#dillonaday Weekly Roundup 1-2

#1 My going home outfit is a little big, but that just makes me all the cuter! - June 20

#2 Spending quality burping time with Daddy. - June 21

#3 Watch out world! I have a dimple and I know how to use it! - June 22

#4 This is my 3rd outfit for the day. I had on my rocker suit, to get hyped up for my circumcision, but then I peed all over it. So mommy put me in my "rocking out" onsie, but it should have said "blowout" onsie, because that's exactly what I did at the urology clinic, and then peed everywhere when daddy changed me. Maybe if I'm lucky, I can pee all over the jerk that's about to ruin my day. - June 23

#5 Two days in a row of doctors appointments and errands calls for an afternoon nap with Mommy. My pediatrician says I'm already growing like a weed and based on the size of my feet, I'm going to be a BIG boy when I grow up! - June 24

#6 A boy and his dog...... (Callie has been very motherly since we brought Dillon home.) - June 25

#7 Daddy's getting me trained early. Sic 'em Bears!!!!! - June 26

#8 I love it when my Mommy wears me. I go from bright eyed and bushy tailed to out cold in a matter of minutes. - June 27

#9 Working on the development of my double chin is unbelievably exhausting; I think I'll just take a nap on this here arm hammock. - June 28 

Dillon's Birthing Story Part 2: Once a NICU Nurse, Never a Real Patient

The CRNA came in to give me the extra potent cocktail via epidural to prepare my body for surgery and seconds later I was filling up blue plastic bags with acidic lemonade flavored emesis in the most paralyzed, helpless state. Previously, my epidural was just strong enough to numb out most of the contraction's sensations, but now my legs could have been sawed off and stashed in a different room and I wouldn't have known it. My arms even felt floundering and heavy. I can't describe how awkward it felt to watch people reposition my body and have absolutely no sensations related to the movement being seen and complete lack of control in relations to how I was being manipulated.

A whirlwind of things went on around us as I tried to filter through the fog of Magnesium and comprehend exactly what was happening while simultaneously educating Patrick on what he could expect in different scenarios, hoping it would help ease his fears of the unknown and unfamiliar; giving him the okay to leave me if they needed to take Cotton to the NICU, encouraging him to be at the warmer to hold Cotton's hands after he/she was born. In minutes I was rolling down the hallway waving to co-workers as I headed to the OR. A mini six-flags ride later, I was laid out on a stretcher under bright lights as a multitude of people of different specialties starting spilling into the room. Dr. B took it upon himself to prep my belly.

"Don't the nurses usually do this part?" I remember asking him.

I felt both relieved and nervous once my NICU peeps arrived, knowing people I fully trusted the life of my baby with was there, but worried that we'd actually have to utilize their skills.

Timing is tricky in the hospital, though, and we went from waiting on the NICU team's arrival to start the section to losing our second doctor to another delivery and having to wait for his re-entry before starting the section. Once everyone was finally available and present, with both Dr. B and Dr. G in the same room, it was like a frat boy reunion party......literally the loudest c-section I've ever been on, and I don't think it was from the medication making things all echo-y in my head. Laughter and light-heartedness is great at helping break the ice in stressful situations, and I was glad to have it busting at the seems in our room.

"You two better be gentle on me. I know what y'all do on the other side of this curtain!......And don't make my incision so small that you have to use the vacuum to get the baby out. I hate when that happens," I instructed the very skilled but deep down goofy doctors.

"Kayla, how about you just be the patient and stop trying to boss everyone around. You're not on the clock today," I heard a voice from behind me. It was Ale redirecting me from the radiant warmer.
"Sorry, I just can't help myself, " I apologized to everyone.

Patrick was sitting on a stool to my left by my head, holding on to my hand for dear life. We decided he'd look over the curtain when the baby was coming out to let everyone know who Cotton was, since we still hadn't given away any names. The CRNA noticed his giddy nervous twitches.

"Are you okay? You're  looking pretty shaky," she asked him.
"Oh he's fine. He's always like that. It's how he stays skinny," I assured her.

A couple of more minutes passed and the next thing I remember is hearing the sweet sweet sound of a vigorous baby letting it's voice be heard for the very first time.

"It's Dillon!!" Patrick announced.
"Look at the size of that penis! Daddy should be proud!!" the doctors exclaimed.

I peered over my shoulder and watched as Ale took Dillion to the warmer, where she, Amy, and Dr. S would make sure his airway was safe and clear, clean him up, do his vital signs/measurements/assessment, and eventually swaddle him so I could hold him for the very first time.

After 12 long hours of active labor, our baby boy had finally made his appearance.

Patrick towered over the team to touch his beautiful baby boy for the very first time and get banded to officially claim his prize.

It was love at first sight.

