Every year, my blog posts decrease in frequency. Boo. It's 2019 already, can you believe that?
So, I can give a quick update on life, the universe and everything...
Daniel...turned 10 last year, double digits! He's in 5th grade, and doing pretty well, even though he's still catching up on a lot of things. Math is his best subject, and he just needs to keep practicing his reading. Next year is middle school, and I think he's looking forward to it!
Jared...turned 7 last year, and will be 8 in just under 2 months. He's in 2nd grade and he has the same 2nd grade teacher that Daniel had. He's still a bit rough around the edges in a few ways, but he's smart and funny, and still really a cuddly little guy. He's getting so good at reading and he has a great imagination that he shares with Daniel often.
Kaitlyn...turned 5 last August and started Kindergarten! She was beyond thrilled to go, and especially to ride the bus with the boys. She's doing amazingly well, and she's catching on so fast with reading, it's amazing! She got glasses last year (badly farsighted) and she's been doing a wonderful job wearing them all the time. She's into doing crafty things with Mommy and her sister, loves her dolls and loves playing with her sister, too.
Laurel...she'll be 3 in a few weeks! She's growing by leaps and bounds. She speaks clearly (and clearly speaks her mind). Working on potty training, and the plan is for her to go to preschool at Milenio in the fall. That'll make her the only kid to go to preschool there for two school years (vs one like the others). She loves playing with Kaitlyn, and she's catching up to Kaitlyn in size. They're like little twinsies, one blonde, one brunette. She does love the days that she stays at home with Mommy, though.
Now, me and Mike. Mike is still working at the same place, with changes in schedule and location, most notably. His company finished their new building, moved in, and quickly realized that they were already full, so they started another building. He was working at home, before, at least 2 or 3 days during the week, which went up to four, but is now down to ZERO. Goose egg! Nada! He's working a bit locationally closer (not Scottsdale) for the time being.
And me...I'm teaching at Phoenix College now! I had a full schedule (well, as full as an adjunct can have) and it was nice working consistently. Rio Salado was great (and still is, of course), but the consistency wasn't there. I'm teaching the first class that I've actually taken (BIO 181), which is a first, too! I'm still doing some work for Paradigm (10 hours a week or less, though), doing some random things, being a back-up QC'er and so on.
Last semester was a bit draining on Wednesday nights, since I thought it would be good to get classes out of the way on a Wednesday. So I had one, 3-hour lecture starting at 10am, then lab for 3 hours, then another lab for 3 hours. So classes weren't over until 8:30...hooray.
As I mentioned above, Mike's work schedule changed so he's in the office, which is a bit of a pain with childcare because that means that on Wednesday, the bigger 3 go to Kids Club now after school. Before, since he was at home on Wednesday, he'd get them from the bus and all was good. We shifted Laurel from 3 days at daycare back to 2, and it evened itself out, money wise.
Let's see...what else. Summer! Last summer was full of activity on some days. Right after school got out, we took a trip up to visit my parents in Washington, drove over through Idaho to Montana and back to Washington again. We did this in a rental motor home, which the kids had been pining away to do for some time. After we got back, swim lessons started. Daniel wanted to try diving lessons, so he had that as well for one session. Daniel and Jared were also in the "Cub Club" water safety group, and then regular swim lessons, so there were some days that were 3 sessions of swimming!
In the fall, the 3 bigger ones also did soccer after school...Daniel and Kaitlyn seemed to enjoy it the most, but Jared had a good time too.
And with that...Laurel is now climbing on me...some things take a while to change, right?
In any case, goals for the year include...writing more! I'll try to make it a goal to write something every night...doesn't have to be the same thing, but just SOMETHING.
Happy 2019!
Thursday, January 24, 2019
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
January 2018 in Summary
Well, it's the last day of January, and it seems like certain aspects of the month have gone quickly and others have been painfully slow. Other parts seem to just mush together with the month of December, which was a bit dreadful.
Maybe I'll talk about December later...
Anyway, January. The new year rung in with no big surprises, Daniel stayed up with us to watch the ball drop, and that was that. He was enjoying winter break, which seemed to go extra, super long, even though it wasn't. School didn't start up again until the 8th of January, so that's probably what made it seem long.
OK...interruption time...Laurel...not...sleeping. Will continue later, I hope!
Maybe I'll talk about December later...
Anyway, January. The new year rung in with no big surprises, Daniel stayed up with us to watch the ball drop, and that was that. He was enjoying winter break, which seemed to go extra, super long, even though it wasn't. School didn't start up again until the 8th of January, so that's probably what made it seem long.
OK...interruption time...Laurel...not...sleeping. Will continue later, I hope!
Thursday, January 18, 2018
It's 2018
Well, ya crazy kids, it's 2018. I seriously can't believe it myself, and I can't believe (or, well, I can, sort of) that it's been over a year since my last post.
Let's see...what's going on...what's happened in the last year...hmm...
Kids first, I guess. Laurel turned 1 on February 2nd, and she's the only one of our kids to be walking before their first birthday. The others have been close, but she was taking actual steps and all that a few weeks before. She'll be a 2 year old two weeks from tomorrow (eep!) and she's grown by leaps and bounds since last year, of course. More hair. Sleeping in a crib that's not in our room. Talking. Eating just about anything that's put in front of her. Playing with her siblings.
Then Kaitlyn...she turned four in August and she was SUPER excited to start Preschool/ELC at the boys' school. Her class is right next door to Daniel's, which is kind of funny. She's fully potty trained (even at night), and that's been the easiest transition all around. She's super smart, remembers everything you tell her (even if you might not want her to) and she's learned to play video games with the boys now, too.
Jared is next. Kindergarten was a bit rough, but 1st grade has been way better. Not as much hiding, not listening, etc. He's learning to read really well, too, with a huge explosion in reading over the past couple of months even. He turned 6 and had a birthday party at Pump It Up, and this year he'll be seven. Yikes!
Daniel turned 9 (he'll be 10 this year) and he's becoming a bit more independent and he's taking on some more responsibility. He's really good at math, and reading is sort of coming along. He shares a room with Laurel for the moment (even though that's going to change in the near future) and we've been letting him stay up a bit later on the weekends. He learned to ride his bike w/o training wheels (parent bad for not having practice time with him much over the last year or two). Swimming he's still doing really well with, and I'm sure both him and Jared will be competing with each other soon enough!
Well, that's it for the kids right now...and Laurel is crying for me, so I'll cut it off here and continue at a later time (hopefully!)
Let's see...what's going on...what's happened in the last year...hmm...
Kids first, I guess. Laurel turned 1 on February 2nd, and she's the only one of our kids to be walking before their first birthday. The others have been close, but she was taking actual steps and all that a few weeks before. She'll be a 2 year old two weeks from tomorrow (eep!) and she's grown by leaps and bounds since last year, of course. More hair. Sleeping in a crib that's not in our room. Talking. Eating just about anything that's put in front of her. Playing with her siblings.
Then Kaitlyn...she turned four in August and she was SUPER excited to start Preschool/ELC at the boys' school. Her class is right next door to Daniel's, which is kind of funny. She's fully potty trained (even at night), and that's been the easiest transition all around. She's super smart, remembers everything you tell her (even if you might not want her to) and she's learned to play video games with the boys now, too.
Jared is next. Kindergarten was a bit rough, but 1st grade has been way better. Not as much hiding, not listening, etc. He's learning to read really well, too, with a huge explosion in reading over the past couple of months even. He turned 6 and had a birthday party at Pump It Up, and this year he'll be seven. Yikes!
Daniel turned 9 (he'll be 10 this year) and he's becoming a bit more independent and he's taking on some more responsibility. He's really good at math, and reading is sort of coming along. He shares a room with Laurel for the moment (even though that's going to change in the near future) and we've been letting him stay up a bit later on the weekends. He learned to ride his bike w/o training wheels (parent bad for not having practice time with him much over the last year or two). Swimming he's still doing really well with, and I'm sure both him and Jared will be competing with each other soon enough!
Well, that's it for the kids right now...and Laurel is crying for me, so I'll cut it off here and continue at a later time (hopefully!)
Sunday, January 08, 2017
First Week of the Year Down!
Greetings again, and although I didn't blog for everyone after the 2nd, I've kept up with the daily pictures and short videos for everyone. Including myself. I think I've found that just snapping a quick picture or doing a quick video is much easier than typing something coherent out.
Well, the week didn't go by with too much going on. The boys went back to school on Tuesday, and Jared even got a blue card at least one day for behavior, and he was thrilled to be "surfer of the day", the helper in the class. Daniel's class is doing a "wax museum" where they pick a historical figure to do a report on and dress up as at the end of the project.
Kaitlyn and Laurel are pretty good too...daycare on Tuesday and Thursday, as normal. Laurel still walks on her knees (which is pretty hilarious), enjoys the doorway jumper and is pretty clingy. Still eats just about anything you put in front of her. Kaitlyn is doing really well with potty training, now to just convince her to wear underwear instead of ask for a diaper.
All things told, it wasn't a horrible week. The weather has been pretty blah, and it feels like everyone should just sleep and be cuddley. But...ah...work. :)
Here's the pictures from the 3rd through the 8th (today!) in rapid succession!
Well, the week didn't go by with too much going on. The boys went back to school on Tuesday, and Jared even got a blue card at least one day for behavior, and he was thrilled to be "surfer of the day", the helper in the class. Daniel's class is doing a "wax museum" where they pick a historical figure to do a report on and dress up as at the end of the project.
Kaitlyn and Laurel are pretty good too...daycare on Tuesday and Thursday, as normal. Laurel still walks on her knees (which is pretty hilarious), enjoys the doorway jumper and is pretty clingy. Still eats just about anything you put in front of her. Kaitlyn is doing really well with potty training, now to just convince her to wear underwear instead of ask for a diaper.
All things told, it wasn't a horrible week. The weather has been pretty blah, and it feels like everyone should just sleep and be cuddley. But...ah...work. :)
Here's the pictures from the 3rd through the 8th (today!) in rapid succession!
Monday, January 02, 2017
Second Post of the Year!
So I'm actually keeping up here (for now!). Day number two of the year, and here I am.
Today actually went by sort of fast. Got up with the kids around 8:30 (minus Kaitlyn, who slept til around 9) and played a little bit of Rock Band with the boys. A few random TV shows and then daddy got up around 11:30. Laurel was looking a bit tired, so I joined her for a 1 1/2 hour nap (yay!).
Then we got out of the house a bit and took a trip to Petco (just to amuse the kids) and then to Target to get a few things before school starts back up for the boys tomorrow. Kids fed. Laurel, my newly minted 11 month old, fell asleep in her doorway jumper. Played some more of my newest game (Don't Starve) with Jared and then it was bedtime for all the people under age 10!
Got some grading for my online course done and now I'm blogging and about to hit the game again!
Here's yet another very glamorous picture of the day...
Today actually went by sort of fast. Got up with the kids around 8:30 (minus Kaitlyn, who slept til around 9) and played a little bit of Rock Band with the boys. A few random TV shows and then daddy got up around 11:30. Laurel was looking a bit tired, so I joined her for a 1 1/2 hour nap (yay!).
Then we got out of the house a bit and took a trip to Petco (just to amuse the kids) and then to Target to get a few things before school starts back up for the boys tomorrow. Kids fed. Laurel, my newly minted 11 month old, fell asleep in her doorway jumper. Played some more of my newest game (Don't Starve) with Jared and then it was bedtime for all the people under age 10!
Got some grading for my online course done and now I'm blogging and about to hit the game again!
Here's yet another very glamorous picture of the day...
Sunday, January 01, 2017
Happy New Year!
Welcome to 2017...I think almost everyone I've talked to has had a hard time wrapping their brains around that for one reason or another. Like, it seems like it was just 2000? Wait, what year was it that such-n-such happened? In either case, I'd like to start off the new year with a new series of blog posts.I have been pretty lax about blogging for myself and for the kids, but, hey, I have four kids. And they are all pretty young. The reasons I haven't done a post in a while are numerous, but I'm hoping that with ringing in this new year that some of those things preventing me from doing it will lessen.
As for new things to add to the "document your life" stuff, I am attempting to get a short video of each of the kids every day along with their daily photo. I'm going to try and do a daily video of and for myself as well, just to see how things change over the course of a year. I feel particularly compelled to do this for the reason that our family is "complete" now. It's an interesting feeling to have everything in place. If we were to get matching Christmas ornaments, or something personalized...we're all there. No one is left out simply because they haven't been born yet.
There's a few other New Year's resolution type things that I'm going to attempt as well, but I'll discuss that later. I have to have a few more things to talk about in future blog posts, right?
So...cheers, and here's to 2017!
Friday, July 08, 2016
Oh, the places we went...
So I failed my attempt to blog for each of my children each day for a whole week. That was a while ago. In any case, this one isn't about my lack of blogging, but rather a recap of our recent vacation!
In celebration of Mike and my 10th anniversary, we went on an epic road trip. Originally, we had a destination in mind, Lake Tahoe, where we got married. The plan several months back was to fly to Reno, spend a few days there and then drive up to Tahoe, take the boat ride around the lake, stay another day or two and then go back home. A few things changed our ultimate plans, as I'll explain. One is that the airline times were a bit squishy. And by squishy, I mean that the direct, non-stop flights from Phoenix to Reno were either really early or really late. They weren't great. The second was the price of the flights. Tag on renting a car in Reno and then paying for the hotels that we really wanted, it started to get a bit pricey. Since we were already spending money, I idly started looking at ways to extend our trip (do something fun, right?) and started looking at going to Disneyland or Legoland to have some fun with the kids. Our one week fly to Reno and back turned into an almost two week road trip.
