Cry, eat, sleep, poop, cry, eat, sleep, poop.... sometimes.
This has been my life for the past two and a half months. I became forever known as "Kate's mom" two and a half wonderful months ago. I thought the previous nine months were the best and worst months of my life, but as it turns out, actually having a physical live human being to take care of is actually more challenging than tilted sore hips and gaining a bunch of weight, but it is also the best thing that has ever happened to me. On January 19th 2012 at 6:31pm my baby girl Katherine Kay was born. She is my sunshine on any day and I can't even remember what life was like before she was here. I have no need to. It is really amazing what the process of pregnancy and childbirth will do to a person. It is fun, scary, painful, emotional, and absolutely terrifyingly amazing.
It was this time last year we found out that Kate was on her way. It was a wonderfully planned surprise. What I mean by that was we had started talking about expanding our family and we were in the processes of getting ready physically and finically so that when the time came we could get right too it. Well I guess fate had another plan and BAM there she was. The best planned surprise ever. We had a relatively smooth pregnancy, pretty much textbook for normal, and then our induction date finally was here. I opted for an induction on January 19th 2012 and it is a good thing I did. The last week I was pregnant Kate started running out of room in there and it was non stress tests every other day that week. We got checked in the hospital at midnight on the 19th and they got the ball rolling. I started on the dilation drug at around one o'clock am and *tried* to get some sleep that night. well turns out sleeping in the hospital when your so anxious leads to no sleep what so ever. I had my blood pressure taken every 30 minutes and the nurses came and checked my vitals every hour so there was just no sleep going on. Luckily I had a TV and my iPad to be able to Pinterest all night. At 7 am my doctor came and broke my water and an hour later started me on the meds that make your labor start. I was already having some contractions by that time so it didn't take long for the contractions to start coming on fast and strong. I made it until 10:30am to get my epidural and what a great decision that was. (If you know me, you know why it was a normal decision to have an epidural :) ). and THANK THE LORD for epidurals. I wasn't afraid of getting an epidural like most people are, I have seen them done multiple times and the needle didn't freak me out at all, but I will not lie to you and tell you that this was the only part of my entire labour experience that I used the words "shit" and "damn". It might have just been me and my intolerance for shots and pain, but dang did that first shot to numb the area hurt. It might have hurt but it was ONE HUNDRED and FIFTY percent worth it. After I had that kick in it was pretty much smooth sailing... sort of. the rest of that day went by pretty slow. I progressed pretty normally though out the day, going from a 1 to a 3 then to a 5,7, and then the magic number for me... an 8. At 4:00pm I had made it to an 8. Then things began to get funky. My contractions had changed from a beautiful perfectly timed pattern to some seriously wonky un-coordinated pattern, Kate's heart rate was spiking higher, and she decided that she did not want to come down any further. So at this point it wasn't an emergency, but something to watch. I was warned at this point that if she doesn't come down in a couple of hours we will need to do a C-Section. I didn't particularly want a C-Section but if that is what needed to happen then I would deal with it. so they check again at 5:00 pm and no progress... well shit. At this point a section was looking more likely, but they wanted to give me until 6 to see if any progress could be made. I was kind of ready for them to just take me... I had been in the hospital for 17 hours and in labor for 11 of those 17 hours. I was checked out and wanted to get the show on the road. At 5:45 they come in and tell me that kate is stressing out in there and we need to go ahead with the C-Section. I think two things at the same time, WOO HOO! and OH SHIT! . I was super excited for her to finally be here but I was also nervous. I have never in my life had any kind of surgery before. I have watched surgery A LOT so I knew the procedure but it was still weird being the girl on the table. So when they told us we were headed out, they gave Jacob some scrubs to wear into the OR (funny side note: he didn't think he got to go in, and so when they brought him his scrubs he was super excited.) he changed really quickly and away we go, saying our goodbyes to my amazing family who all were in the hospital ALL DAY waiting for miss Kate. We get in the OR and literally like 5 minutes later she was here. Kate was born at 6:31 pm and was 19.5 inches long and weighed 7 pounds 9 ounces.After the first few minutes of her being in Jacobs arms things start to go really fast. I don't remember much from the time she was born to when I woke up in our recovery room, but I do remember I was shaking uncontrollably and I was exhausted.
The time we were in the hospital, Thursday to Sunday, was really nice. we had sooo many amazing family and friends come visit us. I am absolutely humbled and grateful that we have so many amazing people to surround Kate with during her life. It made me so happy that Kate got to meet some of my best friends and family that were from out of town. We had pretty good nights sleep because we sent miss Kate to the nursery at night and they just brought her to me when she needed to eat. This was a godsend because I was so tired those few nights it let me rest up for when the actual work started when we got home. During the days in the hospital we all just sat and stared at her. who knew you could love something so much. (I know, I know, super cheesy, but you will understand one day).
The next three weeks were a pretty eye opening experience. I have never known what tired was until now. I have never known what emotional was until now. I have never known what people mean when they say "i feel like a feeding machine" until now. I was literally crying everyday for 3 weeks. I felt so over my head it wasn't even funny. I was freaking out... but all the while I loved that little girl and would do anything to make her happy, even if that includes no sleep and limited showers. I had loads of help those first three weeks and I am beyond grateful for that. Thank goodness for Jacob and his natural ability to take care of babies and take care of me. I love him for his ability to take care of me, among other wonderful qualities. I also have to say thank goodness for my parents and mother in law. My mom came and helped me every day for almost three weeks straight. Love you mom. I can't imagine how people can make it through those first three weeks with no help. Thank goodness I won't have to find out how they do it. When Kate was about one month old things started getting much easier. I will say, we were lucky from the start. She is one of the sleepiest babies I have ever seen. She sleeps all day and all night now.
I can't believe how these two months have flown by. I am back to work and really loving the adult interaction, but I miss my little miss Kate all day. I am excited to be getting back in my workout routine which i'm sure is what I will end up crying, yelling, and wining about on this blog but it should make for pretty great entertainment for anyone that decides they want to read it! I want to try and keep an up to date profile of what is going on in my life and my families life so here it is. Welcome to the life of Kate's Mom.
-K
UPDATE: I totally forgot to post a picture. yea yea most of you have seen her pictures a million times but hey, it's my blog and I do what I want ;)
1 comments:
She's a cutie!! Welcome to the blogging world!! If you're anything like me, you will LOVE it!! XO
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