In the end, it didn't matter how he arrived, only that he arrived with both of us in the realm of safety, and I couldn't have asked for a better team of people to be there for such a special and scary moment.

Thank the heavens that we live in 2014, or we probably would have been one of those tragic cases resulting in a widowed husband who may or may not have even been left with a child as a result. 

But instead we have five pink fingers, five pink toes, two chubby kissable cheeks, one adorable dimple, an impressively juicy umbilical cord, if I do say so myself, and a very proud Mommy and Daddy. 

After all the drama, it was time to head back to our new room and begin the never ending cuddling process. I literally couldn't wait for our skin to skin time. 

Dillon's birth STATS, taken by my very good friend who also happened to be his amazing NICU delivery nurse, whom I can boastfully say I trained to the position a couple of years ago:

Apgars: 8, 9.

Length: 52cm / 20.47in

Weight: 3.759kg / 8lb 4.6oz

Head Circumference: 36cm / 14.17in 

Yay for our little white boy being the exact opposite of wimpy!!! 

Dillon's Birthing Story Part 1: Shit or Get Off the Pot

  I never imagined in a million years I'd be birthing in the face of danger. 

Never.

"Are you nervous?" the Labor and Delivery nurse asked me as she obtained my history and vital signs in-between our bantering, on the account of us not being strangers and all. 

"Eh. I don't think so. Why?" I'd heard the far too familiar alarms in the background of our small talk, but didn't give it much thought.

"Oh, just curious. Have you had any issues with your blood pressure?"

"No. It's been perfect."

"Feeling weird lately?"

"Just really pregnant, I guess."

"Any visual disturbances?"

I don't think I've mentioned  on the blog that for the last few weeks I haven't taken a single shower without experiencing a light show. The first time it happened was before the Dave Matthews Concert. Patrick was talking to me from around the shower curtain, and I started to look away from his face to follow the pretty sparkling white fireworks that were gracefully falling around my upper body, but disappearing before I could feel them land on my skin. I'd mentioned this to Dr. B the next week, but since my blood pressure had always been and continued to be picture perfect, we brushed it off as the baby's weight causing a low blood pressure like reaction. 

She refused to tell me exactly what my blood pressure was at the time, probably in fear the it would only increase more had I been aware of the disturbing numbers (let's just say I was probably on the verge of having a stroke), but sooner or later I was bound to discover my picture perfect pregnancy was well on it's way to not being so perfect any more.

After a restless night's sleep nap during cervical ripening (It's difficult to sleep with a blood pressure cuff going off every 15 minutes and alarming........I was offered a sleeping pill, but I told them they might not want me going crazy and running up and down the halls bare butted and crazy!), our morning started off with a bang at 7am. I'd been having steady contractions every 2 minutes for an established amount of time, but they weren't intense enough to cause enough cervical changes to birth a baby (I'd started the night 90% effaced and dilated to 1cm, and began the morning dilated to 2cm.), so a peripheral IV was started with Pitocin infusing, to get the ball rolling. By 10am, Dr. B came by to check on how things were progressing and to dramatically speed things along by breaking my water.

That's when I heard the second word I'd hope to never hear within the walls of my own delivery room (the first was PIH, though no one actually said it out loud, I was well aware that I'd gone into Pregnancy Induced Hypertension), but knew every day we went past term our chances increased: meconium. We couldn't just have any ol' type of meconium, but thick particulate meconium was the way we rolled. The NICU nurse curse was beginning to take shape. I held my jaw tight, to keep it from dropping when I saw/felt the warm dark green amniotic fluid flood around me and pool on the chuck pad like someone had just dumped a cauldron of spinach stew in the bed. The NICU would no longer just be coming to our delivery as a courtesy visit; they'd be coming because they had to.

The pressure waves were coming in full force now, twisting my face into grimaces as I listened to my hypnobabies sound track and tried to stay relaxed. I got positioned on the birthing ball, so Patrick could sit behind me and rub my back, while my nurse ran around from one corner of our room to the next getting the water tub set up.  By the time I got in the tub, my contractions were in full force and submerging into the warm water was a huge relief. I could finally move around freely without anything weighing me down. Patrick sat beside me and applied pressure to my lower back when I gave him the cue, and I felt like things were moving really fast. After an hour of this, I was in a great deal of pain and constantly felt an immense amount of pressure from the baby's head engaging to my pelvis. Patrick was such an amazing birthing partner during this time; he never lost his cool and was very in tune to my needs, though I'm sure he was dying inside with helplessness.

Unfortunately, this was the moment when the first life saving measure had to be taken, and I had to get out of the tub to be started on an IV infusion of MagSulfate. My blood pressure was dangerously elevated to a point that I needed to be protected from having seizures, which meant it was also time to cry "Uncle" and get an epidural, hoping that the common side effect of a lower blood pressure with the epidural and pain control would assist in protecting my health. It was only noon, and I was already dilated to 7 cm and 100% effaced.

