The best made plans...

So we decided it would be as stress free as possible entering the mode of babymaking again if we started to try while we were on vacation. I would be ovulating smack in the middle of our trip so we decided that would be as good a time as any to let the games begin.

We got to our Fripp Island vacation house and the front door doesn't lock.  It locks from the outside but there is no way to keep our 2 year old escape artist from getting out from the inside of the house. Panicked by her love for the beach, only a few steps away, I decided I didn't feel safe leaving her in a room of her own where I couldn't turn the doorknobs around in order to lock her in all night. So we moved her mattress to the floor of our room...

Not exactly a "game on" set up!

So we will wait again.  I am hoping that I will still feel as brave this time next month as I did heading out for our vacation. I hope I am up for all the downsides as well as the upsides to trying a few weeks from now. But I have to admit, my courage feels wobbly...

Un-planning a year

As I mentioned in the last post, Matt and I were left in the hospital room for an hour and we cried for half of it. When the sobs slowed to a halt, my mind started quietly swimming at a frantic pace. It's amazing how much you unknowingly plan for the upcoming year when you see that positive sign on the pregnancy test. I hadn't done it consciously, and neither had Matt. But now we were in the situation we were in and it all came crashing down. We had to un-plan a year of happiness in the face of personal loss.

Shit, did we do the right thing taking such a hit on the sale of our house? We were desperate at the time, but are we still? Nothing we could do about it now. I guess I can cancel that meeting with my boss to tell him I am expecting and what my plan is for the course I teach since I am due mid-semester. I guess I don't need a new car. I was going to get a 7 seater. Now that just seems silly. I need to call and cancel that first trimester screening (when I did this, I had to say, "I had a miscarriage" 3 times to the receptionist because she was older than dust and couldn't hear what I was saying as the reason for cancellation.  You're fired!). I guess we don't need to worry about moving Eva to a toddler bed yet because we won't need the crib. I guess I don't have to rush to potty train her because I won't have two in diapers. I guess I can drink coffee and eat sugar again. Shit, I just resigned from my extended maternity leave because I was expecting a baby. I guess that's just as well. I guess I won't have to stop to pee a thousand times on the way to South Carolina this summer. I guess that's a good thing. I guess I can go see Brooke after she has Sydney now because I won't be in my 3rd trimester. I guess I won't need to ask about recommendations for double strollers because I bet Eva won't want to sit in one by the time we have a baby now. I guess I can return that new expensive monitor because I won't need to add a camera anytime soon...

The list was endless and I am still adding new things to it to this day.

Let me say this: I am an early childhood special education teacher. In fact, I have spent the last year teaching a senior level course at the University of Delaware about early childhood special education. I literally teach people how much can go wrong during a pregnancy and what that can look like. I spent my first year teaching children with profound multiple disabilities. One of these students was missing a huge part of his frontal lobe, was deaf-blind and had seizure disorder. The slightest touch (because he had no way of knowing you were coming) would send him into a five minute seizure. So I know. I am very aware that nature takes a course and that babies that are miscarried this early in a pregnancy are generally not viable. So the educated part of me can rationalize that I had a feeling early on that something was wrong because something was. That I measured small in that first ultrasound because the baby wasn't developing right from the start. That something was wrong in its tiny little chromosomes that didn't give it or me a fighting chance. Part of me knows this very well.

The other part of me shoots back to the feeling I had when we started trying to conceive Eva. I just had this feeling-no, it wasn't a feeling, it was a knowledge-I just had this knowledge that it wouldn't be easy breezy for us to have the family we wanted. I didn't have the coziest pregnancy or labor with Eva, that's true, but we have a beautiful daughter who we could not adore more than we do, but we know we don't want her alone in this. She needs to have a sibling and it didn't go well the first go around. Will it ever go well? Was this a result of my pelvic issue? When they warned me in passing about possibly fertility issues was it more than a warning? Was it a promise? Eva was born 5 weeks early. Why? Could my body not hold her in? Can I not hold anything in now? When I got to maternity triage and they confirmed my impending miscarriage, they also said it wouldn't be long before the process was complete because I was already dilating. So which came first? Did I dilate and that caused me to lose the baby or did I lose the baby and that caused me to dilate? What if I can't have a baby again? What does that mean for us? For me? For my family? For my Eva?

When I had the miscarriage in April, someone close to me went as far as to suggest I brought it on myself. That wasn't the way it was worded to me, but it was the general point she was making. If I put out the negative energy that something would go wrong somewhere down the line, then I would bring it towards myself. Now, don't go getting all defensive on my behalf. It was a knife to my soul and it still is, but I saw her point and understood it. I obviously believe in energy, as you know, I survey rooms all the time. But I also believe energy doesn't work that way. I don't think the universe is set up to punish a mother for wanting a child. For that reason alone, I know I didn't bring this on myself. Whether this is the only miscarriage I will have or if I have several coming for me, I don't know, but either way I did nothing to cause it. No amount of negative intuition or cups of half-caff or pieces of pizza or warm baths or that glass of wine the night after we conceived did this. I know this for sure. I have peace in that.

I miscarried in April 2011. A lot has happened since then. We have moved to our dream home in Pennsylvania in a great school district with over an acre of land. We have made a home. Eva turned two and is a blossoming bundle of personality. She is so much easier to tote around and I enjoy taking her places and teaching her through every new experience, whether it's another trip to Target or her first time to the zoo. I LOVE TWO YEARS OLD! She is such great company these days that I am glad I get to focus on her right now and enjoy every moment of this age and THIS child. We are leaving today for our annual family trip to Fripp Island, South Carolina. Eva loved the beach last year and I have no doubt she will make this family vacation one to remember.

And that brings us to current day and to why I started this blog in the first place. This will be my last public post to facebook. I needed an outlet to move the pain I feel everyday that hides behind my eyes and smile as a result of the loss of this child off of my heart and back into the universe. We were told we should wait 3 menstrual cycles before we tried again. We've waited much longer than that. The loss of our 11/11/11 baby was a blow we couldn't bounce back from in just three months. We simply weren't ready. I may get pregnant easily when we are trying again and I may not. I may carry this next baby to full-term and I may not. We will either have another child or we will have trouble. And now, we're ready to know which way the coin will fall...

Nothingness

At first the bleeding was spots of brown. That's not abnormal. While this never happened while I was pregnant with Eva, I did know several mothers that bled brown and knew from their experiences that it was a release of old trapped period blood, which is disgusting, but not dangerous. But, when it was paired with the increasing sinking feeling in my stomach that accompanied this knowledge that something was wrong, it was just more clues from the universe that I would lose this baby, that maybe it was never mine to have in the first place. Just some tragic cosmic error.

For a few days, I found myself holding my urine. I would need to pee and put it off for sometimes an hour or more out of the complete terror of what would be revealed with each subsequent wipe. It was a horrible state of anxiety to live in.

