To Worry or Not to Worry

So far the most challenging adjustment into motherhood is the amount of worrying that I seem to do. I usually stress out about things, but I wouldn't say that I worry excessily about stuff. However, my mom instinct makes me think of stuff all the time. At night, I wake up to the slightest peep from my sweet baby boy, I tend to reach to his bassinet and put my hand on his stomach to make sure that I can feel it moving as he breathes, I wonder if he is eating enough or maybe eating too much etc. I dont think I am worrying any more than an average first time mom; however, I definetily feel the responsibility of being a mom and taking care of this precious child.

Past few days I have worried about a possible infection on his circumcision site. There is a little bit of pus and one of the signs of infection is pus. So I called the pediatrician and talked to the nurse and she made an appointment with one of the pediatricians. I was hoping that it wasn't pus because that would mean that he didn't have an infection; however, I felt slightly silly going in there for nothing. We waited an hour to see the doctor, which in my opinion is ridiculous when you have a one week old child with you. The doctor came in and looked at his penis for 3 seconds and said that everything was fine. However, I didn't feel like she even saw the pus, so I didn't really feel very comforted by the visit. Luckily that night we saw one of the doctors from our ward and had him take a look at him and he confirmed that it was indeed pus. So my nursing assessment skills weren't totally off. Luckily, there hasn't been fewer or any other signs of infection and we have our 2 week appointment on Monday so he should be just fine since we are putting some anti-infective ointment on him. It does seem that wet diapers are painful to him and it breaks my heart to see him cry so much as we do diaper changes. Fortunately, he calms down pretty easily as long as you snuggle him closely. He gets mad so quickly, but calms down quickly as well.

I keep emailing these pictures to Troy during his work day so I could convince him to come home to us little quicker:) So far, I have adjusted to being home all day pretty well. Of course, all I seem to do is feed him, rock him, change diapers and get few minutes to myself here and there. However, I am very content with my new role as a mom.

Just Cant Get Enough of Him

Today is the first day that I am completely by myself with our little guy. So far everything is good. I let Troy sleep through the night last night, so when Rölli woke up at 6 am it was his turn to change the diaper so I could get little bit of uninterrupted sleep. I got up at 7 am and fed Rölli. He was alert and awake for a while and then decided to take a nap. Im trying to do some blogging and studying while he is still sleeping.

On a side note, I really think he will be a blond. I do not see any red in his hair. His eyes are really dark blue, so it will be interesting to see what color they turn out to be. He had his first pediatrician appointment yesterday and everything is going well with him. He weighted 7 lbs 9 ozs so he has not lost much weight at all. We survived our first Sunday at church, I breastfed in public WITH a hooder hider for the first time, we have taken few trips to Target without any problems and even tried to go for walk in our stroller. Unfortunately, it was little too hot, which meant that I did not swaddle him and it totally freaked him out to have all the freedom for his arms and legs. He cried for the first 10 minutes of the walk and then finally fell asleep and slept for the next two hours or so. We also had our first diaper blowout yesterday and he has peed on me twice so far:)

He has been sleeping for few hours now and part of me wants to wake him up so I can see his cute little eyes looking at me. Don't worry though, I'm not crazy enough to do that.
He is such an alert little boy. He loves to look around and especially loves to hang out in his bouncer.
He hated his first bath. He screamed the whole time, but calmed down quickly as I started to cuddle him. I love the fact that he loves to be held close.
Troy's first day of work as a "daddy". He called us about an hour later to see how we were doing. I couldn't ask for a sweeter and more loving dad for my little guy.

The Slightly Changed Schedule

I have been writing my birth story post for few days now and I still haven't been able to finish due to many distractions. I wanted to quickly write down the major change in our sleeping patterns since Tuesday night. I know every new mother goes through this and I just want to have this down so I can look back in few weeks and realize how much better he is (hopefully) sleeping.

Sleeping schedule pre-baby: 10 pm to 7 am:)

Tuesday night-no sleep since I was in labor.

Wednesday night-3 hours of sleep because our charming little boy would not sleep at all unless we were holding him. The nursery took him for two 30 minute periods and rest of the time, Troy and I took turns to hold him while the other one slept for a little bit.

Thursday night- I'm up from 1 am to 6 am, sleep from 6 am-8 am, wake up for a feeding and sleep 9-10 am. No nap during the day.

Friday night- I sleep from 10 pm-12:30 and I'm up from 12:30 to 2 pm and on and off hourly from 2 pm until 5 am, I sleep from 5 am to 7 am. I took a half an hour nap during the day.

