First Church Experience/Work Schedules

We finally made it out of the house in time to go to church today! We were a little nervous as to how Elijah would do for a 20 minute drive each way and an hour long mass but he did great! He woke up and made the cutest little coos and grunting noises most of the time. People around us were gracious and didn't seem too bothered by it. I know that soon we will become those parents that have to watch mass from behind the glass wall with all the other crying/talking/crawling children. Oh the life we lead. :)

Oh yes. THis was his church outfit. I made the tie onesie and I am pretty dang proud of it! Isn't he just the cutest thing?!?! I have a hard time just not eating him up. No really. Its a problem. ;)

As Carlos has started back to work and I obviously have not, we are finding ourselves trying to figure out a schedule (yet again) with work, baby, and "us" time. Fellow teachers understand that teaching is not just a "leave it at work" kind of job and because Carlos and I both teach, we always have a lot of work to do outside of the classroom. It used to be that Carlos would spend most of his nights and Sunday evening writing his plans and grading papers and I would generally do the same or at least try to get ahead of the game. Now with Elijah we are on a whole other playing field! Because I am on maternity leave for the next several weeks I have no problem taking care of little guy while the hubby works. But what happens when I go back to work? Granted, Eli will be a little older (if you consider 10 weeks older :) ) and may have more of his own schedule by then, but both of us working leaves little time for other things I would rather be doing as a family. Anyone who knows me, knows how much of a planner I am. So of course it bothers me that I don't know how we are going to work around our "work" schedules with Elijah. Of course, he comes first. Period, no matter what.

I write about this today because its the first Sunday since school started up again that Carlos has had to really work on plans and grades before the upcoming week. Reality is hitting that soon I will be back to the grind soon too. I am fearful that once we both are at work, we won't be able to juggle everything between work and home. I am sure every new, working parent comes face to face with this. The only thing I know, the only thing I realize, is this: We know that our little family is our number one priority. We fit work into our family schedule, not family into our work schedule.

Remember that whole "do something nice for yourself" idea in the last post? Well, I'm off to watch some trash TV while baby sleeps and Carlos works. I better hurry...who knows how long it will last. By that I don't mean baby waking up. I mean Carlos changing the channel. Argh.

One Month: The Learning Curve!

This past Tuesday, our little man turned 1 month old! I cannot believe how fast it has gone. Sure the lack of sleep, occasional frustration, and not really ever being able to sneak in a shower has presented some rather long days/nights but in hindsight the time has FLOWN.

I have come to realize alot about parenthood and especially about being a mommy. When I was pregnant I thought that I would just know how to do everything to take care of Elijah (you know, maternal instinct). Instead, I am learning new things everyday and during the first few weeks it was all about survival mode. I am not ashamed to admit that I had a serious case of the baby blues for about 3 weeks. Many women are too embarassed to admit this but I think it is important for other moms to know they aren't the only ones who feel like this. I was terrified I wouldn't do anything right, that my baby would hate me because I didn't do things perfectly. I was sad that Carlos and I couldn't just get up and go somewhere anymore like we used to. I was scared that our marriage would change so much that we wouldn't even remember why we were together in the first place. All these emotions hit full force and they hit HARD. I would cry out of nowhere because I thought that I would never EVER get any sleep and that Elijah would never stop crying and more importantly, that I would never UNDERSTAND his different cries and what they meant. I was more emotional/hormonal during those first three weeks than I was my ENTIRE pregnancy. I am here to say that these feelings are normal. At the time I just thought "Wow. Am I the only one who feels like this? Am I a bad mother for feeling this way??" But soon I learned, through several close friends and new mommies, that EVERY mommy has some of these emotions at one point or another. Some may feel them more intensely while others have it for a couple days and it disappears. I am grateful for those I love and who love me back for reassuring me it would pass and to just do the best I could and to SLEEP when I could (exhaustion does play a huge role in the weepiness and emotional roller coaster I was on). My husband was such a HUGE help in making sure I was able to recover from surgery and really jumped right in to help take care of Elijah. I seriously could not have done it without him and I continue to realize that raising a child truly does takes a village.

Now, a month (and few days) later, life couldn't be better. Elijah is growing like a WEED! At his last doctor's appt he weighed 11 lbs 0 oz and was 23 inches long! Believe me, this boy is no slouch when it comes to eating! He gets cuter by the day (even as he starts to bald like a middle aged man) and he becomes more aware of his surroundings by the second! He is the light of our lives and even though we still aren't getting a TON of sleep, we are getting a little more each night and I think we are just getting used to surviving on 4-5 hours.