Being constricted to laying in bed with full blown contractions was miserable, especially when I wasn't even getting a full recovery between most of them. They were rolling, a new one starting before the previous had completely subsided. Even more miserable was having to wait for a full liter of IV fluid to infuse before they'd actually start the epidural. I'm pretty sure I thought I was dying. When the time actually came to brave the oversized needle being placed in my back, it was quite the challenge, getting into position and keeping still with my back rounded for the CRNA through the constant contractions.

The next challenge was laying flat on my back for the medicine to work evenly throughout my body when all I really wanted to do was roll on my side and pull my knees into my chest. Eventually my body responded to all the medicine and not only was my blood pressure under control, but my pain went from a 20/10 to a 0/10. More good news, I was already dilated to 7cm and completely effaced. Not too much longer now, or so we all thought.

After getting doped up, my progression slowed down dramatically, and a few hours later, I was only dilated to 8 cm. The baby was in a transverse position, inhibiting progression, and we tried everything to help him to rotate, including the nurses positioning me onto all fours to hang out in a doggy style position for an hour at a time. I was starting to get shaky and pretty cranky about the fact that I hadn't been allowed to have anything but clear liquids since midnight. Jello, popsicles, and chicken broth just aren't the best fuel foods for endurance.

Here we were, me eating popsicles with the A/C in the room down to the 60's to just keep from combusting into flames and Patrick desperately trying to stay warm, to the point of turning on the radiant warmer in the room to defrost his extremities.

By 5 pm I was at 9 cm. Dr. B had been in and out of our room several times throughout the day to chitchat and stalk baby Cotton's arrival. No one ever told him a watch pot never boils. Intentions were to let the baby labor down the birth canal before pushing, but two hours later there'd been absolutely no progress made. Zero, zilch.
Dr. B mentioned several times how amazed he was that the baby's heart rate looked so great under the given amount of stress, considering the meconium situation and now adding to it the length of the labor, but it was officially time to "shit or get off the pot" (my words, not his) in order for this baby to be born SAFELY. Here it comes, the third word I never wanted to hear mentioned during my labor.

 I know he felt terrible even mentioning the word c-section, well aware of how hard I'd worked all day and of my wishes to have as little intervention as possible during pregnancy and labor. He kept telling me how great a job I was doing, and how I'd done everything possible to have a baby, but sometimes something is wrong and the baby just can't be born the way we want. Out of a last ditch effort, he had me push, hoping he could turn the baby's head during a contraction and get us over the last hump, but alas, it didn't work. Now I could literally say I shit AND got off the pot. Everyone felt defeated, especially me, but even my L&D nurse who busted her ass all day helping this baby be born the way we wanted. Nothing could alter the fact that Cotton's head had engaged in my pelvis in an awkward position and things were just too narrow for this to be changed. It was shift change, so both the nurses who's opinions I trusted were in the room to confide in, and it was really time to make the next life-saving decision of the day. I had to come to terms with the fact that the only way this baby was going to be born was by having it surgically removed from my belly, so we asked for 30 more minutes.
Tears were unstoppable. I hate crying in front of people, but I was just so frustrated. Frustrated that not only my life, but my child's life could be in danger. Frustrated that I'd gone through 12 hours of labor for what now felt like a big fat nothing. Frustrated that I hadn't had anything to eat in a million years and knew that having surgery would only prolong this, along with the curve of my hospital stay and recovery time. I could tell my emotional state was breaking everyone's hearts; they were all so sweet and encouraging with pity dripping from their faces.
By 8 pm, I'd wiped the tears away and gave the final okay to proceed with what we knew needed to be done. Around this time it became even more indisputable our decision was the right one, as evidenced by the late decelerations on the fetal monitor (the baby's heart rate was staying down after my contractions were over, telling us the stress was becoming too much to bare).

We crossed our fingers, held each other's hands tight, painted a nervous smile on our faces, donned our surgical hats, and hoped we weren't having a "wimpy white boy". 

To be continued....... 

Final Eviction Notice: Week 41

I started writing this while sitting on a birthing ball, in a sweaty recovery, post just a few short of a million squats. I finished writing this post cleaning our entire house from top to bottom, stopping only so often to eat and to bounce on that infamous blue ball that's supposed to make magic happen. Whether this baby is bashful, lazy, comfortable, or just plain stubborn, he/she has managed to stay in the womb despite the odds. When I say "odds", I'm talking about anything and everything that would normally send a baby screaming into the world.

Hail/thunderstorms- check. 

Crazy once in a lifetime full moons- check. 

Day of bad luck that no one wants to have their baby on, aka Friday the 13th- check.

