27 May 2012

26 May 2012

25 May 2012

19 May 2012

Awkward & Awesome

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One of the blogs I read does an Awkward and Awesome weekly piece about good and bad things throughout the week. Having a newborn has made me realize there are a lot of awkward and awesome things that happen just within a couple days! So here is my awkward and awesome list (although I'd like to think of something different than awkward and awesome..)

Awkward
• the number of times I want to take a picture of our sweet little thing and then realize my boob takes up most of the shot.
• all the questions my athletes had about me giving birth. (also slightly awesome)
• Nursing little girl at 2am in bed and falling asleep until 4am with no idea what she was doing for the 2 hrs...
• how many times in a row we've changed A's diaper and 10 secs later she goes gain.
• The funny dark linea negra line down my post preggo tummy. That's supposed to go away right??
• my hair. Seriously a constant mess.


Awesome
• breastfeeding is getting better! It hurts ridiculously bad, buts it's honestly becoming more enjoyable. I think.
• successfully nursing in public without major wardrobe malfunctions.
• staying in bed until 12pm (or later)
• my Boba babywearing wrap! I got to go to the state track meet and little A slept happily in her wrap.
• all the squeals and shrieks from my student athletes when A and I arrived at the state track meet. They loved her.
• pretending pooping and comfort smiles are directed at us because we are such dang funny parents.
• don't hate me...but I'm just about back to my pre-preggo weight. 2 weeks.
• the funny little coo's A makes.
• the milk drunk face. Especially when she throws her hands up superman style in complete milk drunken bliss.

12 May 2012

Amelia Jade Harris

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Amelia Jade Harris
May 7th 9:54pm
7lbs 6 oz
18.5 inches long
A beauty.

I'm blessed to be able to celebrate Mother's Day this year. I've written down most of our birth story, mostly as a way to remember the details, but also to share the experience with our friends and family. 

There is no way to accurately describe the emotions of what it feels like to become a mother. I feel as though I have thousands and thousands of words to write here just to very briefly touch on my experience  of bringing Amelia Jade into this world.

I've been thinking and holding on to every second of Amelia's birthday. It was so long. I'm afraid I won't remember it all. Thus, there is a lot written down here. Good luck making it to the end. :)

Each moment was surreal. I couldn't believe that she was actually arriving...3 weeks early!

It started likely Sunday morning. We had a busy weekend with an amazing baby shower, watched The Avengers, had a fun maternity shoot in portland with our friend Mei Ratz and spent time with family. By Sunday morning I was pretty tired, but we headed to church. I felt normal pregnancy uncomfortableness. During one of my many trips to the bathroom during our sunday school class, I realized that Amelia might be making her way into the world a bit sooner than we thought. I spent the rest of sunday school class pretending I was reading my scriptures on my iphone, but was really looking up various signs of labor and contemplating the idea that our little girl might be here soon.

We went home. Relaxed. I started to get ready to do some work on my maternity plans, but found myself  not able to focus and posting on facebook, "Amelia should just get here already." I decided to go take a nap. I started thinking of all the things I needed to do in the next 3 weeks to get ready for her arrival and how it would actually be nice if she just showed up and then I wouldn't have to worry about doing everything (like my maternity sub plans). Within seconds of these thoughts, my water broke.

Every moment from this point forward felt both like a blur and also the longest moments of my life. 

Dan is amazing. As soon as I said, "Dan, I think my water just broke" he literally bolted out of bed...just like in the movies! He rushed around the house and got everything ready to go. I called the hospital, tried to remember what I hadn't yet packed in my hospital bag and tried to take big deep breaths. I was shaking in excitement.This was really happening! We left for the hospital within an hour. 

We were admitted and almost immediately the midwife started talking induction. This was my biggest fear. I wanted a natural birth...not just so I could be superwoman - but because I wanted my body to do what it naturally wanted to do. I was also afraid of the cascading events that often lead to a C-section. 

We felt a bit of pressure at first to get pitocin (and looking back, probably should have taken it!), because my water broke early and we really only had 24 hrs to make this birth happen before the serious risk of infection. My contractions were not that strong and only 5-7 minutes apart. But somehow my contractions kicked in a little bit more around midnight and we were left alone to sleep through the night. 

I didn't really sleep, I kept wondering how long this was going to take and what exactly was supposed to be happening. On one hand I was told to rest-up for what was about to come and on the other hand I wanted to be up and moving around trying to get things going. Dan slept off and on. The guy can sleep anywhere.The nurses kept saying I wasn't in active labor yet, but I was definitely feeling like I was headed that way. It wasn't until about 5am that I really started feeling strong contractions. At this point, I got up and started moving around, trying to get labor going.

I did this for about 8ish hours. How all that time went by, I don't know. Even just a few days later, I'm not sure what I did for those 8+ hours. My contractions were still only 4-5 minutes apart. I think Dan just made me laugh the whole time, then I would have a contraction and it was done and we would talk and laugh some more. The pain wasn't really that bad at first. But then I started having extreme back labor probably around 11ish. It got so bad that I had to stand against the wall...or anything really, and have Dan apply counter pressure on my back. He did just as much work as I did. I can never be thankful enough for all that he did to make my happy and comfortable. The back labor killed...but I was just so anxious for everything to start actually happening that I really didn't mind. I kept saying that I wanted the pain, just so it would be over sooner (yes, I quickly took that back later!).

I labored on the ball. 
I labored in the shower. 
I labored against the wall. 
I labored on the bed on all fours.

I labored in whatever position my amazing labor nurse suggested to try to get Amelia to move away from my back. 
We tried ice to get her uncomfortable enough to move away from my tailbone (apparently it works for some...). 
And nothing. 

