To all the mothers out there

What are you doing reading this? Go take a nap. Seriously, if you have time to sit here reading this you are choosing poorly or you do not have a baby. Or your baby isn't screaming herself to sleep several times a day. (Not to name names *cough, cough* Paige).

I didn't realize that having a baby would make you want a glass of wine at ten in the morning. I haven't partaken yet but I've been close. Part of the problem is we are currently in an extended stay hotel in Alabama while Rick goes through a two month officer school. Originally he was supposed to deploy in January so we decided to take advantage of our unexpected time together and come with him. Actually, come to think of it, I may have been drinking when making that decision. It is hard, HARD, being away from home with an infant. Cloth diapering, healthy eating, and then grad school obligations don't help. I had not planned on putting Paige on a schedule until we got back home and even then it was just a passing thought. With every screaming fit though, that thought gets closer and closer to a reality. I've actually been tracking her natural schedule (nerd alert!) for a few days. She usually goes a couple days in a nice pattern and then switches it around the next. I don't plan on locking her down on a minute to minute schedule but if we could at least get a loose schedule established it might save my sanity.

So schedule making for the next few days will probably be what happens. Wish us luck and lots of visits from Mr. Sandman. Like I keep telling her, at least she's good looking.

The rest of the story

I just found out I was getting induced, not sometime this week, but the very next day. Originally the doctor wanted to send me to Labor and Delivery that night, but told me to go ahead and try to get Rick home first. Luckily, his squadron got to work and flew another pilot out to California to meet his plane. He grabbed dinner really quick and jumped on a commercial flight, flew all night, and made it to Little Rock bright and early Tuesday morning.

After I left the doctor's office and made my frantic phone calls, I headed out to run some last minute errands. Abbey and her family were on their way to Little Rock already so she was able to help me load up on groceries and toilet paper before my mom got there. I think I was in shock the whole day. We thought I might be induced but we weren't prepared for it, emotionally, mentally, or physically. We had just completed 8 weeks of natural labor classes but as soon as the doctor said inducing that all went out the window.

Rick and I went into the hospital Tuesday night around 5. They hooked me up to the monitors and started cytatec around 7. Apparently, I was already having contractions but not feeling them. Sometime during the night I started feeling the contractions but nothing too bad. I was able to sleep through them. Rick slept through it all until the next morning. I was still having contractions but was barely dialated to 1. They started pitocin at 7 and then broke my water about an hour later. Everything went really quickly after that. It seems like the next time they checked me I was already dilated to 5. At some point I started to have back labor. I was still trying to avoid the epidural so decided to have them give me Demoral. Worst decision ever. It made me completley loopy and then I ended up getting the epidural anyway. I was already almost a 7 when I got the epidural and next tiem they checked me I was fully dialated and ready to push. I don't remember feeling an urge to push but, like I said, I was really loopy. We pushed for half an hour or so and Paige was not cooperated. Her heartrate dropped at one point and the doctor had to suction her out. She was pissed! She started screaming immediately. I just lost it and started bawling, mainly with relief that the whole thing was over.

She had to go to the nursery almost immediately because of low blood sugar and had an IV for a few days. We had some nursing trouble at first and she dropped to 4 lbs 14 oz. Tiny! She's almost 9 lbs at two months now. We of course think she's so big but other people looking at her still think she's tiny. My recovery was really easy and I'm so thankful for that. I'm sure it had something to do with how small she was. Now I just have to discover this thing people call working out. I hear it's good for you and makes you look like a celebrity. I have my doubts.

What really happened...

Also known as the Paige story. She's wide awake but trapped in a swaddler and in the Ergo so I'm hoping she falls asleep soon. Though I may be forcing her. That's what mom's are for, right? Forcing you to do stuff you don't want to.

