Please, go the fuck to sleep

Lately X has been sleeping poorly. Well, lately X has not been sleeping. "Normally" he takes a 9:30 nap for about 30-45 minutes, then a two hour nap at 1:00, then a little 30 minute nap in the evening, at like 5:30. Then bed at 8:00. It has never really been an issue. Now he is boycotting morning naps all together and going down for a nap between 2 and 4. Urg. Plus he is getting up all the time during the night to nurse. Like every two hours. So I get maybe an hour of sleep by the time I wake up, nurse him, burp him, get him back to sleep, get him in his co-sleeper, comfort him some more and fall asleep myself. I am exhausted. However, I don't have to go to work, and honestly, I think it is normal for a baby to sleep like this, especially one who may be cutting teeth. That is why I am a stay at home mom, but it makes me SUPER cranky at 5 AM. However, in the nick of time, I found this article that just gave me a little encouragement. I am SO against sleep training, but every once in a while that voice in the back of my head questions my instincts and judgements, but the letters MD at the end of an article can really give me the courage to keep going.

Essentially this is what it says. Babies are super vulnerable, biologically speaking. They can't eat, walk, fight, hide. Essentially, all animals are born when their brains will fit. Well, X's didn't, but you get the idea. They do not know they are born into a developed country in the 21st century. All they know is they will get eaten by something if someone is not there to protect them.

All humans are like this. We have no protection except our ability to live in groups. People wake up all night long, sense safety and go back to sleep. This is interesting for someone with insomnia like myself because I essentially wake up and DON'T sense safety and don't go back to sleep.That is an entirely different blog though. One that doesn't exist, and one that I would probably need lots of therapy to write.

The article goes on to say that as Americans we stress that babies need to learn to sleep alone, to avoid dependency issues, when in reality it is the opposite. Babies don't need to sleep alone, they need to co-sleep. This makes me feel so much better about the fact that X has never, not once, actually slept in his crib. Someday I hope he does, but again, that is more for me than for him. I want my bed back, and Mike back. The end point is that parents measure how good at "parenting" they are based on normal baby behaviors. Most kids don't sleep through the night. That doesn't make me a bad parent. Sleeping with X will mean he wakes up more to nurse, it will also mean he won't die of SIDS or have abandonment issues. Truthfully, if he were in his crib, I would probably be sleeping on his floor anyway, or staying awake ALL night watching the monitor lights and creeping in to peek on him. Some people manage just fine, I hope at 6 months I do, because I feel like at 6 months it will be better for all of us for him to sleep in his crib. Right now, I just want him to sleep in his co-sleeper or pack and play, but that doesn't seem to be happening either. I just need to keep repeating "X's sleep habits don't make you a good or bad parent. It is just where he is developmentally, and you giving him what he needs which is you" over and over again. At least he is snuggly.

PS--I wrote this over the course of a week. It may seem choppy. Oh and X, he is sleeping on me right now because he wouldn't nap otherwise. At least dinner is already cooking.

PSS--read my disclaimer, its okay if you do this differently, I am not judging anyone, I am just justifying my decisions to myself. Yeah, I really should seek psychiatric help.

X's Birth Story

This is really long, but I wanted it for me.


On Sunday at about noon I started feeling crampy, but that wasn't really any different than any other day, so I took a nap. When I woke up I still felt a little off, but I didn't want to just sit at home. Mike and I went to the mall to get some frozen yogurt and walk around a bit, since walking is supposed to be some magical labor inducer. At around 6 we went to Old Chicago for dinner like we did every week and I started to feel really crampy. At home Mike rubbed my back and I took a bath, hoping that would help. I really wanted to sleep that night so I could go to work the next day without feeling exhausted. At ten o'clock I told Mike I had to go to bed so I went upstairs to bed. About two hours later I was up again. The cramps had increased and laying down made them worse. I came downstairs where I sat on a ball, walked around, reclined, anything to alleviate them but everything made them worse. I couldn't really tell if I was having contractions or not. Ever since the baby dropped it was harder for me to feel them even though I knew I was having timeable contractions from the non-stress test results we got earlier from the doctor.

