In May 2010 I was losing patience with my teaching job that I had lost but still had to finish. And here I am this May 2012 pregnant a second time, very ready to be done with it and getting waited on almost hand and foot and sort of hating it. June will start with just our family of 4 figuring out life, and that sounds a-ok with me.  May 2013? I can't even venture to guess.

And I'm sorry for my stinky outlook in that last post. Its hard to acknowledge when things are temporary and most things are. I want to show more gracefullness in my attitude. Its probably a good thing that I don't have many readers, and those I have actually know me and love me.

Bedrest Day 16, or 3 more days to go

Confession: Yesterday I did not feel good and cheated on myself bedrest-wise. My 24 hours worth of pee needed to go to the Boro to the hospital and I decided to take it by myself, rationalizing that it wasn't worth messing with Firstborn's naps. On the way there I came very close to a wreck on the interstate where some jackhole was travelling my speed in my blind spot for a long time. I had to mentally talk myself into not going into hysterics. My bp was up at the hospital a little and they took more blood, which I wasn't expecting. That meant hitting the McD's dollar menu. Because I also got the car inspected (annoyingly, some major things like car tags come up this month). And then I went to the grocery store. I couldn't get a nap when I got home. Last night, my feet and ankles were so swollen it hurt to bend them as I went down the stairs. I selfishly scolded myself for not opting for getting induced yesterday but then Dear Old Dad came home with a fever. 

The feet and ankles were better this morning, but we had to go back to the Boro early in the AM for my doctor's appointments. This time I let Virginia Slim drive and we towed along Firtsborn. My ultrasound was fun, only because I was like a training case for a nurse practitioner. I had the dingy nurse who I offended about her blood pressure taking abilities last week, but she didn't act like she remembered me. She also asks weird questions as if to update my history (not sure why that is necessary) and today it was if I have ever smoked in my life. The BP was up, but not quite in the alarming range. I wasn't seeing the doctor but another nurse practitioner. She was good about answering my questions and then even taking my bp again and it had gone down. But then I asked about all my labs from the hospital. And I waited.

And waited. And 20 minutes later they said they were waiting on the hospital to fax the stuff.

And another 20 minutes later they needed to consult one of the other doctors about the lab results. My Arrival Specialist was off today, which I knew. 

And another 20 minutes later my ankles and feet were huge, I badly needed to go to the bathroom, and I was feeling really guilty about Virginia Slim and Firstborn waiting in the car (so Firstborn could nap). I came out of the room on my own to find someone, but they just thought I was another lost pregnant lady. The same doctor who issued me to bedrest at the hospital came in and poked at my feet and told me that my pee was right at borderline with preeclampsyia (crap) and she was considering sending me to the hospital today. I was sent home but the nurse practitioner would call me later after they bothered my Arrival Specialist on his one day off.

And Firstborn had not slept in the car at all in the parking lot, Virginia Slim just let him crawl around in it and then she couldn't figure out the stroller. My bp went back up. When we left it was his lunchtime so we had Chickfila and headed home. I tried to nap but only suceeded in peeing my pants with a coughing fit. I got the call that my Arrival Specialist still wants to stick to the plan to induce me Saturday, which I was 95% sure he would. And I counted my lucky stars that I won't have to have an annoying visit like that again. 

So I need to stay in bed and drink gallons of water for the next 3 days. I want to go to the zoo and the park with Firstborn (only). I want to unpack some boxes in the basement and properly store things in closets. Alone. I want to be able to sit on the floor and play blocks and go for walks. This bedrest stuff sucks. I went through something similar to this about 3 weeks before I graduated high school - I was losing my mind even though the end was entirely in sight. Virginia Slim is getting on my nerves with her comments that she means to be funny. I'm concerned that Dear Old Dad is sick, but he won't take off to get better because he is saving his time for after Donald shows. My parents are coming and their visit will overlap with Virginia Slim's and then they will stay for a few more days after that. Every time they visit I get stressed somehow. This just sucks.

And I know I will love Donald when he comes and we will be a happy family of 4 (and likely no more until maybe the teen years when we think about foster parenting again).  But part of me feels like I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel because of the oncoming train.

Quickies

I love the sentiment in this blog post. Completely and totally. That advice "sleep while you can" always rubbed me the wrong way, even though technically I am doing that more these days. 

And this cause is very awesome. I want to coordinate making a bunch of these somehow. Maybe I can drum up something on The FB.

Bedrest Day 14, aka the final countdown - the long post

(This is the post I thought I lost. It turns out that I'm just not that observant on which browser I use. Most of the same info is in the post of almost the same name that I wrote last night.)

On Friday I had doctor extravaganza with Dear Old Dad. Firstborn stayed with Virginia Slim and we went to visit my Chiro Friend, who I had missed terribly. She couldn't really fix my hip and said I was like elastic, but that's a good thing at this point in my pregnancy. Then I had an ultrasound at a clinic away from the Arrival Specialist's. The tech was a nice older lady who measured/estimated Donald's weight (6 lb 10 oz) and I was able to see that his percentiles were 38th and 57th, depending on what you based it on. And she was nice and pointed out that he is still a boy and we got a nice view of his adorable feet. And he is "very much head down". It was probably the best ultrasound I had this pregnancy, equal only to the pregnancy diagnosis ultrasound to see the tadpole bean. 

