The kid thread: Planning, pregnancy & parenting

[ladyki]

Starearedkid- welcome and congrats on your baby girl, having a girl is so much fun and they are so cute.

Bluedolphin- welcome, do you have a boy or a girl?

[ladyki]

Gusita- Best wishes tomorrow. Please let us know your birth story whenever you can. I am also toooo excited for you.

Meg- Glad to hear from you. I will keep you in my prayers.

[regina24601]

Hi ladies!! We've had a BIG weekend!! LMSK is no longer her name - she is Mallory and she is HERE!!!!

I was ready for her to come, so I decided to try some castor oil after I got home from work on Friday. I took it at 8:00, and contractions started at 10:30 (I still can't be sure the oil was responsible - the OB did strip my membranes on Thursday). I wasn't sure if they were for real or not, so I kind of ignored them and tried to sleep unsuccessfully. I got up at 1:30 and vomited everything that I had inside of me, and when I did there was a whoosh of water in my underwear. So off to the hospital!

I got to the ER at 2:10 am, and then up to L&D a little after 2:30. They said I was still 3 cm, and they didn't think it was my water that had broken. 30 minutes later I was at 5 cm. The contractions were AWFUL!!! I mean, tear out my own eyeballs AWFUL!! I have never experienced anything like it. I was begging and pleading for the epidural, but they were waiting for my blood tests to come back. The anesthesiologist finally came in, I signed the papers, and the nurse told me they'd have to check my cervix and if I was 8 or higher I couldn't get the epidural. They checked me at 4:30 and I was 7 so they started getting it together. I leaned over the bed at 4:45 to get the epidural, they put in the local anesthetic, and I had a particularly bad contraction, and my water definitely broke then. I instantly felt an irresistible need to push and I told them that. So, as the needle was hovering near my back, they stopped and checked my cervix again. COMPLETE!! It wasn't 6 minutes later, and I had gone from 7 cm to complete.

I lost my $hit at that point because I realized I'd have to do this totally without drugs and I was NOT prepared for this!!! The nurse was absolutely FANTASTIC and she grabbed my face and told me there was no epidural anymore, I had to do this, and my baby would be here in minutes. I had to wait to push until they assembled the team (it felt like forever, but it actually happened really fast). I pushed through 2 contractions and she was out. Her official birth time was 5:00 am.

Can I just say that I have NEVER EVER experienced pain like I did when pushing??!!! The contractions were definitely awful, but that pushing...YOWZAS!!! I got a little tear, but they were able to stitch me up in the room without needing to go to the OR.

But she is absolutely perfect. I mean perfect. She weighed 6 lb 15 oz and measured 19.9 inches long. She breastfed 30 minutes after she was born, and she latched on with no problem. We've been breastfeeding since then, and she is an absolute champ!! I'm glad she knows what she's doing, because I sure don't!!

My mom and sister booked a flight here immediately, so they got here at 9:30 last night. It was really nice having the first day for just me and DH, but I was ready to show her off, and I was so grateful they came last night!! We're getting discharged tomorrow morning. It's just all been such a blur, I can't even believe it.

I'm going to try to post a picture...we'll see if I'm successful!! I cannot believe she's actually here!! I love her so much, and DH can't stop smiling. He is such a natural daddy. He gave me a card with the most beautiful note in it, and he told me that he has never loved me more than when he witnessed Mallory's birth. I know it kind of scared him to see me in that much pain, but he handled it really well.

I'm a mommy!! Yay!!!

Why isn't my picture posting?

Gah...I can't get a picture to post. I'm trying to copy my link from Facebook, but no luck. Oh well, I'll figure it out when I'm less sleep-deprived.

[NastyWoman]

Regina, congratulations with the birth of Mallory. What a beautiful name and what a birth story!! Wishing you all the best and enjoy. This is a very special period in your life :-)

[econstudent]

Regina, congratulations! Thanks for sharing your birth story! Mallory is a beautiful name. I imagine it would be pretty tough to give birth unmedicated if you weren't planning on it (it's hard enough when you DO plan it!) but it sound like you handled it great. Enjoy these first few days, they go by in such a blur.