During these few days, I suddenly started having friends email or text or call me telling me they just had a hunch I was pregnant. They wanted to know if their hunches were accurate. What was I supposed to say? I was only 8 weeks along, well before I would have wanted to make this news public information anyway and here I am on the brink of losing the baby. Was I supposed to say yes? Was I to lie and say no and jinx myself in the off chance I wasn't going to lose this baby? If I said no, would fate shift and cause me to miscarry something I wasn't supposed to lose?  I will never ask someone if they are pregnant regardless of what my hunch or intuition tells me because of having this experience. I know they meant no harm, their curiosity was peaked by one thing or another, and they wanted to be in the know. I have done this in the past, but I won't put anyone else in this position. In the end, I told the truth. I said I was pregnant, but didn't know how long I would be. How were these friends meant to respond? "Congrats"? Hardly.

After about 3 days of this brown blood, the anxiety of what would happen and when was eased. Red. Just a streak within the brown, but it was bright red. This wasn't old period blood. This was new blood. A few hours later into the evening I started cramping.

I warned Matt that I thought I was losing the baby. He told me to go lie down, probably for a dual purpose. He wanted me and that possibility out of sight and out of mind and he also was desperate to believe I was overreacting. But he knew deep down I wouldn't have cried wolf about something like that. It terrified him.

I texted my mom, my sister and best friend. My exact text was, "I am losing the baby. I am not overreacting. I don't want to talk about it right now. I will call the doctor first thing in the morning". And I put the phone down to charge for the night and I cried myself to sleep.

I did call the doctor in the morning. I was still holding out some hope that they'd tell me it was normal and to come in for an exam but that they weren't concerned. That's not what they said. They sent me straight to the hospital to Maternity Triage. My friend came and watched Eva, gave me a hug and sent me on my way to meet Matt at the hospital.

We waited forever. Lots of babies being born that day.

Finally, we were brought back to an exam room and the doctor arrived and started the ultrasound. I didn't bother surveying the energy in the room. My body wasn't lying to me. It was in a low-grade state of labor. Matt held out nervous hope though. I could tell by the strength with which he held my hand as he focused on that ultrasound screen, willing it to show him a healthy child. At one point he mumbled something like, "I see it", but the doctor grimaced and the exam was over quickly. It was there, but it's tiny heart no longer beat.

Matt and I collapsed into a grief I simply can't describe and hope none of you have to know. All I really remember clearly was holding Matt's face still so he would hold my eye contact so I could tell him through sobs that I was sorry I couldn't save it. So so sorry.

The doctor left us alone for an hour. We cried for half of that and then just stared at each other with a mutual acknowledgement of how hollowed out we felt suddenly. Then I was taken to radiology for thorough ultrasound so that one more person could tell me our November baby was gone.  At the ultrasound I had before this, they told me the baby was measuring 6 weeks, 1 day. Now, a week later, it measured 6 weeks, 3 days.  2 days after I saw that precious heartbeat, it stopped.

I was given 3 options:
1. Get a DNC, which is a procedure where they "take" the miscarriage from you
2. Take a medication to speed up the process, which could actually make the cramping worse.
3. Go home and let it all happen naturally, which they estimated would take 3 to 7 days.

Not everyone would have gone the route I did, and that's perfectly fine. I chose not to have the DNC because I didn't want to regret it in the future. If I had the DNC and miscarried again, would I wonder if something had been scraped too much during that procedure? Probably. So it wasn't for me. I wasn't about to take some medication to make me lose my child faster and in a more painful way. No thanks, I think I'll pass. I am someone that needed to see my father's body when he died in order to make the whole event feel grounded and real. Some people view it as morbid and that's also perfectly fine. I needed to go home and grieve this child as I lost it. I didn't want it to happen faster or harder or easier or with the help of some other human being. If I had to lose this baby, I was going to do it on my own. I was going to mother it the only way I given a chance to. So I went home.

After holding Eva so tightly upon arriving home that she thought she was in trouble, I crawled into bed. I sobbed for days. The cramps ebbed and flowed. I was in that low-grade state of labor for a few days. It was basically the worst period of my life. The bleeding obviously increased over the next few days. I had to go everyday to get bloodwork done so they could monitor that my body was returning to its full un-pregnant self and that none of the tissue was left behind. I will spare you the details, but I was not home when I actually "lost the baby". I was at one of these bloodwork appointments. The nurse had to knock on the bathroom door to make sure I was okay because of the sobbing sounds she must have overheard. That was not a good day.

I spent several days in bed and my mom was up to watch Eva.  I was determined to give myself the time to grieve before I stepped back into the world. I had a lot of time with my thoughts. The transition that occurred in my heart in just one short week was tragic. Going from the purest joy of endless possibility that comes with the promise of developing new life to being sent home from the hospital to await it's impending loss is an emptiness I can only describe as hollow. I am still heartbroken. Nothing and no one can make it right.

Nothing ever will.

Blah

In "Round 2", I had every pregnancy symptom I had with Eva only this time it was earlier and stronger. The exhaustion was overwhelming. My boobs were so sore I considered taping them "Boys Don't Cry" style to my body. But it was the nausea that knocked me on my ass.

I began to feel sick when pregnant with Eva around week 10 and it was hard and fast. Once my doctor told me I didn't have to choke it back, that Eva was getting enough nourishment, I would suddenly get a wave of nausea and would have to knock people down in order to get to the bathroom where I would puke my guts out. But then I felt better. It was gone by 12 weeks. So in the end, hardly the worst case of morning sickness in the world. But "Round 2" was a different story. I was nauseous before I even knew for sure I was pregnant, so at like week 4! And it wasn't in waves, it was all day. Sun up til sun down. It wouldn't get to the point that I would have to vomit either, but linger just on the brink...all...damn...day. By week 6, my OB prescribed me an anti-nausea medication, that's how bad it was (I never took it). Sometime towards the end of my 6th week, I remember talking to my mom and we half-laughed and half-panicked at the possibility that I was carrying twins. Then my 7th week arrived and suddenly, I felt better. I wasn't sick to my stomach at all anymore. You would think that would be a good thing and that I'd be celebrating but it struck me to my core and I was aware of it all day long. Why aren't I sick anymore? Is something wrong? Shouldn't I be sick until my second trimester? Why did it go away overnight? Something must be wrong. Almost every hour I would squeeze a boob to make sure they were still sore. And they were, so I took some comfort in that. For awhile.

At the beginning of week 7, I went for the prenatal counseling visit at my OB. This is where you talk to the nurse and schedule some appointments and they talk to you about what to expect and blahbity blah blah. It's not even an actual exam and the second pregnancy it borders on completely pointless. "Oh you mean I CAN'T drink wine with this pregnancy? I thought something may have changed in the last 18 months? No? Oh okay. Thank God I came for this appointment or I would have had NO idea! PHEW!". Idiots.