I thought I would just bullet point some things that Carlos and I have learned about parenthood and then a few quick "milestones" Elijah has hit in his first month. For those new parents or parents to be, maybe you can relate (or will relate) to what we have experienced :)

THINGS WE HAVE LEARNED AS PARENTS:

-You learn to survive with little sleep. But it DOES get better. Not overnight but over time.

-Babies never stop pooping or eating. Its just a fact.

-You will snap at eachother. Don't expect your partner to always be in a great mood. Everyone is exhausted and at times frustrated. Take the snappiness with a grain of salt. You know you love eachother and thats whats important.

-You will get frustrated with baby. It sounds awful but its honest. There have been times neither one of us knows what is wrong with Eli. One night he cried for 4 hours straight and we both thought "we cant do this." But you can and you survive.

-Even though you experience frustration, your baby will smile or coo and you completely forget about how tired or angry you are. Nothing else is as beautiful as that. Period.

-HELP EACHOTHER. Like I said, it takes a village to raise a child. Don't expect the roles to be equal but do help one another by supporting what the other is doing. Ask for help as well. The small things, like Carlos sitting next to me while I fed Eli, meant the world to me and it offered the support that I needed.

-Ok one more time: It takes a village to raise a child!!! We have been so blessed to have friends and family in our lives that are willing to bring us dinner, help fold laundry, hold baby while we napped, etc. WE COULD NOT HAVE DONE THIS WITHOUT THEM!!! Rely on your friends and family for support and help as well. Don't try to tackle this journey on your own...it was meant to be shared with loved ones!

-You will learn your babies cries and needs...quickly. I am sure they change as they get older but you learn to adapt I'm sure. I've learned that you and baby are getting to know eachother and that it takes a little longer than a day :)

-Do something nice for yourself. You need to be at your best to be the best for baby.

Yeah. That is my first drink after Eli was born. And it was GLORIOUS! (it was also me doing something nice for myself :) )

-Its ok to let baby cry it out every once and a while. Elijah is so funny. He will get changed, eat, and start to get very heavy eyed and wake himself up. Then he cries. Well this mommy knows he is overtired and needs a nap but he doesn't know this. I will let him cry for a minute and if he doesn't stop, I talk to him and pat his back (I don't pick him up I just turn him on his side a little). Everytime he falls fast asleep. He is actually learning how to self soothe a little too. So we are learning little by little :)

-And finally (I am sure we have learned much more but I will move on) the most important thing I think we have learned: YOU CAN DO THIS. Carlos and I love eachother even more than we did the day before and the day before that. We never thought it could get better or that our marriage could be any stronger. But it has and it is because we created a beautiful human being, our perfect son, together. We sneak little moments together to just hug eachother or lay next to eachother because we know that our marriage comes first. We need to be happy to be the best parents we can be for Eli. So go on dates. Spend 20 minutes drinking coffee together while baby sleeps. Watch a TV show together. Talk. You truly appreciate the simpler things because that is all you have time for and they are a little less frequent than before. You treasure the moments you get to be a married couple, which in turn makes you treasure the times you have as a family.

ELIJAH'S ONE MONTH MILESTONES:

-He lifts his head. ALOT. He is a strong boy!

-Coos and "talks" alot. Cutest. Thing. Ever.

-Smiles! He does it in his sleep and while he is awake. And it even happens when he isn't passing gas.

-He is able to differentiate day and night. Ok well maybe not TOTALLY but we are getting there. The nights are becoming easier and putting him back to sleep after feedings is faster.

-Self soothing. He is starting to clam himself down after he cries. Its still very new but he is learning like I said :)

-LOVES to look at any type of light. Sunlight. Lamps. And his eyes are so BLUE when he looks at the light. I know all babies eyes are blue when they are born but this kids eyes are getting LIGHTER. We seriously may have a blue eyed baby folks. What are the odds.

-He is finding his tongue. He roots, of course, when he is hungry, but then other times he just sticks it out and wiggles it around. I love it. Funny how something like this entertains me now. :)

-He loves tummy time! He lifts his head and neck, sometimes falls asleep, and talks while on his tummy. He is an active little thing.

So not exactly on his tummy here but it was his first time experiencing the play mat. I kid you not, he was content for like half an hour at like, 2 weeks old.

So there it is. I wanted to share a little bit about what we have experienced this month. I will continue to try and write a little bit every other day or so. Most posts won't be this long but I had alot to catch up on! ;) And perfect timing...little man is up and hungry. Mommy duty calls!

First Bath. He HATED it!

