Birth Can Be So Scary ... Here's My Nightmare of an Encounter

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Let's start off by saying she was ten days late and I had very mild contractions on and off randomly for about a week prior. (super fun lol) Anyway my doctor and I decided to schedule an induction and at the time she was only mildly concerned by the fact that she hadn't dropped. 

Fast forward to the night before my induction and cue contractions beginning at about 9pm. I was scheduled for 7:30 the following morning. I was up all night with significantly stronger contractions but no consistency. I called in at about 5am, talked to the nurse and she said it sounded as if I was going into labor naturally and that I could come in early if I wanted to. We arrived at about 6am. 

Dr. came in a few hours later said I was dilating and broke my water. Contractions obviously got much worse from then on. Keep in mind baby had still not dropped by this point. Few hours go by and contractions are still having trouble with consistency. I was given some stuff to drink that was supposed to help with that. 

I asked for an epidural in the afternoon when I was dilated to 5. It wasn't so much the contractions as it was the combination of contractions and back pain. (Back pain started up a little over half way through pregnancy and was far worse when laying on my back.) Anyway, so they call for the anesthesiologist. She gets me all hooked up and leaves. Well about 45 mins goes by and only the right half is numb. So they call her back and she does some checking and we decide to have it pulled out some to straighten it out. She does, waits around and the left side begins to go numb. Yay finally pain free. 

It's early evening by now and the Dr comes to check me again. Baby still hadn't dropped and I was dilated to an 8. Now she's concerned. She has the nurses put me into a bunch of different positions to try to get baby to move down. Bear in mind my legs are numb during this, so I'm pretty helpless as I'm put on my hands and knees and moved all around. No luck. Around 5:30 - 6pm the Dr finally calls it and says I need to have an emergency C-section. I bawled. I can't express to you how horrified, sad and scared I was. My boyfriend and mother had been helping me through but only one could come in with me. So now I'm an emotional wreck and I have to decide who goes. For most people it's a no brainer, the father. For me, my boyfriend is very easily grossed out, terrified and frankly afraid of newborns. My mother, none of those things and I needed someone strong with me because I was totally losing it so I picked her. He was perfectly fine with it and I think he preferred it that way. (His mother was super pissed at me for it though, he said.) 

Moving on, another anesthesiologist came in to prep me. Lucky me a few minutes prior I had noticed that my epidural was wearing off. Totally feeling the contractions again and yes, I'm sure it wasn't just pressure. Yeah, that's not supposed to happen. So I'm talking to this lady and she's telling me they're just going to ramp up the epidural for the surgery so I asked about the fact that it's wearing off and she like oh. She decided to remove it and give me a spinal instead. 

Now we're headed down to the OR, they're having problems pushing my bed and then they're having problems figuring out which prep area they needed to be in. Basically I was feeling less and less confident in their capabilities by the second. They finally get me into the OR and remove my epidural. It took like 20-30 mins to do the spinal. Apparently she was having issues and my Dr is standing behind me practically pacing. Finally she gets that all worked out and I go numb. 

Well I've never had surgery before but now I know that I don't do well. I couldn't breath and felt nauseous. I quite nearly passed out. They were very close to giving me a breathing tube which would have landed me in the ICU postpartum. My dr was fantastic though. She kept checking on me and kept me talking, all the while working really fast to avoid any further complications. 

My precious baby girl, Brooklynn, was born at 7:18 pm. After spending all day hoping for a safe arrival, she was finally here and all I could do was look at her as my mom held her for the first time. When she brought her close I was able to say hello and kiss her before the vomiting started. I had to wait until the nausea passed before I could hold her and that took about an hour or so. 

Right before I got to hold her.

Turns out that the C section was a really good call. If they had waited any longer Brooklynn could have destroyed my bladder and/or my uterus. My doctor was very happy that everything turned out well given all my complications. 

So there is Brooklynn's birth story. Quite the adventure, huh?

Easy birth or nightmare, let's hear your stories in the comments!

And now some more pictures:

Ready to see the Easter bunny. 2017

Purchase headband here. 

 'Til next time,
Shay

Pregnancy Has Taught Me I've Got A Little Crazy Living In Me

No those are not pj pants ...

Let me first start off by admitting that I was a little crazy before my pregnancy. Actually, I'd consider it more weird than crazy, but that's really neither here nor there. The point is there is a distinct difference in my particular brand of crazy as I grow this tiny human within me.