So here we go...
Day 1 was Saturday June 18th. We intended to leave as early as we could (shooting for maybe 8am?), but we ended up not getting out of the house til around 11. Oh well. We still made pretty good time to Las Vegas, which was our first destination! We drove straight through, which was pretty impressive not to stop for a potty break or a food break. So we made it to Vegas, checked into our hotel (Treasure Island) and the first stop (a request/wish from Daniel) was the giant Coke bottle. The last time we were in Las Vegas, he REALLY wanted to go up inside of it. There's an Outback up there, so we had dinner there.
Day 2, Sunday, the first full day in Las Vegas. The kids slept in relatively late, thanks to blackout curtains...hooray! Plans for the day included hitting up the pool in the morning and then taking the kids to Circus Circus. The pool was a hit, but as an unfortunate parent fail, Laurel got a bit sunburned. Ouch. At Circus Circus, we played a few video games and had lunch at the McDonalds there (exciting, I know, but the kids like it!). We went to the Venetian as well to walk around and bought a few things (toys, hats, chocolate...you know, the important stuff).
Day 3, Monday, a travel day. Time to check out of TI and make our way up to our next destination, Reno! This was the longest driving day of our trip, so it was pretty exhausting. On our way, we stopped to visit uncle Gary for an hour or so in Fernley. Then onto Reno where we checked into the Peppermill. The kids were already excited to have a hottub in the room.
Day 4, Tuesday. Lots of just relaxation and a quick trip out to Target for supplies. We took the kids to the game room at the Peppermill, which was definitely a hit (and repeated a few more times!).
Day 5, Wednesday. The kids are still sleeping in pretty well (yay blackout curtains) and the only plans for today were a lunch with one of Mike's former co-workers. Then back to the hotel, more splashing around in the hot tub in the room and so on.
Day 6, Thursday. Today the pool was on the agenda! All of us hit up the pools at the Peppermill and had a pretty good time splashing about. We met up with another of Mike's former co-workers and family for dinner before returning to the hotel and finishing up the day in the game room again. Over the 3 days of playing, the kids got to pick out the toys they wanted from the tickets they'd accumulated over the past few days.
Day 7, Friday June 24th. Checkout of the Peppermill day and onto Tahoe! It's also our anniversary! The plan was to go on the 2:30 boat cruise on the MS Dixie (since the Tahoe Queen, the boat we got married on, wasn't running...it's being renovated, and out of it's dock due to low lake levels). We met up with Gary who accompanied us on the ride around the lake. The kids liked looking out on the water the whole trip (Daniel the most, Kaitlyn probably next, and Jared got a little restless and wanted to run up and down the stairs between decks. Laurel was happy whereever!). At the end of the ride, we went to check into our hotel (Lake Tahoe Resort Hotel) and ordered some pizza for dinner. Perfect anniversary!
Day 8, Saturday. Another day at Tahoe! We FINALLY were able to go on the Heavenly Gondola! We'd attempted to go on it a few times in the past, but it was shut down due to weather or some other odd reason. At the top, we went to play on the playground, and let Daniel attempt the rock wall (which he totally rocked! Up three times in no time at all!). A ride back down on the gondola and dinner with Gary and Kiara! They had to leave to go pick up Grandma Stone from the airport in Reno, We hit up the pool for a little while in the evening before tucking in for the night
Day 9, Sunday. Check out and departing Tahoe. Our destination was Yosemite! None of us had ever been there, and we are kind of kicking ourselves that we used to live so close to it, yet we never went! It was about a 2 hour drive to the park entrance from South Lake Tahoe. From there, we took the road through to the west side and down to Yosemite Valley (where all the "good" stuff is). It was a very memorable trip! It was busy in places, but we still had a few opportunities to get out and get some pictures. We saw one coyote and one bear while there (exciting, I know, but I honestly wasn't expecting to see much of anything, I suppose). Backing out of Yosemite, we headed for Fresno for the night.
Day 10, Monday. Heading out of Fresno and towards Anaheim! We hadn't told the kids that we were going to Disneyland, and we were really rushing to try and get out of Fresno and on our way! Traffic was sort of icky in some places, but we made it to our hotel around 2pm! The kids were still kind of clueless about where we were (Jared kept insisting that we needed to go to the zoo), and it really didn't hit them until they saw a big statue of Goofy in the lobby of our hotel. We got checked in and headed out to Disneyland (since we were at Paradise Pier, one of the resort hotels, it was a pretty quick walk). We got to go on the rocket ride, as well as hit up the AstroBlasters. We were all pretty tired, ordering room service for dinner.
Day 11, Tuesday. One of the perks of staying at a resort hotel is getting into the park an hour early. Daniel and I were the ones to get up and head out (the others were sleeping in a bit). We hit up (Hyper) Space Mountain and Star Tours (and grabbed a few more Fast Passes for Space Mountain) before heading back to get the rest of the gang. Our plans for the day included a few more rides, like Thunder Mountain Railroad, Autopia, and so on. Making use of FastPass and Rider Swap made it so both Mike and I could ride the ride, and sometimes the kids got to go twice.
Day 12, Wednesday. California Adventure Day! We got in early and got our FastPass to the Radiator Springs Racers (that was our goal, since the last time we were there, all of the FastPasses were gone and we never got to ride it). While waiting for our time (about an hour), we all got to ride on some things in A Bugs Life land/area...Flik's flyers, the Lady Bugs and the Chew-Chew Train. We did the Radiator Springs Racers (yay!) and got two more Fast Passes for that. A few more rides (Mater's Junkyard Jambouree and Luigi's thing in Cars Land) and back to the hotel for just a bit. Mike headed out to get a few more Fast Passes for the Grizzly River Rapids and came back for us so we could head out for a 2nd round of Radiator Springs Racers. Riding the rapids (Jared went once, then refused the 2nd time) and over to ride Mike and Sully to the rescue (Monsters Inc) twice. After that, we headed to the hotel again and then prepared to go out to see the World of Color (we'd picked up reserved passes earlier in the day). It was a tiring day, but worth it!
Day 13, Thursday. Our last day! We checked out of our hotel and headed to Disneyland to meet Gillianne and her family! Before we'd met, Mike took the boys to wait in line for the Matterhorn. The ride broke down so we ended up needing to go at a later time. Upon meeting up with Gillianne, we went on Pirates of the Caribbean (all of us did!), and Splash Mountain. Daniel got his wish to go on the Matterhorn (the boys got to go twice, once with Mike, once with me!), and then on a boat ride in Storybook Land, and ending out the day with the spinning teacups (Mike, Daniel, Jared and Kaitlyn). We headed for home and arrived about 12:30 am. Tired...happy...did I mention tired?
We're still recovering a week later...but it was a fun trip! We showed ourselves that we can do it with our complete family of six!
In celebration of Mike and my 10th anniversary, we went on an epic road trip. Originally, we had a destination in mind, Lake Tahoe, where we got married. The plan several months back was to fly to Reno, spend a few days there and then drive up to Tahoe, take the boat ride around the lake, stay another day or two and then go back home. A few things changed our ultimate plans, as I'll explain. One is that the airline times were a bit squishy. And by squishy, I mean that the direct, non-stop flights from Phoenix to Reno were either really early or really late. They weren't great. The second was the price of the flights. Tag on renting a car in Reno and then paying for the hotels that we really wanted, it started to get a bit pricey. Since we were already spending money, I idly started looking at ways to extend our trip (do something fun, right?) and started looking at going to Disneyland or Legoland to have some fun with the kids. Our one week fly to Reno and back turned into an almost two week road trip.
So here we go...
Day 1 was Saturday June 18th. We intended to leave as early as we could (shooting for maybe 8am?), but we ended up not getting out of the house til around 11. Oh well. We still made pretty good time to Las Vegas, which was our first destination! We drove straight through, which was pretty impressive not to stop for a potty break or a food break. So we made it to Vegas, checked into our hotel (Treasure Island) and the first stop (a request/wish from Daniel) was the giant Coke bottle. The last time we were in Las Vegas, he REALLY wanted to go up inside of it. There's an Outback up there, so we had dinner there.
Day 2, Sunday, the first full day in Las Vegas. The kids slept in relatively late, thanks to blackout curtains...hooray! Plans for the day included hitting up the pool in the morning and then taking the kids to Circus Circus. The pool was a hit, but as an unfortunate parent fail, Laurel got a bit sunburned. Ouch. At Circus Circus, we played a few video games and had lunch at the McDonalds there (exciting, I know, but the kids like it!). We went to the Venetian as well to walk around and bought a few things (toys, hats, chocolate...you know, the important stuff).
Day 3, Monday, a travel day. Time to check out of TI and make our way up to our next destination, Reno! This was the longest driving day of our trip, so it was pretty exhausting. On our way, we stopped to visit uncle Gary for an hour or so in Fernley. Then onto Reno where we checked into the Peppermill. The kids were already excited to have a hottub in the room.
Day 4, Tuesday. Lots of just relaxation and a quick trip out to Target for supplies. We took the kids to the game room at the Peppermill, which was definitely a hit (and repeated a few more times!).
Day 5, Wednesday. The kids are still sleeping in pretty well (yay blackout curtains) and the only plans for today were a lunch with one of Mike's former co-workers. Then back to the hotel, more splashing around in the hot tub in the room and so on.
Day 6, Thursday. Today the pool was on the agenda! All of us hit up the pools at the Peppermill and had a pretty good time splashing about. We met up with another of Mike's former co-workers and family for dinner before returning to the hotel and finishing up the day in the game room again. Over the 3 days of playing, the kids got to pick out the toys they wanted from the tickets they'd accumulated over the past few days.
Day 7, Friday June 24th. Checkout of the Peppermill day and onto Tahoe! It's also our anniversary! The plan was to go on the 2:30 boat cruise on the MS Dixie (since the Tahoe Queen, the boat we got married on, wasn't running...it's being renovated, and out of it's dock due to low lake levels). We met up with Gary who accompanied us on the ride around the lake. The kids liked looking out on the water the whole trip (Daniel the most, Kaitlyn probably next, and Jared got a little restless and wanted to run up and down the stairs between decks. Laurel was happy whereever!). At the end of the ride, we went to check into our hotel (Lake Tahoe Resort Hotel) and ordered some pizza for dinner. Perfect anniversary!
Day 8, Saturday. Another day at Tahoe! We FINALLY were able to go on the Heavenly Gondola! We'd attempted to go on it a few times in the past, but it was shut down due to weather or some other odd reason. At the top, we went to play on the playground, and let Daniel attempt the rock wall (which he totally rocked! Up three times in no time at all!). A ride back down on the gondola and dinner with Gary and Kiara! They had to leave to go pick up Grandma Stone from the airport in Reno, We hit up the pool for a little while in the evening before tucking in for the night
Day 9, Sunday. Check out and departing Tahoe. Our destination was Yosemite! None of us had ever been there, and we are kind of kicking ourselves that we used to live so close to it, yet we never went! It was about a 2 hour drive to the park entrance from South Lake Tahoe. From there, we took the road through to the west side and down to Yosemite Valley (where all the "good" stuff is). It was a very memorable trip! It was busy in places, but we still had a few opportunities to get out and get some pictures. We saw one coyote and one bear while there (exciting, I know, but I honestly wasn't expecting to see much of anything, I suppose). Backing out of Yosemite, we headed for Fresno for the night.
Day 10, Monday. Heading out of Fresno and towards Anaheim! We hadn't told the kids that we were going to Disneyland, and we were really rushing to try and get out of Fresno and on our way! Traffic was sort of icky in some places, but we made it to our hotel around 2pm! The kids were still kind of clueless about where we were (Jared kept insisting that we needed to go to the zoo), and it really didn't hit them until they saw a big statue of Goofy in the lobby of our hotel. We got checked in and headed out to Disneyland (since we were at Paradise Pier, one of the resort hotels, it was a pretty quick walk). We got to go on the rocket ride, as well as hit up the AstroBlasters. We were all pretty tired, ordering room service for dinner.
Day 11, Tuesday. One of the perks of staying at a resort hotel is getting into the park an hour early. Daniel and I were the ones to get up and head out (the others were sleeping in a bit). We hit up (Hyper) Space Mountain and Star Tours (and grabbed a few more Fast Passes for Space Mountain) before heading back to get the rest of the gang. Our plans for the day included a few more rides, like Thunder Mountain Railroad, Autopia, and so on. Making use of FastPass and Rider Swap made it so both Mike and I could ride the ride, and sometimes the kids got to go twice.
Day 12, Wednesday. California Adventure Day! We got in early and got our FastPass to the Radiator Springs Racers (that was our goal, since the last time we were there, all of the FastPasses were gone and we never got to ride it). While waiting for our time (about an hour), we all got to ride on some things in A Bugs Life land/area...Flik's flyers, the Lady Bugs and the Chew-Chew Train. We did the Radiator Springs Racers (yay!) and got two more Fast Passes for that. A few more rides (Mater's Junkyard Jambouree and Luigi's thing in Cars Land) and back to the hotel for just a bit. Mike headed out to get a few more Fast Passes for the Grizzly River Rapids and came back for us so we could head out for a 2nd round of Radiator Springs Racers. Riding the rapids (Jared went once, then refused the 2nd time) and over to ride Mike and Sully to the rescue (Monsters Inc) twice. After that, we headed to the hotel again and then prepared to go out to see the World of Color (we'd picked up reserved passes earlier in the day). It was a tiring day, but worth it!
