A blog highlighting the topic that is near and dear to all mothers, the moment we became mothers (found here: http://www.themompledgeblog.com/search/label/Defining%20Moments) and the fact that May 6 will mark two years since I returned to the United States for the last leg of my pregnancy journey have me thinking about what I went through to bring my youngest into the world almost two years ago. It was quite an emotional and very unexpected journey. My husband and definitely did not anticipate that we would be having another child so soon even though our oldest was almost 4 when I became pregnant again. We hadn't even really decided if we were going to have another child when I became pregnant but life has a funny way of happening while you're busy making other plans.
The birth of our oldest daughter, Natalie, did not go at all the way I wanted it to. I had planned to have as natural a birth as possible but it all went awry when I was hit with back labor in the early morning hours of December 26, 2005. The whole story is here: http://theworldofnatalie.blogspot.com/2006/02/miss-natalie-has-arrived.html
It was one of those situations where I had never felt so out of control in my life. It was absolutely not at all what I had expected my daughter's birth to do. I felt more like I was just watching it all unfold and not part of it at all. And afterward, a number of things happened that just made those feelings worse. She had to get poked many times because of her weight which meant concerns with blood sugars. They were low (big surprise, I hadn't eaten in hours by the time she was born) so they gave us the choice to either give her formula or she would have to go to the NICU and have an IV put in her forehead. We didn't want her to have any formula at all but felt we had absolutely no choice in the matter whatsoever and that was hard on me, especially when later on I read all the stuff on the virgin gut and how anything other than breastmilk is detrimental for a baby. There was the fight my husband had with the pediatrician because he didn't want her to get the Vitamin K shot. I told him to go along with it though because I was worried about any complications from her traumatic birth. I had her get the eye drops too because of all the meconium not knowing that it's really only needed in the event of an STD which I absolutely did not have.
The hospital stay was a nightmare. I was SO exhausted but wasn't allowed to sleep because I was nursing. It seemed like every time I was finally able to go to sleep, I would be woken up to feed her. They would wake her up too and most of the nights, she would cry and it would be this squealing cry. She was very fussy her first few days of life because of all the poking she went through. The first nice a nurse even got frustrated with her! I was stuck to the bed and couldn't do anything and felt SO helpless! My husband worked nights so I was alone and tired and so horribly overwhelmed already. Our second to last day there, I sent her to the nursery to try and get some sleep. When she came back, she had a band aid on her foot. They had done the newborn screening without even asking us or telling us that they had done it. I was FURIOUS! More poking which meant another night of her being fussy. Friday came and though I would have been allowed to stay another night, I was DONE. I wanted to go home. By that point, I was in TEARS when the ped came in to do a check up and woke my daughter up again! My milk still hadn't come in yet and my nipples looked horrible. It was an absolute nightmare. And it didn't end then. For the next 15 weeks, I went through horrible pain while breastfeeding and almost gave up many many times. I did manage to continue despite all of this and nursed her until 10 weeks before her sister was born, when I left South Korea for the last time.
Still, due to that horror story of a beginning, the last thing I wanted to do was have another baby. One was enough. I could live with having an only child. And the older she got, the more I was okay with it. We didn't need another baby. I blocked out what happened as best as I could and tried not to think about it. I couldn't deal with what happened. I had gone through witnessing a murder only two and a half years before my daughter's birth as well as two murder trials and numerous court hearings and dealing with having my parents put in prison. Caring for a baby was too difficult of a job to deal with one more trauma in my life. I would just not have another baby and therefore, would not have to worry about dealing with all of this again. It took me six months to become pregnant with her so obviously, it would take some work to get pregnant with another one again. Enough said. Besides, my husband didn't want another one, we were both happy with having one, there was no need to even think about having another baby.
And so we didn't until our oldest started talking about wanting a little brother or sister. She would watch commercials on TV with babies and talk about how that baby was SO cute and why don't we have another baby. I remember saying to her one night to ask her daddy. So, when John came home from work, she did. We were in South Korea though and a pregnancy at this point would not be ideal but the thought was trickling in my mind that maybe we would think about trying again just before we leave...maybe. Apparently, the universe listens to the wishes of children more than it listens to those of adults because it wasn't long after that that I became pregnant.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Isabelle's birth story--the long version--Part 1
A blog highlighting the topic that is near and dear to all mothers, the moment we became mothers (found here: http://www.themompledgeblog.com/search/label/Defining%20Moments) and the fact that May 6 will mark two years since I returned to the United States for the last leg of my pregnancy journey have me thinking about what I went through to bring my youngest into the world almost two years ago. It was quite an emotional and very unexpected journey. My husband and definitely did not anticipate that we would be having another child so soon even though our oldest was almost 4 when I became pregnant again. We hadn't even really decided if we were going to have another child when I became pregnant but life has a funny way of happening while you're busy making other plans.