Gusita, I hope you are getting some rest! Not too much longer!

[jenna30]

Jan 9, 2011 23:40:31 GMT -5 gusitarenker said:

Thanks everyone for all the well wishes and congrats! I know I should be in bed right now, but I am just too flipping excited! ;D (and I took a 4 hour nap earlier-oops!)

I had a hard time sleeping, too.

Good luck!

[jenna30]

Wow, regina! I had always said that I'd hoped to be able to get an epidural, 'cause I know sometimes things progress so quickly that it's not possible.

Luckily your LO was ready and out within a short amount of time.

Congratulations!

[eternal sunshine]

regina - CONGRATS on Mallory's birth!! Sounds like you did great!!

Gusita - Looking forward to seeing your birth story too.

Meg - I am so hopeful that this answer is the one you are looking for and any treatment you have resolves your symptoms. Yes, surgery is ALWAYS scary, but if it can resolve this for you it should be definately worth it!! How wonderful if this is something that can be solved with one procedure rather than a chronic condition.

We got some snow and ice today that is keeping me out of work (small amounts of snow/ice in the south east usually close down EVERYTHING). I am so thankful for the extra break after my day on Friday. Friday afternoon I was throwing up over and over from the stress...realizing now how much stress can physically effect you when you're pregnant. DH and I discussed the dentist issues some more and he agreed to find a new dentist to do the rest of his treatment plan since we have more options this year. We have walked through the money situation and I think we'll be fine with the xtra $$. Not happy to spend it, but it is for DH's teeth and is necessary.

I sent a facebook message to the ladies I was worried didn't get invites to my shower. I just wrote a polite letter explaining why I thought the invites might have been lost (my grandmother and sister living at one address but only one of their invites was received) and I relayed the info off the invite. I got several immediate responses saying people were excited to be there and were planning to show. I feel much better about that. Shower is Sunday, so trying to start getting excited.

[poohbiscit1]

Congratulations Regina!!

[yogiii]

regina - congrats! Like econ said, it is hard enough doing an unmedicated birth even when you have planned to do it all along. It sounds like you did a great job and once you have a chance to look back on the whole thing, you'll probably feel lucky that it all happend so fast.

[bluedolphin]

Regina - congrats! you did fabulous! Just goes to show you that even before they are born, babies have a mind of their own and do what they want, not what you want!

Ladyki - I have a baby girl - she is precious, such a happy smiley baby. I always thought I would want a boy, but I'm totally thrilled she was a girl.

Gusita - good luck today! I can't believe it's here already. Be thankful for the quiet time, that's not selfish at all. Delivery is tough and you need some time to recover and just veg and sleep when you can. Visitors make that impossible! We didn't have any visitors at the hospital (except my doula), and I would do it that way again in a heartbeat. My mom did come the day after I was discharged to stay with us for two weeks, which was wonderful. Cherish that time in the hospital - and take advantage of the fact that someone else is taking care of you! Can't wait to hear your story.

[Sam_2.0]

Yay Regina!!!!! So glad to hear Mallory is here (and that you all decided on a name . Congrats!

[stina72]

Regina-I'm so glad everything went well and Mallory is here! Her name is beautiful!

Gusita-Good luck today! I hope everything goes smooth and quick for Brett's arrival!

Eternal-It's good to hear that everyone is looking forward to your shower! I'm sure it will be wonderful!

Meg-I'm so glad you have some answers, and while surgery does not sound fun, if it can fix the problem I'm sure you are rejoicing at the prospect of having it!

Welcome to everyone who has joined the board in the last week or so! You ladies really do move fast over the weekend, and I usually don't check over the weekends, although it is nice to have this board to come to on Monday mornings!