Day 13, Thursday. Our last day! We checked out of our hotel and headed to Disneyland to meet Gillianne and her family! Before we'd met, Mike took the boys to wait in line for the Matterhorn. The ride broke down so we ended up needing to go at a later time. Upon meeting up with Gillianne, we went on Pirates of the Caribbean (all of us did!), and Splash Mountain. Daniel got his wish to go on the Matterhorn (the boys got to go twice, once with Mike, once with me!), and then on a boat ride in Storybook Land, and ending out the day with the spinning teacups (Mike, Daniel, Jared and Kaitlyn). We headed for home and arrived about 12:30 am. Tired...happy...did I mention tired?
We're still recovering a week later...but it was a fun trip! We showed ourselves that we can do it with our complete family of six!
Saturday, May 21, 2016
Challenge Day 2!
Welcome to the weekend, and my second consecutive day blogging! Blogging every day has the potential to be a little boring in the sense that there's not something exciting going on EVERY day.
Anyway, today was a pretty typical Saturday. Mike and I woke up to a little bit of kidlet squawking, and came downstairs to find that Kaitlyn (presumably) had scattered corn chips all over the floor. Sigh. After doing a bit of cleaning, we prepared to go out to do a little shopping. Target today! The past few weekends we've been favoring going to Fry's Electronics (for no good reason other than we're nerds!). The mission at Target was to get swimsuits for the older 3, maybe pick up a little pool, and check on shorts for the boys too. And mission was easily accomplished without too much fuss.
We decided to head up to South Mountain (another popular weekend driving destination) to see if J, K and L would nap (mostly geared towards K napping). We managed to catch a few chuckwalla out again, and snap a few more fuzzy pictures. Of course, Kaitlyn fell asleep as we were most of the way home. Great.
Still plotting and planning our epic trip coming up in a few weeks here! And that's about all for now! Off to blog for the kids!
Anyway, today was a pretty typical Saturday. Mike and I woke up to a little bit of kidlet squawking, and came downstairs to find that Kaitlyn (presumably) had scattered corn chips all over the floor. Sigh. After doing a bit of cleaning, we prepared to go out to do a little shopping. Target today! The past few weekends we've been favoring going to Fry's Electronics (for no good reason other than we're nerds!). The mission at Target was to get swimsuits for the older 3, maybe pick up a little pool, and check on shorts for the boys too. And mission was easily accomplished without too much fuss.
We decided to head up to South Mountain (another popular weekend driving destination) to see if J, K and L would nap (mostly geared towards K napping). We managed to catch a few chuckwalla out again, and snap a few more fuzzy pictures. Of course, Kaitlyn fell asleep as we were most of the way home. Great.
Still plotting and planning our epic trip coming up in a few weeks here! And that's about all for now! Off to blog for the kids!
Friday, May 20, 2016
Mommy's Little (Personal) Blogging Challenge
I decided sometime last week (mentally) that I was going to challenge myself to doing a blog a day. Not just ANY blog a day (cue Daniel voice when saying that)...but one for myself AND each of the kids' blogs. Ambitious!
I managed to do a blog-a-day for a period of time when I was on bed rest while pregnant with Kaitlyn. At that time, though< I had a lot of time on my hands, and a lot of time to sit and ponder.
In any case, today I'll start!
Today was a pretty good day. It was the first day of summer vacation for the boys (hip-hip HOORAY for them). But, on top of that, the girls were home too, since they only go to daycare two days a week. Mike went into the office today, so I had all four of them home alone with me today.
It actually wasn't too bad with all four of them, since the 3 older ones keep each other company. Kaitlyn seems a lot less needy when the boys are around. Laurel is getting better with not needing to be held every waking hour either, and she's kind of content to watch the others too.
Aside from that, we're putting everything in motion for our EPIC summer vacation trip. I suppose it's more epic for us since it is a road trip (eep!) and we'll be hitting up a few stops and celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary. So far, we've got the Reno leg hotel booked...just need to nail down a few more places to stay and we'll be good to go! So exciting!
Happy Friday!
I managed to do a blog-a-day for a period of time when I was on bed rest while pregnant with Kaitlyn. At that time, though< I had a lot of time on my hands, and a lot of time to sit and ponder.
In any case, today I'll start!
Today was a pretty good day. It was the first day of summer vacation for the boys (hip-hip HOORAY for them). But, on top of that, the girls were home too, since they only go to daycare two days a week. Mike went into the office today, so I had all four of them home alone with me today.
It actually wasn't too bad with all four of them, since the 3 older ones keep each other company. Kaitlyn seems a lot less needy when the boys are around. Laurel is getting better with not needing to be held every waking hour either, and she's kind of content to watch the others too.
Aside from that, we're putting everything in motion for our EPIC summer vacation trip. I suppose it's more epic for us since it is a road trip (eep!) and we'll be hitting up a few stops and celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary. So far, we've got the Reno leg hotel booked...just need to nail down a few more places to stay and we'll be good to go! So exciting!
Happy Friday!
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
The Tubal!
Has it REALLY been over two years since my last post here? I have a weird addiction to blogs, and I know I've posted elsewhere, but I guess it really HAS been a while! And now I'm editing to note that I actually started this post over a week ago...eesh...
I actually had to go back and look at the title of this post. The Tubal! A tubal ligation, that is. 'Coz I got one. And I was more excited about it than a sane person should be (maybe). I can't really pinpoint what makes me the most excited, but I think it has to do with being done having kids, having a family that I couldn't have planned better for if I tried (which isn't to say that I didn't try!) and just knowing that my uterus is closed for business!
So here goes, with all of the TMI (maybe, again) details. I didn't post this on this blog, but my 4th child, 2nd daughter, was born on one of my favorite holiday's of the year...Groundhog Day! Laurel Alexis Stone came into the world at 3:33am, a whopping 8lbs, 12oz...not too shabby for being nearly 2 weeks early!
At one of my prenatal checkups, of which there were MANY, due to preterm labor and things, one of the doctors talked to us at length about the different sterilization methods. I always figured that I'd get my tubes tied when I was done having kids, but there are other ways of doing it nowadays. I have had 3 Mirena IUDs that have worked out well for me between pregnancies in that they do wonders to lighten periods. I'd thought about getting one again, but it is still "temporary", and they like to be diligent about having it checked every year, it is good for 5 years, etc etc. My first Mirena also shifted and they had to use the jaws of life to get it out. Well, not really, but it was wedged up there pretty far and it took the doctor about 45 minutes to get it out after making sure it was still in there by ultrasound and using a bunch of knitting needles (cervical dilators) to open things up to fish it out.
Back to the talk now. I considered the IUD again. Then the doctor talked about Essure, but that sort of turned both Mike and me off when they described the metal coils being in there permanently, the 3 month wait time for effectiveness, how it may not work, complications, etc. I don't react particularly well to metal in general, as I can barely wear earrings for any length of time these days without my ear lobes swelling up. And it freaked both of us out that the metal coils would be in there...FOREVER.
Then the tubal stuff. Two ways of doing it. One was shortly after birth (mini-laparotomy) and the other was a little more time after birth (laparascopic). The mini-lap seemed to rely on digging around for the tubes (no scope) and she explained that it could be hit or miss. The laparascopic one used a scope, had two incisions (but smaller) and possibly shorter recovery time. So we kind of went for that, and made it officially on the books when I went for my post-partum checkup.
April 26th was the day! I got to abstain from ibuprofen for a week or two before, and no food, water, etc starting the night before. The plan was that I'd get up and drive myself up to the surgery center, and Mike would get all of the kids to where they needed to be and meet me up there. We decided to put the girls into daycare again (a few days a week), and it would be Laurel's first day. I needed to be at the surgery center no later than 6:30, so I set off around 5:45. Mike put Daniel on the bus around 7:15. Then dropped off the girls, then Jared at preschool and was on his way.
Meanwhile, I got to the surgery center about 6:20ish, and checked in pretty quickly. They called me back around 7 or so, and I went into the pre-op consultation, where they do all of the vitals (check hematocrit, blood pressure, temperature, weight, etc) and I got to sign all of the paper work...yes, I am fully aware that this will make me unable to have more kids. They had me pee in a cup for a pregnancy test (just checking!) and I got changed into a spiffy gown, cap and paper bootie things. Down to pre-op I went, and they came by to set up the heart rate monitors with stick-ums all over my chest and start an IV. The nurse who did the IV was AWESOME. She numbed it up with lidocane (which I can't say I've had before an IV was put in) and the whole thing went in like butter...I could hardly feel anything. And then I waited.
Lots of people in pre-op for various things. Of course, everyone is separated by curtains. It was kind of a cacophony of voices in there while doctors, nurses, patients, whatever talked over each other. And after a while, everyone got pushed off to where they were going, and I was still kind of waiting. It was still early though, but I was kind of bored until someone came by with magazines to read.
My doctor showed up and said we could start earlier than 8:30 if everyone was ready. I think all they were waiting for was anesthesia. The resident showed up and introduced herself and finally the anesthesiologist arrived and we were good to go. Although it wasn't too much earlier...I went back about 8:19.
I can't honestly remember what it was like the last time I had total knock-me-out surgery, since I was only 7 or so. I couldn't tell you what the operating room looked like, and so on. In any case, as much as I could see without glasses, we got to the operating room, I got to lay down on the table (which seemed super narrow to me!) and had my arms out like I was on death row ready to get a lethal injection. Then the mask. And then I heard the anesthesiologist say that she was putting the stuff into my IV to make me verrrrrry sleeeeeeepy. A few seconds later I was out, and the next thing I know I'm waking up in recovery.
I felt really tired (but I was tired anyway! I have four kids, remember?) but not too bad on the pain scale. The doctor came by and said everything went well (which he had reiterated to Mike in the waiting room), although I had 3 incisions instead of 2 (which I come to find out is probably due to my weird anatomy...ha!). Mike came in and the nurses got him some ice chips and water for me. Yum. Just like labor and delivery. It wasn't too long before I was free to go home! I got home, slept off the rest of the day and all was pretty good.
Aside from a few days of soreness (there were a few times I had a hard time bending over to get Laurel up for night feedings) and wearing dresses vs pants/shorts, I think I'm healing up well! Two out of the three sets of steristrips fell off after a week and a half or so, and the NP at my appointment today ripped off the 3rd set. Voila! I'm fixed!
And if I get motivated later, I'll post pictures on here...hahaha!
I actually had to go back and look at the title of this post. The Tubal! A tubal ligation, that is. 'Coz I got one. And I was more excited about it than a sane person should be (maybe). I can't really pinpoint what makes me the most excited, but I think it has to do with being done having kids, having a family that I couldn't have planned better for if I tried (which isn't to say that I didn't try!) and just knowing that my uterus is closed for business!
So here goes, with all of the TMI (maybe, again) details. I didn't post this on this blog, but my 4th child, 2nd daughter, was born on one of my favorite holiday's of the year...Groundhog Day! Laurel Alexis Stone came into the world at 3:33am, a whopping 8lbs, 12oz...not too shabby for being nearly 2 weeks early!
At one of my prenatal checkups, of which there were MANY, due to preterm labor and things, one of the doctors talked to us at length about the different sterilization methods. I always figured that I'd get my tubes tied when I was done having kids, but there are other ways of doing it nowadays. I have had 3 Mirena IUDs that have worked out well for me between pregnancies in that they do wonders to lighten periods. I'd thought about getting one again, but it is still "temporary", and they like to be diligent about having it checked every year, it is good for 5 years, etc etc. My first Mirena also shifted and they had to use the jaws of life to get it out. Well, not really, but it was wedged up there pretty far and it took the doctor about 45 minutes to get it out after making sure it was still in there by ultrasound and using a bunch of knitting needles (cervical dilators) to open things up to fish it out.
Back to the talk now. I considered the IUD again. Then the doctor talked about Essure, but that sort of turned both Mike and me off when they described the metal coils being in there permanently, the 3 month wait time for effectiveness, how it may not work, complications, etc. I don't react particularly well to metal in general, as I can barely wear earrings for any length of time these days without my ear lobes swelling up. And it freaked both of us out that the metal coils would be in there...FOREVER.
Then the tubal stuff. Two ways of doing it. One was shortly after birth (mini-laparotomy) and the other was a little more time after birth (laparascopic). The mini-lap seemed to rely on digging around for the tubes (no scope) and she explained that it could be hit or miss. The laparascopic one used a scope, had two incisions (but smaller) and possibly shorter recovery time. So we kind of went for that, and made it officially on the books when I went for my post-partum checkup.
April 26th was the day! I got to abstain from ibuprofen for a week or two before, and no food, water, etc starting the night before. The plan was that I'd get up and drive myself up to the surgery center, and Mike would get all of the kids to where they needed to be and meet me up there. We decided to put the girls into daycare again (a few days a week), and it would be Laurel's first day. I needed to be at the surgery center no later than 6:30, so I set off around 5:45. Mike put Daniel on the bus around 7:15. Then dropped off the girls, then Jared at preschool and was on his way.
