First of all, let me get this out of the way; I'm sorry. I'm sorry it's been so long since my last post (I know it's only been a few weeks but I had wanted to do at least one a week..), and I'm sorry this is not an Emilee update and there are no pictures. I promised you all that the next post would include Easter pictures, but unfortunately, I could not find my camera and do not have a cord to get pictures off my phone. I could e-mail them to myself 4 at a time, but there are too many to do that. It becomes too time consuming and uses up all my memory. So I'm sorry, and I hope you will forgive me. I promise there will be Easter pictures at SOME point...I just need to get them off my phone...
Anyway, I've come to a realization that has been a bit of a turning point for me. It has enlightened me on so many things about myself that I can't even unpack it all at the moment. The realization is this:
I have an over-active imagination.
A WAY over-active imagination!
That in it's self is not new to me. What IS new, however, is that I finally have at least one reason why God gave it to me. All my life I struggled with the wild imaginings of my mind and I asked God over and over again, "WHY!?" "Why did you give me this imagination!? Please use it for your glory!". And for the longest time, he was silent.
However, a few days ago, the realization hit me. I don't even remember what I was doing or why it came to mind, all I remember is that all of a sudden, I knew a reason (one at least) for my imagination! That's how monumental it was to me...I don't remember anything else about the moment! The reason God revealed to me, is this:
I have an over-active imagination so that I can empathize with people. So I can honestly FEEL what they feel. I mean an honest to goodness visceral FEELING. I imagine the scenario as if it were happening to me, and I experience the emotions someone in that scenario would feel.
This is good and bad, and it's revealing.
It's good, because, as stated above, I can more easily and genuinely empathize. Since it is still only imagining, and I have not ACTUALLY experienced it, I still don't always know what to say...but I DO know, on at least some level, how they feel...and sometimes that's enough. It is also good because I can draw mental pictures of things. It aides my memory and enables me to visualize things. It aides my creativity and ideas.
It is bad, because it allows me to empathize. It might sound odd to use the same reason as good AND bad, but it's true. Being able to FEEL like I am experiencing someone's tragedy is exhausting, emotional, confusing, etc. I have to deal with those very real emotions. It is also bad because I can visualize virtually ANYTHING. That includes not so good things that lead to anxiety and panic attacks. I don't think I've ever had a full blown panic attack, but I've come close.
It reveals a lot of things about me, honestly, but the thing that is most revealing to me at the moment is this; it explains my irrational fears. Now, I'm sure it's easy to understand that being able to visualize things and hense blow things out of proportion would produce irrational fears. However, I'm talking about intense fears that have no base in my own personal reality. Like having an intense fear of failure when I have only ever succeeded at what I've attempted (and when I was younger I had no schema for "impossible"). Or an intense fear of broken relationships when I come from a 2 parent home and have never had someone cheat on me or lie to me (in a relationship sense), or a fear of dying from cancer when I've only ever been healthy, etc. I used to explain these things as the result of more to loose and more knowledge of the world. I'm sure they play a factor, but I have now come to realize that my over-active imagination has a lot to do with it.
- I feel deeply saddened (sometimes to the point of tears) when I hear of someone's marital/relationship problems, whether I know them personally or not. This is empathy.
- When I read a blog about a mother with cancer I imagine if it were me. I think about Emilee growing up without a mom. I think about Ray as a single dad. I think about what it would feel like to know I would be gone. No more Christmases, no more birthdays...I mean I honestly feel these things! That's empathy...and it's no wonder I would fear dying of cancer with thoughts like that!
I grew up very sheltered. This was God's grace, but also his sovereignty. I am convinced if I had grown up with a troubled childhood I would probably have been on anti-depressants by the time I was a teenager! My sheltered childhood allowed me to develop the base I needed. I learned to take my emotions and fears to God. I learned to "take captive every thought". I had plenty of opportunities for my imagination to go wild WITHOUT all the emotional baggage. God knew what he was doing and I'm thankful.
However, now I need to learn how to empathize WITHOUT internalizing! That is my challenge now, and I think for the time being it means limiting what I take into my imagination (which includes everything from movies to blog posts!). I know even this is in God's timing and will and I'm very VERY grateful to finally know at least ONE reason why I have this over-active imagination! :)
~Mae
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Big Moments and Milestones!
Ok, I'm sorry for the delay, but I didn't want to post this until Ray got to Colorado so he could surprise some friends of ours. :) The biggest news of all, is that we are moving back to Colorado...at least temporarily. We both have accrued quite a bit of school debt and work here in Maine just wasn't paying enough to cover it...especially not if we wanted me to stay home with Emilee - which we do. Out there he can make nearly 3 times in a week what he was making here in a week! The end goal, however, is still to be back here and near family. As usual, it will depend on God's plans and timing. :) Ray packed up a UHaul with pretty much all of our stuff, minus what Emilee and I are using until WE go out, and left for Colorado two friday's ago. He has already started working out there, and once he has enough saved up to find us an apartment, Emilee and I will pack up ourselves and the cats and follow him out. :) Being apart is (and will continue to be) stinky, but it should only be for a couple months and in the grand scheme of things, that's not much. If we can focus on paying down debt while we're there, this will be a great step forward for our little family. :) Below is a pic of our stuff piled in his boss's garage in CO.
Other than that, Emilee has turned 6 months old! So weird to think of her as half a year old already!...of course it's also strange to think of her as a week, 1 month, etc. Especially when I see babies that are that young! They really do develop very quickly in the first months of their lives! Thankgoodness! lol. I know some people really like the newborn stage, but I am glad to have that part over! Anyway, Emilee had her 6 month check-up and while she had not yet GAINED any weight from my pumping and fenugreek experiment, she had also not lost any more. I'd only been doing it for 2 weeks, one of which she was sick and the other week we were visiting (both things tend to throw off schedules!) so I took that as pretty good evidence that it was/would working/work. The Doctor is a new doctor for Emilee, so she had some other questions to ask, but Emilee continued her charming doctor visit streak and even "talked" to the doctor a bit! lol. No shots this time either! :) The Doctor said to try feeding her three small meals of solids and to try adding in another feeding time, but otherwise Emilee is doing great and is developmentally right on track. :) They set up an appointment to weigh her in a month, but considering that multiplied her solid food intake by 3...I think we won't have any problems. lol. Here are some pics of the little sweetness!
Emilee and Paxton have a unique relationship. He is SO good with her! He comes over purring and sniffs her while she's eating and he will try to lay on her (not to smother, just by her feet) and lets her pet him and play with his tail. In turn, she is very gentle with him and for the most part doesn't try to pull on him or hit him. It makes me happy to see my furbaby and Emilee getting along. :) Here are some pics of Emilee with Paxton!
Lastly, it has been a GORGEOUS day today so Emilee and the pug and I went for a hike through the fields! I KNOW the dog liked it, but I think she did too, what do you think? :-p (Pic below)
Until next time (and remember, tomorrow is Easter, so "next time" will have photos of Easter Eggs and adorable Emilee-in-Easter-Dress photos)! Take care and God bless!
~Mae
~Mae
Monday, March 11, 2013
Thankfullness
I have been struggling recently with FEELING close to God. Really, it's been a struggle since college to have that balance of quiet time with him in the midst of an increasingly busy life, but at times it sort of feels put on hold, particularly since Emilee was born. My time is not my own, and the few hours I get to myself I am usually thinking of the immediate needs...food, shower, sleep...etc. Of course, meeting with God SHOULD be one of those priorities. Jesus is the bread of life, HE should be our one priority, because everything else comes from HIM. Still, being human, my sleep deprived hungry body says, "EAT NOW!" or "SLEEP NOW!" and my logical, practical mind says, "WASH THOSE DISHES!" and "DO THAT LAUNDRY!" and my exhausted spirit says, "Sssshhh, quiet, just relax." Those voices are hard to ignore at times. I have made a point to read the Daily Bread everyday, and I will have fleeting thoughts brushing the surface of something deep, and I am SO thankful that God is still faithful and loving and patient, that he still provides and hears and answers even in the midst of my busy inatention, but the daily bread, while good, is just too light for me. My spirit needs meat, I'm not a spiritual babe anymore.
Occassionally, because my God is good and gracious, I am given the sweet opportunity to spend real QUALITY time with him. I am ashamed to say I don't always take advantage of it...namely because of the other voices mentioned above...but when I do it feels SO GOOD! Today, I felt urged to give thanks. My situation at the moment is not terribly abnormal or uncommon. I hear stories ALL THE TIME about people in impossibly hard situations...abusive relationships, sudden deaths, handicaped children, miscarriages, terminal illnesses, and they scare me. They make me fearful of my own relatively normal exsistance. I KNOW God is good, but God does allow those situations in people's lives, his reasons are his own and we may never know or understand them, but I can't help being afraid that at any moment God might "allow" one such tragedy to strike ME. I swear, it's like an ever-present fear of mine. The really sad thing about it, is that I know God is not vindictive like that, and I have no real reason to think this way. God has blessed me abundantly...and perhaps that's where the root of my fear comes from...with all the suffering and trials and tragedy around, I feel like I've somehow gotten the sweet end of the deal and like all good things in this world (another twisted message passed down through the generations) it must inevitably come to an end. The thing is, God's blessing ISN'T "of this world". It doesn't have to have an "end". And more importantly, my life is no BETTER than anyone elses, I simply acknowledge God, who loves me and pours out his blessings on me because of it, and I try to do my best in return to thank him with my thoughts, heart, actions, words, life. You'd be surprised at the power of thankfullness. It really has an amazing way of blasting through those fears and insecurities. Rather than let my mind shrink into the crippling, consuming thoughts of imminent doom, (Which may or may not ever happen, and more likely than not WON'T happen), focusing on things that I KNOW to be true (the love and character of God and all he has already done for me and through me) is a solid way to restore faith and hope. :)
Here are a few things I am thankful for. The list is much longer, but my solitude was just disturbed by a fussing baby so I have to end this.