[zbear]

regina- congrats! Sounds like everything went great, except the epidural part but at least like someone else said, it was fast! I'm hoping for a birth like that! And I love Mallory, it's a beautiful name!

meg- so glad you finally got a diagnosis and although you need to have surgery, there's a solution finally!

Taz- we are having a boy, DH is excited and I'm neutral, I just want a healthy baby above all! It was funny though because the chinese calendar thingy was wrong for me so we were expecting a girl and even had girl names. Now we have no clue what to do for a boy name!

eternal/insurance- sorry y'all are having some drama with maternity leaves/dentist. At least you talked it out with your husband eternal and came up with a solution. I'm sure he had no idea how stressed you are with work and finances. Insurance, how was your baby shower?

Speaking of baby showers, I'm just a little sad because we are pretty much the last ones in our families to have a baby so even though everyone is excited, they're kind of like been there, done that. And also, we're getting all hand me downs from our siblings for our baby clothes and gear. While we're grateful that we don't have to buy all that stuff (and saving us money), it's still a little sad that our siblings got all new stuff from our parents and we're getting all the hand me downs. Kind of silly to be sad about something so trivial I know, I guess it's the preggo hormones.

[nasagreen]

25 weeks and I got sick last night, I think I ate too much and my stomach was just too full. well, during getting sick, I threw my back out (ouch!). Took a hot bath and I did go to work today. Sitting at a computer is very uncomfortable, but I made it to almost 4 pm. Whew. For a minute last night I was extremely worried that I was having back labor, but it was constant pain and not contractions and taking a bath helped relieve the pain somewhat. I've never thrown my back out before, wow, that is scary!

[boosmom]

regina - Congrats on Mallory's arrival! I'm glad she came quickly since you didn't get the epidural you wanted.

gusita - Can't wait to hear your story. It's always nice to get to spend time alone with baby.

eternal - glad DH is willing to go with a new doctor. Also, you may want to call and cancel your appt yourself just to make sure it was done so that they can't charge you for a "no-show". I hope your shower goes great!

insurance - I hope you are able to negotiate some concessions to use toward extending working from home or a shortened work week if you'll be working during your maternity leave. Hope your shower went well!

stare and blue- welcome and congrats!

[boosmom]

zbear - so no one is going to throw a shower for you guys? I'd still think you would get a shower since this is your first. Maybe you could mention it to your mother that you were really wanting a particular baby item, even though you'd be getting a hand-me-down. Maybe, people just assume you actually don't mind.

[gardenergirl]

regina - congrats on Mallory! I'm so glad she is here for you and that is such a cute name. Can't wait to see some pics!

gusita - can't wait to here your birth story. I hope everything is going smoothly and I don't blame you one bit for wanting one day alone with your baby! That's not an unreasonable thing to want at all!

Meg - I'm so glad you got some answers! I've been thinking about you.

Stare and Bluedolphin - hello and welcome!

eternal - I'm "stuck" at home today too because of the storm. I have a feeling I will be tomorrow too because the snow/ice is not melting at all. I love it!!

[gardenergirl]

I'm feeling a little bummed today. Yesterday was talking with my mom and we had set up a time today to Skype so they could see Olivia. She was supposed to call me at 3:00 after they got home from a doc appt my Dad had. 3:00 comes and goes, 4:00, it's finally 4:30 so I call them. She says "Oh yeah, we forgot." Every time I bring up the idea of skyping with them they just don't even want to do it, but my mom says to me all the time how much she misses Olivia, etc. She hasn't even seen her crawl/pull up yet. I'm just hurt by it because they don't make any effort to come see Olivia, they haven't been here since she was born, granted they've had health issues, but she's almost 10 months old. I wish they would at least Skype with me to see her more.

[moneymaven]

blue and stare - welcome!

regina - congrats and happy birthday Mallory! Sounds like you did wonderful despite the unexpected and quick changes. Hope you're recovering well.

eternal - I am sad that you're getting sick from the stress. I hope you get a little R&R. Try to enjoy the shower - sounds like it will all work out.

zbear - that's not silly. I am sorry they aren't throwing you a shower. Have you casually mentioned it to anyone close?

