Shannon Marie is Here!!!!!!

Quick synopsis (ok, long, but I'm cutting it back, I swear!):

Went to my appt on Wed, Dr said I was 4 cm, could stretch me to 5 easily, 75% effaced, and at -1 station. She said I could either go to L&D right then & there & be admitted, or wait till the next day. She explained that they would break my bag of waters, then possibly use potocin if no progress was being made. Cool. So we went to L&D.

I was admitted right at 1pm, got antibiotics for GBS, and had to wait 4 hours before breaking the bag of waters. I felt none of my ctx, but was having them irregularly anywhere from 2-7 minutes apart. The Dr. Broke my water around 6pm, and I started feeling ctx, but not too bad for the most part. Then, I went from 5-7 cm in 30 minutes and when they got to 7, I decided I needed an epidural; it was too unbearable for me. Got the epi, and EVERYTHING slowed down: was on oxygen & laying on my left side b/c Shannon's HB was dropping too far after my ctx, contractions slowed and, most importantly, my blood pressure DROPPED drastically. The top # was down in the 80's. The anesthesiologist gave me too much (standard, but too much for me), and they had to give me ephedrine to get my heartrate up. The ephedreine was HORRIBLE....like being on speed times 10, I would imagine. It should have taken 5cc & about 5 minutes to stabilize my HR. But they gave me an entire syringe over the course of 2 1/2 hours. The other anesth. had never seen anyone take this long to stabilize. Apparently, I am super sensitive to anesthesia. Go figure. So he gave me 1/2 of what the other anesth gave me of the narcotic (phentynyl??) & none of the other main drug. Worked great, except my right leg wouldn't move at all.

So, back to the contractions, they gave me a low dose of pitocin to start up the ctx again (hadn't had ONE in a couple of hours b/c of the epi). I started pushing around 5:20am, and needed an episiotomy: 2nd degree or whatever, and my butt really hurts now.... Can't laugh too hard. Anyways, I pushed for about 1/2 an hour or so & she was born at 6:03 am (I was born at 6:05 am ). She started BFing like a champ, and I was in Heaven. She would cry, and just the sound of my voice would calm her. It felt amazing.

About an hour after she was born, I drank some soda & puked. Then I drank some water & puked...... Then I ate something & puked. Then I started sweating & blacked out..... I was hemorrhaging. In the course of about 30 minutes, I had lost about 1000cc of blood (the amount of two large IV bags... about 2 liters, I guess) & my OB had to "sweep" out the blood clots from my ute (felt more like she was reaching inside my ute & clawing them out). There were a ton of Drs & nurses in there, and they gave me a ton of meds, including sticking cytotec (which I was very adamantly against) to help my uterus contract or something. I don't know... I was passed out & barely heard the word "cytotec." All I wanted to do was hold my baby girl and console her when she cried. A few hours later, I was stabilized again, though they kept giving me fluids that were COLD and made me shiver uncontrollably.

I was moved to post-partum sometime that afternoon, and got to sleep quite a bit. Mike was awesome through the whole thing. I had two IV lines in me, so I couldn't do much except hold Shannon. He is waaay better than me now at swaddling, and I go to him to get it done. I was discharged at 10-ish, but Shannon wasn't until after 1 b/c she was so big. We got home this afternoon & spent time with our families. She looks like I did, but with Mike's nose....her hair is a tad bit lighter than mine was when I was born & I was more red. She actually looks a lot like my great grandma. She has a little freckle under her left nostril, furry little ears, and LONG feet and hands. She's adorable! We are so completely smitten by her!!

I think that's everything "in a nutshell." As nutshell-ish as I can be.

The Hambone can kiss my butt!

