One month!

As you can see, she was stoked on taking pictures today!

I can't believe that Cora is already a month old! I realized that her birthday falls exactly six months from Christmas, which I think is pretty cool, so only five to go! She's developed a pretty good schedule and has become a great feeder, she's super efficient when she wants to be. We've figured out that she loves to be swaddled, which Ryker hated, that's made our lives a lot easier. Her swing, found here, is a life saver. If we swaddle her and turn on the static sound that the swing makes she's done for as long as we need her to be sleeping so that we can get things done around the house (like play with big brother!).

Ryker has recently discovered that Cora is in fact going to be sticking around and affecting his amount of time with our sole attention, so we've been dealing with a few extra tantrums and a slightly more difficult nighttime routine. I've been trying to make sure that he gets more time devoted strictly to him to help with this new beginning of our lives, yesterday he even got his first Starbucks treat while him and I went out for early Saturday morning coffee! I say early, but it was actually the first day that everyone slept until 9, oh man...9 am! I couldn't believe it when I checked the clock. Lately, I end up bringing Cora into bed with me at the 5-6 am feeding and we fall asleep together. Once she's done eating she curls up and attaches to me like a little barnacle and will sleep like that for hours, which is super nice. That's what happened yesterday morning and we all got the most sleep that we have in a while.

Vic and I had our first date night Friday night since adding our Little Miss to the family, the lucky girl got to come along while Ryker stayed home with our baby sitter. We went out to our favorite fancy restaurant for some great ambiance. It was nice getting out for a dinner that didn't involve cutting up Ryker's food but Cora was like a celebrity! Everyone wanted to look at her and talk about her and to be honest, eventually we just wanted to be left alone with our adorable baby. At one point I was feeding her under a blanket at our table and the woman next to us turned her chair and just watched me. It was crazy. She was very nice, but that was a little awkward. Besides that it was a perfect night out!

On a different note, here are some things that have kept me sane over the last month:

ProBar Cookie Dough protein bars. These and lots of coffee have kept me going the last month. I can eat them with one hand while I feed Cora and most days they are really all I can stomach. I forget to eat half the time because I'm just not that hungry, so I make sure that I at least have this in the morning. I've started getting back to my normal egg routine though, so these have been a great snack.

Pampers Swaddlers. These have been great for holding in those lovely breastmilk diapers, anyone who has changed one of those knows that they need to be contained well. Swaddlers have a different layer on them that really holds everything in well. Cloth diapering with Ryker once he was on solids was a real test, I can't imagine how Momma's cloth diaper with breastfed newborns, you'd have to have hundreds of them! We're running through diapers like crazy.

Oribe hairspray. This stuff smells absolutely amazing and helps me get away with washing my hair once every three days or so. I fell in love with their anti-humidity spray years ago and then found this and it's been a great love affair ever since. If I spray this all over after I blow dry, my air won't get greasy and will look semi good all three days, it generally ends up in a pony tail anyways, but I know for sure it smells amazing with this stuff!

Netflix, peanut butter and Ezekiel Cinnamon Raison bread have also been huge staples in my life lately. We're back on our eMeals subscription and have been getting some good dinner ideas from there, but some nights we just grill up the prepped burgers from Whole Foods. I love how grilling is just so easy and quite frankly, it's so hot here that most nights there is just no way in hell that I'm turning the oven on. 

That's all for now, Cora is starting to stir and will be needing her Momma soon. I hope you had a great weekend!

Cora's birth story: Part two

Part Two:

We got to the triage room and I was a little snappy at the nurse, whoops! They made me lay on my back with the monitor for 20 minutes and I thought it was going to kill me. This was the first time I felt some liquid coming out of me and Vic and Christi exchanged looks but told me I was ok. I had a funny feeling it wasn’t my water, but I didn’t want to know any different so I didn’t look.  The nurse checked me and told me I was at a four, which broke my heart. There was no way I was only four centimeters. I felt like I was in transition! Christi whispered to me that she was watching someone laboring at a 7, not a 4 and to not let it discourage me. They got me to my delivery room and things moved even faster. They wouldn’t let me get in the shower to labor because of how fast my contractions were coming. I noticed at this point that there was blood all over my legs and I wanted to shower for the comfort and to get clean, but no go. I had them put up the side of the bed, which I clutched onto for dear life. They spent 20 minutes trying to get an IV in just in case I needed it for after the birth, since I didn’t want an IV during labor. With Ryker, I was able to stand and labor, with Cora, I couldn’t move from a version of the fetal position on the bed, any slight movement and I thought the contractions would kill me. I kept saying “I can’t do this”, and Vic and Christi kept telling me how I could, and I was. 