The birth of our oldest daughter, Natalie, did not go at all the way I wanted it to. I had planned to have as natural a birth as possible but it all went awry when I was hit with back labor in the early morning hours of December 26, 2005. The whole story is here: http://theworldofnatalie.blogspot.com/2006/02/miss-natalie-has-arrived.html
It was one of those situations where I had never felt so out of control in my life. It was absolutely not at all what I had expected my daughter's birth to do. I felt more like I was just watching it all unfold and not part of it at all. And afterward, a number of things happened that just made those feelings worse. She had to get poked many times because of her weight which meant concerns with blood sugars. They were low (big surprise, I hadn't eaten in hours by the time she was born) so they gave us the choice to either give her formula or she would have to go to the NICU and have an IV put in her forehead. We didn't want her to have any formula at all but felt we had absolutely no choice in the matter whatsoever and that was hard on me, especially when later on I read all the stuff on the virgin gut and how anything other than breastmilk is detrimental for a baby. There was the fight my husband had with the pediatrician because he didn't want her to get the Vitamin K shot. I told him to go along with it though because I was worried about any complications from her traumatic birth. I had her get the eye drops too because of all the meconium not knowing that it's really only needed in the event of an STD which I absolutely did not have.
The hospital stay was a nightmare. I was SO exhausted but wasn't allowed to sleep because I was nursing. It seemed like every time I was finally able to go to sleep, I would be woken up to feed her. They would wake her up too and most of the nights, she would cry and it would be this squealing cry. She was very fussy her first few days of life because of all the poking she went through. The first nice a nurse even got frustrated with her! I was stuck to the bed and couldn't do anything and felt SO helpless! My husband worked nights so I was alone and tired and so horribly overwhelmed already. Our second to last day there, I sent her to the nursery to try and get some sleep. When she came back, she had a band aid on her foot. They had done the newborn screening without even asking us or telling us that they had done it. I was FURIOUS! More poking which meant another night of her being fussy. Friday came and though I would have been allowed to stay another night, I was DONE. I wanted to go home. By that point, I was in TEARS when the ped came in to do a check up and woke my daughter up again! My milk still hadn't come in yet and my nipples looked horrible. It was an absolute nightmare. And it didn't end then. For the next 15 weeks, I went through horrible pain while breastfeeding and almost gave up many many times. I did manage to continue despite all of this and nursed her until 10 weeks before her sister was born, when I left South Korea for the last time.
Still, due to that horror story of a beginning, the last thing I wanted to do was have another baby. One was enough. I could live with having an only child. And the older she got, the more I was okay with it. We didn't need another baby. I blocked out what happened as best as I could and tried not to think about it. I couldn't deal with what happened. I had gone through witnessing a murder only two and a half years before my daughter's birth as well as two murder trials and numerous court hearings and dealing with having my parents put in prison. Caring for a baby was too difficult of a job to deal with one more trauma in my life. I would just not have another baby and therefore, would not have to worry about dealing with all of this again. It took me six months to become pregnant with her so obviously, it would take some work to get pregnant with another one again. Enough said. Besides, my husband didn't want another one, we were both happy with having one, there was no need to even think about having another baby.
And so we didn't until our oldest started talking about wanting a little brother or sister. She would watch commercials on TV with babies and talk about how that baby was SO cute and why don't we have another baby. I remember saying to her one night to ask her daddy. So, when John came home from work, she did. We were in South Korea though and a pregnancy at this point would not be ideal but the thought was trickling in my mind that maybe we would think about trying again just before we leave...maybe. Apparently, the universe listens to the wishes of children more than it listens to those of adults because it wasn't long after that that I became pregnant.
The birth of our oldest daughter, Natalie, did not go at all the way I wanted it to. I had planned to have as natural a birth as possible but it all went awry when I was hit with back labor in the early morning hours of December 26, 2005. The whole story is here: http://theworldofnatalie.blogspot.com/2006/02/miss-natalie-has-arrived.html
It was one of those situations where I had never felt so out of control in my life. It was absolutely not at all what I had expected my daughter's birth to do. I felt more like I was just watching it all unfold and not part of it at all. And afterward, a number of things happened that just made those feelings worse. She had to get poked many times because of her weight which meant concerns with blood sugars. They were low (big surprise, I hadn't eaten in hours by the time she was born) so they gave us the choice to either give her formula or she would have to go to the NICU and have an IV put in her forehead. We didn't want her to have any formula at all but felt we had absolutely no choice in the matter whatsoever and that was hard on me, especially when later on I read all the stuff on the virgin gut and how anything other than breastmilk is detrimental for a baby. There was the fight my husband had with the pediatrician because he didn't want her to get the Vitamin K shot. I told him to go along with it though because I was worried about any complications from her traumatic birth. I had her get the eye drops too because of all the meconium not knowing that it's really only needed in the event of an STD which I absolutely did not have.