Have you ever realized that you are being totally nutty but you just can't seem to stop? Let me give you an example. My mom and I rarely fight. I have total respect for her and even if she is upsetting me, I've held my tongue and avoided a dramatic fit throwing. Early on, I was struggling with my hormone changes and thus was being whipped around on an emotional roller coaster. I forget exactly what my mom said during this particular event, but I do remember the rush of fury as I jumped to my feet, yelled at her and stomped out of her house like a raging teen. I drove home babbling and yelling at no one. Stomped into my house and promptly threw myself on my bed, continuing the childish tantrum and cried. My boyfriend was pretty shocked by the whole display, but handled it well, allowing me to vent about my irrational anger and consoled me. I apologized to my mom shortly after and she understood, but it's now a little running joke that I can be kinda scary pregnant.

Sadly that hasn't been my only episode of insanity, but given the sheer amount stress I've had to endure along side being pregnant for the first time, I think it's fair to have a few moments. What I mean is most women have to deal with their pregnancy and maybe a full time job. I'm pregnant with a full time job, crochet side business, Dove Chocolate Discoveries, and house hunting. That was in the beginning. Then tack on the fact that my boyfriend had to have an emergency appendectomy a few weeks ago and he was out of work for a few weeks, we signed on our house early and I felt useless not being able to carry a lot of things. Not to mention my lack of energy. It's taking me forever to get my house organized because I'm so tired after work. I still have to sort through an entire truck-load of baby stuff from my boyfriend's mom and if you think I'm exaggerating, I most definitely am not. And now it's about time for the holidays and all that that implies.

Do you see? Do you see why the crazy has surfaced? I actually feel that I've been handling this pretty damn well considering it all. My boyfriend and I haven't fought too much actually. Although I did have to endure his drunken ramblings the other night about getting married for insurance reasons and I wanted to smack the crap out of him. Mind you, this conversation was happening between him and my mom. Just to let you know, he really does want to marry me because he loves me he's just an extremely unromantic idiot.

So there you have it. Did pregnancy bring out the crazy in you? How did people handle it?


'Til next time.
Shay

Am I in Hell? Oh Wait No, Just Pregnant

Moms and moms-to-be, welcome. I am a first time prego, soon-to-be mom. (Things might get a little personal here, so be prepared.)

My boyfriend and I stopped using protection about 2 years ago. Boyfriend? Oh yes. I did indeed say boyfriend. Whether I have a ring on this finger is really none of anyone else's business and that's that. We are still together even if I've become a devil and he's one of the most annoying things on this earth. I'll go over that further in just a minute. Anyway, yeah! It took that long to get knocked up! Who would of thunk it? I mean I'm a 26 year old healthy woman and he's a 31 year old ... well he's alive anyway. I mentioned this so that if I end up in 'bitch' mode and come off sounding like the most ungrateful person ever to conceive you may recall we wanted this and tried for awhile.

First off, I am about 17 weeks into this nightmare and I know what you are probably thinking, 'you got a long way to go mama.' 'You shouldn't speak about such miracles in such a nasty way. How dare you!' Or you know something to that effect. Or maybe you didn't have the most precious pregnancy ever and find some sympathy here. Don't get me wrong, I am super excited to be a mom, but I don't like pregnancy. I feel like I've lost control of who I am and all I am now is a vessel to grow this baby.

Did your prenatal vitamins make you sick? (or other problems?) Yeah well apparently that is completely normal. Since it was a few weeks until I could see my doctor for my first visit, I had to either live with it or figure something out. For me, eating cereal and taking the pill with the milk was the only way I've found so far. Not the worst thing in the whole world right?

How about the mood swings? Those are my absolute favorite. My boyfriend (really I do love him) is not a cuddly person. He's also not very good with sympathy, emotions in general, and just basically most of what would pass as being a supportive person during all of this. That being said, I do actually know that he loves me but when you are going through something so life altering you need a bit more confirmation than an occasional 'I love you'. Have I told him? Yes to an extent but like I said he doesn't really get it. So instead my prego brain has decided quite rationally to just stop trying in our relationship. I have not been a complete crab-ass because I'm tired, so I just don't do anything. I don't ask him to go places with me, his opinion about things, no affection. Obviously he's realized something is wrong and is starting to pay attention a bit more but only because he thinks I'm mad at him. I realize this is probably not a healthy solution to our problems ... I never claimed it was a good idea though. I'm sure it will be fine once my mood has leveled back out.

Being tired? Coming from someone that was rarely ever tired previously, mostly due to insane amounts of caffeine, that's been a hard thing to handle as well. I hate being tired. It makes me feel useless, which is the worst feeling ever in my book. So tiredness sucks. People keep telling me to take naps. When? When would you like me to take a nap? I don't know about you, but I have a full time job that I have to go to and then I have things to take care of when I get home. Picking up the house, figuring out what's for dinner, working on my crafts for Etsy and now I started with Dove Chocolate Discoveries (Direct sales. It's actually really cool. I plan to do an article on it soon. If you're interested, shoot me a message.). I'm doing all this in hopes of making enough to possibly be a stay at home mom. Anyway, no time for naps. Not to mention we are also trying to find a house! Talk about stressful!