- My God
- The love my family has for each other and God
- The love of my husband
- Our open, honest, and sincere relationship
- My daughter
- My health
- The health of my loved ones
- My Faith
- God's ever present help and unceasing provision
Perhaps I will write more later but untill then, happy thanksgiving! :)
~Mae
Occassionally, because my God is good and gracious, I am given the sweet opportunity to spend real QUALITY time with him. I am ashamed to say I don't always take advantage of it...namely because of the other voices mentioned above...but when I do it feels SO GOOD! Today, I felt urged to give thanks. My situation at the moment is not terribly abnormal or uncommon. I hear stories ALL THE TIME about people in impossibly hard situations...abusive relationships, sudden deaths, handicaped children, miscarriages, terminal illnesses, and they scare me. They make me fearful of my own relatively normal exsistance. I KNOW God is good, but God does allow those situations in people's lives, his reasons are his own and we may never know or understand them, but I can't help being afraid that at any moment God might "allow" one such tragedy to strike ME. I swear, it's like an ever-present fear of mine. The really sad thing about it, is that I know God is not vindictive like that, and I have no real reason to think this way. God has blessed me abundantly...and perhaps that's where the root of my fear comes from...with all the suffering and trials and tragedy around, I feel like I've somehow gotten the sweet end of the deal and like all good things in this world (another twisted message passed down through the generations) it must inevitably come to an end. The thing is, God's blessing ISN'T "of this world". It doesn't have to have an "end". And more importantly, my life is no BETTER than anyone elses, I simply acknowledge God, who loves me and pours out his blessings on me because of it, and I try to do my best in return to thank him with my thoughts, heart, actions, words, life. You'd be surprised at the power of thankfullness. It really has an amazing way of blasting through those fears and insecurities. Rather than let my mind shrink into the crippling, consuming thoughts of imminent doom, (Which may or may not ever happen, and more likely than not WON'T happen), focusing on things that I KNOW to be true (the love and character of God and all he has already done for me and through me) is a solid way to restore faith and hope. :)
Here are a few things I am thankful for. The list is much longer, but my solitude was just disturbed by a fussing baby so I have to end this.
- My God
- The love my family has for each other and God
- The love of my husband
- Our open, honest, and sincere relationship
- My daughter
- My health
- The health of my loved ones
- My Faith
- God's ever present help and unceasing provision
Perhaps I will write more later but untill then, happy thanksgiving! :)
~Mae
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Increasing Supply
Ok, this will have to be short cause I'm in a house full of people putting together a bodacious lunch for everyone. :-p My sister-in-law likes to try new interesting recipees. :-p
Anyway, this past week I was trying to increase my milk supply for Emilee, so I was taking fenugreek (a supplement) and pumping a couple times a day. It seems to have worked, because she was MUCH happier after her feedings and is eating longer. Just have to wait till her doc apt. to see if she has gained back her weight. I tried using the bathroom scale, but it's not terribly accurate so it was hard to tell...can't see ounces and stuff. Still, due to the fact that she's grinning happier, I think we're probably good. :)
Other than that she was really clingy all week. I used to be able to set her in her pack-n-play for about 20 mins and she would play happily there but, after a bunch of traveling and being sick, she doesn't want to be set down ANYWHERE, and if she does let you set her down, she wants you to be in sight. Near the end of the week I could get some reprive by putting her in her bouncer, but for the most part, if she was awake, she wanted my constant attention. With her being happier it wasn't all that bad, but still exhausting. I'm not sure if the clingy-ness is ENTIRELY due to her schedule being upset, she may be teething as well...I'm quite certain of it actually, but no teeth have as yet emerged so...I could be wrong.
Anyway, right now we are down state visiting my husbands side of the family. Emilee likes it for the most part..lol..as long as mom and dad are around, and her toys, she's pretty well contented. :-p Right now she's sleeping, but I expect her up soon. OH, and in other news, she will be 6mo old in two days! It doesn't feel like it's gone that fast but it's still weird to think that number is associated with her. Doesn't seem like she's 6mo... Untill next time!
~Mae
Anyway, this past week I was trying to increase my milk supply for Emilee, so I was taking fenugreek (a supplement) and pumping a couple times a day. It seems to have worked, because she was MUCH happier after her feedings and is eating longer. Just have to wait till her doc apt. to see if she has gained back her weight. I tried using the bathroom scale, but it's not terribly accurate so it was hard to tell...can't see ounces and stuff. Still, due to the fact that she's grinning happier, I think we're probably good. :)
Other than that she was really clingy all week. I used to be able to set her in her pack-n-play for about 20 mins and she would play happily there but, after a bunch of traveling and being sick, she doesn't want to be set down ANYWHERE, and if she does let you set her down, she wants you to be in sight. Near the end of the week I could get some reprive by putting her in her bouncer, but for the most part, if she was awake, she wanted my constant attention. With her being happier it wasn't all that bad, but still exhausting. I'm not sure if the clingy-ness is ENTIRELY due to her schedule being upset, she may be teething as well...I'm quite certain of it actually, but no teeth have as yet emerged so...I could be wrong.
Anyway, right now we are down state visiting my husbands side of the family. Emilee likes it for the most part..lol..as long as mom and dad are around, and her toys, she's pretty well contented. :-p Right now she's sleeping, but I expect her up soon. OH, and in other news, she will be 6mo old in two days! It doesn't feel like it's gone that fast but it's still weird to think that number is associated with her. Doesn't seem like she's 6mo... Untill next time!
~Mae
Monday, March 4, 2013
Family, friends, and memories.
So sorry for the Delay, two weeks ago we were traveling, as you know, and last week emilee was sick (just a cold, no need to get worried!), so this entry is a bit overdue.
Anyway, two weeks ago we traveled to Vermont and Rhode Island to visit family and Emilee got to meet a wide range of extended family! We ended up having a mini family reunion at my grandmother's house in vermont! My uncle Tom showed up with his girl friend and her two foster kids, my aunt Dawn and her husband showed up, my cousin T.C. and his wife and two boys showed up, my cousin Stephanie and her little daughter showed up, and then there was my mom, sister, and grandparents! Phew! It was certainly a housefull! All in all there were 6 young children there, including Emilee. It probably had to with me being so tired at the end of the day, but as I sat there in the living room watching the chaos, I had the thought that I really don't like kids that much! LOL. Don't get me wrong, I love Emilee dearly and on an individual or limited basis and I liked all the kids well enough, but put all of them together in one room, man what a headache! I am certainly not one of those people to have childcare in my home! I know a lot of people have the assumption that if I have kids I'm a good choice for a babysitter, but honestly, just because I have a daughter and I love her, does not mean I have any desire to watch other children. Anyway, here is a generational photo we got while there. :)
After Vermont we headed to Rhode Island to visit my sister and her in-laws and meet her little boy. We almost didn't because her little boy was sick the first part of the week, but he was on the mend by thursday we we kept our origional plans to go visit them. It was a lot of fun to finally see her again! It's been nearly 4 years! So strange to think about really...it doesn't FEEL like it's been that long, which just makes the number even more surprising, but, with her and her husband moving to MA and My husband and I moving to CO, we just kept missing each other. Here is a pic of my mother holding my little nephew! He is almost 2 months old in this picture and already the same size as Emilee! He's a big ol boy! Cute as a button though and I'm really glad Emilee will have cousins close in age to her. :)
Overall, Emilee was a great little traveler. She slept well at the hotel and my grandmother's house and generally only needed one nap time to get familiar with a new place. She didn't fuss to much in the car and was really well behaved when visiting people. She also became more aquainted with her pacifier, lol, but she was still as happy as ever so it was all good. :)
Anyway, the monday after getting home, Emilee had a really runny nose, red eyes, and a slight cough, so I took her to the walk-in care just because I wanted to know what I could do for her. They told me she had a cold, and that there was nothing I could do. A lot of help that was! But, I did learn that she had lost weight since her last appointment. I had been wondering for a while if my milk supply was decreasing because she was only eating about 5 mins on each side and then refusing it and fussing, but she was still pooping and peeing and was happy so I had just assumed she was eating faster. Once I found out she had actually lost weight, I decided to try and boost my supply with a Fenugreek supplement and pumping to see if that would help, and I added another feeding into her daily schedule. I've only been doing it for a couple days but she already is eating more and is not just happy, she's giggly! Ooo my poor baby, I feel so awful that she was getting less than she should have, but, that's always been one of my annoyances with breastfeeding, you really have no way of knowing how much they are eating at a time! If she has not gained back most or all of the weight by her next appointment (2 weeks), then I might consider supplementing with formula, but that's a last resort at this point. I also learned from other friends about putting a drop or two of essential oil in her vaporizer to help with congestion, which has really helped I think. :) She still has a bit of a cough, but only coughs occasionally and is much more alert and rested durring her wake times. :) I am dealing with a tickly throat and runny nose now, but hopefully I can keep a full blown cold at bay with vitamin C and lemon water. :)
At the end of this past week my brother-in-law and his wife brought their little boy over to visit and we got some super cute pictures with them together! It's been a busy two weeks but I love the memories we are making! That's what's really important in life; family, friends, and memories. :) Here's Emilee with her other little cousin!