Tonight so far- sleep from 10 pm-10:45 pm, breastfeed for half an hour, sleep for an hour while Troy is up and walking around, I'm up from midnight until now(1:40).

I'm still doing OK; it must be euphoria of being a new mom and the cute little face that looks up to me when I breastfeed for the 10th time or pace around the house. It seems like he is wanting to eat almost every hour and a half. And of course, he favors one side so my other side is way engorged. Still I couldn't be happier:)

The Cutest 10 fingers and 10 toes I've Ever Seen

we are in love!

Our Little Boy's Journey into This World

Let me start by saying that I did not get my ideal birth experience, but I feel very satisfied and even empowered by my labor and delivery experience and I'm glad that things worked out the way they did. Also this will be a lengthy post since it is my "journal" about this special day for us.

I was 39 weeks on Tuesday and went to see my doctor in the morning. I was still only 2 cm and 70% effaced, so I asked her to strip my membranes in hopes that it would speed things along. We also started to discuss the possibility of induction later on this week, because I was feeling emotionally and physically exhausted from the false labor that I had been in for days now. I did not want to get induced because I wanted to have as much of a natural labor and delivery as possible; however, I did not want to be emotionally and physically spent by the time I would go into labor on my own. My doctor told me to see if the stripping of membranes would do anything and call back to the office if I decided to go ahead with the induction.

After my doctor's appointment, I went to study for my licensing test for few hours and around 2 pm I started to feel some contractions that came along with backpain, which was the first difference between my false labor contractions and the possibly real ones. I kept contracting here and there throughout the day and evening as I went hometeaching with Troy and walked three miles around the Reid Park. We got home around 9 pm and watched an episode of Gilmore Girls and decided to go to bed at 10:30 pm. Right after we got settled to go to sleep, my contractions got stronger and I needed to start "breathing through them". Troy was fast asleep as I kept going in and out of bed between contractions.

At midnight I told Troy to wake up and start timing the contractions. For our entertainment and distraction, we watched the Bachelorette as my contractions got stronger and more frequent. They were about 3-4 minutes apart but only lasted 30-40 seconds. I was pretty sure that this was the real deal, but I was worried that somehow this would still be false labor and I did not want to go to the hospital and be told to go back home. So Troy calls the L&D nurse and describes my contractions. The nurse told Troy that the only way to really know if I was in labor was to check my cervix. Troy jokingly asked if he should check my cervix and the nurse replied that she could walk him through it. Needless to say,Troy had no intention of going anywhere near checking my cervix. I took a shower at 1 am and the contractions were still manageable with walking and breathing. Around 1:45 am, the contractions really kicked up a notch and they started to take my breath away. At 2 am Troy started to write an email to his co-workers that he wouldn't be at work the next day, but he wasn't able to finish the email because I said "we need to go now". I didn't think I was anywhere close to delivering this baby, but I also did not want to be driving to the hospital later on when the contractions and pain was worse. We left home around 2:15 and got to the hospital at 2:30 am. A car ride with those contractions was tortuous so I pretty much just kept taking deep breaths and squeezing Troy's hand. Once we got to the hospital, the back pain from the contractions was so intense that I couldn't walk during a contraction. I went to the triage and got checked and I was only 3 cm and 90% and -1. I was obviously in labor and I figured that four hours of pretty intense labor would have gotten more results in. I got admitted and started to walk around in the hallway and used the birthing ball for the next two hours. Troy would put counter pressure on my back during each contraction and we tried using a heating pad to relieve some of the pain. I did not feel any cramping pain with my contractions; however, each contractions brought a crushing back pain. At 4:45sh I asked the nurse to check me again. I was 4 cm, 100% and 0. I did the math in my head and thought of laboring for another 6+ hours with this excruating pain, so I turned to Troy and said that I don't think that I could do this without an epidural. I had told him to make me wait for it for a while to make sure that I really wanted it, because I wanted to do this without an epidural. So he tells me to wait until 5 am. I honestly started to panic and hyperventilate as I thought of the numerous contractions that would be ahead of me before this baby would make his entrance. As Troy and I talked about this later on, he told me that he could not tell that I was in pain because I didnt complain or make noises during the contractions. He said that my facial expression didnt even change, so when I asked for the epidural he was confused of why I thought that I couldn't take the pain. The pain was so bad that I completely zoned out during each one and only thing I could do was to take one breath at a time. Of course when I told him that I wanted an epidural and he said that I could do it without one, I thought in my head "how can he not tell that I am in so much pain and feel like I'm gonna die with each contraction".