At about 1:30 I called Amy to ask her about them. I could still breath through them and walk, and to be honest I just felt like I was in a lot of pain, not really labor. I couldn't time anything. When I did I got results that varied in time from two minutes to five minutes. Amy said she was coming over to check how things were going. I woke Mike up and told him Amy was on her way and that he should take Ella, our dog, to his parent's house just in case. I still didn't think I was having a baby. Amy came over and told me I was definitely in labor and she could measure my contractions by feeling my stomach. My water hadn't broken so she did an internal exam to check and I was dilated to a 3 and 70% effaced. She had a hard time measuring my cervix though because it was very posterior and the exam was quite painful. After that things sped up, I started to feel more intense pain and I was having a hard time dealing with it. We decided to go to the hospital because I was in so much pain and my mom's labor had been so short.

The car ride was awful. Sitting up in a car was so painful and those 20 minutes were pretty intense. When we got to the hospital I continued to have contractions as we walked in. I went to labor and delivery and they checked me in. The nurse did an internal exam and said I was a 2 and 80% effaced. Amy read the fear on my face that the results were not better, and in fact worse than they were. She explained that since my cervix was so far posterior, it would be easy to read as less dilated if they were trying to not cause me pain. They offered to let me labor at the hospital or go home. If they had asked me when I wasn't in labor what I would have chosen I would have gone home, but there was no way I was getting in the car again, so we stayed. We walked the halls and I took a bath (sort of, I knelt in the shower while Mike and Amy sprayed me with warm water. It is the only thing that helped, but I was so cold since most of me was just exposed. The pain was getting more intense and Amy told me I needed to prepared for it to last for at least a few more hours and get a lot more intense. I said I wanted to reevaluate my desire for a med-free birth. Amy was very clear with and said it didn't matter right then, I couldn't have an epidural anyway since I wasn't in "active labor" at only 2 cm and we would talk about it later. I was so tired. I laid on the couch for about 20 minutes and tried to sleep between contraction, but they were awful. I got sick and threw up quite a bit. By then it was around 4 or 5 am and I was hungry and tired and still didn't feel like I was in labor. I felt NOTHING in my stomach area. Not a contraction, or a tightening, all I felt was the baby moving and the pain in my back. They checked me again and I had progressed a little bit, but not much. I walked around some more and asked Amy numerous times if I was actually in labor, I was so scared they were going to send me home.

I knew I had to relax my pelvic muscles for labor to progress, and I tried, but I just couldn't. During contractions I would sway, breathe, relax my body, but my pelvis just wasn't going to relax. Since we had success with the bath before I got back into and had the worst contraction ever. I was in tears and I just felt so defeated. I couldn't relax, I couldn't sleep, I was so hungry and I was terrified of what was coming. Labor was nothing like I expected or prepared for: I had tons of techniques to alleviate abdominal pain, and a lot of that was dependent on the pain coming and going, that a contraction would suck, but then subside. But this didn't. It was like I had been having a steadily growing giant contraction since dinner. I told Amy and Mike I wanted an epidural. Both of them asked me if I wanted to wait and I told them no, so I got out of the tub and prepared to let go of the natural birth I wanted so badly. So at 6:45, right before the change of shift, I got an epidural.

It was honestly the best feeling in the world. I wouldn't want to get one if I wasn't in intense pain because going from the worse pain in the world to complete numbness was amazing. Instantly I was so relieved, I had no idea I would feel like that, it made it a lot easier to come to terms with needing one because it was just so amazing. However, I keep having pain in one part of my back, which I guess is pretty normal and called a "window". Amy left to go take care of her own kids and gave me instructions to sleep, that is why I got the epidural and we all knew I would face a longer pushing session because of the epidural. I was still really scared that I would end up with a c-section because of the epidural, that it would slow the progress of my labor and I wouldn't progress. I told the nurses about the pain, and the anesthesiologist came in to give me a new epidural. They put it in lower and the window went away. My actual doctor was then on rotation in the ward which made me feel so much better. He came in, talked to me about my birth plan and reassured me that the epidural hadn't ruined everything, I could still have some of the items I wanted, plus he would deliver my baby! Mike and I both fell asleep after calling my mom and asking her to come.