Anyway, two weeks ago we traveled to Vermont and Rhode Island to visit family and Emilee got to meet a wide range of extended family! We ended up having a mini family reunion at my grandmother's house in vermont! My uncle Tom showed up with his girl friend and her two foster kids, my aunt Dawn and her husband showed up, my cousin T.C. and his wife and two boys showed up, my cousin Stephanie and her little daughter showed up, and then there was my mom, sister, and grandparents! Phew! It was certainly a housefull! All in all there were 6 young children there, including Emilee. It probably had to with me being so tired at the end of the day, but as I sat there in the living room watching the chaos, I had the thought that I really don't like kids that much! LOL. Don't get me wrong, I love Emilee dearly and on an individual or limited basis and I liked all the kids well enough, but put all of them together in one room, man what a headache! I am certainly not one of those people to have childcare in my home! I know a lot of people have the assumption that if I have kids I'm a good choice for a babysitter, but honestly, just because I have a daughter and I love her, does not mean I have any desire to watch other children. Anyway, here is a generational photo we got while there. :)
After Vermont we headed to Rhode Island to visit my sister and her in-laws and meet her little boy. We almost didn't because her little boy was sick the first part of the week, but he was on the mend by thursday we we kept our origional plans to go visit them. It was a lot of fun to finally see her again! It's been nearly 4 years! So strange to think about really...it doesn't FEEL like it's been that long, which just makes the number even more surprising, but, with her and her husband moving to MA and My husband and I moving to CO, we just kept missing each other. Here is a pic of my mother holding my little nephew! He is almost 2 months old in this picture and already the same size as Emilee! He's a big ol boy! Cute as a button though and I'm really glad Emilee will have cousins close in age to her. :)
Overall, Emilee was a great little traveler. She slept well at the hotel and my grandmother's house and generally only needed one nap time to get familiar with a new place. She didn't fuss to much in the car and was really well behaved when visiting people. She also became more aquainted with her pacifier, lol, but she was still as happy as ever so it was all good. :)
Anyway, the monday after getting home, Emilee had a really runny nose, red eyes, and a slight cough, so I took her to the walk-in care just because I wanted to know what I could do for her. They told me she had a cold, and that there was nothing I could do. A lot of help that was! But, I did learn that she had lost weight since her last appointment. I had been wondering for a while if my milk supply was decreasing because she was only eating about 5 mins on each side and then refusing it and fussing, but she was still pooping and peeing and was happy so I had just assumed she was eating faster. Once I found out she had actually lost weight, I decided to try and boost my supply with a Fenugreek supplement and pumping to see if that would help, and I added another feeding into her daily schedule. I've only been doing it for a couple days but she already is eating more and is not just happy, she's giggly! Ooo my poor baby, I feel so awful that she was getting less than she should have, but, that's always been one of my annoyances with breastfeeding, you really have no way of knowing how much they are eating at a time! If she has not gained back most or all of the weight by her next appointment (2 weeks), then I might consider supplementing with formula, but that's a last resort at this point. I also learned from other friends about putting a drop or two of essential oil in her vaporizer to help with congestion, which has really helped I think. :) She still has a bit of a cough, but only coughs occasionally and is much more alert and rested durring her wake times. :) I am dealing with a tickly throat and runny nose now, but hopefully I can keep a full blown cold at bay with vitamin C and lemon water. :)
At the end of this past week my brother-in-law and his wife brought their little boy over to visit and we got some super cute pictures with them together! It's been a busy two weeks but I love the memories we are making! That's what's really important in life; family, friends, and memories. :) Here's Emilee with her other little cousin!
Saturday, February 16, 2013
5 months old!
Well, this week has not been nearly as productive as last week, but I did still make another dress for Emilee (thanks to my grandmother letting me borrow her sewing machine), and I at least THOUGHT about my story. lol. Hey, it's a start! If it's in my head it doesn't take hardly any time to write it down... (for those of you who missed it, the first 3 chapters can be read here: http://mlhutchinson.wordpress.com/ )
Emilee seemed to have difficulty sleeping completely through the night this week. I don't know if it's teething (she chews on her gums a lot and drools), or if it's just digestive issues since she's started eating solid foods, but she's been a bit more fussy lately too. She DID sleep amazingly last night, but a large part of my lack of productivity this week was because I was exhausted from being up multiple times at night plus having difficulty falling asleep! Ahh! Of course she is still as cute as ever, AND she turned 5mo old this week! Such a big girl! Here she is trying on one of her new dresses. :)
Valentines day was also this week and I surprised my family with cards and candy for everyone, which was a lot of fun. :) Ray and I went out for desert valentines night and it was a nice little time away with just us. :) See, don't we look happy?
We got a bit more snow on Monday, but otherwise it's been a great week for taking walks, which Emilee really likes. She's taken to cooing at herself while we're walking and it's the cutest thing ever! Maybe next time I'll have some pics for you of her in her snuggli. :) Also, as stated before, my grandmother let me borrow her sewing machine because my mother's died on me. I didn't like how the zipper part of the first dress came out, largely because my grandmother's machine didn't have a zipper attachment, so I decided to put buttons on the second dress. My grandmother's machine DID have a pretty sweet button holer attachment that made it super easy, but it also had an attachment to sew the buttons on for me! Totally cool! I think it came out pretty good too. :) Here is the finished product!
Next week Emilee will take her first big adventure! We are going to visit my grandmother for a few days, and then my sister and her little boy. It will be Emilee's first time meeting her great-grandmother and her aunt and cousin. I'm excited to see them and introduce Emilee to them, but a little leary about how it's going to affect her...all that time in the car, plus a new place, plus a disrupted schedule...oi. Could be stressfull! Anyway, all that to say, next weeks blog post will likely be late because we will be driving back on Saturday. I'll try and be sure to take lots of pics though! :)
Until next time, Take care and God bless!
~Mae
Emilee seemed to have difficulty sleeping completely through the night this week. I don't know if it's teething (she chews on her gums a lot and drools), or if it's just digestive issues since she's started eating solid foods, but she's been a bit more fussy lately too. She DID sleep amazingly last night, but a large part of my lack of productivity this week was because I was exhausted from being up multiple times at night plus having difficulty falling asleep! Ahh! Of course she is still as cute as ever, AND she turned 5mo old this week! Such a big girl! Here she is trying on one of her new dresses. :)
Valentines day was also this week and I surprised my family with cards and candy for everyone, which was a lot of fun. :) Ray and I went out for desert valentines night and it was a nice little time away with just us. :) See, don't we look happy?
We got a bit more snow on Monday, but otherwise it's been a great week for taking walks, which Emilee really likes. She's taken to cooing at herself while we're walking and it's the cutest thing ever! Maybe next time I'll have some pics for you of her in her snuggli. :) Also, as stated before, my grandmother let me borrow her sewing machine because my mother's died on me. I didn't like how the zipper part of the first dress came out, largely because my grandmother's machine didn't have a zipper attachment, so I decided to put buttons on the second dress. My grandmother's machine DID have a pretty sweet button holer attachment that made it super easy, but it also had an attachment to sew the buttons on for me! Totally cool! I think it came out pretty good too. :) Here is the finished product!
Next week Emilee will take her first big adventure! We are going to visit my grandmother for a few days, and then my sister and her little boy. It will be Emilee's first time meeting her great-grandmother and her aunt and cousin. I'm excited to see them and introduce Emilee to them, but a little leary about how it's going to affect her...all that time in the car, plus a new place, plus a disrupted schedule...oi. Could be stressfull! Anyway, all that to say, next weeks blog post will likely be late because we will be driving back on Saturday. I'll try and be sure to take lots of pics though! :)
Until next time, Take care and God bless!
~Mae
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Productivity!
Hello again friends! :)
This week has been MUCH better and I have felt so incredibly productive! My secret?...I don't take the morning nap with Emilee. Really, this has only worked because she was cooperative enough to slide right into a new 4ish hour schedule. Perhaps the fussiness of last week was in preparation for this?
Anyway, this week she has developed this new schedule: Up by 5:30, 2ish hour nap at 8, 2nd feeding at 10ish, 1ish hour nap at noon, 3rd feeding at 1ish, 2 hour nap at 4, 4th feeding at 6ish, in bed by 8. I can work with this. :)
She is such a happy, talkative, excited baby and a total joy to have around. :) We also discovered a new "game" that she really likes! Behold, the diaper-box express! See how much she likes it!?
As far as productivity; this week I have added 20 new pages to my story! (I will be posting the first few chapters here, http://mlhutchinson.wordpress.com/, when I get the site and everything figured out), I have started sewing a sweet little dress for Emilee, I created a new site on wordpress, I put together an application for an online teaching job (well see if THAT pans out...) and I've been able to stay on top of little things around the house as well as write some blog entries. :) Believe it or not I haven't watched even 10 minutes of tv! The story takes up time because I like to write by hand first, then type it in, and I was going to make two dresses, but I 1.) forgot how tedious using a pattern can be...all that pressing and heming and disciphering instructions...and 2.) had trouble with the machine keeping the right thread tension...plus it just stopped working entirely and I had to stich the skirt on by hand! Boy was that time consuming and painstaking! I certainly do not have the skill for efficient hand sewing! I actually drew a line on the back of my fabric with a pencil to keep my stitching even! haha...and I still didn't do it as straight as I'd like. Here is a pic of the dress...not finished yet, I still need to put in the zipper, hem it, and add the ribbon, but I love it! I particularly love the little ruffles on the bodice! <3 good.="" isn="" lighting="" p="" so="" sorry="" t="" the="">
Today we are battening down the hatches and riding out "Nemo" (a little fish with big dreams...we'll see how big this storm will dream), and tomorrow Emilee has her baby dedication at church! :) I'll be sure to take pictures for you all. :)
Take care and God bless!
~Mae
This week has been MUCH better and I have felt so incredibly productive! My secret?...I don't take the morning nap with Emilee. Really, this has only worked because she was cooperative enough to slide right into a new 4ish hour schedule. Perhaps the fussiness of last week was in preparation for this?
Anyway, this week she has developed this new schedule: Up by 5:30, 2ish hour nap at 8, 2nd feeding at 10ish, 1ish hour nap at noon, 3rd feeding at 1ish, 2 hour nap at 4, 4th feeding at 6ish, in bed by 8. I can work with this. :)
She is such a happy, talkative, excited baby and a total joy to have around. :) We also discovered a new "game" that she really likes! Behold, the diaper-box express! See how much she likes it!?
