Life in the LV

Who's completely and totally ignored her blog for the past few months? This girl! I would feel bad, but honestly, being mom keeps me busy and by being a mom I mean watching Gilmore Girls instead of taking naps and taking care of the sweetest baby in the whole world.

This summer Matt has had an internship in the big LV so we've been living with his family since the beginning of June. Throw in two unexpected surgeries, about a million poopy diapers, spontaneous Target runs and hours spent kissing, talking to and cuddling with my little Emi and you have a snapshot of my summer. Oh yeah, there's also been a little bit of hanging by the pool and making way too many treats. Life is hard, isn't it?

The really crappy part about neglecting my blog for so long is that I never know where to start. While I think on that and embellish, uh...., I mean think of some fun stories to share, I'm going to just leave this right here.

The Delivery

Before jumping into the delivery story, I wanted to say a GINORMOUS thank you to all of the positive feedback I got on the first part of this story and my blog in general. I know I've neglected this baby in the past but your compliments have inspired me to give it the time it deserves.

Now, on to the nitty gritty!

April 17, 2015

10:30 pm-  The twenty minutes was up and I had recovered from my mini heart attack and started to breathe again by the time the nurse came back. I was about to have a freaking BABY!!! Okay, not a freaking baby- an adorable, perfect, sweet little angel baby, but a baby nonetheless. The nurse actually had gone to find the doctor because he hadn't expected me to be ready so soon! Emi and I make a really efficient team, obviously. Anyway, before the doc got there we did a few rounds of practice pushing to get my hoo-hah ready for what was to come. When you're a first time mom your lady parts aren't quite sure what their job is yet so it's best to ease them into things. We did about three sets of three pushes and then she grabbed the doctor. It was time for the big dance!

10:40 pm- Cue the entrance of the doctor and his entourage of cheerleaders. By entourage of cheerleaders I mean the nurses from the nursery. Seriously, you guys, I was showered in shouts of encouragement and it was awesome!

"You can do it, Cami!"
"Keep it up!"
"You're doing great!"

I mean, it was like being an Olympic runner! I'll have ten more babies if they promise to do that every time!

10:45 pm to 11:04 pm- Thanks to the magic of television I always imagined delivery to be back to back contractions and pushing, pushing, pushing.... but that couldn't have been more wrong! In fact, pushing Emiline out was the easiest part of the whole dang thing. Part of it had to be my incredible doctor. For anyone looking for an OBGYN in Utah County go to Valley OBGYN in American Fork. They are saints. I would push, and then we would hang out and chat for a minute before the next contraction came. I actually laughed during delivery! More than once in fact, and not because I had reached delusion. It was just so low pressure. I don't know very many people that can say that about squeezing a small human through a 10 centimeter opening!

11:05 pm- Not even thirty minutes since I had started pushing, sweet Emiline made her entrance into the world with one big shriek of joy (probably not joy)! That was it. She didn't cry or fuss or scream; she just made one little squeak so we would know she was alive and then she was silent! When they placed her on my chest my first thought was how tiny and perfect she was! Even covered in gunk with her cone head and squishy little face she was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. That's completely cliche isn't it? She had all of this dark hair like her Daddy and these big dark eyes just like me. And man was she tiny! At five pounds nine ounces she was the smallest baby I had ever held, but I wasn't worried about breaking her because she was mine! She was my baby! After nine months of acid reflux, swollen feet and the strangest dreams you could ever imagine, I had MY baby in my arms. And then I crashed.

She'll kill me when she grows up for posting this online, but
this is too hilarious not too share! Doesn't she look like a
grandpa? It's so adorable!! 

The rest of the night- Throughout my entire delivery I was alive with adrenaline and as soon as I didn't need all of that energy I was exhausted. That's an understatement. I was wasted! Running a marathon would have left me with more energy. To put it in perspective for you---I made Matt hold Emi because I was too tired to keep her in my arms! That's pretty freaking tired.

The rest of the night/early morning was spent getting both of us cleaned up and moved downstairs. It's all a blur. I know that my epidural had worn off by the time they wheeled me out of Labor and Delivery but I was so out of it I didn't even notice the pain. Then it was off to bed for me while I waited for Matt to bring Emi in from the nursery. What a difference a bath makes! Her hair was a puff of dark strands and she had more color to her which meant she was at least twice as tan as me. Fair skin problems, ya know?

Anyway, that's the story of how Emiline joined our family. Looking back it almost seems surreal, and even though things didn't go at all how I had planned I couldn't be more grateful for this beautiful soul. She truly is what was the missing from my life!