Meanwhile, I got to the surgery center about 6:20ish, and checked in pretty quickly. They called me back around 7 or so, and I went into the pre-op consultation, where they do all of the vitals (check hematocrit, blood pressure, temperature, weight, etc) and I got to sign all of the paper work...yes, I am fully aware that this will make me unable to have more kids. They had me pee in a cup for a pregnancy test (just checking!) and I got changed into a spiffy gown, cap and paper bootie things. Down to pre-op I went, and they came by to set up the heart rate monitors with stick-ums all over my chest and start an IV. The nurse who did the IV was AWESOME. She numbed it up with lidocane (which I can't say I've had before an IV was put in) and the whole thing went in like butter...I could hardly feel anything. And then I waited.
Lots of people in pre-op for various things. Of course, everyone is separated by curtains. It was kind of a cacophony of voices in there while doctors, nurses, patients, whatever talked over each other. And after a while, everyone got pushed off to where they were going, and I was still kind of waiting. It was still early though, but I was kind of bored until someone came by with magazines to read.
My doctor showed up and said we could start earlier than 8:30 if everyone was ready. I think all they were waiting for was anesthesia. The resident showed up and introduced herself and finally the anesthesiologist arrived and we were good to go. Although it wasn't too much earlier...I went back about 8:19.
I can't honestly remember what it was like the last time I had total knock-me-out surgery, since I was only 7 or so. I couldn't tell you what the operating room looked like, and so on. In any case, as much as I could see without glasses, we got to the operating room, I got to lay down on the table (which seemed super narrow to me!) and had my arms out like I was on death row ready to get a lethal injection. Then the mask. And then I heard the anesthesiologist say that she was putting the stuff into my IV to make me verrrrrry sleeeeeeepy. A few seconds later I was out, and the next thing I know I'm waking up in recovery.
I felt really tired (but I was tired anyway! I have four kids, remember?) but not too bad on the pain scale. The doctor came by and said everything went well (which he had reiterated to Mike in the waiting room), although I had 3 incisions instead of 2 (which I come to find out is probably due to my weird anatomy...ha!). Mike came in and the nurses got him some ice chips and water for me. Yum. Just like labor and delivery. It wasn't too long before I was free to go home! I got home, slept off the rest of the day and all was pretty good.
Aside from a few days of soreness (there were a few times I had a hard time bending over to get Laurel up for night feedings) and wearing dresses vs pants/shorts, I think I'm healing up well! Two out of the three sets of steristrips fell off after a week and a half or so, and the NP at my appointment today ripped off the 3rd set. Voila! I'm fixed!
And if I get motivated later, I'll post pictures on here...hahaha!
Thursday, January 09, 2014
Back to Life, Back to Reality
After a summer spent chronicling all of the goings on, I appear to have taken my good ol' time putting a new blog post out there! September 9th? Wow! Has it really been that long?!
So what has been going on since then. Hmmm...
Well, in September, Kaitlyn turned 1 month old. The end of September approached, and it was almost time for my 6-week maternity leave to come to an end. I went "back" to work to finish out the days that I had coming to me before I went into labor. Essentially, I had 7 days to work before my departure. So those 7 days were Friday the 20th of September, the following week, and the Monday after. My last day at TGen was the 30th of September.
As I left, I had arrangements made to go to the hiring company that I would be getting paid through for my contract work. I went to the office and was there for a good 2 hours or so, filling out forms, taking tests and talking to people. I got the impression that they didn't realize that I was going for a particular job, I didn't need them to FIND me one. One of the ladies that I talked to was telling me about all of these random job opportunities.
Moving on, I had the rest of the week of to let everything get processed. Due to the government shut down (ha!), they mentioned that they couldn't verify work eligibility. But that was OK, since I wasn't in a rush to start right that moment...especially with a trip to Montana coming up.
Daniel was on fall break the first week in October. Kaitlyn wasn't yet in daycare, and so we figured it was prime time to take a trip to Montana. It also happened that Mike's father was very sick, and we got there with a few days to say our goodbyes and let him meet his newest granddaughter. He passed away right before midnight on the Wednesday of our trip, and the memorial was on Saturday. We headed back to Phoenix the following day.
Monday came, and Kaitlyn started daycare (having the record of being able to keep her out of daycare the longest out of all of our kids...Daniel and Jared both started at just over 6 weeks of age, and she made it to about 10 weeks!). Daniel also started his after school program as well.
After a few more weeks of waiting for the staffing company to get back to me, I finally started my new contract job at Paradigm! It has taken a while to get into, but I really enjoy it and I find that I really get engrossed in the work. Another surprise came right before Christmas, with an offer of a more permanent position and working in-house!
For Christmas, we made the somewhat last-minute decision to drive to Reno. That way, we could bring Mike's mom back with us and spend some time in Reno as well. We stayed in Yerington for a few days, spending time with Mike's brother and mom, and his brother's girlfriend's family. After Christmas, we went to Reno and stayed at the Peppermill for a few nights in the most awesome room ever (or most awesome BATHROOM ever!). We met up with a few of Mike's former co-workers, including Maurice and his family.
One of the days in Reno we took a trip to Tahoe, where the kids got to sled a little bit and play around in the snow.
As we departed Reno, we made our way to Vegas, deciding to split the return trip into two parts. We got to Las Vegas a little after dark and crashed out in our room at the Excalibur. The trip from Reno to Vegas is LONG! The next day we got up and went to the Venetian to visit the wax museum. We hadn't been there since Daniel was a baby, and it was fun to have the kids pose and see all of the new things that they have.
Back to Phoenix we came, with Mike's mom in tow. After that, who knows what direction she will go!
I say back to reality now, as just this week I started going into the office. I now have my very official badge (which, comically, has my TGen picture on it, since it's in the same building).
The kids are definitely growing like weeds! Kaitlyn turned 5 months yesterday, and I'm still keeping up with the picture a day thing with her. For the boys, I started doing the daily picture for them on New Years. Kaitlyn is good at rolling over, holding her head up, and tries to wiggle and crawl. She is getting the hang of the exersaucer too! Jared is picking up so many things, and he loves to point out his letters and numbers, and he's trying his hand at some words. Daniel is picking up a lot of words too, and is really good at doing detailed work. He likes to tinker, and can put together things (like a vacuum cleaner!) and likes "machines".
Well, that's about all for now. The dust is settling from all of the drama of 2013, and we are now all enjoying the ride!
So what has been going on since then. Hmmm...
Well, in September, Kaitlyn turned 1 month old. The end of September approached, and it was almost time for my 6-week maternity leave to come to an end. I went "back" to work to finish out the days that I had coming to me before I went into labor. Essentially, I had 7 days to work before my departure. So those 7 days were Friday the 20th of September, the following week, and the Monday after. My last day at TGen was the 30th of September.
As I left, I had arrangements made to go to the hiring company that I would be getting paid through for my contract work. I went to the office and was there for a good 2 hours or so, filling out forms, taking tests and talking to people. I got the impression that they didn't realize that I was going for a particular job, I didn't need them to FIND me one. One of the ladies that I talked to was telling me about all of these random job opportunities.
Moving on, I had the rest of the week of to let everything get processed. Due to the government shut down (ha!), they mentioned that they couldn't verify work eligibility. But that was OK, since I wasn't in a rush to start right that moment...especially with a trip to Montana coming up.
Daniel was on fall break the first week in October. Kaitlyn wasn't yet in daycare, and so we figured it was prime time to take a trip to Montana. It also happened that Mike's father was very sick, and we got there with a few days to say our goodbyes and let him meet his newest granddaughter. He passed away right before midnight on the Wednesday of our trip, and the memorial was on Saturday. We headed back to Phoenix the following day.
Monday came, and Kaitlyn started daycare (having the record of being able to keep her out of daycare the longest out of all of our kids...Daniel and Jared both started at just over 6 weeks of age, and she made it to about 10 weeks!). Daniel also started his after school program as well.
After a few more weeks of waiting for the staffing company to get back to me, I finally started my new contract job at Paradigm! It has taken a while to get into, but I really enjoy it and I find that I really get engrossed in the work. Another surprise came right before Christmas, with an offer of a more permanent position and working in-house!
For Christmas, we made the somewhat last-minute decision to drive to Reno. That way, we could bring Mike's mom back with us and spend some time in Reno as well. We stayed in Yerington for a few days, spending time with Mike's brother and mom, and his brother's girlfriend's family. After Christmas, we went to Reno and stayed at the Peppermill for a few nights in the most awesome room ever (or most awesome BATHROOM ever!). We met up with a few of Mike's former co-workers, including Maurice and his family.
One of the days in Reno we took a trip to Tahoe, where the kids got to sled a little bit and play around in the snow.
As we departed Reno, we made our way to Vegas, deciding to split the return trip into two parts. We got to Las Vegas a little after dark and crashed out in our room at the Excalibur. The trip from Reno to Vegas is LONG! The next day we got up and went to the Venetian to visit the wax museum. We hadn't been there since Daniel was a baby, and it was fun to have the kids pose and see all of the new things that they have.
Back to Phoenix we came, with Mike's mom in tow. After that, who knows what direction she will go!
I say back to reality now, as just this week I started going into the office. I now have my very official badge (which, comically, has my TGen picture on it, since it's in the same building).
The kids are definitely growing like weeds! Kaitlyn turned 5 months yesterday, and I'm still keeping up with the picture a day thing with her. For the boys, I started doing the daily picture for them on New Years. Kaitlyn is good at rolling over, holding her head up, and tries to wiggle and crawl. She is getting the hang of the exersaucer too! Jared is picking up so many things, and he loves to point out his letters and numbers, and he's trying his hand at some words. Daniel is picking up a lot of words too, and is really good at doing detailed work. He likes to tinker, and can put together things (like a vacuum cleaner!) and likes "machines".
Well, that's about all for now. The dust is settling from all of the drama of 2013, and we are now all enjoying the ride!
Monday, September 09, 2013
New Past-time...Documentaries!
In the evening, when Mike is putting the boys to bed, I take Kaitlyn and do her evening stuff (feed and put down..it varies each night when she might go down). Usually, Kaitlyn goes to sleep around 8:30 or 9, and Mike is still with the boys for a while longer. Until the kids are asleep, I usually do a few computer things, grade papers (if I happen to have a class going), read email, blog (like I'm doing now) and so on. Recently, though, I've gone through the Netflix cue for a few things to watch, but something maybe Mike wouldn't necessarily want to watch, and something I could just interrupt halfway through (didn't have to invest an hour or two in one stretch). One of the categories that came up was documentaries...specifically I think they called it "cerebral documentaries" or something like that.
So far, I'm on my 3rd documentary in the past week. The first was called "Dying to Know", a documentary about the Gerson therapy. The second was a National Geographic documentary on tracing the paths of human migration through genetic markers. Now I'm watching "Burzynski", a documentary about a novel cancer treatment.
I like to think I'm a pretty "open" person...I like to learn new things, I'm open to new ideas and ways of doing things. I also know quite a bit about certain topics, academically, and those topics I feel confident that I know more than the average person and can evaluate them critically. So after watching these documentaries (and notice, they're all biotech/biomedical/cancer related...a subject I'm well versed in), I feel the need to offer my opinion on the documentary...which in turn ends up being about the topic of the documentary in general. The way I see it, documentaries SHOULD try to show both sides of an issue and let the audience decide, but you can totally tell when the maker is trying to sway the audience towards one viewpoint.
Anyway, hopefully I'll get around to spewing my opinion on these...stay tuned! :)
So far, I'm on my 3rd documentary in the past week. The first was called "Dying to Know", a documentary about the Gerson therapy. The second was a National Geographic documentary on tracing the paths of human migration through genetic markers. Now I'm watching "Burzynski", a documentary about a novel cancer treatment.
I like to think I'm a pretty "open" person...I like to learn new things, I'm open to new ideas and ways of doing things. I also know quite a bit about certain topics, academically, and those topics I feel confident that I know more than the average person and can evaluate them critically. So after watching these documentaries (and notice, they're all biotech/biomedical/cancer related...a subject I'm well versed in), I feel the need to offer my opinion on the documentary...which in turn ends up being about the topic of the documentary in general. The way I see it, documentaries SHOULD try to show both sides of an issue and let the audience decide, but you can totally tell when the maker is trying to sway the audience towards one viewpoint.
Anyway, hopefully I'll get around to spewing my opinion on these...stay tuned! :)
Thursday, September 05, 2013
Four Weeks with Kaitlyn and Other Things
Today marks Kaitlyn's four week birthday! Time really does fly!
We've had a bit of a busy week thus far, and it was technically a "short" week due to the Labor Day holiday, but it seems longer sometimes when it's hot out and everyone is stir crazy by the end of the long weekend. Monday we did go on a trip to the Sea Life aquarium, and to lunch at the Rainforest Cafe (where we had quite the heart stopping when Daniel decided to wander off halfway through lunch, setting off a whole search party for him!).
Tuesday Daniel went for his 5 year well check at the doctor. He's growing well (pretty much 50th percentile for height and weight, blood pressure was good and all of that). Back in January when we had gone to the developmental psychologist, she had suggested that Daniel might try some medication for ADHD (formally, he was diagnosed on the autism spectrum, with ADHD, sensory processing disorder and language delay, primarily). We had decided to see if having speech therapy and going to the developmental pre-K at the school district would improve things (which, it did!), but he is still having a hard time grasping a lot of questions that we and the teachers throw at him. In any case, we decided to give medication a try, so we're optimistic that it will help him focus so he can overcome some of the communication difficulties he's been having (among other things).