As far as productivity; this week I have added 20 new pages to my story! (I will be posting the first few chapters here, http://mlhutchinson.wordpress.com/, when I get the site and everything figured out), I have started sewing a sweet little dress for Emilee, I created a new site on wordpress, I put together an application for an online teaching job (well see if THAT pans out...) and I've been able to stay on top of little things around the house as well as write some blog entries. :) Believe it or not I haven't watched even 10 minutes of tv! The story takes up time because I like to write by hand first, then type it in, and I was going to make two dresses, but I 1.) forgot how tedious using a pattern can be...all that pressing and heming and disciphering instructions...and 2.) had trouble with the machine keeping the right thread tension...plus it just stopped working entirely and I had to stich the skirt on by hand! Boy was that time consuming and painstaking! I certainly do not have the skill for efficient hand sewing! I actually drew a line on the back of my fabric with a pencil to keep my stitching even! haha...and I still didn't do it as straight as I'd like. Here is a pic of the dress...not finished yet, I still need to put in the zipper, hem it, and add the ribbon, but I love it! I particularly love the little ruffles on the bodice! <3 good.="" isn="" lighting="" p="" so="" sorry="" t="" the="">
Today we are battening down the hatches and riding out "Nemo" (a little fish with big dreams...we'll see how big this storm will dream), and tomorrow Emilee has her baby dedication at church! :) I'll be sure to take pictures for you all. :)
Take care and God bless!
~Mae
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Fussiness
Phew, what a week! Last weekend my husband and I took our daughter down to visit with his family, approximately a 3 hour drive from home. She kept her schedule just fine while we were there, napping and playing and eating and so forth. We came home sunday night and she seemed very pleased to be home. But then, babies are rarely consistent or predictable. lol This was my week...
Monday - She refused to be put down, AT ALL! If I even turned her around to set her on my lap (so I could at least sit down) she would fuss!
Tuesday - She handled being put down, but wanted me in sight at all times! One good thing that came out of this, was that I discovered some new positions she enjoyed. The mother of all inventions is necessity they say, and I discovered that she liked sitting in her stroller...presumably because it allowed her to sit more upright. I tried her in my mother's antique highchair too but it wasn't quite enough support for her, even with stuffing a blanket around her. lol.
Wednesday - She fought pretty much EVERY nap, sometimes for almost an hour! I discovered that crying is super stressfull and very exhausting to listen to! She also got tired of everything very quickly and kept wanting a different toy, a different position, a different view...also very tiring.
Thursday - She was almost back to her normal self and able to occupy herself for about 20mins at a time, but I was exhausted so I was a zombie while she was awake and slept when she slept! lol
Friday - she was back to normal and I started doing all the things I didn't have time or energy to do before! :-p
It didn't help that she didn't have a bowel movement from monday night untill saturday morning and boy, when she did it was a douzy! Phew! She had a stink radius! I feel sort of like her fussiness this week is teaching her to be generally more fussy and dissatisfied with things but hey, maybe she just needs different stimulation at this stage and I haven't figured out what that is yet....she could also be teething...but man do I find crying (and particularly whinny crying) soooo irritating! Gah! It grates on my ears like nails on a chalk board! Fortunately, she is still the cutest little goober you've ever met. :-p Here are some pictures of my sweet peanut from times when she was momentarially satisfied. :-p
Monday - She refused to be put down, AT ALL! If I even turned her around to set her on my lap (so I could at least sit down) she would fuss!
Tuesday - She handled being put down, but wanted me in sight at all times! One good thing that came out of this, was that I discovered some new positions she enjoyed. The mother of all inventions is necessity they say, and I discovered that she liked sitting in her stroller...presumably because it allowed her to sit more upright. I tried her in my mother's antique highchair too but it wasn't quite enough support for her, even with stuffing a blanket around her. lol.
Wednesday - She fought pretty much EVERY nap, sometimes for almost an hour! I discovered that crying is super stressfull and very exhausting to listen to! She also got tired of everything very quickly and kept wanting a different toy, a different position, a different view...also very tiring.
Thursday - She was almost back to her normal self and able to occupy herself for about 20mins at a time, but I was exhausted so I was a zombie while she was awake and slept when she slept! lol
Friday - she was back to normal and I started doing all the things I didn't have time or energy to do before! :-p
It didn't help that she didn't have a bowel movement from monday night untill saturday morning and boy, when she did it was a douzy! Phew! She had a stink radius! I feel sort of like her fussiness this week is teaching her to be generally more fussy and dissatisfied with things but hey, maybe she just needs different stimulation at this stage and I haven't figured out what that is yet....she could also be teething...but man do I find crying (and particularly whinny crying) soooo irritating! Gah! It grates on my ears like nails on a chalk board! Fortunately, she is still the cutest little goober you've ever met. :-p Here are some pictures of my sweet peanut from times when she was momentarially satisfied. :-p
She does love her bouncy seat! :)
In the highchair
Enjoying a book with mommy
It's been a pretty stressful week and it doesn't make it any easier that we are currently living with my mother and sister and her fussiness disrupts them too. Sadly, she seems to be back to being dissatisfied with everything this morning and of course it is happening at the WORST time. *sigh* Parenting is hard enough without other people criticising how you do it. But, I WILL praise God because she is healthy, generally happy, and a little blessing.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
An exercise in patience.
So last week, Emilee started eating much faster durring the day, but since it seemed like a sudden change, I was thinking she was just being squirmy and needed to eat more, so I tried to hold her on. Of course she screamed at me. lol. If ever you want an exercise in futility, try feeding a baby when they aren't hungry! It was very VERY frustrating and was deffinately a chance to practice patience....a lesson I failed miserably at at times! I guess it's a good thing God is giving me opportunities to learn it now, when she won't remember, rather than later. I'm a whole lot less likely to damage her psyche now if I loose my cool than later, though I guess I'm destined to mess her up at least a little bit along the way. :-p Haha, of course I jest, though the sad reality is, no one is immune from it...we all have character flaws and "issues" as a result of our upbringings. The goal is to try and make sure they aren't insurmountable. Hating peas because your mother "made" you eat them is pretty insignificant compared to being a people pleaser and perfectionist because your family was always critical and nothing was good enough for them. You catch my drift? I think it's also a good thing God made babies so cute, lol. It's really hard to be very angry, or angry for very long, when they are giggling at you. LOL. No need to worry, loosing my cool mostly just entails speaking sternly and loudly, but I still feel awful about it when I do, because she's just an innocent little baby. She doesn't know deception or will power yet...she just eats when she's hungry, cries when she's unhappy or uncomfortable, laughs and plays and "talks" when she's contented, and sleeps when she's tired. A baby's life is pretty uncomplicated! It's amazing how God uses the relationships in our lives to show us things about ourselves, life, and him, and to teach us things. I am humbled by my lack of patience, it's not something I would have expected from myself!, and I'm trying to conciously NOT react that way. life should be malleable; we should always be improving on ourselves. :) Here is a picture of my little irrisitible munchkin with the monkey toy her father found for her at Goodwill.
I would not have chosen it for her, but she lit up the moment he gave it to her and laughs and giggles every time we've given it to her since! She loves the darn thing. :-p
Anyway, in other news, I've been experimenting with my curly-ing hair. That's right, it truly is getting more curly since I've been pregnant with Emilee! My hair is so heavy it looses a lot of it's curl once it dries, so I put some gel in it on sunday. It kind of worked, but I didn't get a picture of it. This picture is from saturday when I let it air dry. You can kind of see the curlyness at the bottom.
I'm pretty excited about this change...I mean, I always liked my hair, but it's still kinda neat that I get to play with curly hair now. I also found out on sunday that I'm not the only one this has happened to! Not that I thought I was, but personally knowing someone else does make me feel a little less afraid it was caused by something serious like lukemia! My imagination is pretty wild and in my personal experience, the only time I knew someone's hair to change was after they had chemo for lukemia! But, one of the women at church told me her hair got curly after pregnancy too, so I feel much more comfortable about it. :) Anway, we've got the pastor coming over this afternoon to talk with us about a baby dedication, so I should wrap this up. Happy tuesday everyone!
I would not have chosen it for her, but she lit up the moment he gave it to her and laughs and giggles every time we've given it to her since! She loves the darn thing. :-p
Anyway, in other news, I've been experimenting with my curly-ing hair. That's right, it truly is getting more curly since I've been pregnant with Emilee! My hair is so heavy it looses a lot of it's curl once it dries, so I put some gel in it on sunday. It kind of worked, but I didn't get a picture of it. This picture is from saturday when I let it air dry. You can kind of see the curlyness at the bottom.
I'm pretty excited about this change...I mean, I always liked my hair, but it's still kinda neat that I get to play with curly hair now. I also found out on sunday that I'm not the only one this has happened to! Not that I thought I was, but personally knowing someone else does make me feel a little less afraid it was caused by something serious like lukemia! My imagination is pretty wild and in my personal experience, the only time I knew someone's hair to change was after they had chemo for lukemia! But, one of the women at church told me her hair got curly after pregnancy too, so I feel much more comfortable about it. :) Anway, we've got the pastor coming over this afternoon to talk with us about a baby dedication, so I should wrap this up. Happy tuesday everyone!
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Fevers, toes, and hair OH MY!
So, I don't typically do new years resolutions, but occasionally I do try to impose a new habit on myself (like the year of pictures album). This year, I am going to try to post at least one blog entry a week. :) Since last week's blog entries focused on times past (Emilee's birth and our time in colorado), I'll write about last week's events. :)
My life as a stay at home mom is made up, primarilly, of moments of intense focused attention and patience, and moments of boredom and innactivity... with a few moments of productivity thrown in too. lol. It can be hard to get much of anything productive done when you only have 40-60 minutes at a time in which to nap, get dressed, eat meals, etc. I know some super moms who are able to get all kinds of things done while baby sleeps but so far I've mostly been so exhausted I'm lucky if I get one or two productive things done in a day...not including taking care of baby. I'd say it's a pretty productive day if it ends with her well fed, well napped, and contented.