I've gained like 25 lbs already and surpassed my heaviest weight ever at around 6 weeks. That means I have hardly any clothing left that fits my lower half. Luckily I wore looser shirts to begin with. My boyfriend keeps saying it's OK and it's a good thing. I'm not feeling good about it. Then he suggests for me to go agate picking with him to get some exercise. For those of you that don't know an agate is a type of rock. Did I mention I'm tired? All the time? I did? Well I'll say it again. I'm tired all the time. Oh people said, 'You'll feel like a rock star in your second trimester. The tiredness will go  away and you'll just have this cute little bump.' Liars! I have the bump but all the rest is lies. There is no rock star feeling. You know what there is??? A whole lot of  praying that nothing happens this time when you sneeze. I could go on forever about things that people told me in the beginning that just are not true for everyone or probably anyone but their lucky asses. I mean, one of our friend's (recent new mom) actually asked me if I feel more flexible. Absolutely not. I swear this woman was from like another planet. She was the most graceful pregnant woman I've ever met and I often ponder to myself how the fuck she did it. I mean, I'm over here switching moods at the drop of a hat, crying because I have to do the dishes and she was all yoga classes and shit. So different for everyone.

It might very well be different when I can finally feel baby moving around in there. Sometimes it doesn't even feel like I'm pregnant. I have a love/hate relationship with those moments. Is there something wrong? Is it normal? See the thing is, everyone experiences this miracle of life in a different way. Some women have every symptom in the book and are positively miserable the entire time from being sick. Some, like myself, have a tough time of it because of all the mental things going on. And then there are those women who go through their entire pregnancy perfectly happy and other women secretly want to strangle them.

Basically some days are worse than others.

I think that's about all I have for today's little rant. How about you? Was/Is your pregnancy easy? No crazy mental problems like me?


Crazy Shay signing off

Am I Just Being a Pregosaurus????

Seriously. I need to know if I have the right to be pissed or am I just being a pregosaurus.

Here goes ...

I've been at my job for around 6 months or so. I've had no complaints yet so I figured I was doing things just fine. Well last week I was pulled into the owners office and he asked me if I'd had a review yet. I said, "no." He goes on to say he had a few things he would like to address.

The only thing he wanted to complain about was my ability to answer the phone. He said I was unprofessional and sounded bland. I was more than a little shocked considering it'd been 6 months. Why was this just now being brought to my attention? That aside, he continued on with his pointers and explanations even going so far as to 'joke' about replacing me. As if that were any laughing matter in my position. I decided getting angry wasn't going to do me any good, so I took his advice and began implementing the changes into my call routine.

Then today, he calls. I answer with the peppiest spiel I can muster and he mimics me awkwardly. I ignored it (After all how are you supposed to respond to a grown man mimicking you?) and said, "Good morning." He asked to be transferred and I said, "just one moment." like he requested. To my surprise I hear my coworker answering questions about the way I had handled his call. She said, "No I think she sounded just fine. Well our company name is a bit of a mouth full." And so on from there.

You should know I also got two compliments from two different callers on Friday. I'm starting to think that this may have something to do with my pregnancy. This began within a day of me telling my supervisor about it. I still have yet to officially tell the owner but we live in a very small town so I'm sure he's heard something through the grapevine, if my supervisor hasn't already told him.

My supervisor had made me feel really comfortable about my pregnancy working for this company. I was really even starting to regret my thoughts of maybe not coming back after birth. Then the next day, I begin to get complaints from the owner. Right now I'm just taking it one day at a time but sometimes it almost feels like he's baiting me. I'm not really sure what to think, but I can tell you I no longer love my job like I did.

On the other hand, he's been known to go through phases of crabbiness and complaints about anything and everything, so maybe that's what's happening here.

So what do you think?
Am I just being a pregosaurus? Leave a comment letting me know and if you have a similar story I'd love to read it!

Thanks
Shay

He'll Figure It Out ... I Hope

Alright so as you know and if you're new I've recently discovered that I'm pregnant. And with that comes loads of confusion and panic. Because it's so early on yet, most of this panic and confusion belongs mainly to me. My boyfriend is the 'let's deal with it when the time comes' sort, which drives me completely batty when dealing with something as serious as this.

