Recooperating

This morning, this very glorious morning where the birds were singing and top-dogs of the angels decided to take a walk on planet Earth, I slept until 11:00 am. ELEVENOCLOCK! I am completely aware that there are people reading this and cursing my well-rested self. I would be too. Sometimes, when I read here here or here how people are having suuuuuuch amazing days and their children are soooooooo quiet and always sleep on planes I'm all: "mental note: set their car ablaze. roll it down a big hill." So I get it. Misery loves company. But this morning... I slept in until eleven. And I needed it.

The past 14 days have been full of a bunch of Crap-that-shouldn't-have-happened heaped on top of more Crap-we-wish-wouldn't-have-happened and baked at agony for 45 minutes or until unbearable. Our closing in CT got pushed (twice) and we have been traveling like crazy people and have no place to call home and I've been studying for comprehensives and then Evie got sick. Really sick. Running-a-fever-of-104-for-twelve-days sick. She has been having screaming bouts and has been in extreme pain for almost two weeks. And she hasn't been sleeping.

*this is what sick Evie looks like*

So Graham and I have been absolutely exhausted and begging the Universe to please just give us a break.

So we got a little break (thank you Universe)... in the way of blue skys and a healthy baby.

And it's all going to be ok. I know this because, really, my problems are small. I have a beautiful baby and an amazing husband; it's just that, sometimes, even small problems seem overwhelming. It feels good to be working towards something incredible, though. Working towards no more school, owning a small business, working (at a job we LOVE) from home, and living near our families. It feels really, really good. Great, even. And I'll be back to my regular-blogging-self as soon as the semester is over... but until then I hope that you will bare with my sporadic posting (I bet you will because... well... you're all so darn nice).

*she's back to her old self*

IUDidn't

**Warning: If you do not want to know some fairly intimate details about my life then do not read this post...k thanks**

Yesterday morning I had an appointment to have a Mirena put it. I had done a lot of research about which type of birth control to use after Evie was born because, well, for those of you who didn't hear me WAILING this from the roof-tops 11 months ago, I was using birth control when I got pregnant. I was never one of those "take it at the same time every day" type of people...and apparently the consequence of that is HAVING A CHILD THAT YOU DID NOT PLAN FOR.

(Evie, if you are reading this eons from now I want you to know something: we are so blessed to have you and you are the best surprise we have ever gotten...that, and at one point in time I was a pretty cool person, so even though you probably think my music, clothes and everything else about me is lame and embarassing...just know it could be worse)

Soooo...I go in to the Doctor yesterday and I am getting prepped and ready. Now, I know that this procedure is not supposed to be painless...I mean...let's be honest...you are having something shoved through your cervix and into your Uterus...so the chances of you being all "Please sir, may I have another" are slim to none. Long story short: there was pain. And bleeding. Lots of bleeding. I left with a NeuvaRing...not a Mirena. Apparently I am completely Gynecologically challenged; anything that can go wrong at the OB-GYN will go wrong so long as I am involved. Apparently my cervix did not dialate enough during labor (since I had a c-section) and the Mirena was absolutely not going to fit.

So instead of worrying about birth control every 5 years, I will be worrying about it every 3 weeks...which still beats the heck out of worrying about it every day.

At the end of the day, though, everything happens for a reason...and the result of my not-so-100%-effective-birth-control is pretty freakin' cute. And cuddly. And I am crazy in love with her.

Who wouldn't be?!

Is anyone out there on the ring? How do you like it?

The Chapters We Skipped

After Evie was safe and in our arms on Tuesday, Graham and I admitted to each other that, despite all of our preparation and reading in order to get ready for labor, neither of us knew a thing about C-sections; we had skipped all of those chapters in our books. We just didn't see it as a possibility...but now it is our reality. I am beginning to think that it is the curse of a planner to have things not go according to plan.

Here is how little Evie's grand entrance came to pass: Monday evening was our first night of contraction counting. The real kind. The outch kind. We had our contraction counter application in hand because, well, you all know how much of a geek my husband is. The next morning I woke up still contracting...and they were getting closer and closer together. I wanted to stay at home and labor as long as possible because my biggest fear was getting to the hospital and being sent home...but Graham insisted that we go ahead (probably out of fear that my stubbornness would lead to him having to deliver a child IN OUR BATHTUB).

We get to the hospital and they hook me up to the monitor, and then everyone leaves the room. We start watching my contractions...and realize that with my first big contraction Evie's heart rate starts going down...and down...and down. Graham and I look at each other questioningly. "I am going to get a nurse" he says to me, and I (still being stubborn and not wanting to look like the typical "first time mom") tell him that someone will come in if anything unusual is happening. In that same second, 5 nurses run through the door and begin working on me.

I try, as politely as I can, to tell them that I do not want an IV...this was going to be a natural childbirth and pain medications were not in our plan. It turns out they were not interested in our plan, they were interested in keeping my baby alive (I am forever forever grateful to those 5 quick acting, slightly abrasive nurses). With every contraction that came, her heart decelerated, and within minutes my belly was being shaved and I was being wheeled off to the operating room for an emergency c-section.

When I woke up, I was a mama to this gorgeous little girl.

She was 6 pounds, 13 ounces, and 19 inches of over-cooked goodness and, just like everyone said she would be, totally worth the wait.

She had the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck and there was a kink in the cord so that every time I had a contraction her oxygen supply was cut off. The night after my c-section, I came down with a 102 degree fever. The fever spikes lasted over the next several hours, until I got put on antibiotics for the Strep B virus that my blood-work showed I had (which I had tested negative for on May 16th). Strep B is much, much worse for babies than it is for adults, so the doctors decided to go ahead and put Evie on antibiotics preemptively...they wouldn't get her blood-work back for another 24 hours and they'd rather be safe than sorry. The problem with the antibiotics, from a new mother's perspective, is that they had to get an IV in her arm...and seeing your 2-day-old baby being used as a little pincushion is akin to having your heart yanked out of your chest by a bulldozer and then having that bulldozer run over it...repeatedly. To make matters worse, they were unable to find a vein, and they can only try so many times before the risk of introducing an infection begins to outweigh the benefits of giving the medicine in the first place, so they did not get to start her on antibiotics yet. They are going to try again if her blood work comes back this afternoon and shows an infection. It has been a whirlwind. At times terrifying and, at others, blissfully amazing.

As one of our doctors put it....our case is very "interesting", and "interesting is not something that people want to be to him". My placenta is, as we speak, being shipped off to some super secret crime lab to be examined...which is all at once pretty cool and totally disgusting. We are still at the hospital, but hoping to be able to go home sometime this weekend...where we will get some much cuter pictures with Evie's brother (who cannot wait to meet her), her room, and all of her little lady clothes!

The important part of this story is, obviously, the ending..and regardless of which chapters we did or didn't read, we still got our happily ever after.