But anyway, last week, Emilee had her first fever. She had been fighting something for a few days before, runny nose, watery eyes, more fussy than usual (and she is not typically a fussy baby), but wednesday night she was MUCH more fussy than usual and she felt hot. I took her temp and it was 101.3! High, but apparently not TOO high for babies and not too uncommon either. It was around 8:30 at night and all the stores in my town close at 9. By the time we decided to run to town and see if we could find some baby tylenol, it was about 8:45. It takes 15 minutes to get to town...so, if you do the math, we would either get there right in time, or just barely too late. It was the later. :-/ We checked the gas stations that were open, but they only had childrens ibuprofen, which our daughter was not old enough for (She was going to be 4 months old that friday). So we came home, treated her with a cool wash cloth and put her to bed. The next morning her temp was 100 on the dot and hovered around there all day. We called the Dr., but he said not to treat the fever unless it went above 102, so I just tried to keep her as comfortable and hydrated as possible. She pulled through just fine, by friday her temp was back to normal, but poor baby did not have a fun time. That was the sadest thing I think, seeing my normally happy giggly baby just placidly lying on her play mat staring at me. It truly makes you feel helpless to know your child is sick and relying on you, and you can do nothing but ATTEMPT to make them comfortable. It just reminded me once again of God's control and soverighnty and made me that much more thankful for his care. HE holds all things together, not me. Thank goodness!
It took a few days, but eventually Emilee was back to her usual giggly/talky self. :) She is SUCH a cute baby and SO social! And she loves her toes! As soon as I take her socks and pants off, PING, the toes come up and into her hands! Haha...it's kind of overwhelming how cute it is! I don't think I've ever seen anything so overwhelmingly cute...kittens have come close...but Emilee totally tops them! Her eyes have still been a little watery and her nose a little runny, and today she seemed a little extra fussy, so perhaps she is now fighting off a cold (tis the season and there are 4 other people in the house, 2 of which spend all day at school!), but even in the midst of not feeling well, even when she had her fever, she is remarkably good humored! You could tell, when she had her fever, that she was uncomfortable, but she still gave grammy and daddy grins and laughed at the dog and even when she was fussing, she wasn't crying. She even still went down for her naps well and ate well. I am just continually amazed and grateful for how agreeable she is. God is deffinately good!
Anyway, other than that, my husband and I had a date night on Saturday. I had gotten a gift certificate to get my hair cut for christmas, so I used that saturday morning. I figured it was a good time, since I'd have a place to go later with my new 'do'. :-p Interestingly enough, the hair dresser asked me if my hair was naturally curly. Now, this is interesting, because it's not. At least, I was not born with naturally curly hair. I have been noticing a bit more curl to my hair lately and I told my mom I thought it might be getting more curly, but she didn't believe me. Then, when the hair dresser asked me that and told me I had some "serious curl" going on at the back of my head, it was like confirmation of what I was noticing! I read an article online while I was pregnant about pieces of other people's DNA attaching to our own, most commonly durring pregnancy (at least that was the most common instance in their study). It kind of makes sense...mom and baby share so much accross that placenta....and I'm pretty sure Emilee will have curly hair. It's just very interesting to me and I'm eager/curious to see just how curly my hair will get. Anyway, I gave the hair dresser a few minor directives and then told her to just "do what you think looks good." She gladly took up the challenge and cut and styled it according to her own ideas. :) I think it looks pretty good no?
My husband and I went to eat at Margarita's restaurant, a mexican cuisine place. I had been thinking about going there all week. The food was as good as I remembered, but I think the prices went up! :-/ When we left there we went to the movies to see what was playing and when. We were GOING to see either Les Miserables or The Hobbit, but both were starting late and both were almost 3 hours long. Being parents of a 4 month old, we value our sleep! lol. So, we went to the cheap seats and saw Rise of the Gaurdians, an animated film about Jack Frost! Heh, guess it's already started! We'll be watching animated films from now on for the next 10+ years. My husband and I both like animated films though and Rise of the Gaurdians was actually a very funny and interesting movie. :) We don't regret the choice at all. :) The evening was a lot of fun and a nice treat to spend those hours with just my husband. :) God has certainly blessed us abundantly and I am so grateful. :)
My life as a stay at home mom is made up, primarilly, of moments of intense focused attention and patience, and moments of boredom and innactivity... with a few moments of productivity thrown in too. lol. It can be hard to get much of anything productive done when you only have 40-60 minutes at a time in which to nap, get dressed, eat meals, etc. I know some super moms who are able to get all kinds of things done while baby sleeps but so far I've mostly been so exhausted I'm lucky if I get one or two productive things done in a day...not including taking care of baby. I'd say it's a pretty productive day if it ends with her well fed, well napped, and contented.
But anyway, last week, Emilee had her first fever. She had been fighting something for a few days before, runny nose, watery eyes, more fussy than usual (and she is not typically a fussy baby), but wednesday night she was MUCH more fussy than usual and she felt hot. I took her temp and it was 101.3! High, but apparently not TOO high for babies and not too uncommon either. It was around 8:30 at night and all the stores in my town close at 9. By the time we decided to run to town and see if we could find some baby tylenol, it was about 8:45. It takes 15 minutes to get to town...so, if you do the math, we would either get there right in time, or just barely too late. It was the later. :-/ We checked the gas stations that were open, but they only had childrens ibuprofen, which our daughter was not old enough for (She was going to be 4 months old that friday). So we came home, treated her with a cool wash cloth and put her to bed. The next morning her temp was 100 on the dot and hovered around there all day. We called the Dr., but he said not to treat the fever unless it went above 102, so I just tried to keep her as comfortable and hydrated as possible. She pulled through just fine, by friday her temp was back to normal, but poor baby did not have a fun time. That was the sadest thing I think, seeing my normally happy giggly baby just placidly lying on her play mat staring at me. It truly makes you feel helpless to know your child is sick and relying on you, and you can do nothing but ATTEMPT to make them comfortable. It just reminded me once again of God's control and soverighnty and made me that much more thankful for his care. HE holds all things together, not me. Thank goodness!
It took a few days, but eventually Emilee was back to her usual giggly/talky self. :) She is SUCH a cute baby and SO social! And she loves her toes! As soon as I take her socks and pants off, PING, the toes come up and into her hands! Haha...it's kind of overwhelming how cute it is! I don't think I've ever seen anything so overwhelmingly cute...kittens have come close...but Emilee totally tops them! Her eyes have still been a little watery and her nose a little runny, and today she seemed a little extra fussy, so perhaps she is now fighting off a cold (tis the season and there are 4 other people in the house, 2 of which spend all day at school!), but even in the midst of not feeling well, even when she had her fever, she is remarkably good humored! You could tell, when she had her fever, that she was uncomfortable, but she still gave grammy and daddy grins and laughed at the dog and even when she was fussing, she wasn't crying. She even still went down for her naps well and ate well. I am just continually amazed and grateful for how agreeable she is. God is deffinately good!
Anyway, other than that, my husband and I had a date night on Saturday. I had gotten a gift certificate to get my hair cut for christmas, so I used that saturday morning. I figured it was a good time, since I'd have a place to go later with my new 'do'. :-p Interestingly enough, the hair dresser asked me if my hair was naturally curly. Now, this is interesting, because it's not. At least, I was not born with naturally curly hair. I have been noticing a bit more curl to my hair lately and I told my mom I thought it might be getting more curly, but she didn't believe me. Then, when the hair dresser asked me that and told me I had some "serious curl" going on at the back of my head, it was like confirmation of what I was noticing! I read an article online while I was pregnant about pieces of other people's DNA attaching to our own, most commonly durring pregnancy (at least that was the most common instance in their study). It kind of makes sense...mom and baby share so much accross that placenta....and I'm pretty sure Emilee will have curly hair. It's just very interesting to me and I'm eager/curious to see just how curly my hair will get. Anyway, I gave the hair dresser a few minor directives and then told her to just "do what you think looks good." She gladly took up the challenge and cut and styled it according to her own ideas. :) I think it looks pretty good no?
My husband and I went to eat at Margarita's restaurant, a mexican cuisine place. I had been thinking about going there all week. The food was as good as I remembered, but I think the prices went up! :-/ When we left there we went to the movies to see what was playing and when. We were GOING to see either Les Miserables or The Hobbit, but both were starting late and both were almost 3 hours long. Being parents of a 4 month old, we value our sleep! lol. So, we went to the cheap seats and saw Rise of the Gaurdians, an animated film about Jack Frost! Heh, guess it's already started! We'll be watching animated films from now on for the next 10+ years. My husband and I both like animated films though and Rise of the Gaurdians was actually a very funny and interesting movie. :) We don't regret the choice at all. :) The evening was a lot of fun and a nice treat to spend those hours with just my husband. :) God has certainly blessed us abundantly and I am so grateful. :)
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Colorado in a nutshell
Ok, here we go, the long overdue summary of the past two years! Yikes...this might read more like a bio than a story/journal/blog.
So, 2 years and 6 months ago, we packed up my Dad's snowmobile trailer with out stuff and headed accross country to Colorado. I turned in my "final" thesis document that morning, and my husband and I drove out of the driveway that afternoon! We took our car packed with some imediate necessities and our kitty and took a more circuitous route, visiting family and friends on the way. The plan was that my dad would follow with the trailer later, once we found an appartment. Our first night on the road we stayed with my husband's family, and from there we stopped in Vermont and my grandparents. Our kitty Jasmine quickly learned to be a great travel cat! She never liked when we would first start out, but she would almost imediately settle down somewhere in the car and sleep untill we stopped. She had no problem using the litter box when we stopped for the night and we had trained her to be a leash cat, so whenever we got out of the car, so did she. She was a trouper. :) She even seemed to enjoy the various places we stopped at! After Vermont we went to Virginia, then Tennessee where we stayed a few days with mutual friends. From there we drove to Texas, one of the longer days of our journey, and stayed with my brother -in-law and his wife for a couple days. We went to the Dallas zoo and Jasmine got to meet (read intimidate) a little of lab puppies. lol. From there we headed out to Oklahoma City. We were only going to stay the night there, but they had a huge rain storm come through that night that flooded our exit route, so we layed low for another day before continuing our journey. Finally, we arrived in Colorado and spent the night at 8000ft with friends of friends who were kind enough to let us stay with them untill we found a place. Jasmine got comfortable in the bathroom sink and we began looking for an appartment!
