It has been a good 10 months since my last post and I am not sure that I have a mind blowing excuse for my posting so late. Its just that I have a non-napping toddler, no sleeping baby and well, admittedly a crazy life. I suppose anyone with small children can relate! I sort of went on hiatus with blogging and doing anything that wasn't related to parenting after Ethan was born.
I thought I was an experienced parent having had two previous babies. My toddler is a handful (that is a huge understatement but I'm trying to be nice) so I thought I had this one in the bag. Thought I knew it all. Thought no kid could challenge me more than her. Boy was I wrong. Biggest curve ball ever got thrown at me. Let me just say, Ethan is a wonderful happy amazing and special baby. He is calm and fun and I cannot imagine my life without him. In fact I wish I had him years ago. But he has defied baby-sleeping-nature in my opinion. I didn't know babies who slept as terrible as he has ever existed, not since the beginning of time. Like, no baby just mine sleeps this bad. I mean he may as well just not sleep because sleeping is a tease.
It never once occurred to me that my baby would have severe colic for FIVE straight months. I am talking screaming, shrieking blood curdling wailing for HOURS. Every night since he was 3 weeks until about 5 months, at 8pm on the dot it would start and go anywhere from 11pm-1am. You had to swaddle him, put him on his side, hold him like a football, bounce him and put a pacifier in his mouth and if you slowed for even .0005 seconds he would lose his mind and scream. And now 3 days shy of being 10 months, he STILL wakes up multiple times a night. He sleeps like complete s**t. Pardon my french, its the only word I could think of to describe his sleep habits. I have tried everything under the sun, all I do now is try to survive and not dwell on "fixing" him - there is no fixing, trust me. I just have to wait it out. Hopefully he will sleep before he enters college.
I am not quite sure how I have managed to survive besides having wine on hand when needed. The last 10 months have been a blur and I've been so completely frazzled, exhausted, not going to use the word tired because to be tired would be amazing. Stripped to the core of anything I ever thought I would experience as a parent. Tired doesn't even begin to describe it. It doesn't scratch the surface. I'd pay someone everything I had to be "tired". When days are actually weeks because there is no such thing as a day. My definition of a day is 24 hours that have and ending and repeat. My days don't end. Its a continuous string of hours that go on and on and on and yes the sun comes up and goes down but its not a complete day because there is no real end - its just you against time and you wonder when you will EVER get to sleep. Anyway, that has been my life for upwards of ten months not including the pregnancy insomnia. Had i posted anything to the public I'm sure I would be extremely embarrassed. But maybe there would be a comedic effect... Who knows. Maybe my posts wouldn't even make sense and I'd say something crazier than aliens abducting me.
Still, I have managed to exclusively pump for him this whole time (did I mention he was terrible at nursing!?) and discovered that I am an under supplier. I got him to about 6 months on breastmilk alone but have since had to supplement. Fortunately he can have real food so I didn't have to give him much formula - which heres another thing I never expected - he can't even have normal formula! He projectile vomits if it is not Nutramigen. So needless to say, I have been tested and stretched to the max, trying to keep my head above water with being a mom. So that is my excuse. And I hope its good enough!
Now that I am finally back to posting, and plan on posting once a week, I am just going to jump in and pretend its only been a few weeks... I of course had to re-read my last post which stated that baby felt heavy and was he ever. A solid 8 lbs. Not enormous but certainly my largest baby and also fastest birth. I may as well post his birth story here before I go on. So here it is.....
I could easily write that I slapped down two pieces of bread on the counter while I make lunch and then Ethan was born an hour later, but heres the full story.
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Ethan’s due date 3/11 came and went, he was late like his two big sisters. I had been feeling crampy for days and couldn’t tell if it was pre labor or just normal pregnancy pain. So I dragged myself to one last yoga class, knowing it would be my last, and was excited to pass out the blue frosting cupcakes I brought. (Obviously yoga fairy rocks since I hadn't left the house that week for anything else!)
It was a Wednesday class, beginning of the session and the Monday instructor Nicole was there too. I told both Elizabeth and Nicole I thought I was in pre labor, half joking but also hopeful. I never had pre labor pains before but it felt like more than Braxton Hicks going on. We did partner squats which was great since I made a new friend who possibly nudged the baby loose for me. ;) At the end of class, Nicole suggested I rub pressure points on my ankles in her reassuring voice and said “If you rub your ankles here, you might have the baby tomorrow morning!” I was like yeah right, morning? She was right – literally in the morning as I plopped down some bread making my 2nd graders lunch, my first real contraction hit at 7:40am. I thought maybe it was just a fluke. My husband Eric sees me doubled over in pain and says “Uhhhh.... are you alright?” and I said "…no.” "Am I missing work today?" "uh huh". So I layed down on the couch and started timing contractions to see if it happened again. It did. Called my midwife, she was on her way over. (My last birth was under three hours which is why I called immediately.) Matt Lauer on TV was super annoying, my husband was making fun of him like usual and I didn’t laugh. Pretty sure he was testing me, I always laugh when he makes fun of Lauer. Suddenly everything was starting to irritate me, even the sunny living room I was in. My toddler who was a little noisy became intolerable.
I was running on instinct, so I went upstairs to my bedroom to be alone in silence. I was confused about what I was doing but just tried to relax through each contraction, wondering when it would get intolerable like my last birth where I had non stop back to back crazy contractions that made me panic. This time I refused to panic and instead just breathed!
My midwife Sharon arrives but stays downstairs. I pace around and start to get antsy, then I got really nauseous and heaved (thankfully I hadn’t eaten yet!) and that’s when I knew I was in transition. I went to the bathroom and on my way out, suddenly grunted out of nowhere and wanted to bear down. My midwife checked me and said "were having the baby up here!!! Let's set up the bed!" There went my birth plan. I could hear her yelling for Eric about the birth tub, it wasn’t ready... The water was too cold and there was no time to make it warm at that point or even go downstairs for that matter, so my mom let my 2 year old play in the water while I labored.
My midwife checked me again and said the baby was breech. I nearly had a heart attack and my mind went blank. She checked me a few minutes later and said it was the water bag that was bulging. He was not breech! At that point she said I can push, and though I didn't feel a huge urge, I pushed anyway. The bed was still not set up so I stood in the bathroom. I just went for it once I was on the bed and pushed. My water broke, then there was that ring of fire, and holy crap there was no way the baby was 6 lbs. like we thought! My 7 yr old was behind me and said "you can do this" and that I was doing a good job and she put her little hands on my shoulders. Then she took pictures of everything going on. My husband held my shoulders and my midwife told me to grab the baby as he was half out, so I did which was cool but scary because he was really slippery! Everything was surreal from that moment on.
He was placed on my chest and cried for a second. I knew it was over and felt relieved, I kept saying "Oh boy! Oh boy!" because it was so crazy and then yelled "that was intense!" So though my contractions started at about 7:40, and ended at 9:12, I had been in pre labor for what seemed like days. Ethan Lee Olsen was 8 lbs even, 21 in long and born with his hand over his cheek like his sister Stella. Ouch.
I am so glad I went to that last yoga class. It was a great reset, great to see everyone before the birth and it set me up in a really positive frame of mind. It was the very last thing I did before Ethan was born, feeling surrounded by the support of all of those pregnant moms! Couldn't have asked for a better way to start off the whole experience. Students and both teachers were congratulating me after class, smiling really big, giving me hugs and saying good luck, it was beautiful.
So in the end, there was nothing to be terrified of. I spent so much time worrying needlessly. Lesson learned, trust yourself. Listen to your body. If you take it minute by minute you can handle anything.