Jared's well check was on Wednesday, and he was good as well. Instead of being in the lower percentiles, he's finally moved up to the mid-ranges again! He had one shot scheduled and the FluMist if we wanted (figured why not, since Daniel had it the day before, and if the boys are vaccinated, it might prevent transmission to Kaitlyn who is too young to get it). Jared had a bit of a runny nose, but it was easily wiped so they went ahead with the FluMist. He went to daycare and was acting fine. A little while after Mike put him to bed, though, he woke up with a really barky cough and was wheezing pretty hard. It scared him, and it ended up that we spent a good chunk of the night up with him (Mike primarily...he ran the shower with him for a good long while, and sat up with him until around 2:30am before getting Jared back to bed). I was up with Kaitlyn at the usual time, but still kind of tired from being up even as late as I was and worrying about Jared.
Today, Jared stayed home, even though his wheezing was a lot better and his cough was sporadic at best. He'll probably go to daycare again tomorrow. Daniel came home at his usual time (right before 3pm), so I was home with all three for about 3 hours. Eep! Basically, it's hard to get ANYTHING done with all of them needing me (or thinking that they need me) in one form or another. Mike asked if I had gone insane from that or lost it, and surprisingly I didn't totally go off my rocker (thanks Zoloft?). I do fear, though, that these types of things are just making me teeter on the edge, even though I've been the most stable after this pregnancy compared to after the boys.
So that's pretty much that! It really boggles the mind that 4 weeks have passed, and Kaitlyn's one month check is coming up soon. I'm really kicking into gear again with job hunting (although it's going slowly...but momentum is building!), and hopefully things fall into place so we can all be settled and stable again!
We've had a bit of a busy week thus far, and it was technically a "short" week due to the Labor Day holiday, but it seems longer sometimes when it's hot out and everyone is stir crazy by the end of the long weekend. Monday we did go on a trip to the Sea Life aquarium, and to lunch at the Rainforest Cafe (where we had quite the heart stopping when Daniel decided to wander off halfway through lunch, setting off a whole search party for him!).
Tuesday Daniel went for his 5 year well check at the doctor. He's growing well (pretty much 50th percentile for height and weight, blood pressure was good and all of that). Back in January when we had gone to the developmental psychologist, she had suggested that Daniel might try some medication for ADHD (formally, he was diagnosed on the autism spectrum, with ADHD, sensory processing disorder and language delay, primarily). We had decided to see if having speech therapy and going to the developmental pre-K at the school district would improve things (which, it did!), but he is still having a hard time grasping a lot of questions that we and the teachers throw at him. In any case, we decided to give medication a try, so we're optimistic that it will help him focus so he can overcome some of the communication difficulties he's been having (among other things).
Jared's well check was on Wednesday, and he was good as well. Instead of being in the lower percentiles, he's finally moved up to the mid-ranges again! He had one shot scheduled and the FluMist if we wanted (figured why not, since Daniel had it the day before, and if the boys are vaccinated, it might prevent transmission to Kaitlyn who is too young to get it). Jared had a bit of a runny nose, but it was easily wiped so they went ahead with the FluMist. He went to daycare and was acting fine. A little while after Mike put him to bed, though, he woke up with a really barky cough and was wheezing pretty hard. It scared him, and it ended up that we spent a good chunk of the night up with him (Mike primarily...he ran the shower with him for a good long while, and sat up with him until around 2:30am before getting Jared back to bed). I was up with Kaitlyn at the usual time, but still kind of tired from being up even as late as I was and worrying about Jared.
Today, Jared stayed home, even though his wheezing was a lot better and his cough was sporadic at best. He'll probably go to daycare again tomorrow. Daniel came home at his usual time (right before 3pm), so I was home with all three for about 3 hours. Eep! Basically, it's hard to get ANYTHING done with all of them needing me (or thinking that they need me) in one form or another. Mike asked if I had gone insane from that or lost it, and surprisingly I didn't totally go off my rocker (thanks Zoloft?). I do fear, though, that these types of things are just making me teeter on the edge, even though I've been the most stable after this pregnancy compared to after the boys.
So that's pretty much that! It really boggles the mind that 4 weeks have passed, and Kaitlyn's one month check is coming up soon. I'm really kicking into gear again with job hunting (although it's going slowly...but momentum is building!), and hopefully things fall into place so we can all be settled and stable again!
Sunday, September 01, 2013
The Tale of Two Tireds
And here I thought I was being clever (ha!) with the title of this post...but in actuality I'm probably just stupid tired and don't have a good grasp on what's clever or funny and what is not.
Anyway, I believe yesterday I was commenting on how the tired is starting to set in with both Mike and me. Perhaps we were both delusional in thinking that since this is our third baby, that we were pros at this and were somehow immune to it because we knew how to handle things. So actually the first week, both Mike and I went out shopping, to lunch, here and there and had all of these people admiring the baby (gotta love attention that a newborn brings, right?). Inevitably, people ask how we're doing, if we're getting sleep, etc etc. Now, we don't have our OTHER two children with us, so it's easy for people to assume that she's our only/first. That first week we mentioned that she's been pretty good, getting up the requisite number of times, but not making us too exhausted. Yet.
Now, I'll step back for a minute here and say that Kaitlyn has been and was (in the hospital, at first) a combination of the boys. Daniel was a fusser in the hospital, and the first night after he was born I held him all night...or rather had to, otherwise he'd cry. Mike took over that duty the following night (or he took the late night shift while I slept, and I took earlier in the morning). So he made us insane amounts of tired right off the bat. Jared was pretty good. He ate then went right back to sleep, pretty much, in the hospital. He was also under the lights for jaundice earlier on, and maybe the nice warmers made him a happier baby. Kaitlyn started out pretty well. She was born later in the daylight hours (which may have been a factor), and her first night she ate and slept pretty well, again getting up every few hours, but going right back down again. During the day, the following day, she was pretty good as well, having a few moments of wakefulness (but not crying), and mostly sleeping and eating.
The night was a different story...the following night, after midnight (and of course, this is the night that Mike was away from the hospital and spending at home with the boys), she was waking every hour or so, rooting for food (or that's what it seemed), and wanting to be held. Swaddling didn't do much. So I got an hour here and an hour there of sleep...yeah I was pretty exhausted come morning, but I was going home that day, so I figured I could convince Mike to let me catch a nap.
Since then, Kaitlyn has been mostly good (not quite as easy as Jared was, according to memory...he ate, slept, and so on over night...can't really think of a night where it was a struggle to get him back to sleep in a reasonable time), but she has had a few times where she struggled to go back to sleep. But, in general, her pattern is as follows. Go to sleep around the time the boys are going to bed (8:30, give or take). Wake up to eat around the time Mike and I are usually about to go to sleep (11-1am range). Wake up again in the 3-4am range, and then again around 6:30 or so. There are a few things that have made us a little more tired with her, though. First, while she took to nursing pretty well after she was born, staying latched for a good 30 minutes sometimes! After my milk came in, I thought that would be great, but she continued to take a long time to nurse, and often times she'd fall asleep in the middle. Then it seemed like she might be using me as a human pacifier. So the length of time she was taking to eat was keeping me (and us...Mike when he was feeding her out of a bottle encountered this too) up longer. Second, she appears to eat a lot more than the boys. So after she's done nursing, she wants to get topped off with some formula. Add this to her propensity to fall asleep AND take longer to eat...sometimes her feeding routine gets close to an hour!
Anyway, where was I going with this? Oh yeah...sleep. Last night, I went to sleep at around 11:30 or so. She hadn't gotten up by then, and I knew it was a risk, but figured I'd get an hour in there. I actually got 2 hours of sleep, as she woke up around 1:30. No problem. She ate, went back to sleep. Then around 3 or so, she got up again. This time she nursed, but no formula (she went back to sleep). This could sometimes backfire, as she has woken up and wanted more food when she realizes that she wasn't done. Then Jared woke Mike up. And then Kaitlyn woke me up again around 5. I was so tired and lazy that I just popped a bottle in her mouth. Then at 6 she wanted more. It's actually around then that the details get kind of fuzzy...I just know there were bottles, boobs, going out to the kitchen a couple of times, getting in bed and out of bed, and so on.
So by the time that Daniel got up, came into the bedroom and went into our bathroom to use the potty...I was so tired that it might as well have been 2am still. Yawn. The biggest stretch of sleep I got was 2 hours at a time. Usually more like 1 hour here, maybe 30 minutes there. So, yeah, both Mike and I are tired (Mike got more "sleep" in terms of length and duration, but he was sleeping on the floor in the kids room...ouch).
Well, that's all...and I'm here typing this all out when I should be resting, right? I guess we'll wise up at some point!
Anyway, I believe yesterday I was commenting on how the tired is starting to set in with both Mike and me. Perhaps we were both delusional in thinking that since this is our third baby, that we were pros at this and were somehow immune to it because we knew how to handle things. So actually the first week, both Mike and I went out shopping, to lunch, here and there and had all of these people admiring the baby (gotta love attention that a newborn brings, right?). Inevitably, people ask how we're doing, if we're getting sleep, etc etc. Now, we don't have our OTHER two children with us, so it's easy for people to assume that she's our only/first. That first week we mentioned that she's been pretty good, getting up the requisite number of times, but not making us too exhausted. Yet.
Now, I'll step back for a minute here and say that Kaitlyn has been and was (in the hospital, at first) a combination of the boys. Daniel was a fusser in the hospital, and the first night after he was born I held him all night...or rather had to, otherwise he'd cry. Mike took over that duty the following night (or he took the late night shift while I slept, and I took earlier in the morning). So he made us insane amounts of tired right off the bat. Jared was pretty good. He ate then went right back to sleep, pretty much, in the hospital. He was also under the lights for jaundice earlier on, and maybe the nice warmers made him a happier baby. Kaitlyn started out pretty well. She was born later in the daylight hours (which may have been a factor), and her first night she ate and slept pretty well, again getting up every few hours, but going right back down again. During the day, the following day, she was pretty good as well, having a few moments of wakefulness (but not crying), and mostly sleeping and eating.
The night was a different story...the following night, after midnight (and of course, this is the night that Mike was away from the hospital and spending at home with the boys), she was waking every hour or so, rooting for food (or that's what it seemed), and wanting to be held. Swaddling didn't do much. So I got an hour here and an hour there of sleep...yeah I was pretty exhausted come morning, but I was going home that day, so I figured I could convince Mike to let me catch a nap.
Since then, Kaitlyn has been mostly good (not quite as easy as Jared was, according to memory...he ate, slept, and so on over night...can't really think of a night where it was a struggle to get him back to sleep in a reasonable time), but she has had a few times where she struggled to go back to sleep. But, in general, her pattern is as follows. Go to sleep around the time the boys are going to bed (8:30, give or take). Wake up to eat around the time Mike and I are usually about to go to sleep (11-1am range). Wake up again in the 3-4am range, and then again around 6:30 or so. There are a few things that have made us a little more tired with her, though. First, while she took to nursing pretty well after she was born, staying latched for a good 30 minutes sometimes! After my milk came in, I thought that would be great, but she continued to take a long time to nurse, and often times she'd fall asleep in the middle. Then it seemed like she might be using me as a human pacifier. So the length of time she was taking to eat was keeping me (and us...Mike when he was feeding her out of a bottle encountered this too) up longer. Second, she appears to eat a lot more than the boys. So after she's done nursing, she wants to get topped off with some formula. Add this to her propensity to fall asleep AND take longer to eat...sometimes her feeding routine gets close to an hour!
Anyway, where was I going with this? Oh yeah...sleep. Last night, I went to sleep at around 11:30 or so. She hadn't gotten up by then, and I knew it was a risk, but figured I'd get an hour in there. I actually got 2 hours of sleep, as she woke up around 1:30. No problem. She ate, went back to sleep. Then around 3 or so, she got up again. This time she nursed, but no formula (she went back to sleep). This could sometimes backfire, as she has woken up and wanted more food when she realizes that she wasn't done. Then Jared woke Mike up. And then Kaitlyn woke me up again around 5. I was so tired and lazy that I just popped a bottle in her mouth. Then at 6 she wanted more. It's actually around then that the details get kind of fuzzy...I just know there were bottles, boobs, going out to the kitchen a couple of times, getting in bed and out of bed, and so on.
So by the time that Daniel got up, came into the bedroom and went into our bathroom to use the potty...I was so tired that it might as well have been 2am still. Yawn. The biggest stretch of sleep I got was 2 hours at a time. Usually more like 1 hour here, maybe 30 minutes there. So, yeah, both Mike and I are tired (Mike got more "sleep" in terms of length and duration, but he was sleeping on the floor in the kids room...ouch).
Well, that's all...and I'm here typing this all out when I should be resting, right? I guess we'll wise up at some point!
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Three Weeks - Due Date Passes, The Tiredness Sets In!
Well, Kaitlyn's original due date came on August 29th...and she marked the occasion by turning 3 weeks old!
It's been interesting to see all of the changes that she's gone through, all of the things that she's done so far, and how she's integrated into the family. Last weekend marked her first trip to the Arizona Science Center (well, on the outside!). She slept most of the time, of course. The weekdays were relatively uneventful, although both Mommy and Daddy are starting to feel a little bit of the tiredness and fatigue set in, due to a combination of both Kaitlyn AND Jared's sleeping (or lack of) habits.
On Wednesday, Mommy, Daniel and Kaitlyn made a trip out to a few stores for the afternoon...it was kind of fun shopping that day!