It didn't take us all that long to find one and it was a great deal! We got a discount on the first month plus it was prorated, so we needed almost nothing to move in! Here is a picture of our first place:
While we were looking for appartments, our car broke down! We were afraid it would cost nearly all our savings to fix, but the insurance company towed it for free, the people I stayed with when I went for an interview earlier that spring refered us to a great autobody shop, and the insurance provided us with a replacement car (also for "free"...or part of the policy anyway) while they worked on it. In the end, it only cost us about $300 to fix. Once we had the place, my dad took a more direct route accross country and arrived in a couple of days. We unloaded everything, then took my dad for a trip into the Mountains. He loves the outdoors and is an avid rock climber so we knew he'd love it. :) We took the Trail Ridge road through the Rocky Mountain National forest which took us up along the ridge and back down...a full day's trip to go up and back again! On the way down we stopped at a great little restaurant in Granby, I believe it was called Mavericks...plenty of delicious origional options! We vowed to go back but never got around to it...that's one thing I'd do if we went back! :)
Anyway, after that we began looking for jobs! It took us a few weeks, but not nearly as long as we had both anticipated! We spent our 1year anniversary walking around down town denver and getting familiar with the place. :) It was a special moment. :) Here is a pic from our wanderings. :)
I got a job working for the Denver Street School, a non-profit christian High School for at-risk kids. It was just days before their semester was about to start, in august, so I had a lot of prepping to do! It was a fun challenge though and I was excited to do it. We got my husband situated at Colorado Christian University and he continued looking for supplemental income. My job paid for insurance, praise God!, and allowed me to use one of their company vans when our car was wrecked in a fender-bender! Ironically enough, even that was a blessing in disguise! My husband was on his way back from a job interview (which he got by the way!), when someone in front of him slammed on their brakes and switched lanes, causing him to rear-end them. They pulled over, checked their bumper and sped away, so it was considered a "no-fault" accident. A good thing since my husband has his CDL license! Anyway, while waiting for first paychecks to come through, we lived off the money the insurance company gave us for the car! lol. Again, the host family I had stayed with earlier refered us to a guy who did his best to get as much for us out of the car as possible! It was deffinately a blessing! We spent a few weeks ridding around greater denver on our bicycles (which weren't really in any condition to be used to hard or frequently!) and then we finally bought an inexpensive used car to get us around the city and went about our lives. That fall, our "new" car broke down! LOL. We couldn't figure out what it was and we spent about a month borrowing neighbors cars and using public transportation. Finally, my husband tried roll-starting it and it started right up! (It was a standard, so we could do that!). From then on we roll started the car every time we used it (which my students thought was great, lol, they called it my ghetto car!), untill my husband finally bypassed the starter and put a push button in. That was even cooler to my students (especially while it was still just wires and we were essentially hot wireing it), lol! That was several months later though.
In the meantime we found a great church family that was super helpful to us in those "lean" months. Working for a non-profit is NOT lucrative, lol, but they did have connections with outher non-profits and for awhile we were getting food from a food cupboard in the same building as my school, once a week. We were deffinately living paycheck to paycheck with only the most necessary utilities! We often weren't sure how we would make it through the month in the black, but we always seemed to. God was soo good to us and provided for us with so much! I am especially grateful for how he established us so quickly in our community and with a church family! I know it was crucial to our success/survival that first year! Need has a way of making a person dependant on others/their community, which has a way of establishing you pretty quickly! Anyway, my husband did great at his school, I settled in at my school and life continued on. I don't think there are any words to really do justice to the all the experiences we had and people we met. If there are words it is way too many for a blog entry! Honestly, our time in Colorado feels like a whole other life, that's how full and rich and eventful it was! Anyway, that first fall we drove back to Maine with our friends (who had followed us west and moved to Nebraska) and one of my students for Thanksgiving. My student was at a point in her life where she really needed someone to invest in her personally and fortunately, my job encouraged things like that! It's crucial in the lives of teens, especially at-risk ones! Anyway she LOVED Maine (hopefully she can come visit us here some day!), and we had a great visit with family. On the way back, we increased our car load by two small kittens! lol. That's how we got our kitty Paxton. So we had 5 people and 2 kittens driving non-stop accross country in a Honda Civic! Cramped yes but still a memorable adventure! We even saw Gumby in Pennsylvania! :-p
Our first Christmas in Colorado was small, but we still had a tree! One of our friends from church had decided to go up to the Rocky Mountain National Forest to get a christmas tree, and we tagged along with them! The National Forest sells tags for $10 dollars and it's up to you to go get the tree; cut it and everything. They don't allow "topping" trees and the trunk had to be at least 4in in diameter. It was a way of helping to thin out the trees. Despite our situational poverty, we could swing $10. It was such a blessing to have the memories and adventure with out friends and to be a part of such a neat holiday tradition (the National Forest has done this for years). Here is a picture of our Christmas Tree that year! :)
That spring, as the weather got consistently better and warmer, my husband and a friend from church tried to figure out what was wrong with the car. Keep in mind, we were still starting it with the push button! My husband had installed it in the cigarette lighter (which didn't work anyway). It was pretty cool and futuristic but still, we wanted to fix our car if at all possible. Our friend started going through fuses and switching out any that made sense and were blown...still nothing. Untill, later, my husband decided to just switch out ALL the bad fuses. He changed out the fuse for the door light, of all things, and the car started right up! Now who ties the ignition to the door light!? Seriously!? LOL...anyway that was really funny and we now had our car back! It wasn't much of a catch by any means, the back windows wouldn't open much, the front passenger window mechanism was broken (so it didn't open at all) and the compression was down on all four cylinders, and really low in one in particular. However, it got us from A to B and ran like a champ. :)
That spring I FINALLY, officially, finished my thesis! It felt so good to have it DONE! And in May, the day I was supposed to go to North Carolina to visit a friend, my graduate diploma came in the mail! It's still kind of surreal that I have my master's degree...seems like someone elses' life! But it's not, it's my life, and it's pretty darn cool. :-p The other nice thing about it was that I got a pay raise for having my masters in education. :)
That following june, we had to move to a new place because the appartment complex had changed hands and the new landlords wanted to raise the rent...more than we could afford. We were sad to leave that place, but God provided abundantly in our new place too. Not that we had any doubt he would! That summer we spent swimming in the pool, taking walks, playing mini-golf, etc. My husband got to fulfill one of his goals of getting a motorcycle ( a friend at church was willing to "sell" it in installments...see what I mean about how great these people were!?) and we had a great time driving/riding around denver on the motorcycle that summer. We got caught in a few rain storms and I remember one in particular we were on our way back from church and the water litterally hit us like a wall. The breakdown lanes were flooded and we could scarecely see 10 feet in front of us! We just kept taking the first left exits we came too and ended up only a mile from one of our other friends from church! They let us stay the night (fortunately neither of us had work in the AM). It was a lot of fun and one of my favorite memories. My husband spent a lot of time listening to Dave Ramsey that summer and decided to compile all our finances and loans into one document. Once he realized how much we owed in student loans he decided to stop going to school (spending more money) and start using his CDL to get work. He quickly got a job working for Lemon Lines, a private contractor company driving for FedEx ground. Our financial situation got a lot more comfortable after that and we were able to buy a new car on financing!
Our situation was looking up and were were thrilled to be in a position to repay the favors and compassion that was bestowed on us the previous year. We had thanksgiving with one of my co-workers and had a farm tree for christmas. :) That year we drove back to Maine Christmas day to spend some time with family. At this point I was pretty sure I was pregnant, but I had not taken any home tests. We left our kitties in the care of our neighbor (a friend and my husband's classmate), and drove non-stop, even taking turn sleeping in the car, so as not to waste any of our time at home. It was a great visit, but I came back feeling totally disgusted with the behavior of my students...somewhere along the way my tollerance and compassion for their shenanigans was lost. It was a rough end of the year, especially being pregnant, though I was blessed with a very easy pregnancy. Still it took a lot out of me and I was tired nearly all the time. Perhaps my annoyance and lack of patience with my students was heightened by my knowledge that it was my last year there, but I made it through and tried really hard not to treat my students differently, despite my struggle with patience. They were, after all, products of their upbringing (or lack of one!), and it was not entirely their fault that they acted out at times. I kept reminding myself of this whenever I had a particularly bad day. I WANTED to shower them with compassion, I just couldn't always muster the FEELING.
Anyway, right up untill 3 weeks before we moved, in June almost exactly 2 years after arriving in colorado, we were not entirely sure we WERE moving! However, God put all the pieces into place and we once again packed up home and hearth and headed back accross country. I was nearly 8 months pregnant at this point, and it was certainly uncomfortable at times, but the trip back was not as bad as I thought it might be. We stayed with family and friends on the way home, which broke up the trip, and stopped every few hours for me to use the bathroom and walk around. Other than our poor kitty Paxton having traveling anxieties, it was a pretty uneventful trip. We arrived back in Maine and off loaded most of our things into the Barn at my husband's mother's house. We did not have a place of our and we were planning to live with my mother for a few months at least while I finished my pregnancy, we got jobs, and found a place of our own. My father was going to be gone at War College, so there would be plenty of room (figuratively and literally) for my husband and I to stay there.
We had a few visitors while we were there, a friend of mine from Maine (she came twice! :)), our friends who moved to Nebraska, my father (when he brought our stuff), and my mother and sister! Overall, our time in Colorado was a huge blessing! Our faith and our Marriage grew leaps and bounds! I am so gratefull God led us there, and equally gratefull he brought us home and worked out the details to make it possible! We have been living at my parents house for several months now and now that my husband's work is picking up, we're hoping to find our own place this spring! It's all so exciting and we love our little life to pieces...our kitties, our daughter, our families, where we are, all of it. It might not be big, but it's ours. :)
So, 2 years and 6 months ago, we packed up my Dad's snowmobile trailer with out stuff and headed accross country to Colorado. I turned in my "final" thesis document that morning, and my husband and I drove out of the driveway that afternoon! We took our car packed with some imediate necessities and our kitty and took a more circuitous route, visiting family and friends on the way. The plan was that my dad would follow with the trailer later, once we found an appartment. Our first night on the road we stayed with my husband's family, and from there we stopped in Vermont and my grandparents. Our kitty Jasmine quickly learned to be a great travel cat! She never liked when we would first start out, but she would almost imediately settle down somewhere in the car and sleep untill we stopped. She had no problem using the litter box when we stopped for the night and we had trained her to be a leash cat, so whenever we got out of the car, so did she. She was a trouper. :) She even seemed to enjoy the various places we stopped at! After Vermont we went to Virginia, then Tennessee where we stayed a few days with mutual friends. From there we drove to Texas, one of the longer days of our journey, and stayed with my brother -in-law and his wife for a couple days. We went to the Dallas zoo and Jasmine got to meet (read intimidate) a little of lab puppies. lol. From there we headed out to Oklahoma City. We were only going to stay the night there, but they had a huge rain storm come through that night that flooded our exit route, so we layed low for another day before continuing our journey. Finally, we arrived in Colorado and spent the night at 8000ft with friends of friends who were kind enough to let us stay with them untill we found a place. Jasmine got comfortable in the bathroom sink and we began looking for an appartment!