Geez, this is the most useless boat in the Coast Guard! No, wait, I shouldn't blame the boat. The poor thing can't help that it's 41 years old and falling apart. If it could take care of itself, I'm sure it would do a much better job than those who do so now! I should blame those in charge. The people who are keeping my husband from coming home until 9 pm, IF he even gets to come home, then requiring him to leave again at 5:30 am. It's their fault I'm mad at Mike! It's their fault he missed the only two childbirth-related classes he would possibly be able to go to! It's their fault that I am bored out of my mind because I expect him to be home at a reasonable time and end up waiting another 6 hours! It's their fault that this has been going on for three weeks now, and it's their fault that we get to spend half a day together before he leaves for who-knows-how-long! They suck. It wasn't like this a year ago. We were allowed to spend time together a year ago. Heck, we were allowed to spend time together 3 months ago.

*sigh*

This is what comes from my boredom:


30 Weeks














31 Weeks

In the Home Stretch....

Wow, it's been a while! Quite a while! Let's see, what have we been up to?

I'm now in the 3rd trimester, and getting more and more impatient to get to finally hold our little bundle of joy! Especially since the discomforts are starting to get worse:

• backache
• fatigue
• peeing 5 times a night
• insatiable thirst if I don't drink water every few minutes
• falling over while attempting side-angle pose in prenatal yoga
• Heartburn
• fatigue
• Evil Crotch Pains
• I run into things with my belly
  
• fatigue
  
• did I mention I NEED a nap at 4 pm every day now?
• random wetness
• stinky-puppy nose (Poor Dargan makes me want to gag again)
• I'm hot. And not in the "Damn, she's a HOT preggo!" sense.
  
• Oh yea, and fatigue!

Can you tell I'm typing this after a nap? I'm still groggy....

But at least I haven't had any black-out-inducing Braxton Hicks contractions lately...

I signed up for a general birthing class at Balboa Naval Hospital, and am actually looking forward to finding out what they expect of me and what I should expect of them. I still need to sign up for a breastfeeding class and the tour of the L&D hospital. Nice that they're free!

Mike's boat will be going underway soon, with him on it. :0( Hopefully, they'll send him home after only a couple of weeks so he can go to a school on the east coast. If not, he'll have to pay to fly himself from Alaska, and we're looking at a cost of around $800 right now. I'm sure it will be more once they get things set in stone. If he is sent home to go to a school, we don't pay a dime. *Fingers crossed for the school!!*

Today is the Fourth of July. Happy birthday, America! Our day has consisted of walking Dargan around Balboa Park, sitting in the inflatable kiddie pool, BBQing hot dogs for lunch, napping, and we will be leaving soon to go to Downtown San Diego with some of Mike's Coastie amigos. I think they asked us to go for a definite DD. Heh... Can't say that I blame them.

Here I am at 28 weeks. Quite a difference from my last belly shot, eh?

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Happy Mothers-To-Be Day!

This was my first unofficial-official Mother's Day(unofficial because the little one is still growing & developing safely tucked away in my tummy, and official because she, well, exists!). Mike asked what I wanted to do, so we took Dargan to Coronado's dog beach. We decided that Dargan was born around the middle of May, so we celebrated her 2nd birthday at the beach on Mother's Day. Mike got me two cards: one mother-to-be card and one from Dargan. And of course, after we were done with the beach, we walked to McP's on the main drag and had lunch. McP's is great because not only is it an Irish restaurant, they also allow dogs on the patio. Afterwards, I was beat, so we just laid around on the couch and watched TV. We had a blast!

The day before, we made the stupid decision to register. Even dumber was the decision to register at TWO places. And even denser than that was the decision to go to Babies R Us and the Target in the mall the day before Mother's Day. But it's done and over and we're happy. Our BRU registry is at:
Babies R Us
if the link doesn't work, you can always type in my name or the registry number: 67027097

Our target registry is at:
Target
again, you can always type in my name or registry number: 011003997195562

Now to find someone to throw me a shower...

Pregnancy Can Be Scary!