But I talked to the nurse at length about this nausea/no nausea thing. I wasn't due to have an ultrasound until I was about 12 weeks, so another month to go, but to ease my mind she wrote me a prescription to go have one done. Everyone told me I was over-reacting. Even the nurse thought I was being a bit of a wimp. But something wasn't sitting right.

I didn't go for the ultrasound right away because I needed Matt to go with me. When he got home from work we went to the same place I had gone the year before to get the breast ultrasound. I changed into that same paper-thin gown and was brought into the same room to wait for the ultrasound tech. And here Guru Jane goes again, surveying the energy in the room. The light wasn't blinking anymore, I'm glad they got that fixed. The ultrasound machine still whirred, the crepe paper sheet crinkled under my skin and the room was musty and warm. Matt sat in the chair by the bed and he tapped his foot repeatedly.  Matt is NOT a foot tapper. I took a breath and closed my eyes and "felt the room". Was it heavy? Would something bad happen here? Was something wrong with this pregnancy? With this baby of ours?

Yes.

The energy in that room made my skin crawl. It was heavy and dark and simply felt tragic.

I cried immediately when the ultrasound tech had trouble finding the baby. She tried to be reassuring. She told me that they don't do routine ultrasounds at 7.5 weeks because they are so small they are hard to find.  It didn't reassure me in the least. Through tears, I focused on Matt's face as he stood over her shoulder looking at that ultrasound screen searching for our child. He was serious and stiff because he didn't see one...and then suddenly, his shoulders relaxed and he nodded to me and there it was! It took them 30 minutes to find, but there was our little baby bean! We saw the heartbeat, a tiny flicker, and it charted in the normal range. The baby measured small (6 wks 1 day), but everything was give or take a week or two at that stage. They were just thrilled the heartbeat was beating away as fast as it should be. They sent me on my way with a picture of our little November baby.

I wish I could say that having that ultrasound put me at ease or that it had reassured me by seeing the baby's heart rate, but it didn't. I felt the energy in that room and knew what it revealed to me. Something was wrong. The universe was just easing me into it. I stared at that precious ultrasound picture of that little alien-like bean and I spoke to it. I said, "Hello little one. You do your job and I will do mine. Stay with me, please".

The next day, we got an offer on our house. Two days later, we negotiated a deal and went under contract. Three days later, I started bleeding...

Luck is a tricky thing

Today, I share this photo for the first time through tears...

The universe gave me a 30th birthday present so precious I couldn't possibly think myself worthy of it.  It gave me a positive home pregnancy test.

It took us 3 months to conceive Eva. Round 2, it took us one month, one try. Bingo!

I KNEW it this time well before I saw a plus sign. Round 2, you know what you're looking for in a way you don't have reason to know the first time around. I was exhausted. So exhausted it hurt to sit up. And I was nauseous, but maybe I was just getting sick? I knew for sure one night when I was getting into the shower. I caught a glimpse of of my boobs, specifically my nipples. If you've been pregnant you know what I am talking about before I even have to say it = alien nipples. 

I saw them and lost my breath. Holy shit I'm pregnant. 

I took 4 tests before I got the result I knew was correct. I learned my lesson from the whole "faint line" thing with Eva's conception and used the digital models this time, which resulted in a very clear, bold-printed "PREGNANT"!

Eva was napping at the time and I clasped my hands over my mouth to keep myself from screaming out in joy and risk waking her. I didn't hear the end of it when I got pregnant with Eva and didn't tell my mom right away, but instead waited for Christmas. So I called my mother and let her be the first to know. (She knew before Matt, for the record!) When I heard Eva's sweet voice through the monitor, telling me she was awake by calling my name, I bounded in with an ear to ear grin and said, "Well hello, big sister!"

I wanted to share this special news with Matt in a way I didn't have the grace to do the first time around. Instead of screaming at him from the bathroom and waving a pee stick in his face, I took Eva shopping to buy a "Big Sister" t-shirt. I viewed this as the first of many important events in preparing her for the role of a lifetime. 

Eva was wearing the shirt when Matt got home from work. It took him like 20 minutes to notice and even then it's only because I pointed it out. His reaction, "No SHIT!? For real?" and then he did a little Chandler Bing type dance in celebration of his effective swimmers!  We were going to have a baby. 

We didn't even worry about selling our house in that moment. It never even crossed my mind. I thought about that siren that had been going off in my mind like a war due to my back problems, "possible fertility issues". I had the arrogance to think, "fertility issues, my ass!"

I was due to have a baby November 11, 2011...11/11/11. We took it as a sign of luck. 

If I knew then what I know now I could have been prepared that "luck" is a tricky thing...

Round 2

There is something about the 1 year mark that makes everyone feel like they have the right to be nosey into your private baby-making life. When Matt and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary, everyone starting asking if we were going to have a baby soon.  We didn't. We waiting 4 years for that. Once Eva celebrated her first birthday, everyone started asking when we would have number 2. 

Originally, when Matt and I first started talking about babies (before we were married) we wanted to have 3 children. We wanted to have our first when we were young (like 26) and then wait four years before we had the second and then have the third soon after that. We had many reasons for why this was our plan then, but once we had Eva in our arms and our hearts plans changed. 

Eva was about a month old when I looked at Matt and said, "I want 6 more just like her!". 

After Eva turned one we talked about it more seriously and decided that we still wanted three children, but now we wanted an option for four. We didn't want to wait until Eva was four before she had siblings to share the roost with, but we weren't QUITE ready yet either. We had some preparations to make first.

1. We needed to move. While we technically could have had two children in our townhome, we did not WANT to have two children in our townhome. We simply couldn't imagine how we could even see each other over all the toddler gear AND baby gear at the same time. By this point we had been on the market for 9 months and were getting nowhere except into a lower price bracket with each price decrease. We were very discouraged. We had had probably a dozen showings in ALL nine months on the market. It was incredibly difficult to keep a house show-ready for 9 months while raising an infant turning into a toddler inside it. The last two showings we had scheduled were no shows. I was about to crack under the pressure so we pulled the house from the market and planned to regroup in 2011.  

2. I needed to fix my back. I was still having some serious pelvic-back issues. So I went to the doctor, got x-rays and completed almost 2 months of physical therapy.  Check!

3. I needed to ween myself off of caffeine and sugar. I knew I would be walking right back into Gestational Diabetes again once I got pregnant. I was NOT looking forward to this at all. Having GD a second time meant I would be handled by the Diabetes Center and not Maternal/Fetal Medicine. It also meant I would have an even higher chance of keeping Diabetes post-pregnancy. Boo.

4. We needed to take a vacation!  Before Eva was born, Matt and I took a "Babymoon" to Disney World. We had a wonderful time and wanted to take Eva even though she was still so young. I wanted to go there while I wasn't pregnant so I could eat and ride whatever I wanted! My best friend lives in Orlando and her 30th birthday was a fabulous excuse to take the trip. Check!

So all that really left us with was selling the house. We met up with our realtor again and resigned all the paperwork and were ready to brave it all again. We weren't willing to sit on the market for another 9 months so we came on the market well under market value (our apologies to the neighbors!) and with our game faces on. 