It didn't take us all that long to find one and it was a great deal! We got a discount on the first month plus it was prorated, so we needed almost nothing to move in! Here is a picture of our first place:
While we were looking for appartments, our car broke down! We were afraid it would cost nearly all our savings to fix, but the insurance company towed it for free, the people I stayed with when I went for an interview earlier that spring refered us to a great autobody shop, and the insurance provided us with a replacement car (also for "free"...or part of the policy anyway) while they worked on it. In the end, it only cost us about $300 to fix. Once we had the place, my dad took a more direct route accross country and arrived in a couple of days. We unloaded everything, then took my dad for a trip into the Mountains. He loves the outdoors and is an avid rock climber so we knew he'd love it. :) We took the Trail Ridge road through the Rocky Mountain National forest which took us up along the ridge and back down...a full day's trip to go up and back again! On the way down we stopped at a great little restaurant in Granby, I believe it was called Mavericks...plenty of delicious origional options! We vowed to go back but never got around to it...that's one thing I'd do if we went back! :)
Anyway, after that we began looking for jobs! It took us a few weeks, but not nearly as long as we had both anticipated! We spent our 1year anniversary walking around down town denver and getting familiar with the place. :) It was a special moment. :) Here is a pic from our wanderings. :)
I got a job working for the Denver Street School, a non-profit christian High School for at-risk kids. It was just days before their semester was about to start, in august, so I had a lot of prepping to do! It was a fun challenge though and I was excited to do it. We got my husband situated at Colorado Christian University and he continued looking for supplemental income. My job paid for insurance, praise God!, and allowed me to use one of their company vans when our car was wrecked in a fender-bender! Ironically enough, even that was a blessing in disguise! My husband was on his way back from a job interview (which he got by the way!), when someone in front of him slammed on their brakes and switched lanes, causing him to rear-end them. They pulled over, checked their bumper and sped away, so it was considered a "no-fault" accident. A good thing since my husband has his CDL license! Anyway, while waiting for first paychecks to come through, we lived off the money the insurance company gave us for the car! lol. Again, the host family I had stayed with earlier refered us to a guy who did his best to get as much for us out of the car as possible! It was deffinately a blessing! We spent a few weeks ridding around greater denver on our bicycles (which weren't really in any condition to be used to hard or frequently!) and then we finally bought an inexpensive used car to get us around the city and went about our lives. That fall, our "new" car broke down! LOL. We couldn't figure out what it was and we spent about a month borrowing neighbors cars and using public transportation. Finally, my husband tried roll-starting it and it started right up! (It was a standard, so we could do that!). From then on we roll started the car every time we used it (which my students thought was great, lol, they called it my ghetto car!), untill my husband finally bypassed the starter and put a push button in. That was even cooler to my students (especially while it was still just wires and we were essentially hot wireing it), lol! That was several months later though.
In the meantime we found a great church family that was super helpful to us in those "lean" months. Working for a non-profit is NOT lucrative, lol, but they did have connections with outher non-profits and for awhile we were getting food from a food cupboard in the same building as my school, once a week. We were deffinately living paycheck to paycheck with only the most necessary utilities! We often weren't sure how we would make it through the month in the black, but we always seemed to. God was soo good to us and provided for us with so much! I am especially grateful for how he established us so quickly in our community and with a church family! I know it was crucial to our success/survival that first year! Need has a way of making a person dependant on others/their community, which has a way of establishing you pretty quickly! Anyway, my husband did great at his school, I settled in at my school and life continued on. I don't think there are any words to really do justice to the all the experiences we had and people we met. If there are words it is way too many for a blog entry! Honestly, our time in Colorado feels like a whole other life, that's how full and rich and eventful it was! Anyway, that first fall we drove back to Maine with our friends (who had followed us west and moved to Nebraska) and one of my students for Thanksgiving. My student was at a point in her life where she really needed someone to invest in her personally and fortunately, my job encouraged things like that! It's crucial in the lives of teens, especially at-risk ones! Anyway she LOVED Maine (hopefully she can come visit us here some day!), and we had a great visit with family. On the way back, we increased our car load by two small kittens! lol. That's how we got our kitty Paxton. So we had 5 people and 2 kittens driving non-stop accross country in a Honda Civic! Cramped yes but still a memorable adventure! We even saw Gumby in Pennsylvania! :-p
Our first Christmas in Colorado was small, but we still had a tree! One of our friends from church had decided to go up to the Rocky Mountain National Forest to get a christmas tree, and we tagged along with them! The National Forest sells tags for $10 dollars and it's up to you to go get the tree; cut it and everything. They don't allow "topping" trees and the trunk had to be at least 4in in diameter. It was a way of helping to thin out the trees. Despite our situational poverty, we could swing $10. It was such a blessing to have the memories and adventure with out friends and to be a part of such a neat holiday tradition (the National Forest has done this for years). Here is a picture of our Christmas Tree that year! :)
That spring, as the weather got consistently better and warmer, my husband and a friend from church tried to figure out what was wrong with the car. Keep in mind, we were still starting it with the push button! My husband had installed it in the cigarette lighter (which didn't work anyway). It was pretty cool and futuristic but still, we wanted to fix our car if at all possible. Our friend started going through fuses and switching out any that made sense and were blown...still nothing. Untill, later, my husband decided to just switch out ALL the bad fuses. He changed out the fuse for the door light, of all things, and the car started right up! Now who ties the ignition to the door light!? Seriously!? LOL...anyway that was really funny and we now had our car back! It wasn't much of a catch by any means, the back windows wouldn't open much, the front passenger window mechanism was broken (so it didn't open at all) and the compression was down on all four cylinders, and really low in one in particular. However, it got us from A to B and ran like a champ. :)
That spring I FINALLY, officially, finished my thesis! It felt so good to have it DONE! And in May, the day I was supposed to go to North Carolina to visit a friend, my graduate diploma came in the mail! It's still kind of surreal that I have my master's degree...seems like someone elses' life! But it's not, it's my life, and it's pretty darn cool. :-p The other nice thing about it was that I got a pay raise for having my masters in education. :)
That following june, we had to move to a new place because the appartment complex had changed hands and the new landlords wanted to raise the rent...more than we could afford. We were sad to leave that place, but God provided abundantly in our new place too. Not that we had any doubt he would! That summer we spent swimming in the pool, taking walks, playing mini-golf, etc. My husband got to fulfill one of his goals of getting a motorcycle ( a friend at church was willing to "sell" it in installments...see what I mean about how great these people were!?) and we had a great time driving/riding around denver on the motorcycle that summer. We got caught in a few rain storms and I remember one in particular we were on our way back from church and the water litterally hit us like a wall. The breakdown lanes were flooded and we could scarecely see 10 feet in front of us! We just kept taking the first left exits we came too and ended up only a mile from one of our other friends from church! They let us stay the night (fortunately neither of us had work in the AM). It was a lot of fun and one of my favorite memories. My husband spent a lot of time listening to Dave Ramsey that summer and decided to compile all our finances and loans into one document. Once he realized how much we owed in student loans he decided to stop going to school (spending more money) and start using his CDL to get work. He quickly got a job working for Lemon Lines, a private contractor company driving for FedEx ground. Our financial situation got a lot more comfortable after that and we were able to buy a new car on financing!
Our situation was looking up and were were thrilled to be in a position to repay the favors and compassion that was bestowed on us the previous year. We had thanksgiving with one of my co-workers and had a farm tree for christmas. :) That year we drove back to Maine Christmas day to spend some time with family. At this point I was pretty sure I was pregnant, but I had not taken any home tests. We left our kitties in the care of our neighbor (a friend and my husband's classmate), and drove non-stop, even taking turn sleeping in the car, so as not to waste any of our time at home. It was a great visit, but I came back feeling totally disgusted with the behavior of my students...somewhere along the way my tollerance and compassion for their shenanigans was lost. It was a rough end of the year, especially being pregnant, though I was blessed with a very easy pregnancy. Still it took a lot out of me and I was tired nearly all the time. Perhaps my annoyance and lack of patience with my students was heightened by my knowledge that it was my last year there, but I made it through and tried really hard not to treat my students differently, despite my struggle with patience. They were, after all, products of their upbringing (or lack of one!), and it was not entirely their fault that they acted out at times. I kept reminding myself of this whenever I had a particularly bad day. I WANTED to shower them with compassion, I just couldn't always muster the FEELING.
Anyway, right up untill 3 weeks before we moved, in June almost exactly 2 years after arriving in colorado, we were not entirely sure we WERE moving! However, God put all the pieces into place and we once again packed up home and hearth and headed back accross country. I was nearly 8 months pregnant at this point, and it was certainly uncomfortable at times, but the trip back was not as bad as I thought it might be. We stayed with family and friends on the way home, which broke up the trip, and stopped every few hours for me to use the bathroom and walk around. Other than our poor kitty Paxton having traveling anxieties, it was a pretty uneventful trip. We arrived back in Maine and off loaded most of our things into the Barn at my husband's mother's house. We did not have a place of our and we were planning to live with my mother for a few months at least while I finished my pregnancy, we got jobs, and found a place of our own. My father was going to be gone at War College, so there would be plenty of room (figuratively and literally) for my husband and I to stay there.