We had maternity pics taken at 36 weeks pregnant. This is what I looked like:

Well, what my belly looked like at least. Let's just say I barely looked 30 weeks and was measuring small as well. I was, however, continuing to grow every week, but the doctor was still worried. I had already had one later ultrasound a week before and also a non-stress test.  Paige had past both with flying colors. So we went into our regular doctor appt. the Monday after taking maternity pictures. I still was measuring small (just like I had the entire pregnancy so no surprise there). The Dr. decided he wanted to get another ultrasound Wednesday. He doesn't say anything about inducing me, but Rick and I both think that if she looks small on the ultrasound that what's going to happen. Of course, Rick has just gone on baby watch at work which should mean only local flights. But, being the good, helpful guy he is and thinking we have another month to go, he agrees to be put on a maintenance alert in case parts need to be flown anywhere. People never get alerted....except for him, two hours after we get home from the doctor's office. He packs up and flies off to Alaska. With a part that would have cost a tenth as much to just ship to the base up there. Seriously. If I was in charge of the AF- hello, FedEx.

So I go to my ultrasound on Wednesday and she's measuring on par with everything except her abdomen which is three weeks behind and her weight is below where the all-knowing babycenter app on the smartest phone I know is telling me it should be. The doctor isn't supposed to call until the next day so we both have restless nights. It hits me early the next morning that we have no food in the freezer and I should cook up a storm just in case they decide to induce me. I call it stress cooking. Finally, the nurse calls and says everything looks fine and they'll see me next Monday. Big sigh of relief. Until she calls Friday to say actually, go ahead and come in early for a non-stress test. Great.

Rick's stuck in Alaska at this point with a broke plane. On Sunday he calls the bosses to let them know that if the appt. doesn't go well on Monday he's going to have to leave. Luckily, they are very understanding.

I go in Monday and again Paige kicks butt (literally) on her non-stress test. The doctor comes in measures me, looks at the test results, looks at my records, and says let's go ahead and get that baby out this week. And by this week I mean tonight. Well, since Rick isn't here how about tomorrow? And try to get him home because tomorrow is when it's happening.

He said everything looked okay but her abdomen was small and he was worried about her becoming stressed and would rather get her out now. Like right now.

He goes out to call over to Labor and Delivery while I text my mom and Rick the "They're inducing me tomorrow. No, I'm not kidding. Start packing" text message.

And that's where we pause for nursing and diaper changes.

Paige Ellis

Our sweet baby is here. I've tried to post several times from my phone with her asleep on my chest but it never worked out. Now that she's asleep on her Daddy's chest, we have to go to dinner in two hours. That means it's time for mama to get ready because when you have to dry your hair, nurse, change a diaper, put on some makeup, nurse (wait did I brush my teeth already?), and change another diaper, outfit and maybe your own outfit, it takes two hours at least. So hopefully, eventually, I'll be able to regale you with her coming into the world story and all that excitement. Just not yet.

A year-ish later

I'm excellent at this blogging stuff. It hasn't even been a year since my last post. Not that much has happened: Rick got home from his deployment, stinky and twenty pounds lighter, Bill passed away, I restarted grad school, Rick went through aircraft commander school, I started running again, I quit running again, my sister had a baby. You know, the usual.

I've been feeling the need to get back into the blog. Mainly because of the baby. Oh wait, that's right. I'm pregnant. That happened this year, too. It's a girl, due November 23, better known as the day before Thanksgiving 2012. After Abbey had her fairly cute baby and there were 5 million photos of him on Facebook within ten minutes, Rick and I had a serious conversation. We realized that over half the people on our Facebook newsfeed were people we weren't really interested in sharing pictures of our baby with (pretty sure something about that sentence is grammatically incorrect). I'm not really that interested in pictures of their kids either, to be honest. Unless you are reading this. In that case, I AM interested in pictures of your kids because we are real friends, not just Facebook friends.

Anyway, the point being is that for baby pictures and updates, our plan is to primarily use the blog. I'm sure a picture or two will slip out on Facebook, but that's not going to be the main source of everything Baby W. Unless we correct our feeds to the people we actually like. We'll see. Obviously, as new parents to-be, we have everything thoroughly planned out.

So we start the fall with baby on the brain. Add in a busy few months for Rick at work, grad school for both of us, volunteering for me, overstuffed closets, and a yard that matches the vacant, condemned house on the corner, it's going to be fun? We'll see how often this gets updated now, but go ahead and pat yourself on the back for being a real friend, not just a Facebook friend. Lucky you!