We had our 2nd shower on Saturday and it was great. We actually got a lot of the large ticket items that we still needed like the car seat, crib mattress, video monitor, high chair, stroller, etc. It was wonderful to spend time with all of our friends and family. We're really lucky to have so much support so close to us.

Update on work - we have contacted two people that we thought would be great temporary employees to help me facilitate items from home. Unfortunately, one was just offered an internship and the other is leaving the country to travel internationally for 3 months. So, we're still trying to come up with some alternatives. IT is coming to my house on Friday to setup a computer for me there so I can have remote access. I am trying not to stress myself out over it too much because I don't want to induce complications for myself.

I guess the benefit of the timing is that I am due for review. We were on a salary freeze in 2010, so I am hoping that with all of this, the bosses will increase my salary, particularly given the circumstances.

I also spent some time this weekend getting a hair cut, getting a wax, etc. for the pictures we're going to take this weekend. It felt nice to just spend some time on myself and be pampered. Denver got hit with 10 inches of snow yesterday into this morning. That's not much for Denver, so I am at work. But DH and I decided to stay home yesterday and worked on the nursery, got things more organized, sheets washed, etc. That was really fun seeing the room take shape!

I am going to Target after work to get a few things with some gift cards I got and also to the mall to get letters to hang the baby's name above the changing table, now that we finally agree on a name! I am trying to enjoy all of these things instead of focus on the frustration and stress of work, and it's temporarily working.

[ladyki]

Regina- Congrats on your baby girl. Happy Birthday Mallory. Oh, Lordy I cant imagine giving birth witout meds, your a tough girl.

[zbear]

Ins and boos- oops sorry I guess my post was confusing, we are having a baby shower so I know I shouldn't complain but from my mom's and MIL's comments, I just feel like they aren't as excited for our baby. Also, MIL bought EVERYTHING for DH's siblings but for us, she keeps saying isn't it great that we're going to have so many hand me downs. I know our baby won't know the difference, but it still hurts our feelings ya know. Sorry I just needed to whine about it for a minute

[taz157]

Meg - I'm glad you got some answers.

Regina - Congratulations!!!

zbear - I'm sorry that your MIL is giving you hand-me downs. I can understand how it hurts your feelings.

I ended up telling work today my news. I was going to wait until after my 1st trimester; however, that is in the beginning of tax season and not exactly the best time to tell them. Then I was going to wait until after my next doctor's appointment (17th); however, my boss is going to be out of town next week and then it pushes it until tax season. Therefore, I told them today. He was happy for us (as I expected). So were the others I have told. At least he knows why I eat all the time (it seems) now.

[wpgjo]

My DD is almost 5 months old and goes down for her naps pretty good but when she goes to bed for the night she just fights it soooo much. She sleeps in her crib and I do the same routine for bedtime as I do for naps so I don't know why there's a difference.

I picked up the book Baby Whisperer to try and get some help and while some of the tips are helping I'm having a real problem with the idea of staying with DD until she falls asleep. She seems to scream more and harder when I'm there, and even after I pick her up it takes her extra long to calm down. And then in the book it says that if you leave the room with her crying it breaks her trust in you.

And normally I'm ok with short (5 - 10 min) CIO but for some reason tonight her being so upset has me upset too. I try to think that I was raised with CIO and it didn't do me any harm but it's so hard to hear her cry so uncontrollably and even harder to stay in the room while she's doing it.

I'm not sure if I'm being too clear here, but I guess my questions are why is it harder to put her down at bedtime than for her naps and is it better if I stay in her room until she falls asleep?

[sbcalimom]

Regina - congrats! Mallory looks so cute and adorable!!

Meg: Glad to hear you have a probably diagnosis and while surgery doesn't sound fun at least it is something they can fix and it doesn't sound like it is going to be a huge issue for you long-term like you were worried about with some of the other possible diagnoses.