First doctors appointment. He was already back to his birthweight!

The picture above and below was his first time to Aggieland. Daddy and Eli were in heaven!

About time!

All I am gonna say about starting a blog is: I hope I can keep up with it. And it may be therapeutic during my days at home during maternity leave. I have had alot of people ask how motherhood is going, how our lives have changed, and new things that little Elijah does (and believe me, everyday there is something new!). I thought it would be a great way to share all our new stories and adventures as a family for all our friends and family...near and far!

I think an appropriate way to start this blog off is to tell about one of the most important and memorable days of my life. July 23rd, 2011: the day our son was born. I have also had alot of people ask me about that day. People knew that I had a C-Section but were not really sure why my labor had taken that course. I won't get into too gory of details but I like to share my birth story because I know friends who have shared theirs and it offered alot of support for me. I hope maybe mine can give reassurance and support to other soon-to-be-mommies that may be nervous or anxious and that by reading it, realize that no matter what, the important thing is that your little one enters this world here safely.

On Friday, July 22nd, I had my 39 week appt with my doctor. I had been having contractions but they were not regular and because everyone says "wait for the 5-1-1 rule" I didn't really think I was in true labor. Plus, I was one of the lucky ones who felt uncomfortable but was nowhere near being in pain. At my appt. my doctor told me that I was 2 1/2 centimeters and that I was almost fully effaced. She told me I could go home but that if I was feeling any type of painful contraction, regular or not, to go to the hospital and be admitted. I was excited that I had made some progress but was not expecting to go in quite yet.

About an hour later, I started to get some intense cramping. Again, they didn't come in regular intervals but I thought maybe I should call my doctor just in case. THe office told me to go to the hospital and that we were gonna have a baby! I can't explain my excitement but also my fear! I wanted to go grocery shopping before we went so we would have food when we got back (my mother talked me out of that :) ) and I started to vent my fear through micromanaging everything before we went, like picking up the house, telling Carlos what to do, worrying about Leo and who he could go stay with. Finally, Carlos told me that we needed to go and did his best to calm me down but inside I was terrified!

By 2:30, I was lying in the labor and delivery room, being asked questions by nurses and getting hooked up to my IV. Still I was not in alot of pain so they checked me to see if I had made any more progress.I was dilated to 4 cm! Within a couple hours I had progress 1 1/2 cm but my contractions had not regulated themselves. Because of the irregularity of the contractions, they started me on the lowest dose of pitocin they could. I was nervous about induction medication because of the horror stories I have heard about it making your contractions 10x worse, but honestly it wasn't too bad. THey did start to become more regular and intense but I stayed strong, breathed through my contractions and tried to just focus on the end result. My nurses were AMAZING and being able to talk to them was such a great relief! They made all the difference in my delivery and I will never forget how helpful and caring they were!

Soon, my doctor came in to see how I was progressing and made the call to break my water. Let me just say this...it was PAINFUL and it was so WEIRD! ELijah's head was causing a little bit of a problem because he was lying sideways and not straight down. This was an issue because they had to go around his head to break the water and later, it was more of a problem than we thought. After my water was broken, things really got started. I requested an epidural at 5 1/2 centimeters not because I was in an abundance of pain but because the nurses told me it could take awhile for them to get there to administer it. Well, the doctor got there in like 20 minutes so I was lucky in that way...more time being "comfortable" right? Wrong. I received the epidural (which, by the way, is not bad AT ALL. What makes it so scary is the IDEA of it). The doctor told me that it would take about 20 minutes to fully kick in...so I continued to breathe through my contractions which by about 10 minutes after the epidural were actually getting WORSE.

At the 20 minute mark, the contractions were HORRIBLE and one right after another. I was in alot of pain and just wanted the dang epidural to just start kicking in! Well, in my case, the epidural was not working. They called the doctor back and he gave me another dose of the medication in my epidural catheter. He said if that did not work then they would do a spinal. At this point I was just praying it would work! The nurse wanted to check me and I had progressed to 7 1/2 cm!!! Now my birth plan was simple: I wanted drugs and I didn't care how early I got them. Obviously my "plan" was already falling apart. I went through 7 1/2cm of labor pains with a non-working epidural. Finally, after another 20 minutes, I was feeling much better...the medication had worked! I was still having some sharp hip pain but I didn't care...it was better than what I had been feeling.

