Brygit's First Week

Believe it or not, it has already been a week since I met my sweet little Brygit. It feels like just yesterday but I also have a hard time remembering life without her. Here are my favorite parts of these incredible 7 days.

Day 1:

On the evening after she was born, family came to meet her. Here she is with her Aunt Nathania and cousin Dennis who was a little shy around her.

Grandma and Grandpa with her sweet brother, Liam.

Great-Grandma.

And Uncle Ian. My brother was also there, my sister, cousin Aaron and my mom who had been there through the entire day but somehow evaded pictures.

Day 2:

We were released from the hospital the next day and came home to start our life with our new addition to the family. I thought that Liam would have a hard time adjusting but he has been a champ. He has been very patient with us and very loving and protective toward her. He is adjusting very well and I am so proud of him.

Day 3:

It was Valentine's Day and we celebrated by resting, eating chocolate and dressing Brygit up in heart patterned PJs that we were lucky to have since she wasn't expected to be here before Valentine's Day.

Day 4:

It snowed this day so we built a fire and stayed indoors.

Except for the boys who wanted to run around in the snow.

Day 5:

Liam worked on his photo faces since the camera seems to always be out these days.

Day 6:

Liam went with his grandparents to Calico Ghost Town while Paul stayed in bed with a horrible flu and Brygit and I tried to stay as far away as possible. When Liam returned he was sick as well and I started to panic a little.

Day 7:

Everyone woke up feeling much better and now my little girl is officially one week old!

Things have been going pretty smoothly so far. Brygit is pretty easy going and sleeps a lot. She was 8 lbs and 7 oz at her well baby appointment which means she is getting plenty of milk and eating well. I am recovering from childbirth much quicker this time around (thanks to a great doctor who knew what she was doing). Paul is off work and enjoying being home with his family. And my MOMS Club has been bringing us dinner every night since we have been home which has been such a tremendous help. I am now starting to feel a little stir crazy but also very hesitant to take Brygit out after our encounter with the flu virus. I'm definitely looking forward to the next few weeks as we adjust and as Brygit spends more and more time awake.

Brygit is here!

Brygit Mae has arrived! If you are easily grossed out or just plain don't want to hear all the details of her birth then just know she was born February 12 at 12:55 pm and she weighed 8 pounds 1 oz and was 20 inches long. For those of you who dare to venture forth I'm going to share her incredible birth story. It was absolutely beautiful and amazingly painful.

I put Liam to bed on Saturday night then went to my room. I had outrageous heartburn that wouldn't go away but that wasn't anything new. The only thing that was strange about it was that I had just told Paul how much better my heartburn had gotten since the baby "dropped." So we stayed up to watch TV since the thought of laying down literally made me sick. When Paul was ready to go to bed I told him how awful I felt then I ran to the bathroom and threw up. This, again, has happened before but this time it didn't make me feel better. I started having stronger contractions (mind you I had been having them for 8 days at this point), I felt horribly nauseous and I was acting like I had a bad case of food poisoning. After spending a couple of hours this way I called labor and delivery and they told me that it sounded like I had this flu that has been going around and that my contractions were likely due to dehydration. I decided to go in anyway when it started to feel like Brygit stopped moving as much and after I threw up my one sip of Sprite and half a saltine.

When we got to the hospital the nurse that checked me in was the one I spoke to on the phone. She was really nice but was sticking to her "flu" theory. She checked my cervix at about 3:30 am and I was at 1.5 cm. She hooked me up to an IV and started monitoring Brygit. That's all I really wanted. But then an angel walked through the door. She was holding a syringe full of nausea medication to make me stop throwing up and she looked at my chart and told me my contractions were actually becoming pretty regular. She checked my cervix again at 4:25 am and I was now at a 3. She unhooked my IV and asked if I felt good enough to walk. I actually did by this time so Paul and I roamed the hall for an hour ducking into our room every now and then for a sip of water she snuck me. See, an angel. She checked me again and I was at a 4, almost 5. She told me that since I was progressing so quickly on my own I could be monitored in 20 minute increments then I could have free reign to do as I pleased. I was so happy things were going smoothly. But then they checked my vitals and my heart rate was a little high and so was Brygit's so I had to stay on the monitors a little longer. Then the shift changed and my new evil nurse told me I wouldn't be getting out of bed until I delivered. At that point her reasoning was that my doctor was busy doing c-sections so I needed to stop progressing for fear of delivering without her. I didn't really like that reason but then nurses kept running into my room telling me how to lay and sit because whenever I would move Brygit's heart rate would drop. We watched it happen on the monitor over and over again so I was trying to hold still but I was just too uncomfortable. My doctor got out of surgery and came to see me. I was 5 cm and she broke my water at about 9am. Now I was uncomfortable and leaking buckets of fluid everywhere. I kept going to the bathroom just to get a break from the bed and attempt to let the fluid all drain out. I guess this is where things get gross. At one point I was apologizing to the nurse who had to mop the floor in my room and later on Paul nearly fell from slipping on amniotic fluid. It was seriously everywhere.