After a long discussion, we decided we didn't want to put our family on hold anymore and we decided we'd start trying and give the house-selling-situation up to the powers that be. We hoped we would sell before we got pregnant because it would probably take months before I got pregnant....or so we thought...

Eva "Stitches" Shire....not if her mother can help it!

I am skipping over a TON of events that were important to me and Matt and Eva here (1st birthday, 1st family vacation, 1st trip to a farm, etc.) because this is the event that's on my mind this morning. 

We managed to go well over a year before Eva got anything more than a "teething fever" (which of course doctors swear don't exist...um...would you like to come to my house for a clinical observation?!). She didn't even have an ear infection in her first year. However, A trip to the ER was bound to happen with Matt as her father.  

As a child, Matt broke every bone in each limb at least twice. He busted his nose running through a plate glass door. "Stitches" would have been an appropriate middle name for my husband.

Eva was 14 months old. It was one September morning. It was early. I wasn't even out of my pajamas yet. Matt went to work and I had just given eva her morning orange juice. I was at the sink washing whatever we had let sit in there overnight while my coffee was percolating. That's when I heard it.

Over the sounds of Mickey's "hot dog dance" (I can only assume that it was a panicked rush to get to watch this on the TV that caused the incident to happen at all) came a curdling scream and a cry I can't even describe. I barely even heard it with my ears, it was more like my soul. That's how deep it struck me. 

I ran into the family room with the water in the sink still running and my hands full of soap to find Eva face down on the carpet right on the edge of the coffee table. 

I didn't see it happen, but I know what must have occurred. My little girl took a flying face dive into our solid wood coffee table, which had two exposed sections (one on top and a rim along the bottom) and she had managed to smack her face on the top part, fall and hit the bottom one. Her left eye and the bridge of her nose blew up so fast I had to talk myself down from a panic. 

I called my paramedic neighbor and he rushed over to take a look. "Um...yeah...you may want to take her to AI to the ER". My inner monologue: "Jane, now is NOT the time to panic. YOU are the mother here. YOU must be calm!!! slap slap, calm the fuck down!". I called Matt and told him as calm as I possibly could with Eva freaking out in the background that he needed to come take us to the hospital. NOW!

We were at AI Hospital for Children for what seemed like forever. And while waiting for the doctor, my nerves calmed. Not because I felt like my child was safe and would be treated and felt perfectly at ease with that, but because there were "Code Blue"s and trauma arrival alerts while we were there. My child busted her face on the coffee table. She had an ordeal and it scared, hurt and upset her. She had stopped bleeding and the swelling wasn't increasing anymore. Somewhere in this ER, someone's Eva was turning blue and no longer breathing. Someone's Eva was arriving via ambulance on a stretcher with trauma from any sort of accident so far exceeding what happened with our stupid coffee table that there was no room or need for comparison. Eva was in my arms and smiling up at me. The Shires were fine and thank God for that miracle.

In the end she didn't break her nose or eye socket, she didn't even need stitches. She had a nasty "Rocky-ish" shiner for about 2 weeks and we seriously considered putting the coffee table in storage. But she was back at home by nap time and was acting like her usual happy, tricky self. 

The thing that lingered was a mother's guilt.

I know, I know...I couldn't really have done much to prevent that accident at that moment. She must have tripped. That happens at 14 months old ALOT. I had put corner guards on the coffee table so it's not like I was neglecting that the coffee table was a potential danger. I couldn't stand over her every second of the day in order to have caught her before she hurt herself. I mean, someone has to wash the damn dishes, even though I really wish it didn't have to be me (GOD there are so many dishes when you have kid!!). The guilt came because I saw it coming before it happened.

For the few days leading up to this incident, Eva was really clumsy. I chalk it up now to a foot growth spurt. Right after this she skipped a size 4 shoe altogether. Her balance was off completely. She had been walking well since she was 11 months old. She was solidly running by 14 months. It wasn't related to that. She just tripped and knocked into things all the time for about a week before this. My friend even told me that she ran right into the wall at her house at one point. But she kept bumping into the coffee table. Anytime she was near it she would hit her foot on the corner, knock a knee into the side or chest bump the corner guards. I kept "seeing" something more happening involving this coffee table, thinking "this thing is dangerous", but I ignored it. And something did happen. I could have shot myself I felt so guilty.

I consider us lucky that a black eye was the worst of it. And I take a lesson from it. Now, whenever I "see" a danger happening. Even if it's something as silly as "if I leave my iced tea there, Eva could spill it", I move it. If I think, "this cord is dangling" and think it could harm Eva in anyway I move it. I don't cross my fingers and think everything will be fine like I may have before. I don't hover over her by any means, but if I "see" it, I take care of it. The first time. Every time.

I am hoping this saves her from following in Matthew "Stiches" Shire's footsteps for at least a decade!

Lumpity bump bump

As I previously mentioned, I tried to breastfeed in the most traditional sense. I tried to get her mouth to tit for longer than I could stand it. I tried to do it. It seemed like the easiest, cheapest, healthiest, most convenient and most natural way to work things, but I never really WANTED to do it. It sort of creeps me out if I'm being forthright about it, but I could do anything for my Eva. In the end, she rejected me completely so I pumped for months and she got her nutrition that way with assistance from good old Enfamil. This meant I wound up hooked up to a hospital grade breast pump for almost half of any given day. It took awhile for my "supply" to arrive (it must have been temporarily lost in the mail) so once it did I was determined to fill up my fridge AND freezer! 

I would say it was about a month when a milk duct decided to malfunction and got clogged. I don't know how this happens. Breast milk is the consistency of 2 ounces of water with a drop or two of cream in it. How does this clog anything? It's beyond my ability to comprehend. But what I do know is that when it clogs a duct, the resulting infection is a bitch! 

It was my right boob ("Mary Kate", according to Matt) and right on the top. A hot-to-the-touch, hard and painful lump showed up. I never spiked a fever because I knew what it was at the earliest signs and my OB was very attentive and I was on a prescription like brown on rice. The antibiotic helped, but the best remedy is to let the milk continue to flow. At one point or another, I remember this thing was so painful and sore that I was expecting to see a stone sized clump suddenly shoot out and into the breast milk bag, clearly indicating that the clog was now clear. That never happened, obviously, and one day, it was just miraculously better. And I was back in business.

About 9 months later, I had been weened from pumping for awhile so all the swelling in my now GLOBE sized breasts had subsided. I went bra shopping and was shocked to find out that I was still the same bra size (a D if you're nosey or a pervert) only now I needed padding because my now hollow used boobs were deflated. Who needs padding in a D cup? Yup, that's me. 

So I took my now bubbly padded-D cup boobies home and went on with mothering. 

At some point I realized it and put it off in the back of my mind where we place things like, "change the brita filter" for constant "GOD why can't I remember to do that?!". It was a lump. A breast lump.