P.S. I'd post a belly shot since I'm finally showing but I just read a post about people stealing photos that aren't watermarked from blogs...and then pretending the blog writer's kids are their own!!! Since I'm pretty sure that's what my real friends would do, I need to learn how to watermark first. I know you want to steal a picture of my big belly, but I won't let you. So there.

The countdown

Folks, we have less than 24 hours until this crazy deployment ordeal is over. Praise God!

I had one of my first (maybe only) real breakdown last night. A breakdown of gratefulness. I think it just hit me that I don't have to do everything alone anymore. During the deployment, you have to be strong and just move on everyday, do what needs to be done. And I think I did. But when you know it's almost over, you are pretty much overcome with relief. I didn't know that there was a need for relief but now that it is so close, there is a definite need. I can't imagine what it is like for those with children. Well, I was pretty thankful Rick was going to be here to help clean up dog piss the other day. As I was cleaning it up.

I spent all yesterday preparing for his arrival. Which means I spent five solid hours in the kitchen plus 2 at the grocery store. 7 quarts of homemade bolognese sauce, homemade granola, chocolate chip cookies, bread dough, frozen okra. Plus Single barrel Jack, Diamond Bear, gin (for me- BTW, Caroline and Sara, you'll be happy to know I upgraded my gin), and an empty bottle of wine (the bolognese called for half the bottle; I couldn't just throw out the rest). I think the kitchen might be prepared now. At least it is pretty much clean.

Now on to cleaning the bathrooms, sunporch, and the floors. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to sleep tonight so go ahead and throw cleaning the garage in there too.

So overcome with gratefulness, relief, and simple joy; but still thinking of my friends and their husbands who are deployed and in less desirable locations.

Another off the bucket list

I almost died.

So for a couple of months now, my hair straightener has been going in and out. It won't stay on for any extended period of time. Sometimes it doesn't come on at all. It's a real pain in the butt especially since my hair is getting longer. And if you aren't familiar with my hair first thing in the morning, it's a scary, scary sight. It's been in a messy, throw-back to high school bun for the past month. I tried to do my hair the other day and it was completely unsuccessful. The thing only stayed on long enough for me to do the pieces near my face, not even long enough to touch the craziness in the back. So I logged on to amazon to buy one and saw a review about how their straightener was shorting out. That's what I thought was happening with mine. Well, the reviewer also posted steps to fixing it. Sweet. Because I had thought if I could just get the damn thing open I might be able to tighten up a wire or two and fix the problem. And save us $70 (and that's a cheap price for one of these....usually over $100. But spread that over the three+ years I've had this last one). I break out the mini screwdrivers from the drill head set and the drill and a couple of full size screw drivers just in case. I say this like I had a plan and gathered everything up but in reality it was more like 15 trips between the tool kit and the computer.

I'm humming along nicely. I get the plate off holding the cord, get the cord out, see some wires that look promising. Only they look too good. Like there's nothing wrong with them. But that's okay because I'm really after the switchboard under the switch. I pry off the covers for the hinge and de-hinge the thing. (That may have involved a drill, gigantic screwdriver, my knees, and some cuss words). Finally all that is standing between me and my faulty switchboard are two teeny tiny screws. First out pretty easy and them onto the second. STRIPPED. screw. I worked on that stupid screw for ten solid minutes with at least ten different tools. Nothing. Notta. Crap-ola. Maybe I could just pry it open. Fail. Well, maybe jiggling the wires and prying everything kind of open made it work. Like how kicking things can make it work. So I put the cord back in and go plug it in to see if it works. Nope. I pull the cord out of the straightener. Keep in mind, it is still plugged into the wall. Then I decide to put the cord back into the straightener. WIthout unplugging it from the wall. Now, I can check being electrocuted off my bucket list. After the shock wore off (pun? or just the truth?) I threw the whole stupid thing, stripped screw included, in the trash and hit purchase on amazon. A girl needs a present after almost dying you know.