By about 2pm, I was just exhausted. My contractions hurt, but it wasn't out of this world painful - but they still were not the required 2-3 minutes apart.

I finally decided it was time for a little pitocin. I just wanted her here and it seemed my body just wasn't quite ready to get her here quickly enough. Because I was only 37 weeks it was taking forever for my cervix to dilate. At this point, we didn't even know how dialated I really was because they didn't want to check due to the risk of infection. It was irritating, but best for both of us.

As soon as the pitocin started dripping, I knew I was in for a lot of pain. I had been up and active the whole time, but now all I wanted to do was just lay down because they pain was so unbearable in my back. My contractions were closer now and there was less time to recover from the back pain. Poor Dan was busy! 

Eventually, I felt a little pressure and asked to be checked. 3 cm! Argh! 

By 4pm, my awesome nurse asked if I wanted to try the whirlpool because I was in so much pain. She said that once I hit 4 cms I probably had only around 4-6ish hours to go. I said yes to the pool, but I knew that I didn't mean it. I was starting to vocalize A LOT during contractions and couldn't keep my cool any longer. I just wanted Amelia here! As soon as she left to get the pool ready I told Dan I wanted the epidural. He ran out to get our nurse and seriously within 5 minutes the anesthesiologist was in the room prepping me. 

Let me say that at this point, I was ecstatic to get an epidural!  In no way was I disappointed in myself for not going naturally. I'm so glad that I made the decision to get one. I was starting to seriously not enjoy my birth experience and I wanted it to be something positive in my life that I always looked back on. In fact, I couldn't wait for the nurse and doc to hook me up! I started smiling again and was eagerly looking forward to the next few hours. 

The relief from the pain was indescribable. I slept. It was fantastic. 

My legs were numbed, which I didn't really like, but it was a thousand times better than my back labor. 

Around 7ish, I felt like things were really starting to move down. At 8:30 the midwife checked me and said I was ready to go! In fact, thinking back on it now, I was probably ready to actually start pushing a good 30 minutes before that, but I just couldn't feel it enough to know.

Pushing was exhausting.  Really, really exhausting. I had absolutely no idea what to do. I couldn't feel anything! I think I pushed for about 30 minutes making little to no progress. But everyone (including Dan!) was incredibly encouraging despite that fact. Eventually they let me look in a mirror and put the bar up with a sheet attached to pull on and started to make some progress. I really thought that I would only have to do a few pushes and she would be out...not so! 

The worst part about it was that I had to hold my breath while pushing. Seriously head-ache causing. Why do they tell us to do that? I'm convinced it didn't really help me, but made things worse. 

Despite the difficulty of pushing, the excitement of her soon making her appearance into this world was exhilarating. I couldn't believe that after 26 hours of labor, Dan and I were going to be parents! 

About 50 minutes in, the midwife told me that I really needed to push her out because her heart rate was going up. OH HOW I PUSHED! Still....not too much progress. Eventually she said I had 2 more pushes otherwise she needed to do an episiotomy. YIKES! You better believe I got her out in those two pushes! :)


From then on, I can't describe what happened. In some ways I don't even want to write down the feelings that I had because they are far too personal. 

.....the incredible surge of happiness and relief and love was beyond what I ever could imagine. 

I can't believe she is ours. 

The best part about the whole experience was seeing the love that Dan had for her almost immediately. As she was laying on my chest, naked and hardly 1 minute old, I couldn't she her little face, but all I saw was Dan cooing at her. He was completely awestruck at her tiny little body. Those first few moments are ones that I will remember for the rest of my life. I loved it.

I might just leave it at that for now...

     

25 April 2012

10 April 2012

Updates

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Sam, Chey and I during Spring Break.
Cheyenne- you're lucky I didn't post the other picture of us. :)
Seems like there are a lot of updates to make to our blog...but we are missing our camera battery charger.

  • We finally got Dan's website up and running again. www.daniellukeharris.com
    • This is just a temporary design for now. I'm working on a more complicated and impressive website through wordpress. Ya know...for when I have all that extra time.
  • Dan also started up an Etsy shop. He has a lot of his printmaking work there and some photography. He's currently working on adding a few other things. 

  • Little A should be here in less than 7 weeks! Eek!
  • Cheyenne threw me a beautiful baby shower this Easter weekend (post to come!)
    • Dan and I (and Amelia!) are so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family! We have been give so much in terms of baby stuff. I think I have enough newborn outfits to last every single day of her newborn'ness. :)
  • The pedicure I received this weekend was the best thing that's happened to me in a looooong while + the sunshine on an extremely lazy Easter sunday + my sister and her funnies = a great weekend! 
  • I'm a little behind on baby craft projects...haven't done much since February. Oops! I've seriously got to finish that quilt!
  • Sincerely hoping that the mad amount of braxton hicks contractions I experience on a daily basis will result in abs of steel post-birth?? No one tell me otherwise.
  • I'm successfully navigating the cloth diapering blogging world. I've nearly completed my newborn-9 month stash, or so I hope. 
  • I love being out at track practice. Our athletes are hilarious and the coaches I work with are amazing. Some days are difficult because I'm literally completely exhausted by 3pm, but I love coaching, so I make it work
  • I'm struggling to do better at saying no to work, church, track commitments. I hate having to give up my responsibilities to just rest. It feels so lame. I went home early from work today due to a ton of contractions. It was hard. I cried. My tears weren't because I felt so awful or uncomfortable, but that I had to leave work and be okay with letting someone else take over my classes. I hate it. A lot.