In any case, we're still keeping up with the daily pictures...it's quite fun to see how much she's changed in only three weeks!
Well, this is sort of a short entry, and part of that is due to the tiredness stuff...I guess maybe I'll elaborate more on that some other time!
It's been interesting to see all of the changes that she's gone through, all of the things that she's done so far, and how she's integrated into the family. Last weekend marked her first trip to the Arizona Science Center (well, on the outside!). She slept most of the time, of course. The weekdays were relatively uneventful, although both Mommy and Daddy are starting to feel a little bit of the tiredness and fatigue set in, due to a combination of both Kaitlyn AND Jared's sleeping (or lack of) habits.
On Wednesday, Mommy, Daniel and Kaitlyn made a trip out to a few stores for the afternoon...it was kind of fun shopping that day!
In any case, we're still keeping up with the daily pictures...it's quite fun to see how much she's changed in only three weeks!
Well, this is sort of a short entry, and part of that is due to the tiredness stuff...I guess maybe I'll elaborate more on that some other time!
The faces of Kaitlyn...
My 40-week "Baby Bump"
Monday, August 26, 2013
On Recovery!
This might be another sort of odd post, but I was reminded somewhat of my own childbirth "recovery" a few times. So I'll give an update of how things are going and such.
I was partially reminded of the healing and recovering stuff because the bruises on my arms have mostly faded! I had quite a colorful series of bruises from IVs and blood draws (see picture), and it seemed like they sort of lingered there for a while, then finally started to heal (which went by more quickly!). I can still see the spots where scabs were, but I think those are going to fade over time too and not scar up or anything (or if they do, they'll be small anyway!).
My belly is doing a pretty good job of returning to pre-pregnancy size, for the most part. It's kind of hard to remember what extra baggage I had there to begin with, but I'm pretty confident that I'd fit into some of my "regular" clothing. I still wear my favorite pair of maternity shorts, just because they're so darn comfortable. I haven't weighed myself, and I think I'll wait until my 6-week post-partum visit to get the word on that. Last pregnancy, I had lost all of my pregnancy weight by then, but it wasn't terribly hard when I was breastfeeding and I hadn't gained that much weight to begin with.
Post-partum bleeding is something that has always sort of plagued me. It was the worst with Daniel (bleeding for over 8 weeks straight!), with periods of heavy bleeding and so on that medication and a D&C helped slow temporarily, only to have it return and eventually have to resolve on it's own. After Jared, it was heavy as well, but not as bad as with Daniel, and it finished around 7 weeks. With this one, even in the hospital it wasn't so bad...yeah, it was there, but not nearly the quantity, and it looked like it was starting to diminish a little bit. At 2 1/2 weeks post-partum, I still have bright red bleeding, but it is pretty light.
Pain. For the most part, the "baby exit" did pretty well with this delivery. It might be due to Kaitlyn's much smaller size (and smaller head size even!). Her delivery was pretty quick as well, so there wasn't as much swelling (vs. the two hours of pushing with Daniel!). In any case, it is more of some lingering joint and muscle pain that slowed me down at first, but now I can move more quickly and get out of bed faster too. I still sleep with a pillow between my knees just because it's more comfortable. The one thing that has been the worst (and I've heard it gets worse with each delivery) is the afterbirth uterine pains. I can feel it while nursing, and I have the occasional cramps and things, but I figure it's just part of the shrinking back down process. The other pain that has gotten worse since the hospital is in my right calf, just below my knee joint. That might be a remnant of muscles not getting worked while on bedrest. It isn't enough of a pain to be really worrisome, but it's just "there" all the time.
In terms of sleep, I was definitely getting more of that before the baby was born (ha!). However, my brain does have kind of a hard time shutting down sometimes, so even though I'm really tired at night (and even during the day when I might have an opportunity to catch a nap), I don't fall asleep. I've done pretty well, emotionally/mentally, with recovery, even though I still have moments that tip me off...I'm usually able to catch myself and recover from a potential crying outburst. I know it's still "early" in the sense that sometimes the worst of post-partum depression doesn't hit until later, but I'm hoping that doesn't happen!
In the end, I know the post-partum period lasts a year, but sometimes it feels like my own expectation is to bounce back as fast as I can...when I really do need to just recover at my own pace!
I was partially reminded of the healing and recovering stuff because the bruises on my arms have mostly faded! I had quite a colorful series of bruises from IVs and blood draws (see picture), and it seemed like they sort of lingered there for a while, then finally started to heal (which went by more quickly!). I can still see the spots where scabs were, but I think those are going to fade over time too and not scar up or anything (or if they do, they'll be small anyway!).My belly is doing a pretty good job of returning to pre-pregnancy size, for the most part. It's kind of hard to remember what extra baggage I had there to begin with, but I'm pretty confident that I'd fit into some of my "regular" clothing. I still wear my favorite pair of maternity shorts, just because they're so darn comfortable. I haven't weighed myself, and I think I'll wait until my 6-week post-partum visit to get the word on that. Last pregnancy, I had lost all of my pregnancy weight by then, but it wasn't terribly hard when I was breastfeeding and I hadn't gained that much weight to begin with.
Post-partum bleeding is something that has always sort of plagued me. It was the worst with Daniel (bleeding for over 8 weeks straight!), with periods of heavy bleeding and so on that medication and a D&C helped slow temporarily, only to have it return and eventually have to resolve on it's own. After Jared, it was heavy as well, but not as bad as with Daniel, and it finished around 7 weeks. With this one, even in the hospital it wasn't so bad...yeah, it was there, but not nearly the quantity, and it looked like it was starting to diminish a little bit. At 2 1/2 weeks post-partum, I still have bright red bleeding, but it is pretty light.
Pain. For the most part, the "baby exit" did pretty well with this delivery. It might be due to Kaitlyn's much smaller size (and smaller head size even!). Her delivery was pretty quick as well, so there wasn't as much swelling (vs. the two hours of pushing with Daniel!). In any case, it is more of some lingering joint and muscle pain that slowed me down at first, but now I can move more quickly and get out of bed faster too. I still sleep with a pillow between my knees just because it's more comfortable. The one thing that has been the worst (and I've heard it gets worse with each delivery) is the afterbirth uterine pains. I can feel it while nursing, and I have the occasional cramps and things, but I figure it's just part of the shrinking back down process. The other pain that has gotten worse since the hospital is in my right calf, just below my knee joint. That might be a remnant of muscles not getting worked while on bedrest. It isn't enough of a pain to be really worrisome, but it's just "there" all the time.
In terms of sleep, I was definitely getting more of that before the baby was born (ha!). However, my brain does have kind of a hard time shutting down sometimes, so even though I'm really tired at night (and even during the day when I might have an opportunity to catch a nap), I don't fall asleep. I've done pretty well, emotionally/mentally, with recovery, even though I still have moments that tip me off...I'm usually able to catch myself and recover from a potential crying outburst. I know it's still "early" in the sense that sometimes the worst of post-partum depression doesn't hit until later, but I'm hoping that doesn't happen!
In the end, I know the post-partum period lasts a year, but sometimes it feels like my own expectation is to bounce back as fast as I can...when I really do need to just recover at my own pace!
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Two Weeks Old...Visits and Things
Today Kaitlyn is two weeks old! It really seems hard to believe from all directions...it seems like she's been with us for longer (technically, she has, but on the inside!), and sometimes it seems like time is flying by. One week from today is her due date, which seems surreal still in that it wouldn't have been unusual for her to be still inside.
So what has the week held for us (and apologies for any reiteration too!)? Monday was Daddy's work at home day, so we spent that with him while he worked. We had a nice afternoon nap and got up a little after Daniel got home.
Tuesday was Daddy's first "back to work" day in the office, so Kaitlyn and I were left to our own devices for the day. That included relaxing, for the most part. We did run out to pick up Jared right before Daddy got home though. Since sleep was a bit fitful the night before, Daddy offered to take Kaitlyn for the midnight feeding before bed (which ended up being a little later than he anticipated). I slept all the way through until the 3:30am feeding time, which was good.
Wednesday was yet another low key day. Daniel had early release and came home and we just hung out and watched TV (super exciting) while Kaitlyn napped.
Which brings me to today! Today was the rescheduled lunch from two weeks ago. I had to turn in some FMLA paperwork as well, so I attempted to get there a little early to fill that out (which, I did get there a little early, but still had to walk in after parking in the main lot vs visitor parking, and ended up talking to everyone before lunch). We all went over to Corner Bakery (yum!). Kaitlyn was really good, getting passed around, fed, looking around a little at everyone. It was good to see everyone again...I was kind of relaxed about that (which, as an aside, I was a little teary eyed on the drive up there...my mind still wanders to sad things, and even though I've been in that direction a bunch of times...heck, I don't know how I get off on these tangents of getting myself worked up).
After lunch, I went back to turn in paperwork (among other things), and went to see the lab (which, the whole bay where I was is totally stripped and cleaned out. It's...weird, but I didn't get as freaked out as I thought I would be), went to see Megan's new lair and so on. I confirmed with HR that I'd still be coming back at 6 weeks post baby delivery. I think confirming that is making me a little apprehensive, as it will REALLY be the end of things.
So that was that...I hit the freeway and headed home in time for Daniel's bus to arrive. Kaitlyn got fed and Daniel is hanging out with me (helping a little with chores...cleaning the carpets a little).
In any case, here's Kaitlyn's introductions to the (former) lab peeps!
So what has the week held for us (and apologies for any reiteration too!)? Monday was Daddy's work at home day, so we spent that with him while he worked. We had a nice afternoon nap and got up a little after Daniel got home.
Tuesday was Daddy's first "back to work" day in the office, so Kaitlyn and I were left to our own devices for the day. That included relaxing, for the most part. We did run out to pick up Jared right before Daddy got home though. Since sleep was a bit fitful the night before, Daddy offered to take Kaitlyn for the midnight feeding before bed (which ended up being a little later than he anticipated). I slept all the way through until the 3:30am feeding time, which was good.
Wednesday was yet another low key day. Daniel had early release and came home and we just hung out and watched TV (super exciting) while Kaitlyn napped.
Which brings me to today! Today was the rescheduled lunch from two weeks ago. I had to turn in some FMLA paperwork as well, so I attempted to get there a little early to fill that out (which, I did get there a little early, but still had to walk in after parking in the main lot vs visitor parking, and ended up talking to everyone before lunch). We all went over to Corner Bakery (yum!). Kaitlyn was really good, getting passed around, fed, looking around a little at everyone. It was good to see everyone again...I was kind of relaxed about that (which, as an aside, I was a little teary eyed on the drive up there...my mind still wanders to sad things, and even though I've been in that direction a bunch of times...heck, I don't know how I get off on these tangents of getting myself worked up).
After lunch, I went back to turn in paperwork (among other things), and went to see the lab (which, the whole bay where I was is totally stripped and cleaned out. It's...weird, but I didn't get as freaked out as I thought I would be), went to see Megan's new lair and so on. I confirmed with HR that I'd still be coming back at 6 weeks post baby delivery. I think confirming that is making me a little apprehensive, as it will REALLY be the end of things.
So that was that...I hit the freeway and headed home in time for Daniel's bus to arrive. Kaitlyn got fed and Daniel is hanging out with me (helping a little with chores...cleaning the carpets a little).
In any case, here's Kaitlyn's introductions to the (former) lab peeps!
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Conflicting Emotions...Happiness & Sadness in One
The title of the post is a bit misleading, since it really isn't about whether I'm happy or sad right this moment (FWIW, I'm pretty even right now...mostly leaning towards the happier side). Anyway, what I wanted to go back to is some things having to do with work.
Tomorrow I am looking forward to with excitement and dread. Happiness and sadness all in one. Shit, if I'm not careful, I'm going to start welling up with tears while writing this. It's nothing super huge, but Kaitlyn and I are making the trip out for lunch with my now former co-workers. I'll probably hit up my soon-to-be former place of employment as well.
As a bit of a back story, I was supposed to go out to lunch with everyone the very day that Kaitlyn was born. Monica had set up the lunch under the mask of "Amy is term! She can get out of the house!"...when in fact it was just using me as an excuse for another reason. She'd even joked that I had better not have the baby by then...I guess that was jinxed! In any case, some of the crew came over for that lunch (instead of going out...ha!) while I was in labor, which I think at that point I was more than willing to give up my bowl of Broccoli Cheese soup at Corner Bakery for that afternoon.
So the happiness part comes from seeing all of them again, and introducing my former belly-dweller to everyone.
The sadness part comes with the bittersweet flavor of seeing everyone again. I haven't been to work since June 5th...the day I worked half a day, met with HR, and ended up going to the doctor with contractions, leading to being admitted to the hospital for pre-term labor. I have seen everyone on a few occasions, but sadly each time since then I've been a patient in the hospital. Since then, as well, Cathie and my boss, Heather, have left where I work. I'm next, and that's very upsetting (I know that the inevitable has just been put off while I'm out on leave). I'm not angry that it's me, personally, but more that my whole (work) world has been blown to smithereens. The other bit of sadness comes from others soon to be leaving, like the division head. The place where I worked is looking very different from what I remember, and I'm kind of afraid to see it in person. I know it's going to be worse when it's time for me to go "back" for a few days before my final departure :(.
Tomorrow I am looking forward to with excitement and dread. Happiness and sadness all in one. Shit, if I'm not careful, I'm going to start welling up with tears while writing this. It's nothing super huge, but Kaitlyn and I are making the trip out for lunch with my now former co-workers. I'll probably hit up my soon-to-be former place of employment as well.