Anyway, I wasn't feeling very strong contractions and I was starting to worry about progressing without pitocin. A little while later super strong contractions hit me out of nowhere. They started getting very intense very fast until a half hour later I started telling my nurse to call for an epidural. She came in holding a bag of the dreaded pitocin but immediately set it aside after seeing my crazy contractions. The anesthesiologist was on call so she took about a half hour to get there. I told her how much I loved her then she proceeded to put the catheter in my spine. Before she could put medicine in it I started shaking uncontrollably and my body started pushing. People explain the sensation as a strong urge to push. I would say it's more of an impossibility to not push. I wasn't pushing. My body was. And I was doing everything I could to stop it. I started yelling, "The baby is coming out!" and everyone started running around the room. The nurses called for the doctor, made me lay on my side, then started discussing which one of them was going to deliver my baby. The anesthesiologist gave me my medicine then apologized for the fact that it wasn't going to get to me quick enough. I held on to the side of the bed and screamed (something which I was proud to say I never did in either of my deliveries thus far). Finally the doctor was there, I pushed 4 times and I met my little girl...then my epidural kicked in. It was an hour from the start of my painful contractions to the time she was born. So I got what I wanted. A pitocin-free, semi-epidural-free birth even though it wasn't what I really wanted in the moment.

They put my messy baby girl on my chest and I started sobbing. It was the most amazing moment and I just kept saying, "oh my God! Oh my God!" Then every now and again for the rest of the day I would get teary eyed just remembering that moment. Everyone (even the nurses) was on a high. I was up all night staring at my sleeping baby and husband on such an adrenaline rush.

And that's how Brygit made her grand entrance. Very fast, very painful and very reassuring that God is real and life is an amazing gift.

Our Wedding

A friend was asking about my wedding dress after I posted a picture on my blog about my anniversary. I was going to just post a couple pictures of it on Facebook but after going through those photos I started to feel all sentimental and decided to write a post about our wedding day.

I should start out by saying that it was definitely bittersweet. My dad was very sick and wanted nothing more than to make it to the wedding. A few days before the wedding he requested that we get married at home in front of him because he didn't think he was going to make it. Of course, we complied. We didn't sign our paperwork that day so it isn't technically the day we were legally married but our amazing minister came to the house and did our vows for us. We called Paul's parents over to witness it so the first time we actually said our vows was in my parents' bedroom while my dad was under hospice care. It was very tearful and sad and we felt like we should do something to turn it into a happy time so we went to dinner alone to commemorate the day. This picture was taken at dinner.

Unfortunately, my dad was right and he passed away two days before the wedding. The following day was the wedding rehearsal and it was definitely a difficult time for all involved. In case you're wondering why I didn't postpone the wedding, it's because my dad asked me not to. He wanted us to hurry up and start our lives together the way that we planned so that's exactly what we did. I was kind of a mess but here is a picture of us at our rehearsal.

The following day I married the man of my dreams. It's hard to describe the emotions I felt that day. Of course I felt a twinge of sadness when my mother stood up to give me away instead of my dad or when my brother walked me down the aisle but at the same time I felt so overwhelmed with love and kindness from our friends and family. Everyone was so happy for us and so supportive and they made our day very special. This is really turning into a sad sounding post but it really was the best day of my life and a very happy time. I guess I just really can't describe what it's like to feel joy in the midst of grief. All I can say is I fell so much more in love with Paul after the way he comforted me during that time. Anyway, here are some hilights of the day.

Getting dressed

Taking communion

Lighting the unity candle

first dance

My brother and I

Paul dancing with my niece

Wedding party

Look how tiny my nephew and niece were! (Ring Bearer and Flower Girl)

I like how it looks like Paul is asking for permission.

Mutilated Mickey

About a year ago my mother in law bought Liam a set of Mickey Mouse figurines from Disneyland. He played with them so much and he still does. However, these toys have seen better days. A long time ago Mickey got stepped on. He was crunched into multiple pieces. Little by little the rest of the characters started to follow suit. They all started to fall apart or managed to be broken somehow. It came to my attention recently that his sad little set of fragmented Disney characters is a little creepy and also a bit funny. I don't have the heart to get rid of them since he plays with them almost daily. As a matter of fact, Goofy (or the largest part of him at least) is currently missing and a small part of my days is spent hunting everywhere for him. Paul and I have had a few laughs recently over these little pieces of toys because we find ourselves saying things like, "Don't play with Goofy's arm in the bathtub because it will go down the drain," or hearing Liam say things like, "Oh no! The dinosaur is chomping Minnie's head," and my new favorite, "The kids (that's what he calls them) are in Woody's trash truck!" Most of the time he just puts "the kids" on his toy bus and drives them to Disneyland where they get dropped off for a little while then reloaded. Here are some recent pictures of the kids.

For the sake of this post, I snapped a family portrait. From left to right we have a completely intact Daisy who, obviously hasn't seen the same amount of play time as the rest, Goofy's hand (the rest of Goofy is still missing yet intact except for his head that keeps popping off but snaps right back on), Mickey's head and torso, Minnie's head, and an arm-less Donald (the hand on the missing arm was holding his hat so he is also hat-less.) All the missing pieces have been snuck into the trash but the remaining pieces are pretty resilient.