Now, I'm not a hypochondriac (well, that's not completely true. I can't watch Dr. Oz or The Doctors without thinking I have some strange disease that they are mentioning). This lump was in roughly the same spot the clogged duct had been, but not exactly the same spot. Could it have moved when my boobs deflated? Possibly, even probably. 

It may be questionable whether or not I'm a hypochondriac or not, but I'm definitely not a fool. 

One of my favorite people from college, therefore one of my favorite people period, felt a lump at some point too. She also wasn't a fool. She pointed it out to this doctor and that one and all of them gave her the response that she really wanted to hear, but unfortunately for this rock star woman, it wasn't the correct response. She was diagnosed with breast cancer several years later, when it was well beyond just "breast" cancer. (Why can't we locate these bastard doctors and have them stoned? That's what I want to know!?). 

So for years she has been fighting this fight and kicking ass here and there and occasionally, sadly, getting her ass kicked while everyone who has her on their "my favorite people, period" list has to sit back and try to support her while being entirely helpless to actually do any good. 

So when I felt this lump, I went into action. Am I going to bear witness to her story and still be so ignorant that it could be her and not me? NOPE. I was at the doctor in less than 3 days. 

They were pretty sure it was scar tissue from the clogged duct that did likely move slightly when I stopped pumping and the milk ducts dried up, but......

I was sent for a breast ultrasound. Thinking of my friend and all I know of her story since she first found her lump, I was thrilled they even sent me for the ultrasound. That was more than her doctors ever did for her. But I wasn't put at ease by that. 

I went for the ultrasound directly from the OB exam. It was only one floor down in the same building. I sat and waited for awhile because I didn't have an appointment. My name was called, I changed in the little changing room into the paper thin gown and I was sat to wait in an ultrasound room. 

I took a breath and did the same thing I did when I was in labor early with Eva and the NICU director was giving me all the worst-case-scenarios: I surveyed the energy in the room. I took notice of the blink of the lights, the feel of the crepe paper underneath my back, the smell of the office space and the whirring sound the ultrasound machine was making. Would I forever remember that whir? Would this musty smell forever remind me of the day my life changed? Would this moment be heavy?

No. It didn't feel heavy. It felt musty and too warm for the season and that light blinking was really annoying and why is that machine so loud when it's not actively in use, but it felt light.  I wasn't willing to let myself off the hook entirely; too superstitious for that. But I let out the breath I was holding.

And in the end I consider myself lucky as all hell. Nothing showed up on the ultrasound. I check that lump on Mary Kate more than once a month and I don't leave out Ashley. I check her too. About a month ago I thought maybe it had changed so I went back to my doctor. She had no cause for concern, but to come back in 3 months if I'm still worried. I will forever be worried. I am a woman in her 30s in THIS day and age.  I have to check the "yes" box on medical forms when it asks if I have a maternal grandmother who had breast cancer. I have a friend MY AGE who is on her upteenth round of chemo because cancer seems determined to prove that she's weak...watch out, cancer, she's not and she's coming for you! 

I am watching mine closely because someone wasn't watching hers close enough. Please watch yours too!

I want my back back baby

When Eva was six months old, we looked around our townhouse and really saw all the baby items starting to take over. The way our home was set up, we pretty much existed in one room most of the day and now that Eva was in motion, we had to have stations to interest her. I called it "circuit training". It was like Curves for babies in this one room of our house. We had a jumperoo, a swing, a play mat, a box of toys, a box of books, a bouncer, and a table toy.  Eva would maintain interest in any one activity or station for about 10-15 minutes before she would FLIP out. So I would typically feed her, change her, put her in the jumperoo for 10-15 minutes, then move her to the swing, they play with her and her box of toys, then to the play mat, then read with her from the box of books, then to the bouncer and finally help her stand at that table toy before she needed to eat and be changed again and start the whole circuit over again. 

This circuit training worked like a charm, but the "stations" had completely taken over our living space. We knew that the worst was yet to come. Soon there would be a toddler toys...and LOTS of them.

We needed to move. 

We met with our realtor on a Friday and that weekend we began to pack some stuff up to make our home look deceptively larger. We packed up margarita glasses, Christmas dishes, breadmakers, wedding china and everything else we didn't use on any sort of regular basis. We were going on the market Monday.

Sunday morning Matt got up early with Eva and later I woke up having to pee so bad it was reminiscent of pregnancy. Only, I couldn't get out of bed. Literally. I didn't know why. All I was aware of was pain. A pain so deep and so all encompassing that I would have literally rather peed the bed that attempt to get to the bathroom. I couldn't even roll over. 

After about 5 minutes I was able to locate where the pain was coming from. It was the right side of my lower back. I took a series of deep breaths and tried to call out for my husband. It hurt too much to yell. So I cried. It hurt even more to cry.

Luckily Matt came up soon to put Eva down for her morning nap and found me crying and still trying to hold onto my bladder. I ordered him not to touch me. He was half panicked, but half thinking, "oh my gosh my wife is such a drama queen". I could tell that's what he was thinking. And at times, he's completely right. This time, he was wrong. Unfortunately, he was very very wrong. 

It took me an hour to get to the bathroom and pee and then down the stairs to the couch. I called a neighbor who was a paramedic and asked what medics would do to help me if I called an ambulance and he told me. The only answer I wanted from him was to tell me they would give me a horse tranquilizer before they tried to touch or move me. That wasn't the answer he gave me. So I cried some more.

I have no idea what I did to my back. I didn't THINK I over did it while packing up all of our things the day before. I barely lifted anything. There was no cause for this. I just simply couldn't move and sitting/lying still was the single most excruciating event I hope I ever have to experience.  I think Matt eventually understood that I wasn't faking or putting on a show. We called the doctor and got an emergency prescription and appointment. There was no way I could have made it to the doctor without some serious medication first. The doctor proved to be slightly useless but I left with an extended prescription for all sorts of pain meds and muscle relaxers. Matt took a day or two off of work and my mom had to come down for the rest of that week. I couldn't sit up or hold Eva for over a week. 

A week or more later, I was still on the meds and I would stand in front of the mirror still feeling horrible pain trying to figure out why my torso looked the way it did. I could right it. Our good friends, who are also our neighbors, are PTs, thank GOD! They came over and looked me over and told me it looked like I had slipped a disc or had a lateral lumbar shift. By that, they meant my spine was actually seriously F-ed up. He gave me some suggestions of things to do. And I did them.

About 3 weeks later, I was fine. I was sore from time to time and lived with a fear of its return every morning. I saw a chiropractor for 6 months and he helped with symptoms but didn't cure a damn thing. I got an x-ray and it revealed absolutely nothing. 

A year later I got some answers. It wasn't my back. It wasn't my hip. It was my pelvis. It wasn't sitting right. It was twisted. Nothing I did packing boxes that day had caused it. But something did: pregnancy.