As a bit of a back story, I was supposed to go out to lunch with everyone the very day that Kaitlyn was born. Monica had set up the lunch under the mask of "Amy is term! She can get out of the house!"...when in fact it was just using me as an excuse for another reason. She'd even joked that I had better not have the baby by then...I guess that was jinxed! In any case, some of the crew came over for that lunch (instead of going out...ha!) while I was in labor, which I think at that point I was more than willing to give up my bowl of Broccoli Cheese soup at Corner Bakery for that afternoon.
So the happiness part comes from seeing all of them again, and introducing my former belly-dweller to everyone.
The sadness part comes with the bittersweet flavor of seeing everyone again. I haven't been to work since June 5th...the day I worked half a day, met with HR, and ended up going to the doctor with contractions, leading to being admitted to the hospital for pre-term labor. I have seen everyone on a few occasions, but sadly each time since then I've been a patient in the hospital. Since then, as well, Cathie and my boss, Heather, have left where I work. I'm next, and that's very upsetting (I know that the inevitable has just been put off while I'm out on leave). I'm not angry that it's me, personally, but more that my whole (work) world has been blown to smithereens. The other bit of sadness comes from others soon to be leaving, like the division head. The place where I worked is looking very different from what I remember, and I'm kind of afraid to see it in person. I know it's going to be worse when it's time for me to go "back" for a few days before my final departure :(.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
The Week With Kaitlyn
Well, the last post was the really long birth story. Today marks her 10th day in the outside world! It seems so weird that someone that we've only really seen for a short period of time, it feels like we already know, yet are still getting to know.
Here's how those days have gone so far!
August 8th: Birth! I think we have this pretty much covered! Born at 4:08pm, we got some snuggle time in the delivery room while everyone was getting checked out and recovered. We settled into a post-partum room for the night (me, Mike and the baby). The night went pretty well, waking up about every four hours to feed and such. The nurses also came in quite often to do vitals and checks and things.
August 9th: Daddy had to run out to make sure Daniel and Jared were picked up and Daniel dropped off to take the bus to school. Afterwards, he went to Babies R Us to pick up a few onsies and a car seat thing. When he got back to the hospital, someone came to take pictures! And we were ready with the cute new outfit. After lunch, Megan and Pilar came by for a visit! Then later in the evening, Daniel and Jared came by to meet their new sister. The night was pretty long, in that Kaitlyn wanted to be held and fed quite a lot.
August 10th: Time to go home! All of the doctors came by to make sure we were both fit to be discharged. After lunch, all of us headed home! Mommy was able to catch a pretty good nap, after having not a lot of sleep the night before.
August 11th: Sunday! Our first full day at home.
August 12th: Monday comes, Daniel goes off to school and Jared to daycare a bit later (where you got to meet all of the daycare ladies!). I sleep in while Kaitlyn sleeps, waking up to make a few appointments. The top one for the day...a visit to the pediatrician! We hit up the office in the afternoon (not with the regular doctor, who was on vacation, but with Dr. Ramirez). Kaitlyn weighed in at 6lbs 5.5oz (a bit down from birth weight, but that was OK). Height was still good (although the nurse measured 19 instead of 19.5 inches), and head circumference (which we didn't know before) was 14cm. We got set up with another appointment for a weight check in a few days. Our other fun for the day was heading to Michael's and Sports Authority...then to Outback Steakhouse for lunch!
August 13th: Outings for the day included Target and Wendy's!
August 14th: Didn't really do a whole lot...Daniel got home early from school, and Kaitlyn spent the afternoon with Daddy while Daniel and Mommy hit up the movies.
August 15th: Weight check day! Increasing a bit from the "low" of 6lbs 5.5oz to 6lbs 9oz! Spiffy! Afterwards we made a trip to Peter Piper Pizza for lunch. Now, as a bit of an interesting aside...Kaitlyn's belly button cord stump fell off! At a week old...now that's really trying to outdo her brothers. After we noticed that it had fallen off, she demonstrated that it wasn't her ONLY trick. Someone tried rolling over, and succeeded! (from front to back). Yep, definitely trying to outdo the boys!
August 16th: Another outing...this time to the lab to get a heel poke for the second newborn screening blood test. Afterwards, we hit up Target again briefly before Daniel gets home from school.
August 17th: Saturday! To get out of the house (for relaxation purposes), we took a drive up South Mountain. Kaitlyn and Jared slept most of the way, Daniel and Daddy did a little exploring at the top.
August 18th: Sunday! A pretty lazy morning, followed by a trip out to Peter Piper Pizza with Daddy's friend/former co-worker Wes. Mommy played with the boys in the game area, while Kaitlyn hung out with Daddy!
So that's the 10 days in a nutshell! Kaitlyn's already been out and about...to the doctor, to the lab, to the daycare, to pizza (twice), to Outback, to Target (twice), and various stores. Already met quite a few people as well...and a new week is about to start!
Here's how those days have gone so far!
August 8th: Birth! I think we have this pretty much covered! Born at 4:08pm, we got some snuggle time in the delivery room while everyone was getting checked out and recovered. We settled into a post-partum room for the night (me, Mike and the baby). The night went pretty well, waking up about every four hours to feed and such. The nurses also came in quite often to do vitals and checks and things.
August 9th: Daddy had to run out to make sure Daniel and Jared were picked up and Daniel dropped off to take the bus to school. Afterwards, he went to Babies R Us to pick up a few onsies and a car seat thing. When he got back to the hospital, someone came to take pictures! And we were ready with the cute new outfit. After lunch, Megan and Pilar came by for a visit! Then later in the evening, Daniel and Jared came by to meet their new sister. The night was pretty long, in that Kaitlyn wanted to be held and fed quite a lot.
August 10th: Time to go home! All of the doctors came by to make sure we were both fit to be discharged. After lunch, all of us headed home! Mommy was able to catch a pretty good nap, after having not a lot of sleep the night before.
August 11th: Sunday! Our first full day at home.
August 12th: Monday comes, Daniel goes off to school and Jared to daycare a bit later (where you got to meet all of the daycare ladies!). I sleep in while Kaitlyn sleeps, waking up to make a few appointments. The top one for the day...a visit to the pediatrician! We hit up the office in the afternoon (not with the regular doctor, who was on vacation, but with Dr. Ramirez). Kaitlyn weighed in at 6lbs 5.5oz (a bit down from birth weight, but that was OK). Height was still good (although the nurse measured 19 instead of 19.5 inches), and head circumference (which we didn't know before) was 14cm. We got set up with another appointment for a weight check in a few days. Our other fun for the day was heading to Michael's and Sports Authority...then to Outback Steakhouse for lunch!
August 13th: Outings for the day included Target and Wendy's!
August 14th: Didn't really do a whole lot...Daniel got home early from school, and Kaitlyn spent the afternoon with Daddy while Daniel and Mommy hit up the movies.
August 15th: Weight check day! Increasing a bit from the "low" of 6lbs 5.5oz to 6lbs 9oz! Spiffy! Afterwards we made a trip to Peter Piper Pizza for lunch. Now, as a bit of an interesting aside...Kaitlyn's belly button cord stump fell off! At a week old...now that's really trying to outdo her brothers. After we noticed that it had fallen off, she demonstrated that it wasn't her ONLY trick. Someone tried rolling over, and succeeded! (from front to back). Yep, definitely trying to outdo the boys!
August 16th: Another outing...this time to the lab to get a heel poke for the second newborn screening blood test. Afterwards, we hit up Target again briefly before Daniel gets home from school.
August 17th: Saturday! To get out of the house (for relaxation purposes), we took a drive up South Mountain. Kaitlyn and Jared slept most of the way, Daniel and Daddy did a little exploring at the top.
August 18th: Sunday! A pretty lazy morning, followed by a trip out to Peter Piper Pizza with Daddy's friend/former co-worker Wes. Mommy played with the boys in the game area, while Kaitlyn hung out with Daddy!
So that's the 10 days in a nutshell! Kaitlyn's already been out and about...to the doctor, to the lab, to the daycare, to pizza (twice), to Outback, to Target (twice), and various stores. Already met quite a few people as well...and a new week is about to start!
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Kaitlyn's Birth Story!
At this time last week, I was settling into my hospital room in labor and delivery...not knowing what was going to happen in the next hours, days or possibly weeks (eek!).
So I left off on the Monday before last...the 5th of August. Daniel's first day of school, an NST appointment and so on. Tuesday, the day after, was pretty uneventful as well. I'd been taking Zoloft for a full week at that point, and it was starting to take the edge off of some of the hormonal and stress driven emotional stuff (I'm sure that wasn't helping with any contractions I'd had).
Wednesday started out pretty tame. We got Daniel off to school, got Jared up and dressed and off to daycare, then made our way to the weekly doctor's appointment. It was pretty standard, and these visits were actually getting a little more depressing, since there was usually NO progress beyond what had already been made. My appointment was with the nurse practitioner, and on checking, she confirmed that I was still at 6cm. Group B strep was still positive (not surprising, but I thought MAYBE, perhaps, that all of the antibiotics shoved into me might have killed it off temporarily). She gave me a copy of my record to take to the hospital just in case as well.
Daniel had early release from school that day, so he got home around 12:45pm. I'd meant to go get a TDap shot at the doctor's office after lunch (I was supposed to get it the week before, but I think everyone including me spaced out on it before leaving the office). So we went to do that really quickly and went back home. I was feeling a little crampy, like contractions might start coming on. While playing with Daniel, I started feeling contractions again. They actually started kind of slow (for me!), maybe every 5-7 minutes. They got a little closer, and we made the call to go to triage sooner rather than later in the evening. By now it was around 3pm.
We (Daniel, Mike and I) got to hospital triage pretty quickly and went through all of the admitting stuff and right into a room. Got hooked up to a monitor again, and low and behold, contractions (of course). The nurse came in and checked me again. Still at 6cm. I swear every doctor at the office knows my MO, so it wasn't terribly surprising that when the nurse called that they said just to have me walk around. So we did that for a while...went down to the healing gardens with Daniel and all of that. After a bit, it was time to go and get Jared from daycare, so Mike and Daniel left for that while I sat in triage...contracting, but not "progressing" because I wasn't dilating further, and getting a little more depressed that all of these contractions were coming but nothing was happening.
And then I sat. And waited. And Mike and the kids got back and were hanging out in the waiting area. I just KNEW I was going to be sent home, even though both nurses that came in to check were dumbfounded that I was so dilated and nothing had happened. The nurse had the doctor come down and chat (and she also checked me too...although I didn't think anything would happen in that short of a span!). Mike and the kids came in at that time too, and I was pretty upset at the fact that I felt like I was crying wolf every time I ended up in triage with contractions...and expressed my fear that I had no idea when or if I was ever progressing when contractions started again. I didn't want to keep staying at home for fear that one of these times it WOULD be the real thing. Everyone pretty much reassured me that I was doing the right thing each time, and it still COULD be a few more trips to triage. However, the tide changed a little bit when Dr. Hebets suggested that I should stay the night, get some rest and see if things changed by morning. I was still a bit iffy on that (stay the night, then get sent home? Couldn't I just sleep better at home?), but it was reassuring to Mike and me to have me in the hospital for the night "just in case".
Mike and the kids went home and I got moved to room 341 in L&D. I mention that, because it was a repeat room (ha!)...my second try room. I was surprised that they put me in L&D (I was thinking antepartum again?). They suggested I take a shower, get some food and they'd give me an Ambien to help me sleep. So I did the first two...shower and light dinner...and got hooked up to the monitors again as well. The nurse confirmed from the doctors to start the IV just to be able to get antibiotics started quickly if needed. I also got the Ambien...they said it'd take about 15-30 minutes to kick in, and to stay put and call if I had to use the bathroom...Ambien sometimes makes people say silly things or something to that effect. I took the Ambien, THEN the IV attempts started. First try in my right arm started hurting more at first than I ever remember, but I tried to stay still and just get it done (after it's in, it isn't a big deal, I figured). It didn't go (the nurse thought she might have hit a valve or something) and so on to try number two. Yep, fail on that one too. She felt SO bad, so she got another nurse. And third and fourth try...nope! Nurse number 3 comes, and at that point I'm feeling REALLY lightheaded for whatever reason. They pop the cool washcloth on my forehead and give me a little break. Try number 5. Nope. Finally, the nurse looks at the nice vein on the top of my right hand (notoriously "wiggly" and sort of uncomfortable) and decides that might be her best shot. And it was definitely uncomfortable, but it worked!
I actually slept pretty well, courtesy of the Ambien. When I woke up in the morning, I wasn't feeling nearly as many contractions, and it really bummed me out. I really thought I had endured numerous needle sticks and a night in the hospital for nothing. The doctor from the previous night came in and said that since I was now officially "term" (37 weeks!) that they could do a little more to get me delivered. With the change in doctors came Dr. Jackson (the doctor I prefer to see in the office, even though I like them all!). He checked me again and he called me a "7 to 8cm". Either he was being super generous or I had gone from being stalled at 6cm to being just a little more overnight somehow (as an aside, he'd explained before that sometimes when the cervix gets to be in the upper ranges, it can be stretched or not depending on the person checking and it can be a little dynamic too...lower dilation measurements are usually more in synch from person to person). He also did a quick membrane sweep/strip to see if that would help as well (membrane stripping in previous pregnancies always resulted in a baby less than 24 hours later for me!). IV antibiotics got started just before 9am...and I got one dose in before they let me walk around a little bit more and contractions came on again, pretty handily, and I got kind of bored so I went back and waited for Mike.
