April 26, 2012

Poop, Curse Words and Many Bad Smells....

     I am surrounded by men - and not in that good, slippery yet somehow awkward way. I have the Husband, a Baby Boy and the 100 pound giant male dog. Basically my world is full of poop, curse words and many bad smells. Take yesterday for instance, the Husband had four teeth extracted from his mouth, one drilled out, one cut out and two pulled. Yuck. To top that off the Dog then ended up with an ear infection and for those of you that have dogs you know the ungodly stench that creates. Plus, my lovely son decided to poop in three diapers in a span of about 2 minutes.... I love my life.

    Anyhoo, my initial point and inspiration to this story... our Dog has been the baby of the house for almost two years now. He is spoiled. He thinks he is human. He has had an interesting time adjusting to a Baby in the house. This Dog seems incapable of sleeping unless he is on the couch or in a bed, preferably with pillows under his head. (Hello unintentional rhyme time!) This leads to dog hair everywhere and that distinctive doggy smell all over my house.... and our clothes.... and us. I have been trying my best the past three weeks home to get him to be ok with laying on the floor, I would love for my kid to NOT be covered in course black hair until he has reached the age where he can grow it himself. I even put the pillows up at night. As soon as they are down and someone leaves the couch though he is all over it.


Needless to say, he hasn't learned what "couch back" means...and look, he has the remote too! Is nothing sacred anymore?

April 23, 2012

Motherhood thus far...

     Having Baby Boy and becoming a Mom was definitely the thing I was missing in my life, no doubt about it. Besides being wonderful, heart warming and fulfilling Motherhood is also isolating and frustrating. Nothing really prepares your for the roller coaster ride of it all and other Moms seem to not really tell you the whole truth until a woman becomes a mother herself. Sure, you hear it is exhausting and scary, but no one tells you about those secret moments when they are sobbing in a rocking chair and mourning their old self.  No one says out loud, "I had moments where I thought I would love it if you weren't here for just half a day so I can be me." Then Baby does something amazing like coo or put his precious face right on your cheek and just snuggle for a minute and those freak out moments disappear.

     Baby Boy is four weeks old tomorrow and I find myself more in love every minute. He amazes me with the things he is doing already that all of the books say he shouldn't be doing. At almost three weeks old I watched my perfect baby grasp the rings on a toy and put them in his mouth! He is developing a pattern and my Mommy instincts are so tuned into his every moment that this does seem natural.

     In all the newness and loss of self, I find myself enjoying the most mundane moments. It isn't every day you send a text to your Mom and Sisters saying, "the highlight of my day so far was catching poop in a wipe - now that is skill!" The Husband and I have had total junior high giggle fests over all sorts of bodily functions too like when Baby Boy peed during a diaper change or squished out poop like a very noisy play doh extruder while Husband was holding him. Baby Boy is definitely all man, he sleeps with his arms above his head bent at the elbows, wakes up farting like he belongs in a nursing home and eats loudly and with much enjoyment.

    Every day is a challenge and an adventure. I have learned a lot about myself and been able to watch my marriage develop to a whole new level. I joke that it only took us ten years to make this baby, but I see now that he came at the perfect time in my life. Any earlier and we would have crumbled, any later and the joy would be different somehow.





April 16, 2012

I'm Back! For those of you who haven't completely ran away and abandoned all hope that I would return....

     So I guess I have been gone from the blogging world since October. My apologies, but I was sort of busy creating and nurturing a human life. Anything I would have blogged about would have been about frequent urination, sleep deprivation, mood swings and/or a sexually frustrated husband. Seriously, as if we didn't have to be acrobatic enough with the whole foot height difference we had to add 30 pounds of belly to work around? Plus, no woman wants to get their freak on when their husband says it is like, "fucking the bottom of a basketball..." yeah, nice! Now that I just re-read this, I could have wrote some funny shit. Sorry again, sleep was priority after being away from home 12-13 hour days.

     Anyhoo - Baby Boy is here! He arrived 3 weeks ago in dramatic fashion. Week 39 of pregnancy brought on pre-eclampsia scares which landed my swollen ass (really just my feet and face were swollen) at home - no more work or social life for this girl! Just a few days over due brought some fun contractions that made us do the 40 mile drive to the hospital, then get sent home because they stalled, then we were back because of some issues with my pee that morning. Thanks pee for getting the ball rolling!

     The Dr. decided to help me along with a hormone strip thing placed way, way up my yoohoo (far enough that later 2 nurses had to work to get it out, thanks for that fun time Doc). 2 hours later I was in full on back labor, I felt nothing in the front at all and my cervix gave us all the middle finger by staying closed shut. The nurses kept checking on me and I heard, "happy baby" repeatedly even though Mommy was dying. I let the phrase "elective c section" slip and within 20 minutes the Dr. was in. My blood pressure continued to spike (I remember one top number read at 209) and since the baby was full term the Dr. agreed the c section was the way to go.

     A very short time later I was getting my first spinal ever and feeling like someone was crocheting in my stomach. I heard the Dr. say, "big baby boy" and remember looking over and just staring at this perfect little human getting measured and wiped down. His cry was perfect and I remember telling my Husband how much I loved his little voice. Husband got to leave the room with the baby while they pieced me back together. This also brought fun sensations that had me asking, "is that my belly button," and hearing, "Nope, we are about 6 inches lower than that." Ack - my Husband did feel the need to say to my Dad, "I can now say that I know your Daughter inside and out," because he did see my organs before leaving with Baby.

     Breastfeeding was not something I ever really wanted to do, but I felt the need to at least attempt it. I think every nurse had their hands on my boobs at some point. There is nothing quite like trying to sit up after being sliced open, hold an 8 pound 3 ounce baby and cup your boob - talk about difficult. The best advice I got was from the nurse that shares a name with me, she told me "hold your boob like you would a big mac - a c shape." Oh lord, if you ever hear my husband say anything about gnawing on a big mac, you know now what he means.

     Baby Boy didn't really feed well the first 24 hours and I was finally able to talk a nurse who was NOT a boob nazi into giving him a bottle. Baby took to that like a pro, proceeded to vomit the entire bottle back up and then within an hour start vomiting old blood. We were told that can be normal after a c section. The nurse then slyly asked if she could take Baby for the night to do his hearing and other newborn tests. "Sure, I will get some sleep." The next morning when I went to check on him, we were told that he continued to vomit burp rags fulls of old blood (it looked like coffee grounds I guess) during the night and this meant it couldn't be blood from the c section - it was his blood. Holy, sound the alarm bells - assume super Mommy freak out mode!!! Long story short, the solution was to put him on a special formula by a 24 hour feeding tube and Zantac. Fast forward to next day, 7 a.m. a nurse pulled his stomach contents out again and NO BLOOD!! WOO TO THE HOO:) We were finally told the bleeding they saw with our baby was the worst they had seen - the nurse from the night shift told us on her morning shift that she really expected to come in and have to call the University hospital to take our baby.

     There is our dramatic birth story in a shortened version. Baby is doing well now, gained a full pound in his first 6 days home from the hospital and is really an easy Baby *knock on wood*. Since I am already looking for stuff to do during my days when baby is sleeping, I am hoping to get my blog on again. Here goes nothing!