Pregnancy & Birth is bananas, Y’all

Part 2... B-Day

Oh, the birth day. Lots of emotions were leading up to that wild ride. As I had mentioned in part 1 that my blood pressure had begun to rise and thus we needed to induce for the health of me and precious P. This was very upsetting for a multitude of reasons.

1. Being induced more than doubles your change of having a cesarean which I was terrified of having after a botched c-section occurred to someone very close.

2. I wanted to have a natural birth and pitocin contractions are much more intense than normal contractions so I was obviously worried about the pain.

3. I wanted to be able to move around during my birth and not be hooked up to machines. Thankfully, my Dr. was amazing. She knew my concerns and made me feel so much better. She also knew that it was important to have my sisters with me and she offered to induce on the weekend so that they could be there. That was a big deal, they usually don’t induce on weekends.

It was a whirlwind of a weekend. I was induced Saturday night the 13^th of September. I was given a pill to soften my cervix. That sounds terrible but I really had no idea anything was happening. That next morning was when they started the pitocin. We called our birth photographer to head our way since I was already dilated to a 3, we knew it wouldn’t be long. Bahahaha, we were totally wrong. He finally made his debut at 5:00 that night after 2 hours of pushing, yep, you read that right, 2 FLIPPIN’ HOURS OF PUSHING.

A couple of things happened that day that I think I should warn you about.

1. We didn’t eat dinner that night before because we were a bundle of nerves. Bad idea. Turns out that they are pretty strict on not eating while in labor, which was totally ridiculous and I’m so thankful Jacob snuck me jolly ranchers or I might have died from hunger or killed someone out of hangriness.
2. Contractions are no fun. I was expecting some period cramps, not vice grips on my loins. Apparently pitocin takes your contractions from stupid painful to wicked painful.
3.  When you have a crazy family, expect your delivery room to be anything but peaceful. I had Jacob, my sisters-Kenzie & Jordan, Hanna- my sister in law, and my birth photographer in the room.  I was also the the only active labor that night so I had a room full of nurses who were cheering me on! There were a lot of scarred eyes that day. Some things cannot be un-seen, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way! 
   
   
   
                                                                              cannot be trusted in a hospital...
   
   
   
4.    The epidural did not hurt at all to get, however, I did not push the extra dose button and it wore off before I was done pushing. So that was fun.
5. When the nurse says to walk carefully to the bathroom to shower off the blood and muck, you should walk carefully. Not strut like this because it looks like a scene from Carrie if you do. Fo’ Real. So. Much. Blood. Also your legs feel weird. So take it easy.
                                                                     Don't walk to the bathroom like this. Just trust me!
6. Seeing your husband become a first time dad is the sweetest thing. #ALLTHEFEELS

All in all it was a crazy, stressful, beautiful day. I never felt that I would love anything more than my dog and then this sweet boy entered our world and we wouldn’t change it for a thing.  I don’t want to go through pregnancy or birth again, ever, but I’m so happy we decided to give it a shot.

Here are some of my favorite shots from that day. If you're on the fence about hiring a birth photographer, do it. You will not regret it! It was amazing to have these pictures to look back on that special day. 

Thanks to MJW Photography for sharing our day! You can catch his birth story here or Porter's new born pictures here! 

See you soon, friends!

Pregnancy & Birth is bananas, Y’all

Part 1... Pregnancy, schmegnancy 

 

*These were taken by the lovely Helen Barker at HelenBarker.co*

Let me start by reminding you all that I wasn’t even sure if I wanted children. I mean, I don’t really tolerate children that well. They stress me out! They’re high maintenance, loud and whiny, wait a minute, I’m describing myself now. I was loving the aunt life and lack of responsibilities that my late twenties were offering. We could sleep in and we could travel wherever at the drop of a hat because we had no real responsibilities. Did I mention how important sleep is to me? I’m one of those that require at least 9 hours of sleep per day. I prefer to have closer to 10 hours to be a functioning adult. (I use the term functioning very loosely here).

Once we decided to have a child, I did all the research that I could on pregnancy & birth. I have always been intrigued by birth, maybe I was a midwife in a past life. I grew up watching a baby story and I didn’t know I was pregnant. I thought I had seen it all. I watched a million YouTube videos. I even watched a lady give birth in a creek, a creek, y’all. If she could have a baby in the same place that treated sewage water was released, I would totally be a rock star at giving birth. I also knew I was going to LOVE being pregnant. I was going to be one of those “cute” pregnant ladies. You know the ones where they have a little tiny bump and they don’t gain 25 pounds in just their face. They are also the ones who can wear their regular clothes up until their last few weeks? Yeah, that was NOT me, unfortunately. Let me break it down by what really happens*:

                *these experiences are only of my own personal account. Every pregnancy is different and my memory cannot be validated 100% due to reason #3 as my mind has not fully recovered*