We ate chinese food at one of our favorite places in the boro for lunch and went to see the Arrival Specialist. My bp was a little high and the nurse said I wasn't walking like I felt well. I showed her my brutal feet and ankles. When Arrival Specialist came in he went right for my ankles to check out my lovely sporting edema and then did a little digging on my records on his laptop. Then he launched into giving me options of when to be induced based on when he was going to be at the hospital. I wasn't exactly expecting that, but it was a pleasant suprise. The options came down to tomorrow (Monday 5/14) or Saturday 5/19. Firstborn had a fever for some strange reason and all I could think of was bringing home a slightly early newborn around a rambunctious feverish 13 month old and opted for the later date, despite my high level of discomfort. I also felt a little better about letting Donald cook a little longer, so my delivery will be at 37.5 weeks pregnant on 5/19. I made the comment to Arrival Specialist about the friend saying I would go full term or late because I want to deliver so badly and he insisted that they wouldn't let me go that long with the hypertension issues I'm having. Its good to know I am being taken care of, and a teeny part of me was a little sad that the natural thing will never be an option. 

Yesterday (Saturday) I was supposed to go to a YMCA to float in a pool early that morning, but my friend didn't get the message and was sick, which I discovered after foolishly waiting there for a while. I bought bad donuts on the way home and that didn't cheer me up. I got a nap and Virginia Slim offered to watch Firstborn while Dear Old Dad and I did something fun that day, since it was one of our last opportunities to do so with a live-in babysitter. Dear Old Dad offered to take us swimming, which was perfect. Firstborn loves the pool. We ended up driving all the way back to the Boro because their Parks & Rec facilities are much better than the large metropolitan area where we live now. I got to float, Firstborn got to laugh and splash and watch kids play and Dear Old Dad was a great daddy and good sport. We ate taco bell and drove by the old house to see that the owners practically filled the backyard with storage sheds and things. Its just as well that our dogs killed that grass.

Last night after catching up with The Big Bang Theory I realized I had not felt Donald move for a while (a little strange) and I had a wicked sharp pain in my side. It worried me and I felt more winded and more "high blood pressurey", which is hard to explain. After freaking out Dear Old Dad and pacing and thinking about it, we went to the hospital. During the 30 minute drive there, Dear Old Dad pointed out that we won't ever have a weekend ruined like this again (2 weeks ago was the 1st hospitalization, last weekend was the wildly innacurate bp cuff, now this). And it was a crazy stormy night with crazy drivers. Donald started dancing again when we got in the car (stinker) but my pain in the side was evil. We left around 9 pm, and I was in a bed finally hooked up to stuff around 10:15 pm. By then most pains were gone except for periodic crazy pains in the exit region. My bp was a little high, they took blood and urine and I was told that any other decisions would be based on my blood work. Dear Old Dad was asleep about 10 minutes later and I actually fell asleep to be woken up by a nurse around 11:30. My labs were fine, no proteins in the urine, but they still wanted me to do the stinking 24 hour urine, luckily at home. We were back in the car around midnight. I felt really foolish for deciding to go. Dear Old Dad was a sweetheart. And we will pay stupid tax with 2 extra hospital bills for visits that yielded basically nothing.

The good news is that Dear Old Dad decided to actually sleep in the bed with me that night (my snoring and bed hogging have been hard on him lately) AND Firstborn is feeling better because he slept through the night again. 

Today, Mother's Day, we played hookey from church but went out to Chili's for early lunch. I was stressing over the chaos that Firstborn ensued and that I could not reach him because Virginia Slim and Dear Old Dad were on his side of the table. My need to control things is still very strong despite my complete lack of it. The self-manufactured stress wore me out and I took a good long nap when we got home. Virginia Slim really wanted to see the movie Dark Shadows, so she and I just went to see it. She's good about talking and criticizing random things in the previews so that made for a fun time. I got a sweet card from Dear Old Dad and ate a Sonic ice cream sundae. It was a good Mother's Day.

Much better than the ending of last Mother's Day. That hospital visit has been on my mind, even though technically it was more than a year ago. And an entire lifetime has passed since then, but I certainly don't want to go through anything like that again.

And I finished this book and I am onto reading this one. I absolutely love that it has a chapter of talking about how pregnancy is not pleasant and only freaks are lovely when they are huge pregnant and on and on about my feelings about not being a fan of being a blimp. It is very cathartic. 

But all in all, it was a very good weekend. I had my last fun things and most of the week will be spent visiting the doctor, reading, knitting one more pair of mittens and getting naps. The bag is packed (and still in Dear Old Dad's car), Virginia Slim is making extra food to freeze and I will wrap my brain around how I will handle having my parents and Virginia Slim here at the same time. 

Bedrest Day 14, aka the final countdown

I just wrote a blog post that was about 1200 words. It took 45 minutes to write. And my @#$%^&*ing laptop just did something insane that involved Norton, which I don't have, and resetting to a set of Firefox windows from 4 days ago.