When I woke up they checked me again and I had made great progress. The epidural hadn't slowed anything down and I was dilating about 1cm every hour! It was the best news ever. I tried to sleep more and was pretty successful. Finally, around 2:00 I was dilated to 9.5--I was feeling good, but I was STARVING. I had thrown up quite a lot and was limited to ice chips. I am not sure I have ever felt so thirsty before in my life. The doctor told me I would have a baby before he left at five and he checked the baby, estimating him again at right around 8 pounds. The nurse asked if I wanted to start pushing and I said I would like to labor down for an hour or until I felt pressure since the doctor told me I would probably need to push for about 1.5 hours, so I had plenty of time. An hour later I still felt no pressure, so we agreed to lessen the epidural to increase feeling. At around 4:00 I still felt nothing and the doctor came to talk to me about not delivering my baby. He reassured me about the new doctor that was coming on, who he had worked with in Boulder and trusted. I really like my doctor, so I completely trusted his opinion. I was disappointed, but we both agreed waiting to feel pressure was important in shortening my pushing.

Finally, around 6:00 I felt pressure and wanted to start pushing. Amy had returned and we all prepped for at least an hour of pushing. The contractions were hurting pretty bad at this point and I really wanted to press the button on the epidural to get drugs, but when I started pushing the pain went away. Again, I was totally taken by surprise in labor. I expected pushing to hurt like hell, but it didn't at all, it alleviated all of the pain of the contractions. I sort of liked it even. It took me a while to learn how to push (I blame the epi, but I am not sure). Every 20 minutes I would switch positions. After about an hour I was getting tired, but not too bad, just really thirsty. They checked my temperature and I was developing a fever. At the time I really didn't think that mattered at all, and thought it was just one of those things that they check in the hospital over and over for no reason.

The doctor came in and checked the baby. That was exceptionally painful. X was in +2 position and needed to make it to +5--so three more centimeters. The doctor didn't want to try a vacuum or forceps because he wasn't far enough out. X looked good on the monitors, but the doctor was really concerned about my fever and told me I had a uterine infection from my water breaking so much earlier that day. He told me that normally they only allow women to push for 2 hours, but since the baby looked so good he would continue to let me try for another hour, but at the point, if no progress was made, we would need to do a c-section and possibly quickly due to the infection. I had already been pushing for 2 hours and had made very little progress. Finally getting to hold him. They recommended pitocin and I agreed since the whole reason I wanted to avoid pitocin was to avoid being in bed all day, and that was already done. The pitocin increased my contractions so that I had more opportunities to push. I continued to push for another hour and half, and he never made it out. He started to show signs of distress and I was put on oxygen to help him and me. Towards the end I started to feel super stressed and sick, knowing I would have a c-section if I didn't get him out soon. Everyone in the room was working so hard, and he just wouldn't move.

The doctor came in to check and there was no progress. He told me I needed a c-section because the baby was being exposed to the infection and I had made no progress. Pushing as hard as I could every two minutes for an hour and half had done nothing but expose my baby to an infection, exhaust me and stress both of our bodies. I started crying as all of the nurses and doctors got ready for surgery.

We requested that Amy and Mike go with me to surgery, even though only one person is normally allowed. The anesthesiologist agreed (I think it helped that Amy is a medical professional and worked with some of them years ago). They took me alone to the room and made me move from one bed to the other. I thought I could. I couldn't. It was so hard to move my feet. Then they put up the screen and gave me morphine. I started to panic, but the anesthesiologist talked me through it and soon enough Mike and Amy were with me. I was so cold and so numb and so scared. Soon I felt lots of tugging and pulling. I was so scared that something was going to go wrong, but then the baby was out and was crying. I was so out of it. I know Mike went to cut the cord because I have pics, but I don't remember. Hearing him cry was the most amazing moment of my life and Amy took a few quick pics and brought them to me so I could see him. Finally they brought me my baby. I was shaking so hard from the morphine I had a hard time reaching over to him. I wanted to hold him so badly, but they took him to the nursery. Amy stayed with me while they finished the surgery. I remember them talking about dancing hamsters. Yes, I am sure.