But anyway I'm straying from the point. I'm about 6 weeks along. Well this past weekend we went to his mother's for a visit. There was a big fish fry and he was able to tell much of his family in person the news. Anyways he decided to tell them while I was in the house (I spend a lot of time in the restroom these days already. It's a little ridiculous.) I come out and he tells me he's just announced it to everyone and I receive the typical congratulatory comments from the lot of them. Well later on a couple of the women that had just recently had their newest little ones start asking me questions. The first obviously being how far along am I. After I tell them they look at one another in confusion and one says, "Cory said you were due to have it in like 6 months."

I just laughed and said, "He's an idiot. He has no idea what he's talking about."

The two burst into laughter with me and I told myself I should probably explain a few things to him. Now writing about it I realize that I still have yet to correct him, even though I told him my estimated due date was early February. He doesn't listen very well though.

Have you had a similar experience?

It's a really good thing I have a good sense of humor and so far pregnancy hasn't taken that away. Yesterday my boyfriend and I were at my parent's house hanging out. My mom, sister and I are submerged in a a conversation while the two men talk a few feet away. All I hear is, "the size of a blimp." I find myself yelling, "You better not be calling me a blimp!" Of course they were talking about future me and having quite the fun imagining how entertaining that's going to be. Anyway we go to dinner later and I decided I wanted a gyro with fries and hashbrowns. At first I was joking but then discovered I really did want that and looked at everyone and threw my hands up. "I AM going to be a blimp!"

My dreams of a flat stomach in a bikini have gone out the window for now. I get something better instead!

So I've heard it gets really sickening people commenting on your size while pregnant. Did it get to you? Leave a comment with some of your experiences. I'd love to read them.


Til next time,
Shay

Oh The Hormones ...

About 5 weeks along now ...

Panic has switched from baby to house, money, work ... The long list of things we have to get to be ready for this little one. So there's all that weighing on me plus I've been crampy and tired. Not a great combo.

Oh and let's list all the reasons I had horrible emotional problems this weekend (6/11-6/12/16).

Saturday -

Nearly burst into tears because Cory listed off a bunch of things he still needed to do before going fishing. Mainly it was a list of things I can't do or have. So I yelled, "Fine. Just go! I can't have any of that!" He got a little giggle out of my outburst but had no idea I was fighting tears as he walked out the door. It was so stupid because I didn't even want any of that that day anyway...

Later while fishing, I couldn't tell if I wanted to cry or scream while Cory messed with his boat motor before finding us a spot to start fishing.

Don't get me started on how my first pee break went.

Then while we were fishing, he was lifting his motor up and dropping it down over and over and over. It makes me horribly mad even thinking about it right now. He had to of done it around 20 times. It made the worse noise and I hated every second of it!

I'm sure there were more, but that's all I can remember from Saturday.

Sunday -

Ended up in a fight because Cory didn't want to go house hunting and I made him go anyway. Should have known it was going to end in disaster. We got to look at one house before everything blew up. He was crabby which made me crabby. There was yelling. The use of the word spaz. Which I took far more personal than usual. Either way it ended with my crying and not speaking to him the rest of the day. He apologized this morning.

I went on to watch three movies. Two of which made me cry, 'Home' and 'Brother Bear', multiple times. It was at that point I realized how wacked my emotions really were.

Just a fabulous first weekend of pregnancy...

Pregnancy - And Here We Go...

Today is day 3 of me knowing. According to the different predictors, I'm 4 weeks and 5 days and due Feb. 12. And I'm scared.

Now hear me out, I'm beyond excited! And so is my boyfriend. The problem lies in the fact that it is still sooooo early and there are so many things that could go wrong. That's what makes me nervous. I don't know how I would take a miscarriage at this point. We've been sort of trying for a long time. (Somewhere around a year or so) I don't even want to think about that anymore. I've been thinking about it all day long and it's just stressing me out and making me sad.

Moving on. So I found out on 6/7/16 right after work when I finally convinced myself that 3 days of a missed period was plenty long enough to take a test. I took one as soon as I got home telling myself, "You can't be pregnant. You always get yourself worked up and then you start your period the next day." Yeah well, I looked down at that stick with two bright lines and nearly stopped breathing. I couldn't believe what I was seeing! And it was so quick. I knew because I'd set a timer for the whole whopping one minute I was supposed to wait. Ha! Less than thirty seconds later I had my answer. I paced around the house rapidly and picked up my phone and set it back down at least a dozen times before I finally called Cory.

There was no panic there. He said something along the lines of, "That's awesome, honey. Finally. I was really starting to think there was something wrong. I'm really happy." I paraphrased but that was about the gist of it. Much more calm and rational than I was being.

Maybe it'll just take a few days to really sink in.