• ·         Morning Sickness: Morning, hahaha! I would have to go to bed at 7pm every night because I was so nauseated that if I kept my eyes open any longer I would throw up. Then in the morning, I’d have to sprint to eat something to keep the nausea at bay. I would also have, what I call, R.G.A.- Random Gag Attacks. I would be having a conversation with someone and then I’d have to stop talking because if I opened my mouth, I was going to be sick. These occurred when I was driving, when I was on the phone, in the drive thru line, at work, everywhere! The only thing that saved my sanity was chewy sweet tart minis. It was awful. Thankfully around 13 weeks, the nausea fell by the way side, only to be replaced by-

• ·         Heart Burn-AKA the “I’m carrying the Devil’s fire-breathing dragon child”. You want to know what gave me heartburn when I was pregnant? Literally everything - water, tums, bread, more tums, all the food, all the drinks. Nothing stopped the fire breathing. I had to sleep almost at a 90-degree angle because that would “help” your acid naturally stay in your stomach instead of slithering back up your throat. This lasted until I popped that sweet boy out.

• ·         Pregnancy brain – Yes, this is real, yes it makes you REAL stupid. I would forget names of things that I had known MY. WHOLE. LIFE. Simple things, like addition, simple English and sometimes common sense were well beyond my reach. This lovely symptom follows through the newborn stage because you then become sleep deprived.
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• ·         Coffee, my beloved coffee. I was a regular at Starbucks. They knew my name, and could spell it correctly, and my order before I got there every single day. It was my happy place and I gave it up the whole time I was pregnant. Who knows if caffeine causes any problems with pregnancy, but I was not chancing it and this caused me to lose my gold card status. I was so upset that I emailed Starbucks’ headquarters and explained that I had to give up coffee that it wasn’t that I was intentionally ignoring my favorite place. I asked for a temporary stay in my gold card status. Haha! Pregnancy hormones made me irrationally upset that I was no longer a gold card member. I forgave Starbucks and my addiction is in full force once again. 

• ·         The weight gain, I’m sure you’re thinking that this is such a vain point to make, but let me remind you I had recently gotten into the best shape of my adult life. I lost 30 pounds and for once, did not loathe my body. This is a bold statement to make. I have had body image issues since I was a child. A child! My earliest memory of body image issues was from when I was about 10-12 years old. Which means that there has never been a time in my life that I can remember liking my body. It was really hard to lose the weight and even harder to not be so hard on myself and now it was coming on so quickly. I gained almost 60 pounds. I remember toward the end of my pregnancy that I gained 5 pounds in one week. I had started to develop some pre-eclampsia and we eventually induced because of that, but it was rough. It is still rough. My body has forever changed and I still have lots of weight to lose. But more on that later.

Pregnancy wasn’t all bad. There are a few positive points that I feel obligated to share for the sake of fairness:

• ·         Hair! My hair finally grew! It became long and healthy. I felt like a dang mermaid, which I’ve always wanted to be! I had been growing my hair out for years and it just wouldn’t grow. It stayed the same length and never looked healthy until I got pregnant.
• ·         Boobs: I’ve never had a problem in the boob department and I was always a middle of the pack girl. It was awesome to experience those splendid boobs before they started becoming engorged to the point of bursting and then bleeding, but more on that later. They were great for a short time.
• ·         Eating for two, without the heavy judgement. Most of the time if you order 2 ice creams you get judged, hard core, but when you’re pregnant, it is almost expected for a woman to cave to those cravings. You’ll get a comment every now and then like, “Are you sure you’re not having twins” and “My, you’re ready to burst”. To those twat waffles, I say it’s totally ok to hand out a punch. Here’s a pro-tip: NEVER COMMENT ON ANY WOMAN’S WEIGHT OR FOOD CONSUMPTION. EVER.
• ·         You get a free pass from not doing anything you don’t want to do. Don’t want to take out the trash? No problem, just say the smell is making you sick. Don’t want to do the laundry? Just say your feet are so swollen and you can’t stand on them for long. Don’t want to fix dinner? Fake a well-timed gag and you’ll be left to your own devices! You must not abuse this power or you’ll be caught and all sympathy is gone.

I hope you all have a great day! I’ll be sharing part 2 soon!

Karen’s Pirate Life…Where are they now?

Lenzie – Totally neglectful blogger who spends all of her free time with her sweet boy, Porter.

Yes, it's a snapchat filter! Snapchat filters are life! Seriously y'all, it's like some type of wizardry. 

Jacob – Still utterly ridiculous and churning out quality Jacobisms on the daily.

He bought a tractor, Lord help me.

Porter – New boss of the house. It’s his world and we are living in it.

This nugget is perfect. I know that I'm completely biased and he can totally be a wild animal, but he's too cute!

Milo – Neglected older brother of the golden child Porter

They're "best friends", if your best friend constantly terrorizes you and takes every opportunity to block your path and/or hide your bone. 

I’m coming back! I need a creative outlet after taking a couple of years off and I have lots to share. I’ll start with my birth story and continue from there! See you soon!