Finally they took me to post op where X and Mike. I was still shaking so bad which terrified me. I wish I would have prepped better for a c-section so that I would have known what to expect. The shaking is normal, but it was so scary and awful because I couldn't hold X. I think someone helped me breastfeed him, but I am not sure. My mom and Amy left to go home since it was already past midnight. Finally, after a bath and tests and who knows what else, I got to take him in a wheel chair to our new room where we stayed until Friday, learning how to breastfeed and dealing with all the complications.

I had a ton of antibiotics, but X was okay. He had some bruising on his head from where I tried to push and his ear was swollen and folded over pretty bad, but that was all. He was just gigantic and no one expected that. 9 pounds, 7 ounces is a big baby. He lost 8% of his birth weight, but he gained it back pretty fast. The surgery was crazy painful and I found it really helpful that Mike had already had abdominal surgeries so he could help me. He knew what to expect. We shared time with the baby, mostly because if I held him he always wanted to eat, and I didn't have anything to feed him. With Mike he was calmer.

Fail

I did not show diabetes who's boss. I don't even want to post. That 3rd tri post was supposed to have words, lots of words. But now, I will probably not even edit it. BOO.

Half Way

At nineteen weeks a lot of books consider me half way, although at twenty weeks I think I will be more comfortable calling it half way. I can't believe I have been pregnant for so long. I am definitely starting to show more constantly, rather than the baby playing hide and go seek every day. I can also feel my belly more, like I bump into things and I feel a hard lump when I lay down or against something. Mike says he can feel it too when I sleep against him, just like a constant pressure. The baby definitely kicks now--or punches, headbutts, something--it is more like a thumping than a fluttering or a vibration. I feel the fluttering more still, but there have been a few thumps in there. I am excited to see it moving all over the place in the ultrasound and to finally be able to call it something other than it! 10 days and counting until our anatomy scan.

It is also time to start making real decisions. We are completely registered on Baby's R Us and Amazon.com, although I need to add some gender specific items and update the amazon registry to include our stroller and car seat choices since those changed. We started the nursery, or we cleaned the room and picked out paint. Jill is going to bring me the crib on Wednesday. We are going to do the closet ourselves, but it is going to be really hard for me to wait on buying stuff. At the very end of pregnancy both registries will give us a one time coupon to get everything still left on the registry at 10% off, but that doesn't leave a whole lot of time to actually finish the nursery, so I think I will end up buying some stuff early. Even though it is a good deal, there are certain things we do really need for the baby and there will be plenty of other stuff for people to buy, like clothes and stuff. We will see how I do on self-control. I also need to put in for my leave of absence at work. I think we have book decided that it is best for me to take a year off, but it makes me really nervous. I am not good at depending on someone else and I am very worried about how I will handle the stress of dependency plus the stress of loosing so much money all at once. Neither of us are very good at budgeting, and we sort of need to figure that out now. I have been trying to get out of debt before the baby comes, and I have made some good progress, but I still have outstanding debt and although we have plenty of money it doesn't seem like we are rolling in it.

The hardest thing is that I need to come to terms with the fact that I have to actually have the baby. You always know you have to, but it seems so distant. We need to take some labor classes and I need to read a lot of books on how to have a natural labor so that I am prepared. Right now The Bradley Method of childbirth is all the rage with natural birth advocates, but I don't like it, it creeps me out. I am not sure why. So I need to find books on other methods and prepare myself. Mike also needs to prepare to be able to help me, or something. I am not sure. I think I want my mom there with me to help. She really wants me to get a doula, and although I can see the benefits, I can also see the expense. I am just not sure having yet another person in there will help. I mean, they are supposed to advocate for you and your choices, but I want to be able to make those choices as the happen, although I am not sure that is realistic. I need to talk to Mike and see how comfortable he is in making choices or being assertive while I am in labor. If he isn't then maybe I will get a doula. I just don't know. Regardless, really big deal that I need to deal with soon :)

As far as the baby goes, we have a mango:
Vernix caseosa, a greasy white substance made of lanugo, oil, and dead skin cells (yum) now coats baby's skin, shielding it from the amniotic fluid. (Picture yourself after a nine-month bath, and the need for protection makes sense.) You might get to see the vernix at birth, especially if baby is premature.

