Monday, November 22, 2010

One Whole Week!!!

Guess what? In 12 hours Baby Noah will be one week old!!!! yay! He is doing so well, he eats very well, always wants more, and he sleeps so good. When you feed him, he has the sweetest little look on his face that says "thank you for feeding me momma..." it melts my little heart. I love him so much!!!

On another note, my blood pressure hasn't normalized. So I'm on medication number 3 that they've tried. This last one seems to be the most effective, but it may not be safe for breastfeeding. They're looking into it, I almost fed my baby breast milk after I'd taken it. I asked the nurse, and she told me she wasn't sure. You would think that after her walking in to check my blood pressure while I was pumping, she would have the common sense to say, I wonder if this medicine is safe for baby. I was a little PO'd by that. But I'm just glad it was caught before the baby was given my milk. So for now I have to pump and dump, which hurts so bad. That stuff's liquid gold in case you hadn't heard! Grrr...

So, weekly report. Baby is great, he might be able to go home by the end of the week!!!!! Momma is still being "practiced" on to find the right medicine and dosage. Hopefully this will get resolved soon. Oh yeah, I got my staples taken out today. That was a little uncomfortable. But I'm glad they're out.

The bad news, (yes there is some) my mom had a ruptured aneurysm friday night. They came by to see me and the baby spent some time here and went home. She said she would come by the next day to be with me. Went home, was washing the dishes and started throwing up and losing feeling of her legs and hands. They called 911 the ambulance came and got her and she had to have emergency surgery to drain the blood from her head. Scary scary stuff. I was given ambien that night. Carlos was upset that my dad called and said something knowing that my blood pressure is high and I'm in a delicate state right now. But at least if anything were to happen to me I'm already in the hospital. And I would rather know whats going on than not. 48 hours plus went by after the surgery and she's starting to move her legs and stuff which is awesome! Thank you God!!! We had like all the churches in the city praying for her. She does have an infection, she was running a high fever. They said they would tell us more about that later. But her temp came down and her blood pressure and heart rate normalized. We have the best medical care in the world here. People come from all over the world to get treated and surgery and stuff here. So it gives me a little peace but what gives me hope is that I know God is in control. Always has been, and He loves my mother more than I can understand or know. He's allowing things to happen for a reason and He has not nor will He ever forsake her. He has a plan and although this is tough and scary, I trust Him. He has our best interest in mind alllllll the time. I know everything is going to be ok.

So that's all for now. When I get home I will post pictures since the internet connection here at the hospital is very limited. I can't get on facebook or youtube and it wont let me add pictures here for some reason. Boo!

Till next time :)

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

So baby Noah decides to come early...




born this morning 11/16/2010 at 6:45 am at 34 weeks weighing 4 lbs. 8 oz. via c-section :( completely not what I expected it to be like. I didn't expect to come into the hospital for a headache and not leave for two days and be induced then to have nothing happen and then to be told the baby needed to be removed quickly. They put me on a medicine called magnesium sulfate to help keep me from seizing becuase my blood pressures were high. And of course, anything thats running through my systemn is running through his too. Well after almost 48 hours of having this stuff running through me, it started to affect his heart rate. They then tried giving me an IV with a bit of glucose to help him wake up. The doctor violated me (for lack of a better word) by sticking a couple of fingers up my vagina through the cervix and touching the babies head. When that didn't work, he said "the baby needs to be removed right away, his heart beat isn't looking too good and I don't want anything to happen to him"

So, they moved me over to the OR, gave me the epidural, laid me out on the bed, proceeded to cut me open, took the baby out, started to stitch me back up let me see him and give him one kiss, moved me to another room where I was in recovery for about 45 minutes. I couldn't stop shaking, it was an involuntary action, I couldn't stop. I wasn't scared about what I was going to feel when I was obviously not feeling anything. One of the nurses told me it was completely normal. That it had to do with something with my hormones. So later on I slept, people came over around 4 in the afternoon and they took turns going with Carlos to the NICU to see our baby. Carlos took lots of pictures and videos with his phone which he brought back to share with me.

He is the most beautiful thing I've ever see. Of course I would say that, he's my son. But he's so alert and smart for being a preemie. When his passy starts to come out, he takes his little arm and pushes it back in so it won't fall out. He follows people and voices well with his gaze. He already pooped (that's a big deal for a preemie, trust me) and he eats like crazy. They're going to up his feeding times since he seems to want more and has been moved from level 3 in te NICU to level 2. Which means that instead of having to stay for 2 weeks in the hospital, he'll probably only stay for 1. YAY!!! This makes my heart smile so big!!!

Tomorrow morning they're going to have me try and walk around a bit and take me down there to see him. I'm going to hold him and talk to him. I can't wait. Carlos seems absolutely smitten over this little guy. He can't stop talking about him and saying how strong he is. He's a pretty even mix of the both of us from what I can tell so far. Of course, only time will tell. But he's a good looking baby if I don't say so myself. :) I love him...now to get him home soon and for me to get on to recovery and start taking care of my little man. I have to be very careful. My blood pressure is still a little high and they still have me on the magnesium sulfate because of it, but other than that, I don't feel too bad.

