starting to get the hang of things...

alas! this shall be my much delayed second post as a mother (aka zombie). It's true what they say- my 'mothering' instincts really have kicked in & i'm in full mommy/kickass-multi-tasker mode. That being said, the instincts have done nothing in the way of helping me get hardly any sleep... which I knew would be part of it, but GEEZ it sucks (massive understatement, obvi). The only reason i've found time to finally post again is because i'm currently awaiting my stubborn daughter to fall asleep. The poor thing HATES giving up the day. She'll doze off and catch herself, and jerk awake again. The issue of sleep in and of itself has been an issue with her... the goal is to (sometime in the next few weeks) get her to sleep AT LEAST a few nights a week in her bassinet. She can be passed out in my arms but as soon as I lay her down to sleep in that bassinet, she starts wailing. So, figuring she just hates to be laid on her back in a big, flat area we've been allowing her to sleep in her bouncer. It's super soft & comfy and cocoons her, and she seems to love it. However, even that hasn't been working the past couple nights, so i finally gave in & am allowing her to sleep in her swing tonight- and am praying for better results. At this point, i'll do anything to get even 3 hours of consecutive rest. So far, she seems to be at least a bit less alert than she usually is at this hour- all thanks to the swing (i think/hope). Though the little thing certainly can't sleep in the swing on the reg, so the problem of figuring out a way to get her to sleep in the bassinet/crib is still hovering over our heads :/

Aside from the sleep issue, Layla really is a super easygoing & content baby. She's having more & more alert periods, but she's happy just chilling in her swing or bouncer, sucking on the paci-ish thing, and just taking everything in. She eats almost exactly every 2 hours, which is exhausting of course. Speaking of eating, the whole breast feeding thing is going amazingly well! The first week was super tough because my poor nipples weren't quite used to such activity and were so sore. Engorgement was also a particularly fun time, when my boobs swelled to literally twice their pre-preggo size and I had more milk than Layla was eating, which led to the early purchase of a breast pump (which is ridiculous, by the way- i can pump a good 5 oz in 5 minutes!). After the first week, however, the soreness wore off and breast feeding is like second nature now :)

On that note, I will have to cut this post a bit short because baby has woken up and is, of course, hungry. :p

this is my first post as a new, proud momma & i have a feeling I will hardly be able to keep up this whole blogging thing with the same dedication I had prior to Layla :/

However, i'm running on a decent 3 hours of sleep and had a miniscule amount of free time that I decided to use for this :)

Well, note from my last post*: sex (and possibly walking) definitely do the trick. Late last thursday night, I was fed up with being pregnant. I'd done some more power walking with mom earlier that evening, and Tanner & I decided, what the hell? Let's give sex a go & see what happens. If nothing else, we'll have a little bit of fun. It was a successful, though hilarious, attempt. And honestly, I really didn't expect anything to come of it. IF anything happened, I figured it'd take at least a day to get anything going. So around 1:30 I finally collapsed in bed.

...

By 1:56, I had been timing my contractions for almost 30 minutes, they were 3-6 minutes apart, i'd woken tanner & my parents, and we were headed to the hospital.

By 3am I was admitted and the show was on the road :p

The whole labor itself was not what I expected or had prepared myself for. Initially, the contractions were getting stronger & super uncomfortable (duh), and I had strictly back labor- I never felt a single pain in my tummy. So after a bit, I decided to try to stand up rather than lay on my back on that horrid hospital bed- and that worked WONDERS. The pain went from a 5 to a 2 almost instantly. The contractions were much more manageable, & by 6 cm I was still standing up & going strong with no epidural (which was my plan) :D However, I was dilating super fast ( i'd decided to get the epidural only at the last possible moment, ideally 8 cm) and the doctor told me that if i still wanted to get it, i'd better get it now at 7 cm, because by the time I go to 8 and she made it back to my room to give it to me, I might have already progressed to 9 and then it would be too late for me to have it :/ So in my spine the needle went (which, by the way, was not bad at all- it just felt like someone tugging on my back a bit or something).

I was feeling pretty great until out of NOWHERE, i got these intense, super painful cramps in my left thigh. It was more painful than any of the contractions I'd had before and... I really don't even know how to describe it. The pain was just so ridiculous. The doctor came back in to check me & said I was experiencing leg labor (which i'd never heard of before) and that i'd gone from 8 cm to almost 10 in that past 5 minutes- and that it was time to push!

Pushing, oddly enough, was probably the easiest part of the whole pregnancy/birthing experience. My morning sickness & headaches were worse. I'd always seen on tv these women screaming & straining as they pushed, & having to practice how to do it.

I don't know if it was just me or what, but it was most natural thing ever. I didn't turn beet red from straining so much, I wasn't sweating or crying- I just pushed. They make it out to be so horrible but truly, if you're just calm & determined, it's not bad at all. I pushed for about 20 minutes and then all of a sudden, the nurse was holding my head up off the pillow so I could see over the sheet and I saw the doctor pulling my beautiful baby girl out. Tanner cut the cord (he also helped hold my leg back as I pushed, but i FORBADE him to look down at the queen victoria & what was happening to it) and then they wrapped her up in a blanket and put on her on my chest- which was indescribable. She had been squalling when she came out (obvi), but quieted down immediately upon being put on my chest. I had Tanner there to lean in and hug me & her, and it honestly was one of, if not THE, happiest moment(s) in my life.

The recovery was not bad at all, which also surprised me. I figured i'd be in the hospital a day or two and then bedridden at home for at least a week, if not more. But by the day after delivering her, I was able to walk around fine and 2 days later, was able to move around just as I did before with no problems :)

It's an amazing feeling being a parent. I never knew I could love someone with such an absolute fierce passion. I cry out of happiness all the time just looking at her.