Your baby is between five and six inches long and weighs about seven ounces—about the size of an apple. If the baby is a girl, early ovaries contain follicles with forming eggs. Soon, half of the genetic material for your potential future grandchildren will be formed. Pictures of babies at this age show them touching the membrane of the amniotic sac, touching their own faces, reaching for the umbilical cord, pedaling their legs, and sucking their thumbs. If you're carrying twins, they may already be swatting at each other. Your baby may already have a preference for the left or right hand. In the brain, areas of the nerve cells that serve the senses of touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing are becoming specialized and are forming more complex connections. Loud sounds as well as any feelings you may have of stress or alarm may be communicated to the baby. The baby responds to these stresses by becoming more active. Practicing yoga and meditation can be good for your sense of calm and balance.

And for me:
Those nasty leg cramps are probably making it tough to get comfortable. One way to ease the pain: Extend your leg and flex your ankle and toes toward your knees. Or enlist your partner for a calf (and back!) massage. Good news: Your now-bulging belly should get you a little more compassion from everyone around you.

Will it ever be easy?

I got more test results, still waiting on the Rh results. My hCG levels are raising, they are still in the super low end of normal, but they did double. I know from reading a lot of other people's pages that they actually triple in 48 hours a lot of times, and mine definitely aren't doing that. However, the doctor said they did double and that is good enough. I was reading about it and it could mean that I am less pregnant than I thought I was, like conception happened later, but I really don't think so and that is not what the ultrasound showed. I am not sure why they are low, hopefully it is just how I am. The normal range is sort of ridiculous, and as you go up in months, so does the spread. Hopefully next week I break the 10,000 mark. Hopefully I am Rh positive and I won't have to get RhGAM shots since I am sort of over having needles poked into my arms.

I am also still having some mild bleeding. Nothing like last Friday, but "normal" is none, so it is still worrisome. The doctor said I may just bleed and they may never know why, which isn't comforting at all. But as long as I am not having cramping and bleeding (like last Friday) a miscarriage isn't imminent, could still happen, but not right then, so I will go with that. It sucks because until we hear a heartbeat there is no way to be sure. Lots of babies grow at this stage and then the heart doesn't develop. Come on little heartbeat. I just with I had high hCG levels OR no bleeding, having both makes it more scary. On the bright side, low hCG means no morning sickness, and the cyst on my ovary doesn't hurt as much. Although, I would almost be happy to have morning sickness because it would mean everything is getting better. Morning sickness can be a good indicator of pregnancy.

Return to the ER

Yesterday we went to the Great American Beer Festival for Mike's quarter century birthday. Yes, he is the baby, I try to not think about it most days. Anyway, aside from it being awesome for everyone who was not DD, I had a particularly uncomfortable day. As soon as we got to the festival, I noticed some spotting and increasingly severe cramping, which of course I looked up immediately on google. Essentially it said it is not a good thing, but it is common. Not normal, but not super critical. However, as the night progressed it went from spotting to actual bleeding. I was torn between telling Mike and ruining his evening and not telling, but as the night progressed it became clear to me that I wasn't going to be able to just ignore it. So, instead of staying out drinking all night and being DD for four drunk frat boys, I took them all home.

Of course, upon arrival at anywhere with an internet connection, I immediately looked up what first trimester bleeding could mean. The data was terrifying. First of all, 50% of all pregnancies end in a miscarriage, usually in the first trimester. Now, this goes back to science actually making life suck. A lot of those happen in the first few days of pregnancy and it used to be that your "period" was just a few days late, when in actually conception happened but implantation went awry. However, not that you can find out you are pregnant 5 days sooner, you can also find out you miscarried 5 days sooner, which is to say at all. Moving on with the stats. About 20-30% of women bleed during the first trimester after you take out implantation bleeding, which happens to more like 50% of women. Some of the reasons are known, and some aren't, but 50% of women who bleed eventually miscarry. The reasons that are known also suck: miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, STDs, etc. By the middle of the night the bleeding was bad and Mike and I agreed I would go to the doctor in the morning.