Soon I was relaxing and it was just Carlos and I and the nurse in the room. We kicked the family out so I could rest before the big show! This is where it gets really fun. The doctor who administered the epidural came in. He asked how I was and I told him much better but there was some hip pain. His response? "Ok. Well this should help. I didn't put it in your catheter last time." UMMM WHAT?!?! It was apparently the other very important part of a WORKING epidural. I just stared at him and I am sure I was shooting daggers. THe nurse was just as appalled as I was. He put it in and left immediately. We didn't see him again. I wonder why.

Soon I was told that they wanted to insert an internal monitor because my contractions were decreasing in intensity and whenever they tried to increase the pitocin, Eli's heartbeat would occasionally drop. The internal monitor basically told us that my contractions were decreasing in intensity but somehow I was still progressing fairly rapidly. I was 10 cm and ready to push soon after.

Now, I am not going to go into all the details here but I will explain the basic gist of what happened. Elijah was still sitting sideways slightly, despite our best efforts of trying to move him by laying on my side for the last few hours. It wasn't too drastic and sometimes by pushing, the baby will rotate itself...so that was the plan of action. I started pushing and it was INTENSE! 2 1/2 hours of active pushing go by when my doctor came in and checked me. Baby's head was still sideways, making it hard for him to get under my pubic bone to be born. You could see the swollen top of his head but that was about as far as he would come. The other issue was that every time I would push, his heart rate went down (which is normal) but it would take awhile to come back up. The doctor and nurses did not like that at all. Third problem was that they decided my body was just too narrow to push a baby out. Finally, my doctor told me that it was time for an emergency C-Section. After all day and all night of labor and other setbacks, it had come down to a slew of nurses and doctors rushing around getting dressed, telling me to drink some awful medicine, getting Carlos prepped, and trying to console me as I sobbed because I was so tired and so disappointed. After all that work and having a set plan, my delivery was not going AT ALL like I wanted.

They took me into the O.R. and had Carlos wait outside which is standard procedure. I was terrified of undergoing major surgery and all I wanted was my husband to be by my side. Remember how I bragged about my nurses? Well this is where they deserve ALOT of credit. They all were trying to comfort me and take my mind off everything while people rushed around me and talked in hurried voices. They wanted to get Eli out ASAP because of his heart rate and because he had been in the birth canal for so long. The fun doesn't stop here either :) I was given medicine in my epidural to numb me completely so they could start surgery. Yet again, I could not get numb enough. Basically they poke you with a sharp SOMETHING (not sure what) and ask if you can feel it. If you can, they give you more medicine. Well there was one little area that I could feel the doctor poking even after all the meds they had administered. In my head I thought " Oh my Gosh...I am going to be cut open and I am going to feel EVERYTHING!!!" Finally my doctor told me that they needed to start and that Carlos couldn't come in because if I felt her cutting, they would have to knock me out completely. WHAT?!?!? Well that is when the panic attack set in. My heart rate rocketed and I had to be put under. I vaguely remember pressure and the feeling of them pulling Eli out. I did not see him over the curtain. I did not have my husband next to me. Carlos did not see him or cut his umbilical cord. I woke up to them wiping him off and weighing him and to Carlos coming over to me and checking on me. But then....the nurses brought over our baby. OUR BABY. Our perfect, beautiful, angelic, 7 lb 7 oz, 22 inch miracle. I was the first to hold him and to talk to him. ALthough I was still very out of it, I hold onto that moment and will never forget it. It was his and I's moment and nothing or any plan-gone-wrong can ever take that away.

Although my delivery was nowhere near what I would wish on myself or anyone else, and for a whole day I allowed myself to be sad about how "wrong" it went, I am here to say that it doesn't matter. I was so afraid I wouldn't bond with him because I missed that exact moment he was born but how so completely wrong I was. My son is the most important and most cherished thing in my life. I love him INTENSELY and our bond was immediate and strong. SO strong that it doesn't matter how he was delivered or what went wrong or right. He was born healthy, happy, and is loved by two parents who would do anything in the world for him. I can't explain the love and magic that comes along with being a mommy. It is unlike anything I have ever felt and each day, with each new moment, our bond grows stronger.

Now you may wonder "How in the world does this reassure future mommies???" Well heres how. I hope that maybe some mommies-to-be who read this understand that even if things don't go perfectly, you are still a mommy and that love you share with your child is stronger than any plan. Some people have amazing birth stories and everything goes perfectly. Others, like myself, veer a little off course. :) Either way, we are strong women who have the opportunity to be the best parents possible to our little miracles. I am so blessed to have such a strong community of new moms around me that I can share stories, hardships, laughs, and even tears with. Being a parent is the hardest job I have ever had but it is also the most fulfilling. To all the mommies out there: YOU ROCK!!!