Friday, November 12, 2010

It might not be the prettiest thing you'll ever see...but its a new day :)




Listening to some Robbie Seay Band on this lovely fall day. Just finished reading Searching for God knows What by Donald Miller. That man is something special. He has a way of writing and explaining things that amazes me and my little heart. I love it. I've read Blue Like Jazz, Searching for God knows What and I'm going to start Through Painted Deserts next, need Father Fiction and A Million Miles in a Thousand Years...Also, I just found out that they're making Blue Like Jazz into a film that hopefully will be out summertime 2011.

I've got a pesky cough that won't go away, I'm just thanking Jesus that my throat doesn't hurt! I had to get some Robitussin DM last night cuz I was coughing so much and my abdomen felt like it was going to burst. Too much pressure, I'm excited about seeing my little boy but I'm not ready to see him just yet, lol...on another note, my belly has grown like in the past two days. I feel huge!!! Although I'm not, all my clothes still fits (like pre pregnancy except my jeans and slacks of course :))

I've had the most strangest dreams lately...vivid too. Some a little too scary for my taste. Last night, I dreamt I was going into labor, but that was probably because I was reading about it before going to sleep. But there have been other nights I'm like "whoa, where'd that come from?"

I also found a list of things to do with your baby from new born to infancy to him being a toddler, things to develop motor skills and learning that I found very interesting. We got the baby's car seat and stroller in the mail on Wednesday! I took the car seat out to look at it and I put my boyfriends stuffed animal he's had since he was a baby in it. He laughed then told me to calm down...lol. Here's a picture...
That stuffed animal is 24 years old that is why it doesn't have eyes a nose or a mouth. It will be Noah's as well if he'll have it. :) I will look for some eyes before then though cuz it does look kinda creepy the way it is. lol...

The room will be getting a fresh coat of nice deep blue green paint this weekend or next! woohoo! Some minor repairs and some deep cleaning (yes I'm nesting) crib will be put in place and the room will be almost finished for baby.

I'd love to hear Robbie Seay Band live...I love live music. It just sounds so good, and the whole feeling of the music going through you is awesome!!! It ruins me for a couple days though for listening to my iPod or the radio, its just not the same...

here are a few belly pics to wrap up my blog for today...
Eight months pregnant :) I'm kinda disappointed that my belly
button isn't sticking out. Maybe in a bit more. It's definitely dropped since last month though.

till next time....


Sunday, November 7, 2010

My name is Elizabeth. I'm about to embark on the most adventurous journey of my life. Motherhood. Accompanying me will be my best friend and love of my life, and of course my two other best friends, YouTube and Google. Although the only one that will be really helping me is Jesus.

I'm 26 years of age, and I'm 33 weeks pregnant with a baby boy. His name is Noah. You all will meet him soon, as will I and his father. This is very exciting you see. And terrifying at the same time. More than just labor and delivery of another human being added to planet earth, we hold in our hands a life that has been entrusted to us. That's a bit daunting. But I remember that Jesus is our Lord and everything riling about in my soul seems to settle. :)

I love to love so being a mother in the sense of loving another life, seems to be easy to me. It's the exhaustion and the breast feeding and all the other things I have no experience whatsoever with that is in the gray area of the unknown. I guess I'll just have to take it one day at a time. Do what I can, create a routine for myself and not beat myself up about the things that I can't do, or didn't have time to do in a 24 hour period. Tomorrow is always a new day right?

I have all these self imposed expectations of being a mother that I feel I need to hold very loosely too. I have this neat little picture of what it will be like in my head and the intuition to know that it will probably be nothing like that. So I just pray to God and ask for wisdom on what to do and how to do it. And leave the rest to when it's actually happening.

I have an idea about a project that I want to start when Noah is born. I want to keep track of everyday. And if not everyday, every month of his life for as long as I can in pictures. The idea is to take a picture of his face and of him as a whole everyday. As long as I can keep him still enough to do so, then work my way from there and just capture moments and memories along the way. At the end of every year (since he will be born in December) put together picture books via walgreens.com or shutterfly.com of every year. They grow up so fast. I don't have any children yet, but I always hear "you blink and they're gone." As I was watching Hook yesterday for probably the fifth time, I remember really paying attention to the parts where the mom is telling Robin Williams that he's missing out on his children growing up. She says its only a few years that they want to be with us, then we're the ones chasing them around trying to spend time with them and they're too busy for you. And its true. So I will enjoy having a newborn when he's a newborn, a infant when he's an infant, a toddler when he's a toddler etc etc...one day at a time. And hopefully when he's "too busy" I will have enjoyed every moment I possible could with him. And he'll remember.

This is life changing. And for the most part, psychologically I think I'm prepared. I'll learn everything else along the way. :)

So this is me....