Gusita: can't wait to hear how your birth went and get to meet Brett! My DH's name is Bret (with one t though) too so it is always funny when you mention DS's name . Also, I forgot to post on this earlier, but I totally don't think you're selfish to be excited about having that first few days alone with DS. We had one person come the day after DD was born because I needed help after the long, drawn out process of labor I had but we kept everyone else away until we got home and had a few days to settle in.

gardnergirl: I totally know how you feel about that. My parents are always making comments about how much they miss DD and how much they wish they got to see her more often. I always remind them they're always welcome to come anytime but they never seem to do - even though they have time to drive all over creation in the RV. They usually say how far it is which makes me want to scream. I've decided though to try not to let it hurt my feelings and just do my best to keep them updated as I can and leave the ball in their court.

wpgjo: We did some modified CIO with DD around 7 months and still have to sometimes even now. A few things that worked for us was using our own feeling for when CIO would work and when it wouldn't. I could usually tell if her crying was just "I don't wanna go to sleep but I will" vs. "I'm clearly not going to sleep and am just going to get completely, ridiculously upset." Our ped said to just let her cry for up to 45 min at a time and she would go to sleep but she sometimes would just get more and more upset so we'd go in after 15 minutes of that. Other times, it was more whimpering, fussing so we'd let her go longer. For the most part, by reading her cues we were able to find a strategy that worked for us that helped her go to sleep on her own eventually but also didn't break my heart or stress her out unnecessarily. It probably took a little longer to get her consistent but she's a pretty good sleeper and has been going to sleep on her own pretty consistently since about 8 months.

Another thing we did was make sure she had the right environment. She seems terrified by the dark so we got a projector and a night-light. She also likes to go to sleep to music so we got a portable CD player so we could always play a CD for her. She also likes to have particular toys in her crib. When we do all these things, she almost always goes down like a champ but lord help us if something is out of batteries or we forget . Then it feels more like a battle!

One other thing is to make sure that she is not going to bed too early or too late. If she's overly tired, that tended to make DD way worse and if she wasn't tired then she would get really PO'd that we were trying to make her go to bed. We try to stick with a relatively consistent bedtime but do move it around by 1/2 as needed based on her cues.

[Sam_2.0]

Regina - she's beautiful!!! Congrats again

[ladyki]

Jan 10, 2011 8:59:37 GMT -5 @bluedolphin said:

Ladyki - I have a baby girl - she is precious, such a happy smiley baby. I always thought I would want a boy, but I'm totally thrilled she was a girl.

We didn't have any visitors at the hospital (except my doula), and I would do it that way again in a heartbeat.

bluedolphin- I also have a girl, her name is Kiani and she is also always a very happy baby. I always thought I wanted a boy first, but I would not trade her for anything, she is so darn cute.

visitors- we had a ton in the hospital, we had not slept in two days and we were extremely tired, we were ready for everyone to just leave, lol.

[ladyki]

This message was deleted by the original poster.

[ladyki]

Jan 10, 2011 19:23:10 GMT -5 @zbear said:

Ins and boos- oops sorry I guess my post was confusing, we are having a baby shower so I know I shouldn't complain but from my mom's and MIL's comments, I just feel like they aren't as excited for our baby. Also, MIL bought EVERYTHING for DH's siblings but for us, she keeps saying isn't it great that we're going to have so many hand me downs. I know our baby won't know the difference, but it still hurts our feelings ya know. Sorry I just needed to whine about it for a minute

I had a lot of people that wanted to give me their used baby items. Some of them I did get and some of them I did not. I politely told people that this was my first baby and that I really wanted to get some items new, I wanted to pick them out at the store or tell them which items I wanted, lol. We bought the crib and the dresser. I told my mom, sister and in laws that I really wanted have all of the big items new. It did not mean that I wanted them to buy it for me, but I would rather not get a hand me down from someone and not use it.

Maybe you should tell your mom and MIL that there are some items that you really would like new.

[ladyki]

Regina- Mallory is so pretty and wide awake.