Eventually, my body just started pushing. I was doing everything I could to not push and to remain calm during contractions with deep breathing, but this nurse kept yelling at me to stop pushing and I kept trying to explain to her that I wasn’t doing it, it was like dry heaving…your body just takes over. The doctor on call finally showed up and checked me, saying I was almost there and offered to break my water. Once she did that, I rocketed to 10 cm and was finally not getting yelled at for pushing. I laid on my side, with Vic holding my leg for me. I was so exhausted from gripping the bed that I couldn’t hold my leg myself. It took just a handful of pushes to get our baby girl out, she came so fast that when my body finally pushed her out on its own nobody was looking! There was a break in contractions, or we thought, and I had this overwhelming feeling of calm, like “this is it” and she just shot out. If it wasn’t for being wrapped in the cord three times she probably would have fallen off the table. Her legs, arms and neck had the cord around them. She was very tiny, just 5 pounds and seemed smaller than Ryker had been even though he came three weeks earlier in his pregnancy. 

The doctor was immediately talking to me about intrauterine growth restriction. Then, they hooked me up to a Pitocin drip because I began to hemorrhage. My body was shaking uncontrollably and I felt bad because I couldn’t concentrate on the sweet girl in my arms, I couldn’t stop shaking and I could feel myself bleeding. To be totally honest, I laid there thinking “you’ve got to be shitting me, I come to the hospital instead of getting my home birth and now I’m going to bleed to death?” I didn’t need a transfusion or anything because the Pitocin did it’s job, but we were nervous there for a minute with all the bleeding. 

Next thing you know, Cora latched on like a champ, we delayed her bath until she got sleepy hours later and everything has been great ever since! Her delivery took under two hours once we showed up to the hospital and was way more painful and trying than my previous delivery, but I’m very glad and very proud that I made it through as naturally as possible again. It was definitely scary, but I appreciate the experience more than anything else that has seemed difficult in my life. 

I can’t imagine getting through either of my deliveries without my husband and Christi. Christi was such a God send for us, she knows just how to support Vic and I and she helped us have some great moments. She encouraged us to look into each other’s eyes at one point, and while I was staring lasers through Vic’s head, it really did help to just focus on his sweet and supportive eyes as I went through contractions. I’m so very lucky to have a husband who backs my choices and gives me everything I need to get through any obstacle. 

There’s her story! It took me three weeks to sit down and type it and two days to finish that in between feedings, so I apologize for any errors! I hope you enjoyed reading that, looking back now I’m amazed at how intense everything was in such a short period of time. I hope the rest of her life isn’t as trying for us as parents as her entrance was!

Welcome Miss Cora Rose!

Cora's birth story: Part One

Settle in, this story may take a bit! 

Part One:

Cora was born at 12:14 am on Thursday, June 25, 2015, but her birth story starts the weekend prior. This might be TMI, but you’re reading a birth story, so you must be ok with that! So, I had been dealing with what I thought was pain from being constipated. I’ve never been the most regular person and the third trimester wasn’t helping with that. I was getting to the point of tears regularly, but I was convinced that eventually I would be able to go and it would all be ok. I went to work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and just sat on my knees, leaning over the back of my chair while I worked or I stood until I would leave around noon (I was on half days, heck yea!). Wednesday, I was at work and pretty uncomfortable that morning. I went to the bathroom (just to pee, damn it!) and there was blood. I instantly got very nervous and ran back to the only two women in my shop at the time, one of which had two kids and another with none. My friend Kendal knew exactly what was up, the other was very excited and I explained that I was not full term yet and that this was not exciting. I ran out the door very quickly, shaking the whole way to my car. I got Vic on the phone and told him to get home and then called my doula.

We were supposed to be meeting with our midwives for our home visit to prepare for our home birth, I just needed to stay pregnant for another week to get our peaceful, hypnobirthing home birth, damn it! Christi said exactly what I thought, my pains and the bleeding sounded like the start of labor. She had been there for Ryker’s labor and knew how my body worked and that I’m pretty good at minimizing the impression of pain that I’m in, I internalize it pretty well until it’s unbearable. We decided to wait and see what happened and that I would see her at 6, when we were all meeting at our house for the meeting. Vic paced the house while I laid on my left side and drank water like a good pregnant woman trying to lessen cramps (which I knew were contractions but I was ignoring that). His certification exam for work was the next day, this was not good timing. I tried to tell him that I would be pregnant until the weekend, but I also told him that was crazy to try and predict and it was time to cancel the test and reschedule.