And she's such a good baby. Very content & easygoing, and really only cries when you change her diaper, which she absolutely hates, haha :X

She's added an element of such happiness to our lives that we never knew existed. Tanner is smitten with  her, of course, and she has him wrapped around her little finger :p He's been amazing through this and is such a fantastic father. We call him the baby whisperer because half the time when she's fussy, he can hold her & she instantly settles right down.

Oh- she's awake, and hungry :/

Thus ends this post, but I shall try to update this at least once a week if I can 

:D

so close.

i'm not sure there's a more frustrating thing for a pregnant lady to hear than for her doctor to look at her and say, "girl, how are you still pregnant?!"

...

I DON'T KNOW.

my daughter clearly is holding on for as long as she can.

i'm 4 cm dilated, 100% effaced. Doctor said she could have broken my water with her fingernail if she'd wanted to. She asked how I possibly haven't been having any contractions, and I really had no answer. I've been told before by my OB that I have a high pain threshold, but I wouldn't think it'd be THAT high... we did discover that i've been mistaking some of my contractions for cramps. I've always had severe cramping with my periods, so I was used to the feeling and just wrote the cramping now off as just that- cramps, not contractions.

well OOPS.

My doctor was actually the one on-call at the hospital last night, and as we left her office yesterday she said she expected to see me there that night- that I wouldn't make it much longer.

Lo and behold, I had 3 total contractions last night- and no more. At this point, my doctor has said to just be on the lookout for ANY pain/regularity, whether or not it 'feel's like a contraction. At this rate, she's worried that by the time I might start having more painful contractions and go to the hospital, I'll be 8 or 9 cm dilated. Humph. 

SO,

i power walked like no preggo woman ever has before last night, and I intended on doing the same again here shortly. Here's to letting loose some contractions! :)

waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I think i can safely say that these last few days (and any remaining days) are going by about 6 million times slower than the whole past 9 months of my pregnancy. I am literally almost TEN months preggo now, and want this show to get on the road! >:{ I am attempting most of the suggested strategies to get this baby going... walking, rolling around on the yoga ball, and eating spicy foods (to the dismay of my stomach/esophagus later). I'm laying off the 'nipple stimulation' method because, if it even works, it can apparently lead to more painful/strong contractions than i would normally have- so that's out. I know sex is often a sure thing too. However, not only do I feel like a hippo, but since the doctor was so easily able to feel the baby's head last week, i'm feeling a little trepidation about anything going in THAT door...

NOT TO MENTION,

it's all compounded by the fact that i'm not even having really any labor 'symptoms' that would insinuate i'm going into labor soon. I mean yes, the baby's head has dropped & i'm dilating & 80% effaced, but all that means almost nothing if I don't have regular & increasingly strong contractions. I don't even FEEL uncomfortable/miserable... which I feel like I should be feeling at least a little shitty if i'm so close to delivering. I'm still running up stairs, bouncing around the house, running errands, etc. Other than some occasional cramping, you'd never think I was hours/days away from active labor if you didn't know about the dilation/effacement.

so basically,

i feel like i'm going to be pregnant forever.

at least a FEW contractions would help me see there was some light at the end of the tunnel. My doctors won't let me go any longer than October 15th. I know that's only next saturday, but Jesus, you can't tell a pregnant woman who's beyond full term that, "hey, that's just a week or so away!" ... that's an eternity. I appreciate my dad/step mom, grandparents, mother-in-law (which she all but is), and tanner's dad/step mom calling me every day to check on me... HOWEVER, it's really just a friendly reminder that YEP, i haven't had the baby yet- YES, it's time she was here & it should be any time now. It makes it worse that I have to verbally say each of those things several times a day to people that are like" well i'm getting awful anxious & am ready for her to be here..."

really.

you have no idea, dear ignorant (but loving) family member.

I AM BEYOND READY.

The one thing I have not done is drink castor oil, my reasoning being,

1. never mind that it tastes like shit, but it's definitely not a proven method, and

2. it's a laxative. as much as this waiting game sucks, i'd rather wait than take that & have the runs for God knows how long :x

and of course, as i'm watching a Baby Story on TLC, the mother in this episode is 70% effaced and 2 cm dilated (like myself), but is in active labor.

...

WHY can't my body to that?

so frustrating.

On a different note, she's screaming like a maniac and acting like a pregzilla.

If nothing else, out of pride i REFUSE to be one of those women that lies on the bed screaming & crying. It's called labor for a reason- it hurts. It's the hardest thing i'll probably ever have to do- but it's worth it. My plan is to go as natural as long as I can, (ideally until i'm 8cm), at which point i'll get the epidural JUST so that I can push. I don't want to be too exhausted from dealing naturally with the contractions that i'm too tired to push when it's time to do so. I've also stipulated that I'd like to help catch her as she comes out and want her to be immediately put on my chest so I can breastfeed. I know that babies do something called the 'chest crawl', which is absolutely amazing and I really hope to experience. Basically, the baby is put on my chest as soon as she's born, and she will literally inch or CRAWL her way towards my boobs because they give off some scent that's similar to what she's been smelling in my womb these past 9 months, so she instinctively knows to head in that direction. Also, (not to give too much info), but my areoles (?) have gotten darker with pregnancy, as they're supposed to. This darkness helps direct her in the way of my boobs because, being a baby- she can't see very well, but she CAN distinguish light & dark. So not only are they darker so that she can see them, but they smell like something that's familiar and that she's drawn to, so she'll literally crawl her way to them months before she should even know HOW to crawl. 

It's truly amazing.

Aside from having this little complain/rant fest, I'm actually a pretty happy camper :x

I'm healthy, she's healthy, & everything really is going great :)