I've started getting Braxton-Hicks contractions, beginning right around 20 weeks. The majority of them have been mild and just somewhat annoying. Yesterday's, however, was quite alarming! I believe it has to do with being dehydrated, since I woke up with a very dry throat. I had take Dargan for a walk in the neighborhood, and about 1/3 of the way through, right as we were starting up the steepest of the hills, I could feel the tightness and hardness of my belly begin. I actually looked 6 months pregnant for once. As we got to the top of the hill (after stopping to rest twice), I started losing my vision and had to sit down on the curb. I was beginning to black out. Luckily, I bring water with me, and Dargan was very protective and worried. I started feeling better, and decided that since the hills in both directions are basically the same, we would keep going and take the shortcut home. Once I got to the shortcut, I had to sit down again. We finally got home, and I ate a banana, took a lukewarm shower, and laid down for a few minutes. I had an afternoon sub job for a friend that I couldn't cancel, and thankfully, I felt fine for the rest of the day. Looks like I definitely need to be drinking more water throughout the day and keeping track of how I am feeling before leaving the house.

On a lighter note, however, there are lots of exciting new pregnancy things happening. Our level II ultrasound shows that we are having a girl (!!!) and that she looks healthy. She seems to be measuring a week & 2 days ahead in certain areas, like her head and her abdomen. I will ask my Dr. at our next appointment if my due date will be moving up or staying the same.

I was about 90% sure that I was carrying a boy - I even had boy dreams - and Mike thought it was a girl. This is the 1st and only time I have/will ever let him know that he was right & I was wrong. Hee hee hee. I think it was a shock to him. I think it took a while for it to sink in that "it" is a she. But he has definitely warmed up to the idea of having a daughter. I think it will be really cute to see such a big, masculine guy holding a tiny little pink-clad baby. He has taken me a couple of times to buy little pink clothes. So far, she has almost as many clothes as I do. This does concern me to an extent. I guess I should stop shopping, as clothes are always the staple for shower-goers.

I have been obsessively researching just about every baby-related item you can imagine, and am starting to freak out because we plan on registering tomorrow. I feel like I have no idea what we really need or will find useless. Like how many bottles will I need if I am successful at breastfeeding? I have decided on cloth diapering, as it will be cheaper in the long run and I have this major disgust regarding disposable diapers. It must have stemmed from my years working at Marshalls, when I would find used diapers wadded up and tossed into the book bins or left conspicuously on the shelves. Or quite possibly the horror I feel when I look down from my seat in the car only to find a poopy diaper smooshed by countless wheels and exactly where I would have stepped to get out. Oh yea, and that whole landfill thing about the plastic not decomposing for thousands of years or whatever. So, I bought my first cloth diapers: discounted (oh yes, I am cheap) FuzziBunz from a website that sells "imperfect" FBs. They are so damn cute! Nothing like the whole rectangular, diaper-pin, soggy things I was thinking of before doing my research! My next diaper adventure is looking for cheap-as-hell inserts, since the FBs are pocket diapers. I think I'll be going with hemp, even though they are much more expensive than cotton. they seem to be much more absorbent.

An on the topic of movement, apparently, she either loves or abhors classical music. When I place my headphones on my tummy, she is either dancing or beating me to "turn down that racket!" It's kind of fun to imagine her little bald head and skinny arms & legs shaking her fists in anger at my attempts to expand her musical tastes. So far, she seems to do nothing when we play Dropkick Murphys or Flogging Molly. Wonder if that means she enjoys Irish punk, or is trying to ignore it? Mike has felt her kick a lot more lately, and it can only get more frequent as she gets stronger and bigger. The fact that I am craving sweet foods is helpful in two ways, since it makes me happy, and gets her moving around. It's really fun to poke around and play with her, even though Mike gets mad & tells me to "stop poking the baby!!" Whatever, it's fun. I'm playing with her!

21 weeks Pregnant

Squiggles!!!

I just started feeling the baby move on Friday morning (17w5d), and decided yesterday that it really was movement! I can only feel it right now when I'm laying on my back (usually when I wake up or go to bed). At first, I felt kind of an unsettled, squirmy, or wiggly sensation in my uterus. The next day, I had what felt like little thumps or flicks. I thought they were muscle spasms for a while, but when I would push down on my belly (which makes Mike really mad!), they would happen about a minute later (baby must have slow reflexes right now! ).
I finally decided it really was the baby moving when I started sneezing yesterday, and would feel some really obvious thumps in different places. I must have really freaked out my little squirt!