Fast forward to that evening…Christi got to the house first. We sat at the table and chatted about what I was feeling and she had this look on her face, I could tell that she knew this was it, I wasn’t going to be pregnant much longer. We talked about options, since I had really wanted a home birth. The midwives showed up and we went over what I was feeling, they said they thought it was nothing, but that I should take it very easy (bed rest) and that as long as I made it to the following Tuesday they could do the home birth. If I went into active labor before then I would have to go the hospital, where they would not be joining us. I couldn’t have been happier for Vic and I to have Christi by our side. She left for another meeting and the midwives left. The whole time they were there the contractions had stopped. I had been timing them all day and was impressed with how they had just stopped once Ryker got home from school and the midwives got there. Well, once they left shit got real.

The contractions started piling on, they were a minute to a minute and a half long, with about a two minute break in between. Vic and I tried having me lay on the couch, then I got in the shower, then back on the couch, unable to get even remotely comfortable. An hour later, at about 9:15 pm, I had Vic call Christi and tell her to get to the house immediately. I called my brother, an EMT, to ask him what protocol was if he got called to a laboring woman. I wanted to know what would happen if I couldn’t get into the car. I wanted my homebirth, but there was a feeling in my gut that said this is happening now and she has to get out and we have to get to the hospital. Christi got to the house around the same time our good friend Matt showed up to stay at the house with Ryker. I labored in our room on the floor, bent over on all fours or over my birth ball. Then, my stomach decided it was party time. With Ryker, I had to go right before transition, so the fact that my stomach wanted to empty itself already had me terrified. I remember finishing and trying to walk out of the bathroom between contractions and having to bend over the sink. There was a glass of wine that I had started to try and relax and it was in my way and I just pushed it out into the air towards Christi and said “make this go away!” I couldn’t handle the smell. I collapsed on the floor of our room after trying to get comfortable on our bed and looked at Christi and said “when do we go?” She told me whenever I was ready.

I got through a few more piled contractions and told Vic to get a bag together. Within the next 10 minutes or so we were making it towards the car. It took a while to get there, because I had to hang on Vic during a contraction in front of the house. I got in the back seat and held on to the head rest for dear life. That was the worst drive ever. I remember we got to the hospital but were in the wrong parking lot and I wanted to labor laying on the parking lot ground instead of being in the car. I got out at the door of the ER with Christi and Vic parked the car. By the time we made it to the counter I started to get very light headed. I got into a wheelchair and had Vic answer the lady’s questions. I sat there, feeling pale and light headed. I knew the blood had rushed out of my face. I thought for sure I was going to pass out. They wheeled me to L&D pretty quickly, that wheelchair ride felt so trippy! She was going so fast and I couldn’t keep my eyes open, it made me sick. 

Check out Part Two here.

Double trouble

We're three weeks into our life as a family of four and things are going pretty well! Cora nurses like a champ, but always wants to show off, and basically can only be soothed by being held or nursing. Our pediatrician told me not to be a human pacifier, but I let the little lady do what she wants. Every now and then (mostly at night) a tight swaddle and pacifier will buy us a few hours, but during the day she's pretty much attached to me.

Ryker has been doing great with his little sister and lights up when they get in the same room together. He's had really bad allergies and a faucet for a nose, so they haven't been in very close proximity much, but he's given some good kisses and very sweet pats on the head. He's great at getting diapers for her and songs her songs when she's crying. 

I I have to say, I've had some trouble adjusting with ensuring both kids get my attention. I'm sure it's just mom guilt, but I worry about not keeping up my relationship with Ryker when I can't help him with stuff or pick him up because I'm holding Cora. For this reason, I make sure that as soon as I can put her down he has my full attention and gets lots of cuddles! He's so great at playing on his own that I don't think he really notices much. The kid is obsessed with Legos, they've been a God send, at least until they're stuck together and he gets frustrated, or we step on one (ouch!).

I'm trying to make a point of getting in great quality meals at home, but I'm basically surviving off of ProBar protein bars and coffee. #Momlife

Our life hasn't really changed too much besides being back to carrying a diaper bag and lugging the car seat around! I'd kill for an extra couple hours of sleep and a cleaning lady, but I know things will get back to a version of normal soon enough. Happy Thursday everyone, I'm pretty sure that's what day it is...right?