Liam's Birth

The closer I get to delivering Brygit the more I think about my labor experience with Liam. It's the only reference I have (other than google) to sort out all of these symptoms I'm experiencing now that I'm so close to the end. Since I didn't have the blog back then, now seems a fitting time to tell Liam's story.

I had no symptoms with Liam. My due date came and went without any sign of an impending birth. My doctor put me on the schedule to be induced the following week. I really didn't want to be induced so I walked my swollen legs off trying to coax him out. It was a very rough week that felt like it was going to last forever. Three days before I was scheduled to be induced I went to disneyland. I walked until I couldn't walk anymore. I also enjoyed answering the question, "when are you due?" with, "oh last week." You should see how freaked out people get. So, anyway, the following day we went to Target to do some shopping and as I'm standing in the baby aisle I feel a tiny gush of fluid. I gasped and told Paul that I just peed my pants then went to the car to wait for him to finish shopping. I called my mom and she told me to go to labor and delivery. The problem was that my hospital was 45 minutes away and I was pretty positive it was urine so there was no way I was going to drive all the way down there to hear that I'm peeing my pants due to having a full grown baby laying on my bladder. Later that day it happened again but this time it was a larger amount of fluid. So I decided to give in and call the doctor. We drove the whole way down preparing ourselves for the inevitable, "it's pee," response but once they checked us in the doctor confirmed that he believed I was leaking fluid slowly. I didn't even know that could happen.

The doctor wanted to put me on pitocin and I complied because I wasn't having any other symptoms. I tried to get some rest that evening but I was too excited so Paul and I stayed up playing yahtzee while the nurses came in periodically to crank the pitocin way up. Finally, around 5am contractions started. And it wasn't gradual either. One moment I was laughing with Paul and the next I couldn't even talk. The contractions were one on top of the other and my room was hotter than Hades. Paul had to fan me with every contraction and the most distracting thing for me was those gosh darn itchy monitors they refused to take off my belly that weren't even measuring my contractions right. They finally moved me into a larger (and cooler) room where I gave in and asked for "ice chips... and an epidural." In that order. Even though I didn't want an epidural I can honestly say it was the best decision ever. I was now 7cm dilated and happy as a clam. I had some visitors and chatted away until transition hit and I started throwing up and shivering. I hit the goal of 10cm but Liam was still too high in my uterus to come out so I waited at a 10 for two hours. Thank God I had that epidural. They finally let me start pushing and I pushed for an exhausting hour and 45 minutes before meeting my slimy little baby.

This time around has been totally different thus far. I'm due on the 23rd and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to make it that far. I've been having a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions that seem to be getting stronger and closer together (yet still irregular) with each passing day. Brygit has been head down pushing against my pelvis for a couple of months now so it looks like all systems are go and it could be any day now. Of course, this charade can carry on for the next couple weeks and still end in an induction but I'm hoping it doesn't. My goal is to try it with no pitocin and no epidural so we will see how things go. I have an open mind and plan to go with the flow and make those decisions based on the current situation. More than anything I'm praying for a safe delivery, healthy baby and a very short hospital stay so I can get home to Liam.

When plans fall through

Paul and I celebrated our 6th anniversary last weekend. There's not a whole lot you can do when you're 36 weeks pregnant and taking care of a two year old so we planned the ever popular dinner and a movie date. However, our plans fell through. We couldn't get a sitter and since Paul was off work we didn't want to reschedule. So we spent our anniversary with Liam. I have to admit, I wasn't very happy about it. How on earth were we going to make this day different from any other if we still had our "mommy and daddy" hats on? I'm pleased to say I was very wrong. I can't believe I still haven't learned that life is what you make it and, if you really wanted to, everyday could be special and memorable.

So we got up in the morning and went about our normal routine. Of course, since Paul was home, it was a bit more relaxed since there were 4 hands helping out instead of the regular 2 (with an aching back, pelvic pressure, heartburn, insomnia and the need to pee every 5 min). We exchanged gifts then the 3 of us went to lunch. We talked to Liam about what an anniversary is and found it very difficult. "Its like a birthday. It comes every year. It's the day mommy and daddy got married. It's been 6 years." I think he kind of got it but he was probably more excited about the chocolate pie Paul ordered for dessert.

We came home, put Liam down for a nap and got some alone time for a couple of hours. That was all we really wanted and cuddling while having an uninterrupted conversation was a thousand times better than seeing a movie. We exchanged some heartfelt cards over a pizza dinner then finished the evening playing with Liam and organizing Brygit's room. It was a perfect day for this transitional time in our lives. Our time as a threesome is quickly coming to a close so I loved that we included Liam in our special day. I also love that he was in a good mood and very well behaved all day. I can't imagine a more perfect way to spend our anniversary... Unless, of course, I wasn't pregnant and we were laying on the beach somewhere exotic. But then I'd probably be worried about my babies. I'll take my day with my two favorite boys.