At 5:15 am the nurse started to prepare me for the epidural and the epidural finally kicked in around 5:30sh. I had some really bad contractions during the placement of the epidural and when the anesthesiologist told me that the pain should start decreasing within five contractions, I seriously thought that I could not take five more contractions. When the nurse checked me right after the epidural had kicked in, I was 8.5 cm and +1, which means that I dilated 4.5 cm during those 45 minutes that I had waited for the epidural. No wonder I felt like someone was crushing my spine while I was waiting for the epidural placement. The epidural kicked in and I felt like I was in heaven. This warm sensation started moving up from my legs and I couldn't have been happier. The epidural worked beautifully and I didn't feel a thing for the rest of my delivery. For the next hour, I chatted with Troy and my nurse and I just coudn't believe that it could feel so good and easy to be in labor. I was started on some pitocin because the contractions had spaced out a little bit

Around 6:30 I started to feel some pressure and asked the nurse to check me. I was completely dilated and my bag of waters was bulging. The nurse tried to find another doctor to come and break my water, but somehow we waited until around 7 am until she called my doctor with an update. We got the permission to start pushing close to 7:15, which is when the day shift RN came in. We were excited to see Erin, who was my preceptor for the L&D rotation, to walk in. I had hoped that she could be there when I delivered. We chatted quickly about this and that and then we got ready to push. I pushed for about 15 minutes with the nurses until our little guy's head started crowning .The night shift RN Nicole chose to stay with us until the delivery as well, so we had two wonderful nurses coaching the pushing as well as reassuring Troy that everything was ok. My water broke as I pushed with one of the contractions and Nicole got little wet. Once my doctor got there, it took one contraction to get this baby out of. I pushed once to get the head out and another push for the rest of the body.

He started screaming the moment his head came out; his shoulders were still inside and he was already screaming. Everyone was surprised by how big he was. My doctor asked "where have you been hiding him". Troy's reaction was "wow he's not nasty" referring to the lack of white sticky stuff that babies usually have on them. Troy and I looked at each other and were like "wow he is so cute". They placed him on my chest for a little bit so I could give him a quick kiss and hold him for few seconds and then they started to dry him off and do all the examination stuff. He screamed the whole time when he was being looked at and poked at. Troy took about 200 pictures and I just chilled while the doctor was repairing some of the tears. I don't think he looked like a newborn at all. He had a nice pink color, he was screaming so vigorously and his head was perfectly round. He needed to be suctioned a little bit because he has swallowed a little bit of fluid as he started screaming. So for the first few hours he was very snorty and had a hard time breastfeeding because he couldn't breath well through his nose.

Weight: 7 lbs 11.4

Length: 20 inch

Head: 37 cm

Apgars: 9 and 9

Troy was really worried that I would be disappointed about the fact that I was not able to deliver this baby without an epidural and prior to the actual labor, I thought that I would be sad if I wouldn't get the birth experience that I had planned. However, I am so glad that I decided to get the epidural because I was able to enjoy the experience and actually share it with Troy. Prior to the epidural, I couldn't talk or even think straight because of the pain and I feel like I was going through the experience by myself and it was important to me that Troy and I shared the birth of our son together. I hope to be able to experience birth without an epidural with one of the future labors, but I know that if I will have the same kind of back pain with each labor, it is not worth it. I also feel like I did everything I could to suceeed in my goal to go natural and I'm glad that I labored those 7.5 hours without any pain management because it gave me an appreciation for the lack of pain and also it gave me a sense of connection with my baby as I labored to bring him into this world. . I'm obviously very happy to be done with the pregnancy and the labor back, but there is a strange part of me that is little sad that it's all over. It's amazing to me how much I had thought about my labor and what I wanted and how quickly it happened and was over. However, I could not be happier than I am as I look at my little boy's face, kiss him soft forehead and have him snuggled on my chest. There is a new sense of peace and love in our home.

My hero and my son.

Today was one of the greatest experiences of my life. I got to witness Eevi give birth to our healthy little baby boy. I have always been grossed out when Eevi tried to show me pictures from her text books, and so I thought that I would be good waiting in the lobby. Well, today I sucked it up and witnessed a miracle! I kept only peeking at what was going on, then I took an actual look and wasn't sure what to think.... awesome, or what the @#$%. Then his little head popped out, and then shoulders, and then the rest of him, and all I could think was..... THAT WAS AWESOME!!!

Eevi was so amazing during the whole thing. When she dialated 4.5 cm in 45 minutes, you couldn't even tell by her face when the contractions were comeing and going. When it came time to push, the nurses (one was Eevi's preceptor during her last clinical) coached her through a couple of practice pushes before the doctor arrived. When the doctor got there, one contraction later and we had a little bundle of screaming joy.

