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

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 'Til next time,
Shay

Motherhood is a Challenge and Work Sucks ...

Hello, hello, hello!

So I've been forced to really grasp how much life doesn't give a crap about your feelings or your stress level. In fact, I think it pushes and pushes until you're on the verge of snapping then it may provide a little relief or just drop kick you straight over the edge, "300" style.

Yes, I'm complaining. Yes, I know other people have it worse. But ya know, first world problems and all that. So what's the matter, you ask.

Well....

I have a three month old and my boyfriend, her father, can't handle poop, pee, vomit, spit up, breast-milk, and sometimes freaks out if she drools. She's teething, she can't help it. Not to mention we have two cats. One of which's favorite past time is licking himself ... ALL THE TIME!!! So there have been many 3 am cat vomit parties. And no, there is no sleeping through a cat making that awful noise and the terror that it might be on you. Guess who gets to clean it up? Oh yea. Such a lucky girl, I am.

And the house. We just bought this house and I'm already starting to slack on my cleaning. Why? Well first off see above paragraph and then note the following: long-haired cats, full time job, and extremely helpful boyfriend. I'm pretty sure there is a beacon that lures my boyfriend into the kitchen as soon as I finish cleaning and tells him he must cook something. If I ever find that damn thing it's toast!

That reminds me of a funny story. I think Brooklynn was about a month and a half to two months old. I finally got her to sleep for the night and was chatting with Cory in the kitchen, while he was cooking. I believe the beacon had struck that night as well. Anyway, he's making toast and burnt it. Well Brooklynn is sleeping in our room, in the basement. From down there you can hear a pin drop in the kitchen. You can hear everything! So Cory pulls out his toast and starts buttering it. GOOD LORD! You don't realize how loud toast is until you have a sleeping infant. I can hear her stirring on the monitor and Cory freezes, peeks over his shoulder at me and I'm glaring at him hardcore. A giggle escapes him as he rapidly scrapes butter on the rest of his toast. He's so lucky she didn't wake up. I would have stabbed him with my fork. I can just picture that conversation with the police.
"What motivated you to stab him?"
"Uh ... he was buttering his toast too loudly." Seems legit, right?

But back to the point of this post. Life is a pain in the ass. It keeps handing you piles of shit and I feel like I'm wading in it now. I mean my home life isn't so bad. It's just the usual stressful things bills, baby, cleaning, ya know. Work, that's a different beast. Everything that's going on is too much to type out, so I'll try to keep it short.

Had a sit-down with the owner, trying to take some initiative and tell him I'm interested in taking on more responsibilities. Went in confident and came out crushed. In the span of less than 10 minutes, I was told he doesn't like my personality, my voice, thinks people are not happy to speak with me, have no ambition, basically I suck all around. His suggestions for fixing it was to pay more attention to him (yes he said it just like that) and go to my supervisor everyday and ask to help her.

Now my supervisor and I had a great relationship until recently. I still haven't a clue what I did, but all of a sudden I'm getting dirty looks, attitude and everything I do is wrong and annoying. Before you go thinking that maybe I stepped on her toes by going to the owner for our talk, I didn't. My supervisor and I had discussed many things and she let it be known that the owner was the one doling out responsibilities. Plus, I had talked with him before my maternity leave and he gave me 'pointers' on my work. Since he hadn't said anything about my work, I assumed I'd gotten better and we even seemed to be getting along better, so that was most of my reasoning for wanting to talk to him. Boy was I ever wrong!

So today I had a wonderful morning and was in a great mood! I was determined that I wasn't going to let anyone ruin it. Yeah... that only lasted a couple hours. I instantly got right to work as soon as I walked in the door. My supervisor seemed to be in a good mood, she was laughing with my other coworkers and yet every time I walked into her office she gave me a look like I was bothering her. I'd quickly say what I needed to say and leave. It got to the point where I stopped smiling when she'd pass by and then I stopped even looking at her altogether. She even went in my coworkers office and chatted with her about her kids for several minutes. When she came to tell me she was leaving, I barely spoke. I'm tired of being treated like shit when all I ever do is try to help them. Now I'm afraid to even go into her office and offer her help.

What's more, I was supposed to have gotten my yearly evaluation before I left for maternity leave in February. Didn't. Came back. She said she was going to do it in a week or so. I understood, she was getting caught up and all that. Still haven't had it and it's June. I've come to the conclusion that they don't want to give me a raise, so she doesn't want to give me my yearly and have to explain why I'm not getting one. And/or they are contemplating getting rid of me. I've done nothing to warrant being fired though. Maybe they're just waiting for me to screw up so they can fire me. I don't know. It's gotten so bad in just a couple weeks that I've started applying at other places and I truly loved this job, but I dread coming to work every day. I wasn't even this miserable at Walmart!

I wish my Etsy shop would pick back up. Then maybe I could quit.

So yea, that's my complaints for the day.

Until next time
Shay