By the time Mike got there, I was hooked back up to the monitor again, and the contractions were coming on fairly regularly, but they wanted to see them a little stronger. The doctor suggested that I go for the epidural before they decided to start pitocin, because those contractions are definitely more painful (and he didn't want to be responsible for any swearing as a result of wanting an epidural and not having one :) ). Within about 15 minutes of saying "yes" to the epidural, the anesthesiologist came in and set up. As he was getting started, the attending anesthesiologist came in and planted himself in a chair and started making jokes and spouting all sorts of random trivia (mostly regarding the Apollo astronauts). It was pretty funny.
Another doctor came by and asked if I'd like to consent to participate in a study that they were doing. Mothers delivering around 37 weeks (which I was exactly!), in their mid-30s, and having received steroids. That's me! All that they'd need was a couple of pieces of placenta once it was delivered, one for expression arrays and the other for FFPE. I'm totally down with that!
After that, Megan, Cathie and Monica came by to visit. For some reason, I had thought the nurse had already started the pitocin, but she hadn't...and came to hang the bag while they were there. About 20 minutes later as everyone was about to head back to work, I felt something akin to a water balloon breaking and coming out and then something warm on my legs. I had Mike look and it was my water that had broken! I was SO happy with that, and was laughing pretty hard. Since things might start to move kind of fast after the water breaks, and Daniel was due to get out of school soon, Mike headed out the door to get them and bring them back to the hospital (so Megan could take them for the night). I was still at about 8cm, so there was still a little bit of time, in theory.
Contractions started picking up in intensity and I waited for everyone to get back (and Mike hurried back pretty quickly, all things considered...distance, timing for Daniel getting out of school, packing up things for the kids and so on). During that time, the resident and medical student came in to check to make sure the baby was head down still by ultrasound (it was an easy one, and good practice for the med student). They also noticed that there was a little bit of hindwater trapped by membrane, so they broke that (weird, since I have never had my water break TWICE?). I still felt like I was leaking fluid periodically.
Mike came back with the kids, and we had a quick hello. The nurse figured it wouldn't be too long before things started happening, so Mike gave Megan a call to come over a little earlier if she could (instead of 4 or 4:30 like they planned). While waiting for Megan, the nurse lifted up the sheet and there was a pretty sizable pool of blood everywhere (I guess I was leaking more than amniotic fluid!). At that point, the nurse suggested that Mike take the kids out just in case, and made the quick call to the doctors. The resident and med student came in first and suited up, followed by my doctor. They didn't even really have to check to see that I was all the way dilated and the head was really low. So we all kind of chit-chatted (awkward in the delivery room, right?) and waited for Mike to get back. The nurse manning the baby warmer asked if I could call Mike to get him back in here (which, Jared had taken my phone, so no!), so I gave her the number and she called to tell him to run back or he'd miss the delivery!
They broke down the bed for delivery, got everything into position and pushing commenced! It barely took 3 pushes and she was out! I was the most clear headed out of all of the delivery/childbirth experiences thus far, probably just being pretty relaxed and also not having it be in the middle of the night. I could see her after she came out and was getting suctioned, watched Mike cut the cord and so on. It was even cool to see the placenta after it was delivered (something I didn't see with the other two kids). As the doctor looked the placenta over, he mentioned something about how it was starting to deteriorate a little, and it had quite a bit of old blood in there too, like it had been bleeding before. I don't know when that would have been, since the only bleeding I had was with a small subchorionic hemorrhage early on, and some bloody show before first delivery attempt at 34 1/2 weeks. Who knows if that could have precipitated some of the pre-term labor in the first place...it doesn't prove cause and effect, but just trying to figure out what might have happened that was different with this pregnancy just in case something like this happens with the next one.
In any case, I think I felt the best with this delivery compared to Daniel and Jared's (for various reasons), and in the end I don't think things could have gone better!
And so ends the birth story...Kaitlyn Elizabeth Stone, born August 8th, 2013 at 4:08pm. Weighing in at 6lbs 13oz and measuring 19 1/2 inches!
So I left off on the Monday before last...the 5th of August. Daniel's first day of school, an NST appointment and so on. Tuesday, the day after, was pretty uneventful as well. I'd been taking Zoloft for a full week at that point, and it was starting to take the edge off of some of the hormonal and stress driven emotional stuff (I'm sure that wasn't helping with any contractions I'd had).
Wednesday started out pretty tame. We got Daniel off to school, got Jared up and dressed and off to daycare, then made our way to the weekly doctor's appointment. It was pretty standard, and these visits were actually getting a little more depressing, since there was usually NO progress beyond what had already been made. My appointment was with the nurse practitioner, and on checking, she confirmed that I was still at 6cm. Group B strep was still positive (not surprising, but I thought MAYBE, perhaps, that all of the antibiotics shoved into me might have killed it off temporarily). She gave me a copy of my record to take to the hospital just in case as well.
Daniel had early release from school that day, so he got home around 12:45pm. I'd meant to go get a TDap shot at the doctor's office after lunch (I was supposed to get it the week before, but I think everyone including me spaced out on it before leaving the office). So we went to do that really quickly and went back home. I was feeling a little crampy, like contractions might start coming on. While playing with Daniel, I started feeling contractions again. They actually started kind of slow (for me!), maybe every 5-7 minutes. They got a little closer, and we made the call to go to triage sooner rather than later in the evening. By now it was around 3pm.
We (Daniel, Mike and I) got to hospital triage pretty quickly and went through all of the admitting stuff and right into a room. Got hooked up to a monitor again, and low and behold, contractions (of course). The nurse came in and checked me again. Still at 6cm. I swear every doctor at the office knows my MO, so it wasn't terribly surprising that when the nurse called that they said just to have me walk around. So we did that for a while...went down to the healing gardens with Daniel and all of that. After a bit, it was time to go and get Jared from daycare, so Mike and Daniel left for that while I sat in triage...contracting, but not "progressing" because I wasn't dilating further, and getting a little more depressed that all of these contractions were coming but nothing was happening.
And then I sat. And waited. And Mike and the kids got back and were hanging out in the waiting area. I just KNEW I was going to be sent home, even though both nurses that came in to check were dumbfounded that I was so dilated and nothing had happened. The nurse had the doctor come down and chat (and she also checked me too...although I didn't think anything would happen in that short of a span!). Mike and the kids came in at that time too, and I was pretty upset at the fact that I felt like I was crying wolf every time I ended up in triage with contractions...and expressed my fear that I had no idea when or if I was ever progressing when contractions started again. I didn't want to keep staying at home for fear that one of these times it WOULD be the real thing. Everyone pretty much reassured me that I was doing the right thing each time, and it still COULD be a few more trips to triage. However, the tide changed a little bit when Dr. Hebets suggested that I should stay the night, get some rest and see if things changed by morning. I was still a bit iffy on that (stay the night, then get sent home? Couldn't I just sleep better at home?), but it was reassuring to Mike and me to have me in the hospital for the night "just in case".
Mike and the kids went home and I got moved to room 341 in L&D. I mention that, because it was a repeat room (ha!)...my second try room. I was surprised that they put me in L&D (I was thinking antepartum again?). They suggested I take a shower, get some food and they'd give me an Ambien to help me sleep. So I did the first two...shower and light dinner...and got hooked up to the monitors again as well. The nurse confirmed from the doctors to start the IV just to be able to get antibiotics started quickly if needed. I also got the Ambien...they said it'd take about 15-30 minutes to kick in, and to stay put and call if I had to use the bathroom...Ambien sometimes makes people say silly things or something to that effect. I took the Ambien, THEN the IV attempts started. First try in my right arm started hurting more at first than I ever remember, but I tried to stay still and just get it done (after it's in, it isn't a big deal, I figured). It didn't go (the nurse thought she might have hit a valve or something) and so on to try number two. Yep, fail on that one too. She felt SO bad, so she got another nurse. And third and fourth try...nope! Nurse number 3 comes, and at that point I'm feeling REALLY lightheaded for whatever reason. They pop the cool washcloth on my forehead and give me a little break. Try number 5. Nope. Finally, the nurse looks at the nice vein on the top of my right hand (notoriously "wiggly" and sort of uncomfortable) and decides that might be her best shot. And it was definitely uncomfortable, but it worked!
I actually slept pretty well, courtesy of the Ambien. When I woke up in the morning, I wasn't feeling nearly as many contractions, and it really bummed me out. I really thought I had endured numerous needle sticks and a night in the hospital for nothing. The doctor from the previous night came in and said that since I was now officially "term" (37 weeks!) that they could do a little more to get me delivered. With the change in doctors came Dr. Jackson (the doctor I prefer to see in the office, even though I like them all!). He checked me again and he called me a "7 to 8cm". Either he was being super generous or I had gone from being stalled at 6cm to being just a little more overnight somehow (as an aside, he'd explained before that sometimes when the cervix gets to be in the upper ranges, it can be stretched or not depending on the person checking and it can be a little dynamic too...lower dilation measurements are usually more in synch from person to person). He also did a quick membrane sweep/strip to see if that would help as well (membrane stripping in previous pregnancies always resulted in a baby less than 24 hours later for me!). IV antibiotics got started just before 9am...and I got one dose in before they let me walk around a little bit more and contractions came on again, pretty handily, and I got kind of bored so I went back and waited for Mike.
By the time Mike got there, I was hooked back up to the monitor again, and the contractions were coming on fairly regularly, but they wanted to see them a little stronger. The doctor suggested that I go for the epidural before they decided to start pitocin, because those contractions are definitely more painful (and he didn't want to be responsible for any swearing as a result of wanting an epidural and not having one :) ). Within about 15 minutes of saying "yes" to the epidural, the anesthesiologist came in and set up. As he was getting started, the attending anesthesiologist came in and planted himself in a chair and started making jokes and spouting all sorts of random trivia (mostly regarding the Apollo astronauts). It was pretty funny.
Another doctor came by and asked if I'd like to consent to participate in a study that they were doing. Mothers delivering around 37 weeks (which I was exactly!), in their mid-30s, and having received steroids. That's me! All that they'd need was a couple of pieces of placenta once it was delivered, one for expression arrays and the other for FFPE. I'm totally down with that!
After that, Megan, Cathie and Monica came by to visit. For some reason, I had thought the nurse had already started the pitocin, but she hadn't...and came to hang the bag while they were there. About 20 minutes later as everyone was about to head back to work, I felt something akin to a water balloon breaking and coming out and then something warm on my legs. I had Mike look and it was my water that had broken! I was SO happy with that, and was laughing pretty hard. Since things might start to move kind of fast after the water breaks, and Daniel was due to get out of school soon, Mike headed out the door to get them and bring them back to the hospital (so Megan could take them for the night). I was still at about 8cm, so there was still a little bit of time, in theory.
Contractions started picking up in intensity and I waited for everyone to get back (and Mike hurried back pretty quickly, all things considered...distance, timing for Daniel getting out of school, packing up things for the kids and so on). During that time, the resident and medical student came in to check to make sure the baby was head down still by ultrasound (it was an easy one, and good practice for the med student). They also noticed that there was a little bit of hindwater trapped by membrane, so they broke that (weird, since I have never had my water break TWICE?). I still felt like I was leaking fluid periodically.
Mike came back with the kids, and we had a quick hello. The nurse figured it wouldn't be too long before things started happening, so Mike gave Megan a call to come over a little earlier if she could (instead of 4 or 4:30 like they planned). While waiting for Megan, the nurse lifted up the sheet and there was a pretty sizable pool of blood everywhere (I guess I was leaking more than amniotic fluid!). At that point, the nurse suggested that Mike take the kids out just in case, and made the quick call to the doctors. The resident and med student came in first and suited up, followed by my doctor. They didn't even really have to check to see that I was all the way dilated and the head was really low. So we all kind of chit-chatted (awkward in the delivery room, right?) and waited for Mike to get back. The nurse manning the baby warmer asked if I could call Mike to get him back in here (which, Jared had taken my phone, so no!), so I gave her the number and she called to tell him to run back or he'd miss the delivery!
They broke down the bed for delivery, got everything into position and pushing commenced! It barely took 3 pushes and she was out! I was the most clear headed out of all of the delivery/childbirth experiences thus far, probably just being pretty relaxed and also not having it be in the middle of the night. I could see her after she came out and was getting suctioned, watched Mike cut the cord and so on. It was even cool to see the placenta after it was delivered (something I didn't see with the other two kids). As the doctor looked the placenta over, he mentioned something about how it was starting to deteriorate a little, and it had quite a bit of old blood in there too, like it had been bleeding before. I don't know when that would have been, since the only bleeding I had was with a small subchorionic hemorrhage early on, and some bloody show before first delivery attempt at 34 1/2 weeks. Who knows if that could have precipitated some of the pre-term labor in the first place...it doesn't prove cause and effect, but just trying to figure out what might have happened that was different with this pregnancy just in case something like this happens with the next one.
In any case, I think I felt the best with this delivery compared to Daniel and Jared's (for various reasons), and in the end I don't think things could have gone better!
And so ends the birth story...Kaitlyn Elizabeth Stone, born August 8th, 2013 at 4:08pm. Weighing in at 6lbs 13oz and measuring 19 1/2 inches!
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