A Word on Epidurals

Get one. Unless you go stir crazy laying in a bed for hours on end, 

get a freaking epidural. Okay, I really don't care if you get one or not

because, remember, I didn't want one, but it feels like warm soup flooding

 your veins and brings your blood pressure down so they don't

 have to give you Magnesium. Oh wait, that last part only applied to me!

 Really, though, they are magical. 

Also, if they give you too much you can't move your legs and when 

the nurse comes to check you you'll feel like an invalid, but it's mostly hilarious. 

And you get the toots and can't control it. 

It makes for uncontrollably giggling which only makes the toots worse. 

Epidurals are fun. 

A Labor Story

Hello friends!

I apologize for the month long haitus, but we had some very exciting things happening at our house, obviously, and I've been taking in every second of my little one. Being a mom has been a wild ride. And in case you were wondering, we didn't get the nursery quite finished before she came! Oops! It's a good thing she's been sleeping in our bedroom so she wouldn't feel left out of the club.

I've written and re-written this post about a million times because I want to share Emi's birth story but because it is rather extensive I didn't want you to nod off before getting to the juicy stuff. Juicy stuff... yuck... probably not a great phrase to use in relation to having a baby.

Anyway, settle in for a hefty post here, and I'll try to throw in some unexpected jokes or inappropriate comments to keep it entertaining. What can I say? I do it because I love you guys.

Where to start? Where to start? I guess Thursday, the 16th, works.



4/16/15

1:30 pm- Time for my doctor's appointment. I was barely 37 weeks and had been dilated to a one the week before with 70 percent effacement. To say I was eager to see if I had progressed further wouldn't be true. I was ECSTATIC. So much in fact that when Matt told me he didn't want to come to the appointment with me I was majorly miffed! Hello, didn't he want to be there to share in the neat experience of a doctor shoving his hands into my hoo hah?! He's such a fun hater!

2:30 pm- The bad news begins. My blood pressure was 138/94 and that was the second time they took it. That's high. High like John Travolta during the 2014 Oscars. Doctor's really hate high blood pressure during pregnancy because it can lead to pre-eclampsia so I was sent to Labor and Delivery for labs, fetal monitoring and to have my blood pressure checked every five minutes. That'll teach Matt for not coming with me, right? I don't think he's ever driven as fast as he did to get there to be with me.

3:00 pm- By the time Matt arrived I was hooked up to the monitors and deep into some Spa Music Radio on Pandora. I'd have done anything to bring my pressures down! Of course, between the threat of induction and the nurse teaching me how to do a 24 hour urine sample (ew) I was not being very successful. Fast forward a few hours and I got the fatal blow. I had to be induced. (side note- I didn't have to do the urine sample. small victory).

I cried. I'm going to be honest about it. I was devastated. My coworkers were throwing a baby shower for me the next day! I didn't have a nursing bra yet! We hadn't finished her nursery! I wasn't ready. And I certainly wasn't mentally, emotionally, or physically (if you know what I mean) prepared to have the baby.

4/17/15

9:00 am- After a restless night including Matt finishing what he could of the nursery and a couple of long, hot showers for me, we grabbed our hospital bags and headed to the OBGYN. They wanted to check my blood pressure again and do an ultrasound.

10:08 am- "The baby is measuring 35 weeks, 5 pounds 10 ounces, in the 11th percentile for weight." BAM. My baby had stopped growing at 35 weeks. I was going to have a "late preterm baby" that was "small for gestational age." Emiline was "tiny." That last one wasn't a medical term, but it was true. My baby was a peanut, a shrimp, a teeny weeny little thing likely to end up in the NICU. This was so not part of my plan.

11:56 am- Pitocin was started. Now, there's this really fun thing doctors sometimes do for an induction if you aren't very dilated called a cervical balloon. Don't be deceived by my smile. It was actually H-E-double hockey sticks. Imagine the worse cramps of your life and magnify that by 400. FOUR HUNDRED! Sorry, I just really need you to pity my poor soul. 

Between 3:00 and 4:00 pm- I was trying to stick it to the man and not get the epidural until I absolutely needed it but the actual devil himself was in my belly! My saving grace was otter pops, 80s music, and of course that dang epidural.

CONFESSION- 

I'm secretly crunchy and had been practicing meditation
and relaxation techniques for weeks in preparation for a natural labor.
Curse you high blood pressure. I will never get the chance now because epidurals are HEAVENLY. There's no going back. 

8:17 pm- Time for more magic juice. I developed this pain in my left cheek and I don't mean on my face. It felt like siatica or like when you sit on the floor for too long and your bum falls asleep except it was only a small portion. The anesthesiologist gave me a super dose because I was only dilated to a five and they didn't expect me to have the baby any time soon. Having complete loss of sensation led to some hilarious times. I'll explain more in a later post. You won't want to miss it *wink wink*. 