The hospital stay was a nightmare. I was SO exhausted but wasn't allowed to sleep because I was nursing. It seemed like every time I was finally able to go to sleep, I would be woken up to feed her. They would wake her up too and most of the nights, she would cry and it would be this squealing cry. She was very fussy her first few days of life because of all the poking she went through. The first nice a nurse even got frustrated with her! I was stuck to the bed and couldn't do anything and felt SO helpless! My husband worked nights so I was alone and tired and so horribly overwhelmed already. Our second to last day there, I sent her to the nursery to try and get some sleep. When she came back, she had a band aid on her foot. They had done the newborn screening without even asking us or telling us that they had done it. I was FURIOUS! More poking which meant another night of her being fussy. Friday came and though I would have been allowed to stay another night, I was DONE. I wanted to go home. By that point, I was in TEARS when the ped came in to do a check up and woke my daughter up again! My milk still hadn't come in yet and my nipples looked horrible. It was an absolute nightmare. And it didn't end then. For the next 15 weeks, I went through horrible pain while breastfeeding and almost gave up many many times. I did manage to continue despite all of this and nursed her until 10 weeks before her sister was born, when I left South Korea for the last time.
Still, due to that horror story of a beginning, the last thing I wanted to do was have another baby. One was enough. I could live with having an only child. And the older she got, the more I was okay with it. We didn't need another baby. I blocked out what happened as best as I could and tried not to think about it. I couldn't deal with what happened. I had gone through witnessing a murder only two and a half years before my daughter's birth as well as two murder trials and numerous court hearings and dealing with having my parents put in prison. Caring for a baby was too difficult of a job to deal with one more trauma in my life. I would just not have another baby and therefore, would not have to worry about dealing with all of this again. It took me six months to become pregnant with her so obviously, it would take some work to get pregnant with another one again. Enough said. Besides, my husband didn't want another one, we were both happy with having one, there was no need to even think about having another baby.
And so we didn't until our oldest started talking about wanting a little brother or sister. She would watch commercials on TV with babies and talk about how that baby was SO cute and why don't we have another baby. I remember saying to her one night to ask her daddy. So, when John came home from work, she did. We were in South Korea though and a pregnancy at this point would not be ideal but the thought was trickling in my mind that maybe we would think about trying again just before we leave...maybe. Apparently, the universe listens to the wishes of children more than it listens to those of adults because it wasn't long after that that I became pregnant.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
I got into this website back in January, I think and I'm simply hooked. I have found SO many great ideas for homeschooling and organizing and more. I have over 1000 pins now, most of them for homeschooling in various subjects. It's nice to have a visual showing of all of the things I find interesting online. I have even used it to give my younger sister ideas for her wedding. She's not quite as addicted as I am but again, it's SO helpful to have that visual which regular bookmarks do not provide. Not that bookmarks aren't a help, I still use those too but I'm likely to use them to bookmark a website whereas with Pinterest, I might pin a specific page within that site that contains an idea I may use later on.
Now, I'm taking my use of the website one step further (or is it farther?) and adding in pins of things I have actually made. Years ago, before I went to Korea, I made nursing necklaces for moms who had little nurslings who were prone to grabbing and pinching and pulling and more. I really got into it and enjoyed it but it wasn't easy to find the beads I needed to use and when we went to Korea, the project was abandoned altogether. I actually miss doing things like my nursing necklaces and other craft projects. I haven't been able to get into it as much this time around with the new little one because I haven't had the same amount of time I used to have back when Natalie was a baby. We lived in a different area and my husband was able to take her out more. It would be nice to get back into it again though because I did enjoy it, just hard to say if I would get back into selling with restrictions being the way they are now.
Anyway, if you want to check out my page, go here: http://pinterest.com/simplyjaneen/
Now, I'm taking my use of the website one step further (or is it farther?) and adding in pins of things I have actually made. Years ago, before I went to Korea, I made nursing necklaces for moms who had little nurslings who were prone to grabbing and pinching and pulling and more. I really got into it and enjoyed it but it wasn't easy to find the beads I needed to use and when we went to Korea, the project was abandoned altogether. I actually miss doing things like my nursing necklaces and other craft projects. I haven't been able to get into it as much this time around with the new little one because I haven't had the same amount of time I used to have back when Natalie was a baby. We lived in a different area and my husband was able to take her out more. It would be nice to get back into it again though because I did enjoy it, just hard to say if I would get back into selling with restrictions being the way they are now.
Anyway, if you want to check out my page, go here: http://pinterest.com/simplyjaneen/
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