We all know that pregnancy causes our pelvis to separate over time in order to prepare to push an 8 pound watermelon out of our "ladies". Well, at some point, it has to come back together. Sometimes it takes a month or two, other times almost 9 months. Most women have no reason to even notice. It took my pelvis almost six months on the dot and I had reason to notice.

It involved my sacroiliac joint (google it if you want the whole "hip bone's connected to the sacroiliac joint..." thing of it). There were risks to this condition and one of the top ones they listed was "fertility issues".  Awesome.  They told me it was common and extremely painful (tell me something I don't already know), but that it could be fixed.  I could receive therapy and that would help, but one of the most effective treatments is actually a subsequent pregnancy. It would separate the joint again and hopefully it would come back together correctly the second time. Interesting.

I went to PT for a few months when Eva was 16 months old that really helped. I haven't felt pain in that region since I stopped PT. Occasionally, I feel weakness there. If I get tired, I feel an ache there as if that is the area to weaken first. I always take it easy when I feel that ache. I know it is not something I want to rehash or anger. 

I continued to live in fear of having to experience it again (I do to this day). I am simply too young to live in fear of waking up and not being able to get out of bed. Something else struck me more than this though. "Possible infertility issues"...it rang in my ears like a gong. 

It is still ringing...

We interrupt this blog for a public service announcement:

I am interrupting the chronological order of the events of "my motherhood" so far in light of recent events in "my womanhood". I will warn you this will be long and it IS a soapbox...

I am a mother who has just entered her 30s. Therefore, I am a WOMAN in her 30s. I interact with many other women every single day. Some are also 30ish, some are 40 or 50ish, others are just entering their 20s, and many of them are 2. Some of them I see daily, others once a week, once a year or once every few years. Some I talk to often on the phone, sometimes texts and others on Facebook. In the end, we're all women, who were once girls that were taught one way or another how to survive in a pack of other girls and not always have to be the who goes home from school (or the slumber party, or work, or playgroup, or any other social environment we put ourselves in) and cry ourselves to sleep. We are taught, somehow (I don't pretend to know precisely how), to ride a wave of girlfriendship where sometimes we are kind and sometimes we are not. Sometimes we mean it when we say we trust and love our girlfriends and sometimes we do not. Sometimes we mean it when we say the events and choices in our girlfriends lives don't threaten our own and sometimes we do not. Sometimes we mean it when we say, "I didn't mean it that way" and sometimes we do not. Sometimes we mean it when we say, "I'm sorry" but sometimes, too often, we do not. 

The first time I was betrayed by a "best" girlfriend stands out in my life story like someone set fire to the safe little house I existed in. I was 11. The fact I was so young brings tears to my eyes as I type this. Jenny (names have been changed) and I had been best best BEST friends since kindergarten. Sleep over each others house during the week, know each others scariest nightmares, make up dance routines and video tape them, allow the other one to pretend to marry your favorite NKOTB, write each other letters every single day if one of us was on vacation kind of best friends. BEST friends. One day in middle school (some random day in a random week in a random month. There was no reason to it), Jenny just stopped sitting with me at lunch. When I called out to her, she looked away. When I stopped by her locker, she turned her back to me. When I called her that afternoon, she hung up. When I wrote her notes the next day in school, she threw them out unread. To this day, I have no idea why. I cried for weeks. About 6 months later, she called me and said she missed me and wanted to be friends again. Deep inside I was so happy I could have burst, but my 11 year old soul had changed. I knew I was suddenly more mature than this sort of torture girls put each other through. I told her she hurt me irreparably. I told her no. I told her goodbye. 

Not that I have never been guilty of it.  A few years later, I had become close friends with another girl. We'll call her Lisa. She had been "dating" a friend of mine in the way you date someone when you're in 8th grade. So they talked on the phone and wrote notes and maybe swayed to and fro in the gym of the middle school during a dance once or twice. This was a boy I had harbored interest in because everyone else did too. So when one day he told me over the phone that he sometimes wished he was dating me rather than her, I beamed. And I called another "best" friend (we'll call her Lily). I shared with her what he had said to me because I wanted him to like me in the way you want someone to like you when you're in 8th grade; as proof that one day you'll have options. It's no shock that Lily called Lisa and exaggerated the conversation I had had with both her and her boyfriend. Lily and Lisa weren't friends, but Lily DESPERATELY wanted to be friends with Lisa. And this is what we do, right? To build a friendship with one girl we have to tear down another. We build a bond on mutual annoyance. So when Lisa called me to find out if it was all true, I drew a line in the sand. At 13 years old I had had enough. I wasn't going to be a "girls girl" anymore. So I took the hit. I told her I had lied. I made it up. Her boyfriend never said that. Lisa never really talked to me again and her boyfriend only did in secret. Lily and Lisa were BFF for about 3 weeks when Lily used Lisa to get to be friends with the next rung on the social ladder. 

If you are reading this and you went to middle school with me, I am sure you're thinking, "who the hell is she talking about?! When did this happen?". I am not so self-centered to think that a defining event in my life was meaningful in anyway to you. It was a big social issue for about a day or two and then the summer started and it all faded away and we were on to high school where "best friends" stealing their best friend's boyfriends was commonplace. We've all had a friend start dating the boy we thought we'd marry only a few days after he broke our hearts. We've all felt that slap as it stung our faces raw. Maybe some of us even are guilty of that. I am, myself. That's my point. Even when we see the game and how sick it is; even if we don't agree with it, we still ride the tide.

Now we are 30 and we are mothers and all of our old middle-school insecurities about where we fit in the group mentality are all still parts of our foundation. We want to be seen as women who are making good choices, using the right tools, displaying the best of ourselves and our families. We want to be liked. 

For the last 2 years, I have been waging my own battle with a friend of a friend. Someone I have probably spent a total of 5 days with in my entire life. Someone completely meaningless to me when it comes right down to it. This person is also 30, also a mother of a beautiful child. She has always defined herself by her opinions and her willingness to share them. We have been friends on Facebook. Every week, or at least it seemed, she would find a picture or a status or a comment between myself and someone else to make a snide remark about. Either I was stifling Eva's creativity the way I was having her paint, or the toy I bought her was a safety hazard. She would school me on breast-over-bottle, which sippy cup I should be using instead and comment on my choices for travel. Inevitably a photo would show up on her wall a few months later of her son playing with those same art supplies or using that same toy that she warned would be so dangerous.  I bit my tongue to be polite. I didn't want to cause drama for our mutual friend, who has been one of my best friends since high school. Her comments didn't hurt me. In my mind, she was a lunatic and I couldn't really care less about it. I never commented on her facebook life, she just stalked mine out, all....the....time. It got to the point that friends and family started asking me who this person was that was so negative about everything I did, every choice I made. So this week, when she posted another contradictory response with no constructive value when no opinion was asked for, I straightfowardly asked her to abide by the golden rule. Post nothing if it's not nice. Thanks so much. She flipped out and fought dirty. I obviously hit a nerve and showed her a side of herself she's not comfortable with. She called me a bad mom. That I was constantly negative about Eva and that we'd never be real friends because she disapproved of my parenting style. I wish I were kidding, but I'm not.