Here's the 5 minute recap. Maybe I will fill in the details later if I can handle the loss.

• Getting induced on May 19. Had the option to do it tomorrow but opted to let Firstborn heal from his current fever/cold for a few more days instead.
• Firstborn is better and he actually slept thru the night last night.
• Went to the hospital last night for about 2 hours because I thought I was in labor. I wasn't, Donald was just stabbing my side with a knife. My take-home prize was the jug to pee in for 24 hours.
• Had a good mother's day. Way way better than last mother's day.
• Finished my book and moved onto reading "Confessions of a Scary Mommy". Loving it and will probably reread the chapter talking about how pregnancy is just ugly and disgusting about 16 more times this week.
• Had a nice sweet ultrasound before the monumental appt with the Arrival Specialist. Donald is estimated at 6 lbs 10 oz and 38th or 57th percentile, depending on what you look at. And they showed us he is still a boy, with adorable feet.
• Going to spend the rest of the week reading, knitting one more pair of mittens, napping and figuring out how to handle my parents here with Virginia Slim. My brother may need to be involved so he can distract them with his shiny 4-year-old daughter.
• My "nesting" was figuring out what foods to have Virginia Slim to make and double to stock our freezer. That counts, right?

Bedrest: Day 10

I know. I skipped days 8 and 9. Day 7 (Sunday) was so incredibly awesome. I had a good nap, Dear Old Dad took me to see The Avengers, even though he is weird and doesn't like comic book movies. (I have a hard time understanding people who don't love the Hulk, staring at that guy who plays Thor or Robert Jr. zingers.) And we ate Sonic for dinner. It was really a great day.

Then Monday, Day 8, was a rapid decline into an angry depression. Irrational, ticked off, crying, ranting, everything. Virginia Slim was a little concerned and took Firstborn for a walk to give me space, which really isn't her style. Everything Dear Old Dad did made me mad. I couldn't talk myself into anything near a zen state. I did write a blog post but couldn't bring myself to post it. When Dear Old Dad came home from work rather late, I hardly acknowledged him and around 9 pm I tried to talk to him by weakly starting an argument but started gasping sobbing instead. And he would make semi-funny comments which would make me laugh and sob at the same time. And I peed myself and my face doubled in size. I rushed upstairs to take a shower and Virginia Slim asked me something that I just mumbled a response to because I didn't  hear her. I felt a little better after my shower and started IM-ing Dear Old Dad (a flight of stairs separated us) and convinced him that I had to have a Sonic milkshake. He also knew that my car needed gas. So we went out and it was a glimmer of awesome on a day where I considered starting antidepressants again. (For the record, I've been off them for about a month and I am not going back on them until after Donald is born because of possible side effects.)

On Tuesday, Day 9, I had a doctor's appt where I actually saw his nurse practicioner. I didn't believe her nurse when she took my BP and I insulted her and asked her to take it again. She said it was exactly the same number, which I know is not that likely because the 2nd time she took it I wasn't wearing any pants, but I didn't want to insult her any more. All test results were good and I was not sent to the hospital, even though I really wanted to be. I went to Sam's afterwards and ran into a lady that works at the high school where I taught and she was sort of evil and told me that I would go full term or past my due date because I want to deliver so badly. I had told her I was fine with my water breaking right there in the front of the store. So it was nice to see her but her words were evil.

My overall mood was better yesterday and it made dealing with Firstborn easier. He was a monster on my dark cloudy Monday. Well, as monstrous as a 13 month old can be, which is still pretty cute.

Today was decent. I didn't get any naps, but did a lot of laying down and reading and knitting and less staring at The FB. And we went to Walmart where I spent $75 and about the only significant things I remember getting are newborn sized diapers and ice cream. Oh well. I talked to my parents and got kind of annoyed at their behaviors which shouldn't suprise me at this point in my life. But I don't really want to talk about that here.

Tomorrow is Dear Old Dad's birthday. Do you know why I call him Dear Old Dad? Because he is a year younger than me. And there is a week where our ages seem 2 years apart. That has been the previous 7 days. To celebrate, Virginia Slim is making his favorite dessert and we will probably eat lots of pizza with pepperoni and jalepenos. I'm so glad I started taking Prilosec again a few weeks ago.

I've been reading this book and I love it so much. Her blog is just as good, even funnier. I think I want to be as funny as her except without the f-bombs and discussions of my naughty bits.

And I am on mitten #5. If I really focus I can easily knit a mitten a day. If I had a TV series to watch that takes hours, then I would probably be even farther along. They are amazingly easy to do and I'm not sure why I knitted socks so long before attempting them.

So I thought this bedrest business would help me be a better blogger. I know I am writing more, but I feel like what I write about is getting more dull. I am so looking forward to coming out on the other side with a easily transportable newborn and Firstborn - pushing the stroller through our neighborhood each day, going to the zoo and the park, playgroup stuff, unpacking the basement, feeling awesome for having a mushy stomach, and so much more. It will be harder but I know now that I am up for the challenge and it will be super.