He has been just as active outside as he was inside. There hasn't been much crying, but he hasn't stopped looking around and exploring the world. He must get that from me. :)

Just a reminder, he won't have a name until the baby blessing on July 12th. Some specs to tide you over with though:

06/17/2009 at 7:58am

20 inches

7 lbs. 11.4 oz.

And then the question of the day..... hair color..... that remains to be determined. (one nurse did say it was blonde though :) )

Here is Eevi and the little guy about an hour after the action. Sorry for the poor quality (iPhone), I forgot to bring the USB cord from my new camera.

Happy birthday Rölli!

Staying Busy and Having Fun

I am officially an emotional wreck as we wait for the arrival of this child. I have no idea why I am having such a hard time just being patient and waiting. So we try to keep ourselves busy for two reasons: 1) enjoy the freedom that we still have to do whatever we want and whenever we want 2) keep me distracted and occupied so I don't obsess over the fact that I still have a highly overactive child inside of me. On Saturday morning, we went on a 7-mile hike in Bear Canyon. Our friends Amy and Lars joined us and didn't mind hiking in slightly reduced speed to accomodate the fact that I'm carrying few extra pounds around. Troy got a chance to play with his camera again and practice his skills:) The hike was beautiful and it was fun to get a chance to be outdoors and with our friends.

In the evening, we had a few of our good friends over for dinner and games. Troy and I are finally more equipped to entertaining our friends with kids since we have acquired plastic plates and utensils and toys. In order to have a proof that our friendship with Bridget and Jeremy really existed as they move to the East Coast, we took a nice posed picture. Kaelyn didn't really see the point of it as you can see from her angry little face. We have a similarly posed picture with Chad and Janae and our friends the Clarks from two and half years ago as we enjoyed one last night with them before the Clarks moved to Texas.

Some people are always ready for some superstar poses:)

Let me introduce you to....

Yeah, I wish I could say "let me introduce you to my son", but right now I am just announcing that I finished my diaper bag. I started this project in March and finally finished it last weekend. I just barely started sewing after Christmas and this was a very challenging project for me. Luckily, my hubby is very good at explaining some of the instructions for me because I had a hard time interpreting them. It is a very large diaper bag and I don't know it will be the one that I will use daily; however, it will be perfect for traveling:)

Tomorrow is my 38 week dr. appointment. Of course we hope that I won't make it because I'll be at the hospital...:) Last Friday, I did 20 flights of stairs and hiked in Sabino Canyon. The result was calves that were screaming in pain all day on Saturday. Also some quality time has been spent with my man and no baby. So I figure that he will come when he wants to come.

Now the question is, is he gonna be a red head or a blond?? How about you cast your vote:)

Please Come...Now!

37 week belly--important stats; 1.5 cm and 60%, head down and low

Yesterday I had my first experience with the lovely concept of false labor. I've been having Braxton-Hicks contractions for weeks now, but yesterday they kicked up a notch and I was contracting every four minutes for hours. They obviously didn't hurt and lasted only 20 seconds, so I knew that it wasn't the real deal. However, it is so hard not to get excited and hope that maybe they will get painful and I will actually go into real labor. It is so interesting to know most of the textbook information about pregnancy and labor and then actually experience it myself. For example, I know very well the signs of false labor vs. real labor and yet somehow I hope that my false labor signs are actually real labor. It will be even more interesting to see how labor is for me; I'm predicting that it will be extremely long and painful just because I think labor and delivery is so cool, so I will probably get to really embrace the process:)

 I feel like I have had a very good attitude throughout the pregnancy and enjoyed being pregnant, but I am ready for this baby to come out NOW. Yes, I know what most of you are thinking (and rightfully so), I am only 37 weeks plus few days and it's my first baby, so I better just sit tight and wait for my turn. And obviously, I don't have any other options than to do so:)

Here are few of my thoughts about pregnancy...

1. It's cruel that stretch marks start showing up in the last few weeks of pregnancy...I feel like if you've made it to the last few weeks without any, you should be rewarded and not get any.

2. Three of my friends had their babies in the last five days. It really does not help me with my anxious desire to have my baby. My excitement for them is mixed with envy:)

3. People say that walking can help to get your labor started. I have been walking every day 3 miles for weeks now(for exercise, not to start labor) so I dont think it will do the trick...any suggestions??

4. Tucson heat and the fact that I have started to retain some fluid...enough that my weight can fluctuate 2-3 pounds from morning to evening. 

On a more positive note, we planted some flowers and they are so pretty. I love walking on our grass and looking at our flowers and for a second, I can pretend that I am not the desert:) Plus it makes me feel all nurturing when I water my flowers each morning.