In all honesty, I laughed. I paced the kitchen for a moment because I had to expend some energy so I wouldn't respond.  I could go on and on about how ridiculous her argument was, that if I'm so awful, why are you wasting so much of your existence and time with your own child by seeking me out on Facebook to negatively comment on whatever it is I'm doing? But that's not really the point of this post. 

My point is that I find it sad. I find it awfully unfortunate that someone at 30, who is raising a child, feels so unsure of their role in the production of girlfriendship that she needs to bully and lash out and create social triangles in order to feel more comfortable. I don't know why a choice I make about sippy cups would threaten another mother, another woman, enough that they felt the need to teach me a lesson about it. Relax...it's not that big of a deal. 

Enough is enough.

I love my mommy friends for the choices THEY make for THEM. I don't care what toys you get your kids or where you bring them on vacation. I only care that you love them and that they are as precious to you as my Eva is to me. I have removed the "occasional bitch" from the description of myself on this blog because I've had enough. I will not offer my contradictory opinion to you on any topic at anytime. I will offer you NOTHING but support because you are the one making the same difficult choices and sacrifices for your child/ren that I am every day for Eva. I am proud of you. I mean it when I say that now and I will mean it tomorrow.

I am raising a girl. I pray I raise her right. I pray I raise her to chose HER closest friends with care so she will not know what it feels like to be that girl crying from betrayal day after day. I pray I raise her to mean it when she says she trusts and loves her closest friends. I pray I raise her to mean it when she says she is sorry for what will be unknowingly hurting their feelings. I pray that I can surround myself with women who will provide her with a positive example of how much a truly loving, respectful and supportive group of women can accomplish. These are the things I pray for.

We will now return to your regularly scheduled blogging...

Meeting the Milestones

Eva's doctors warned me that she may be a month or more behind in meeting her developmental milestones compared to other babies her same age because she was a premie. So, I was prepared for that. I wasn't as prepared for her to meet so many of them EARLY! 

Our "premie" was lifting her head all the way up by 2 weeks, pushing herself up on her arms during tummy time around a month, social smiled before 2 months, slept through the night at 3 months, rolled over and belly laughed at 4 months, sat up unsupported at 5 months, crawled at 7 months and walked at 10 months. 

Physically, our little nugget was a beast. At her 1 year appointment, her doctor remarked that she is the strongest baby he has seen in a long time and had to call in TWO nurses to help me hold her down for him to simply check her ears when there was absolutely nothing wrong with them. This didn't surprise me in the least. Eva's fine and gross motor skills were never something I worried about. She never seemed to have an issue using her pincer grasp to pick up the smallest item on the carpet to stick in her mouth and was climbing the stairs and the couch before she even had her first Valentine. Don't worry, we already put her in soccer this past spring.  This child should be an athlete.

What did concern me was her communication. She simply refused to mimic...anything. From my career background, I know that some children just aren't parrots, but I didn't realize how frustrating and upsetting it would be as their parent. 

It's not that she wouldn't babble. She did. LOUDLY! She just never babbled when I wanted her to like the other babies did in her Little Gym class. I would sit her on my lap and snuggle her and look deep into her eyes and say, "baba. baba. babababababababa" like a lunatic and she would look at me like this was the most ridiculous and embarrassing thing her mother ever did. Sometimes she'd even look around to make sure no one was around to witness it. Other times she'd push me away and start saying, "dadadadada" 10 seconds later as if to tell me, "FYI-I will do the exact opposite of anything you ask me to do"!  

I should have taken this as a serious warning and prepared myself better for stubborn toddlerhood!

18 months later, Eva is talking more and more. She is much more willing to repeat what I ask her to say now because she is genuinely interested in the world around her and wants to know what things are called. I am not naive enough to think that every person on the street can understand everything she says (sometimes Matt even has no idea!), but I do. The most significant thing she has said recently is, "i love you, mommy".  Not mama...mommy. That small switch from mama to mommy opens my heart to wrap this child in more love than I even knew I had room for!

Mommy loves you too, Eva!

Fall family walks make me feel warm all over!

The actual" pre-first family walk" photo

Eva arrived in the world preterm right in time for the H1N1 Flu frenzy.  Everyone (my doctor, Eva's doctor(s), the visiting nurse, my mother, my mom friends, my non-mom friends, etc) all warned me about taking my fragile little baby nugget out into public. When I say that they "warned me", I mean to say that they "scared the living shit out of me". So, I didn't take her out. Like, at all.

The first time she went to the grocery store she was 4 months old. First trip to a restaurant was after that. She only went to the doctors for her or my appointments. That was it. If you came to visit her, your privacy was invaded as I or Matt hovered over you while you washed your hands thoroughly upon arrival. Matt and I were vaccinated out the wazoo. Eva was not getting swine flu under any circumstances!

Needless to say, my first season as a stay-at-home mommy was horribly boring. Am I allowed to say that? Or is that beyond awful to admit? Eva slept all day and when she didn't, she just laid there in whatever position I put her in. I would pump and feed, change a diaper, change an outfit, put to sleep, pump again and repeat...and NEVER leave the house. I admit, I took it to an unnecessary extreme, but I'd love to know how other mothers would have reacted? Do you take your kid to Babies R Us, which is the most germ-infested shit hole on the planet when they are a month old and under 6 pounds when everyone you love and trust is telling you they will get sick and die if they get the highly contagious H1N1 flu? Yeah, I didn't really think so. It was a lose/lose situation. 

I was climbing the walls. The only person I knew not working and free to chat when I was lonely was my mother, so I called her....constantly! Mostly everyone else was working. I only had one or two friends at home with kids, but their babies were all older and they were busy chasing them around all day and shuffling them from this activity to that one. My closest friends are all teachers and were in the thick of the "back to school" abyss where teachers disappear to for the first month of school before they resurface on the planet. I was horribly lonely. Despite that lonely ache, I never really considered returning to work at the end of my FMLA leave. I knew that less-lonely times were ahead and I wanted to be home for every single one of them and I was lucky enough to have that option. 

To get through it, I took Eva for lots of walks around the neighborhood before the weather got too chilly. It was great for exercise and for Eva's early jaundice. Not to mention how restorative getting some fresh fall air can be. I will never forget the first of these walks. It was a weekend and Matt was home with us. We strapped Eva into the Moby cloth wrap I had and set out into the September sun to introduce her to the neighborhood and to the world. 

We stopped and said hello to many neighbors and I can remember holding Matt's hand as he walked Brady alongside us and looking at my new little family and knowing that we weren't yet complete. Someone was missing. I didn't know if we'd have one or four more children or when they would arrive, but I knew it wasn't meant to just be us.

It was a warm feeling to have, to know there would be more love to share someday down the road. 