So, after sobbing uncontrollably for a good hour I fell asleep. Kaiser opens at 8:00 on Saturdays and has an Urgent Care center at the Westminster office. I was so relieved that the ER was not my only option. So I called the emergency nurse to have a phone consult before my appointment. The nurse was helpful and walked me through a lot of information. At the end of the phone call, she told me to go, immediately, to the ER. She said not to drive and not to speed, but to get my husband to take me to the hospital and to arrive there within the hour. Her words were somewhere along the lines of, we don't know what is actually wrong, but if it is ectopic, it can be life threatening and we have to rule that out before we can do anything else. Terrifying. I woke Mike up and told him the news and we headed to the ER. Neither of us thought it was that severe, but essentially it is one of those things you have to do. Like an appendicitis, you don't put it off until Monday. So for the second time Mike took me to Good Samaritan where I answered all sorts of things that I have never said in front of another person before. Being pregnant really decreases privacy.

The doctor saw me, they took a crap ton of blood and took away my hot chocolate (so that if I did have to have surgery, I wouldn't be full). I love this hospital, and most of the people there, but I really didn't like my nurse because she didn't seem to have a clue. Like, she asked me if I had a tampon in. What? I am pregnant! Anyway. Also, the IV dude sort of sucked and used some sort of huge needle. I am not exaggerating. I told the nurse that it hurt and I told the doctor I didn't need the IV because I wasn't having a problem with liquids, but no luck, they left the bastard thing in the whole time.

Pretty soon I went to ultrasound to check for the location of the pregnancy. The x-ray tech is quite possibly my favorite person right now. They did belly ultrasounds, which was fine, but they couldn't see anything. Then came the totally awesome inter-vaginal ultrasound. Fun times. She took a ton of photos and told me she would explain them later. That is when I got the best news, she could show me exactly where the baby was in my uterus. At four weeks we could see it, actually 4 weeks and 5 days, which is exactly where I thought I was, which was awesome. Not much of a baby, just a small dark dot, but it was there. I also have a cyst on my ovary which makes it tender and can cause some cramping, but also raises my progesterone. She went through all the scans with us and talked to us. Apparently I have a Y shaped uterus, which is abnormal but not dangerous. So the baby nestled into one side of the Y and the other side of the Y could still be unaware that I am not pregnant and could be sloughing old cells like a normal period. It doesn't hurt the baby, but it can lead to bleeding throughout pregnancy. She was awesome. At the end she told us that she isn't actually supposed to tell me any of this, but often in the ER they don't go over it with you and you have to wait until you see you OBGYN to get any information. I am so glad she told me, because that is exactly what happened.

I went back to my room and had a pelvic exam (with Mike in the room, how is that for awkward) and a catheter to extract urine. Super fun times--apparently I have a small urethra. That shit hurts. Then we waited, and waited, and waited. Eventually they came in and told me my urine was fine and my ultrasound showed my pregnancy was in my uterus so it was safe. They also said my cervix was closed, which is good because it opens when there is impending miscarriage. All good. I did have an infection that I remember reading about, but they can't treat it until I am past my first trimester. It causes cramping in the lower abdomen. That was it. Nothing about my ultrasound or anything. I am SO GLAD the x-ray tech told me. The doctor told me that if I am going to have a miscarriage, I will have one. There is nothing they can do about it, and nothing I did to cause it, it just is. It is predestined genetically at this point. She told me could definitely still have one, but it is not impending nor guaranteed and I can carry the baby to term as far as my blood work and other tests are concerned. I have to back in to track my beta levels of hgc. Finally the shitty nurse took out my IV and informed me that indeed the needle was really big and that was why it hurt. No shit. I never actually had any fluid, just an empty IV for four hours. Regardless, the shitty nurse gave me my discharge papers BEFORE they got the results on my creepy infection, so my diagnosis was pregnancy. $100 for piece of mind was totally worth it.

It took me a long time to research the infection because I didn't know the name and I couldn't find it. It wasn't on my discharge paperwork because the shitty nurse wrote it up before I was actually discharged. Essentially it is from having the ph balance off, which is the result of pregnancy or an excess of semen which changes the ph. Whatever. It is essentially Mike's fault, but so is the baby, so I am good with it. :)