9:30 pm- I decided to take a little nap since everyone told me I wouldn't be having the baby for hours. Rumor has it, "It takes 60-90 minutes to dilate one centimeter once you reach a five." Well, that is a dang lie! Okay, not really, but it sure was for me! 

9:51 pm- I woke up to the pain of contractions- not the unearthly, would rather have a needle in my eye pain I had from the cervical balloon, but there was definitely something going on. I've heard contractions described as "pressure" by those who've had epidurals before, but that's not really what it was like for me. I didn't feel the need to push, I didn't have the "I need to go to the bathroom" sensation either, it was just something. To go from not being able to feel anything to suddenly having any sort of sensation was a lot like being doused by a bucket of cold water- not painful, but enough to send a shock through your system. 

10:12 pm - The "pain" had gotten to the point where I wanted to be checked. Who knew you'd want someone stick their fingers downstairs, but dang, I'll tell you what, when you're anxious to get your baby into the world you don't care who does what or how often they do it. I'm sure that the poor lady that answered when I pressed my call light thought I was four years old. "Um... I'm in a lot of pain...". Eloquent, I know. But guess what! I was dilated to 9 and 3/4. Take that pessimists! I was going to have this baby before midnight! The nurse told me she was going to give me about 20 minutes to fully dilate and then....

IT WAS GO TIME!!! 

Emiline Paula Lish

Welcome to the world!

Emiline came into our family three weeks earlier than expected on April 17, 2015 at 11:05 pm. 

To say we are in love would be a gross understatement. 

Some things never change

Old News-

•  Crap-tastic skin. I have never had such horrible skin in my life. Not even as a pre-pubescent teenager did I have to worry about zits like I do now. My face is splotchy and oily and just yuck. No thank you, pregnancy glow, no thank you. 

• Acid reflux. Honestly since about 18 weeks I've had this problem mostly under control. But, occasionally, as a rude reminder that it's still around, I'll have boiling hot lava trying to break through my esophagus and kill me. It's really a neat experience. 

• Moving. In general, I don't waddle, but do not make me get off of the couch, roll out of bed, or sit on the floor without taking into consideration that I do not bend anymore. I'm like one of those fat puppies that can't roll over because they're chubby rolls are in the way. It's not quite as adorable as that, however. Matt's been a real good sport about pulling me up and off of things. True love exists. 

So, that's it. This is where I'm at and with the exception of some mild panic at the soon arrival of this sweet baby girl, I think I'm doing okay. Some days aren't fun... at all, but that's life. So many people have asked if I'm just ready to be done already, and honestly, being pregnant has been kind of a grand adventure. There have been ups and downs. There have been days that getting out of bed has been a serious challenge. I've wished I could sleep on my stomach. But, most of the time I feel good. I actually forget that I'm pregnant more often than I should until I spill my cereal on my watermelon tummy and remember that I'm growing a human. I would take better skin and a closet full of clothes that fit, but that comes back. I'm only going to be pregnant with this little person this one time. Maybe my next pregnancy I'll throw up the entire time or maybe I'll have flawless skin. I'm just trying to take things one day at a time and be grateful for each second I have of this special bonding with my baby. It's not always easy, but it's absolutely worth it. Here's to hoping she stays in until I have her nursery finished. 

Love, 

Cami 

The Bad and Ugly

New and NOT fun things-

• Swollen ankles. What the heck? I have gone my entire pregnancy with zero swelling- no sausage fingers, cankles, pregnancy face, NOTHING. Then, this week happened. BAM! My poor little feet feel so sad! I was actually so emotional about it on Tuesday (the first real day I had swelling) that I almost had a meltdown at work. You can thank the pregnancy hormones for that. 

• No room for food. I mentioned above that it's great not having to worry about food babies, but the truth is, there is no room for a food baby. I would like to blame my sister for this. I had been in eating mode for weeks until she asked me on Saturday if I had a hard time eating full meals because the baby was squashing my stomach. I proudly told her no. The next day, I couldn't eat barely anything. My pre-pregnancy body thanks you, Amanda.

• Late night pee sessions. I really can't complain. I wake up maybe once a night for a bathroom run ever since I was about 32 weeks. Not too shabby, right? Right. Still, super inconvenient when you're having dreams about hanging out with One Direction (yes, I am twelve years old. You can blame pregnancy hormones for that one, too).

This is a shorter list than I expected to write. To be honest, yeah, there are some other things that aren't so fun to be dealing with, like the awkward position in which I have to sit to tie my shoes or the fact that she likes to play punching bag with my gallbladder, but hey, I'm growing a human! That's kind of amazing. 

Fingers crossed my feet go back to normal after I have her!