Then a warmer feeling over took me and brought me back to my present situation.  THIS feeling was an actual warm feeling, almost hot. It was paired with a sound. A squirty and wet sound. Then came the smell...

My little precious baby blew a load out her butt so foul and so massive that it ended up dripping down her legs and of course, all over me as she was in that Moby wrap attached to my chest. 

Matt and I just about died laughing. We still laugh about that two years later! Another shirt of mommy's in the garbage and another poop story to pack away to embarrass her with when she's older!

The "Bottle or Breast" Breakdown

Eva was a premie so her first few weeks at home were filled with doctor's visits. Since she was a NICU baby, the hospital followed up by sending a visiting nurse to the house a few times. She was a complete loon, but I was happy to have her checking in on her because Eva also had pretty bad jaundice and she was able to monitor that and let us know when we needed to go get her blood drawn to keep tabs on those levels so they would stay far away from a danger zone. Because of the jaundice, Eva was 'round-the-clock sleepy. Which would be great for a new mom; to say, my 2 week old sleeps through the night. Can you imagine?! Only the problem was, we couldn't LET her sleep through the night. Not only do 2 week olds have to eat every 3 hours normally, OUR 2 week old had to eat every 2 hours in order to fight the jaundice.  So every 2 hours we had to wake ourselves and her. Which was much easier said than done all around. It seemed like torture having to pull our weary selves upright in bed, but it was even more difficult to rouse our baby. I remember having to strip her naked under the fan to wake her from her warm slumber in order to eat. At this point I was still trying to get her to latch so I could breastfeed, something I made Matt swore he'd push me to continue giving effort towards, especially when I wanted to quit.  Only, Eva wouldn't latch for long. She would grab hold and immediately start sucking away and then realize that it wasn't her precious bottle nipple and spit me right back out. Talk about rejection! So I'd wake her at 10:00, try to get her to latch for 15-20 minutes, resign and then feed her previously pumped breastmilk for 40 minutes (Eva was a slllllllllllllloooooooooow eater! She would always fall back to sleep and we'd have to wake her again!), and then pump for 20 minutes after I put her back to sleep. Of course you have to start the process again exactly 2 hours after you STARTED it the last round. Do the math. I would sleep for 30 mins of every 2 hours, every night...TOPS. Eva also shared our room during this stage and she was FAR from a quiet sleeper. Constant motion+constant sleepy noises=constantly awake mother. 

It was madness. I kept up the charade for several weeks before I sobbed to Matt that something had to give.  Matt was more than willing to take on some of the bottle feedings in that cycle, but he couldn't be expected to do them all. The man had to get up and work in the morning. But he definitely helped more than I had expected him to.  But, I couldn't do the rest. I had to give up the attempts to latch. Matt argued with me, telling me that breastfeeding was best for Eva and that I should stick with it. My point was I didn't care how she got the breastmilk; that I'd continue pumping. He encouraged me strongly not to give up trying. 

I could have killed him. I was so exhausted and frustrated and just needed someone to support my decision to let it go; a decision we hold over our own heads as mothers for way too long. But I couldn't kill him, so I broke down in an unprecedented emotional breakdown at 2:00 am in Eva's 4th week of life. Matt held me and told me, "Jane. I could give a rats ass if you breastfeed, bottle-feed or any combo of that.  I'm only doing what you told me to; to push you to do it when you wanted to stop.". I had forgotten about that...

I was so relieved, I can't even describe it. I don't know why though. This was the beginning of the "Jane's Life Attached to a Double-Breast Pump" chapter.  I have never had such respect for dairy cows in all my life...

Today's lesson: choose the changing table carefully

The drugs started to wear off from my C-section and I started to feel sore. Everywhere. My abdomen felt like it was slit like a zipper all the way around my waist, but worse than that was the pain in my elbow pits from gripping the bed with such ferocity during all those hours of pressure. They told me in the recovery room that I couldn't hold Eva until I showed them I could activate my lower half and lift my hips. Recall, please, that I was just cut in half less than 30 minutes before this, but if that's what's standing between me and this baby, it's not a problem. I arched my back and lifted myself two feet in the air. "Whoa, ok. Point proven, take it easy", said the nurse. And in came Eva. 

I sang her "Happy Birthday" and she gave me a sleepy smile. It was just the two of us, as her father was passed out cold in the chair next to me. For about 30 minutes, life was bliss. Eva latched and I was under the impression she had herself a good birthday breakfast. We had our "skin to skin" bonding time and her tiny little body was such a hot pocket that she warmed my cold-to-the bone recovering body to its core. I closed my eyes with a smile on my face and we went to sleep, snuggled up together...

For about 3 minutes. 

Then she was taken away to the NICU. Because of my stupid gestational diabetes, Eva was born having trouble regulating her own sugar. They needed to feed her and monitor her ability to do this regulatory task. There goes my hope to breastfeed only and there goes my tiny bundle to another wing of the hospital.

I tried to do what everyone told me to and use the time she was in the NICU and I was in the hospital to sleep. However, I was still hell-bent on breastfeeding so I woke myself up every 2 hours all night to pump.  I was getting zero breastmilk and it was incredibly frustrating every morning when I had nothing to deliver to the NICU doctor to give my baby nugget. I went to the NICU often and held her and tried to feed her and when I couldn't, or she wouldn't, used a bottle to give her what she needed. She was on the brink of dropping below 5lbs a few days after birth, which would have kept her in the NICU when we left to go home. That was unacceptable to me. My girl was coming home with me. She LOVED her premie bottle and so did her little body. She never dropped below 5 lbs and she was up in our room after 3 days in the NICU! 

The first night that Eva spent with us in the hospital was interesting, to say the least. I was still unable to get out of that tall hospital bed on my own and I was determined to let Matt sleep as much as possible because I am a saint and he's lucky to have me. Eva's little bassinet cart was right up against my bed so I didn't need to move much to get her out. She was very sleepy but woke up during one of my late night pumpings and so I took her to feed her and snuggle her and see if that little yellow line on the premie diapers was now blue at all. It was so I changed her...on my lap.  BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD idea!

I had been around babies often, especially with my major in college, but I can't say I ever changed the diaper of a literal "newborn" before. I had no idea that when you wipe their little butt hole, they poop instinctually. Well she did...in an upward stream...aimed at my face. Luckily I saw it coming with enough time to lift my head so the point of contact was just under my chin and then it aimed all the way down to my new incision like a yard sprinkler on it's side.

"MATTTTTTT, I need some help!"  

Matt shot out of bed still completely asleep and without his glasses on and ran to my bed side. He is lucky that I love him enough to have stopped him before he put his hands in it reaching to support me because he thought I needed to get up to pee! 

In the end, we laughed a lot about that and the shirt I was wearing was promptly thrown away. Matt helped me to the shower after we cleaned off Eva and when I came out, he was feeding Eva and gave me the instructions to go to sleep...

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The next morning, we were all on our way home!