We had a few visitors while we were there, a friend of mine from Maine (she came twice! :)), our friends who moved to Nebraska, my father (when he brought our stuff), and my mother and sister! Overall, our time in Colorado was a huge blessing! Our faith and our Marriage grew leaps and bounds! I am so gratefull God led us there, and equally gratefull he brought us home and worked out the details to make it possible! We have been living at my parents house for several months now and now that my husband's work is picking up, we're hoping to find our own place this spring! It's all so exciting and we love our little life to pieces...our kitties, our daughter, our families, where we are, all of it. It might not be big, but it's ours. :)
Winter back in Maine. :) First snow.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Emilee's Birth Story
Ok, so, here we go. I know I wrote a post earlier about how freaked out I was about the concept/possibility of being pregnant and having a baby, and as I suspected, that all changed. When I first suspected I was pregnant I was already pretty sure of it, maybe because I had spent so much time a couple years before looking up symptoms and obsessing over it. haha. But either way, I was quite certain because my period was late and my boobs were ballooning out of control! I went up a whole cup size overnight! That was really my first indication. I had been thinking it was time to start our family for a couple months, but we weren't really trying.
Just to be certain, I waited until a full week after my missed period to take a home test. It was January 3rd (I think), my first day back at work after the Christmas break. I studied the instructions several times to make sure I was reading it right, and since the 2nd line was so faint, I asked Ray if it looked like 2 lines to him too. Not the most romantic way to tell your spouse your expecting, but that's the way it happened. Even though I knew I was pregnant, I set up an appointment at the doctors office to make sure it wasn't a false positive. To show how nieve I was, I didn't realize hospitals consider a positive home test to be sufficient proof. Anyway, they confirmed it and thus began our journey into parenthood.
I dove into all kinds of pregnancy sites and signed up for a pregnancy e-mail. I perused a plethora of information on birthing options, labor methods, what to eat/do and not eat/do, the pros and cons of imunizations, how-to's on breastfeeding, etc. Lets just say, I did my research, and it was all a bit overwhelming! Once we found out we were pregnant we began talking about moving back to Maine to be around family, which we both really wanted. Whether we moved back to Maine or not though, we knew we needed a bigger place, so we started looking into houses. All in all, with all the changes on our horizon and not being sure where this baby was actually going to be born, I felt as though I couldn't really look for birthing classes and choose a hospital untill I knew where we would be. My insurance through work only paid for Kaiser care (a western united states company) unless I was referred, and they didn't have midwives, so I chose a doctor & nurse-midwife combination. I wanted to have as natural a birth as possible, but I also knew my mother had had 3 cesarean's because her body wouldn't dilate enough...the doctors told her her pelvis wasn't big enough for her babies...and I knew that was potentially genetic. Because of that, I wanted to give birth in a hospital in case of complications, but I also wanted to avoid a cesarean if at all possible! I put together a birthing plan all the while allowing for the possibility that I might not be able to do it vaginally.
I had a GREAT doctor, I have to say, because he did all he could to help me deliver vaginally. He took my goal and made it his and I know not everyone has the good fortune to have such an understanding doctor. However, even though I did have our daughter vaginally (thank God!) I was not able to do it completely naturally.
I started having contractions Saturday, September 8th, 2012 (a day after my expected due date), but they were not consistent. They would get up to 5 or 6 minutes apart, then slow back down to 10 or 15 minutes apart. I had contractions like this all saturday and sunday! On Monday I finally had contractions 3 minutes apart for an hour, so I went into the hospital around 3pm. I was 3cm dilated and fully efaced! They admited me imediately and the doctor came and broke my water. He figured I would dilate very quickly after that because I was already fully efaced. However, I did not. My contractions continued to vary and I made very slow progress dilating. after about 7 hours I was still only at 5cm! They gave me something like a shot of novocaine in my back to take the edge off the pain and allow me to sleep, hoping to encourage my contractions that way, but no such luck! Because I was fully efaced, but not dilating, our daughter was getting a bruise from pressing on the birthing canal, so they put me on a drip of pitocin to help keep my contractions steady. That was about 12 o'clock I think. I barely needed any to do the trick and I dilated relatively quickly once the contractions were consistent. With the consistent contractions wearing me out (I was exhausted already because I had been in early stages of labor for 2 days already!) they gave me another shot of the pain medication (around 2ish?) to allow me to sleep and when I woke up, it was time to push! I never fully made it to 10cm, but the doctor was able to deliver her anyway. She was crowning for quite some time, because I just didn't have the energy to push very effectively. Finally though Emilee Rose made her entrance at 5:43am on Tuesday, September 11th 2012! She was 7lbs 3oz and 21.5in long! The placenta came shortly afterwards and they were all very interested in it because it had two sections to it instead of just one.
I am super greatful for an uncomplicated pregnancy (I didn't have any very noticeable symptoms, not even any specific cravings!), and I am greatful to the doctors and staff of Penobscott Valley Hospital for taking my birth plan seriously and really being my team and helping me to delivery our daughter vaginally. They were really great. :) My mother and my husband got to witness the birth and both were a great help/comfort in the midst of labor. :) Here are some pictures of our journey:
Just to be certain, I waited until a full week after my missed period to take a home test. It was January 3rd (I think), my first day back at work after the Christmas break. I studied the instructions several times to make sure I was reading it right, and since the 2nd line was so faint, I asked Ray if it looked like 2 lines to him too. Not the most romantic way to tell your spouse your expecting, but that's the way it happened. Even though I knew I was pregnant, I set up an appointment at the doctors office to make sure it wasn't a false positive. To show how nieve I was, I didn't realize hospitals consider a positive home test to be sufficient proof. Anyway, they confirmed it and thus began our journey into parenthood.
I dove into all kinds of pregnancy sites and signed up for a pregnancy e-mail. I perused a plethora of information on birthing options, labor methods, what to eat/do and not eat/do, the pros and cons of imunizations, how-to's on breastfeeding, etc. Lets just say, I did my research, and it was all a bit overwhelming! Once we found out we were pregnant we began talking about moving back to Maine to be around family, which we both really wanted. Whether we moved back to Maine or not though, we knew we needed a bigger place, so we started looking into houses. All in all, with all the changes on our horizon and not being sure where this baby was actually going to be born, I felt as though I couldn't really look for birthing classes and choose a hospital untill I knew where we would be. My insurance through work only paid for Kaiser care (a western united states company) unless I was referred, and they didn't have midwives, so I chose a doctor & nurse-midwife combination. I wanted to have as natural a birth as possible, but I also knew my mother had had 3 cesarean's because her body wouldn't dilate enough...the doctors told her her pelvis wasn't big enough for her babies...and I knew that was potentially genetic. Because of that, I wanted to give birth in a hospital in case of complications, but I also wanted to avoid a cesarean if at all possible! I put together a birthing plan all the while allowing for the possibility that I might not be able to do it vaginally.
I had a GREAT doctor, I have to say, because he did all he could to help me deliver vaginally. He took my goal and made it his and I know not everyone has the good fortune to have such an understanding doctor. However, even though I did have our daughter vaginally (thank God!) I was not able to do it completely naturally.
I started having contractions Saturday, September 8th, 2012 (a day after my expected due date), but they were not consistent. They would get up to 5 or 6 minutes apart, then slow back down to 10 or 15 minutes apart. I had contractions like this all saturday and sunday! On Monday I finally had contractions 3 minutes apart for an hour, so I went into the hospital around 3pm. I was 3cm dilated and fully efaced! They admited me imediately and the doctor came and broke my water. He figured I would dilate very quickly after that because I was already fully efaced. However, I did not. My contractions continued to vary and I made very slow progress dilating. after about 7 hours I was still only at 5cm! They gave me something like a shot of novocaine in my back to take the edge off the pain and allow me to sleep, hoping to encourage my contractions that way, but no such luck! Because I was fully efaced, but not dilating, our daughter was getting a bruise from pressing on the birthing canal, so they put me on a drip of pitocin to help keep my contractions steady. That was about 12 o'clock I think. I barely needed any to do the trick and I dilated relatively quickly once the contractions were consistent. With the consistent contractions wearing me out (I was exhausted already because I had been in early stages of labor for 2 days already!) they gave me another shot of the pain medication (around 2ish?) to allow me to sleep and when I woke up, it was time to push! I never fully made it to 10cm, but the doctor was able to deliver her anyway. She was crowning for quite some time, because I just didn't have the energy to push very effectively. Finally though Emilee Rose made her entrance at 5:43am on Tuesday, September 11th 2012! She was 7lbs 3oz and 21.5in long! The placenta came shortly afterwards and they were all very interested in it because it had two sections to it instead of just one.
I am super greatful for an uncomplicated pregnancy (I didn't have any very noticeable symptoms, not even any specific cravings!), and I am greatful to the doctors and staff of Penobscott Valley Hospital for taking my birth plan seriously and really being my team and helping me to delivery our daughter vaginally. They were really great. :) My mother and my husband got to witness the birth and both were a great help/comfort in the midst of labor. :) Here are some pictures of our journey:
Our first ultrasound. 6w3d gestation
17w gestation
When we found out we were expecting a girl! 21wks.
38w gestion. I was carrying it all in the front!
in a 0-3m outfit from her grampy.
Daddy and Emilee napping.
Appologetically guilty
Hi all, I just want to appologize, first of all, for taking so long to post again! A lot has happened since the last post, including all of our life (for 2 years) in Colorado, getting pregnant, and moving back to Maine! I have every intention of writting a comprehensive tribute post about that time for you all, but first, I want to tell our daughter's birth story before the memory becomes too vauge and because friends of mine who have recently had children have also written a blog about their childs birth and I feel left out. :-p So, stay tuned, hopefully, for an update post. I always have such good intentions of keeping up with this, and I'd say I've done better with this than other online accounts since I still remember the e-mail and password to log into it. haha.
Anyway, I will be back to write an update...I promise. :) Stay tuned for my daughter's birth story! :)
~Mae
Anyway, I will be back to write an update...I promise. :) Stay tuned for my daughter's birth story! :)
~Mae
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