Prostaglandins, herbs, and stimulation- check.

Exercise, acupressure, deep breathing/relaxation, and hip opening techniques- check.

Cliche induction promising foods- check.
Prayer- check.

Doing all of these things pre and post due date- check.

Patrick took the day off work to spend extra alone time with me while our anticipation began to build of what's to come with this whole induction process. This entire journey has been a tweaking process of our ever growing patience, and I'm sure it's just the beginning of the patience we'll be developing as parents. It's difficult to absorb.....the whole reality that we will actually have a baby in our arms in the very near and real future. I feel ready, excited, and also slightly terrified that I'll forget everything I already know about babies.
Here's to a safe delivery, above all things. Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers!

Honesty is the Best Policy

As beautiful as our walks have been lately, I'd like to say they've been equally as relaxing, but that'd be a complete lie on my behalf (I'm many things, but a lier isn't usually one of them). Actually, as much as I typically enjoy walks this time of year, now days they just feel like more of a chore.

Not only does my gait resemble that of a penguin (even with a support belt), but Patrick has to push me up any "steep" hills (I'd probably topple over with him spotting me...or just turn around and find a different route), and a 21 minute mile is my newest version of "speedy".  

Keeping this in mind, it was extremely sweet when Patrick tried to convince me that the guy at the Apple store was trying to hit on me last week when I went in to get my vintage first generation iTouch repaired (it got overwhelmed when we tried to sync it for the first time since April 2008!). I'm giggling at the thought now.......and I'm sure when I got honked at during a walk this week it was because the driver was giving me kudos for not requiring a wheelchair at my current size, instead of the reason I used to get honked at.

Luckily, the puppies don't mind too much, as long as they get to walk far enough ahead of their human mom for her to not be a total embarrassment.....

....but with all the wild flowers in full bloom, it's been increasingly difficult to keep those four-legged-hairballs-of-cuteness out of the bur harboring weeds that look so elegantly sweet and charming with their delicate white blooms, but posses ulterior motives, like getting matted in the fur of innocent explorers.......remember a couple of seasons ago when Sumo got into them so bad we had to shave him and he looked like we'd just adopted him from the pound? I couldn't even look at him the same way for weeks.......shallow, I know.

These poor pups seriously have no idea how much their world is about to change!

With the outdoor heat and my internal body temperature on the rise, we've been hitting up Pinkberry once a week for the last month! I think I've mentioned this before, but I feel really bad for anyone who's never had this heavenly frozen yogurt. 

They have a new summer flavor out, lemonade, that's even more tart than the original and I can't get enough of it, as evidenced by this not so flattering picture the husband took of me stuffing my face!

I guess what I'm trying to say is, screw exercise, frozen yogurt is way better than anything the great outdoors can offer me at this point!!!! Honesty is the best policy (most of the time)!

Still Waiting: Week 40

We got to see Cotton's chubby cheeked squished face on ultrasound for the very last time, to measure size and ensure it's safe to continue to wait for him/her to arrive. Cotton's measuring in the 64th percentile on the growth chart, with long legs, and estimated to weigh about 7lb 10oz.

One way or another, this time is coming to a close.....whether Cotton decides to come out on his/her own or not (I was unfortunately dilated to a big fat ZERO this week, and apparently my cervix is "hiding out in Minnesota", so I was sent home with lots of homework---as if any of my efforts have done any good so far-- and an induction is scheduled to start on Sunday evening, Father's day Monday evening). Dr. B wanted to mentally prepare me for a long induction day with the possibility of a c-section if something doesn't surprisingly change this week, which has me now concerned I'll be throwing all my time studying/practicing for a natural birth out the window.

Instead of focusing on how frustrated I am, I thought this would be a great time talk about what I'll miss about being pregnant and what I look forward after this time is over.......in no particular order. 

What I'll miss:
1. Being able to feel the baby move all the time.
2. How much nicer and considerate the general public treats me.
3. Eating a big meal and not having to worry about sucking in after.
4. Getting to skip out on XRAY time in the mornings at work.

What I look forward to:
1. Witnessing Cotton's personality develop and seeing what kind of amazing person he/she will be.
2. Cuddles.
3. Not having my wardrobe be restricted to the handful of oversized stretchy clothes I own.
4. Being able to bend over to pick something up without having to give myself a pep talk first and make grunting noises the entire time (Confession: I dropped something at work the other night and after calculating the grief it would cause me to pick it up over the inconvenience it would cause some other innocent passerbyer, I shamelessly walked away, abandoning the dropped object, while hoping no one would curse me for doing so.).
5. Seeing Patrick be the awesome father that I know he is capable of being.

**Edited to push back the induction date by one day.......COULD THIS LAST ANY LONGER???? haha**

Quite the Agenda

Remember when I mentioned earlier this week that thing about walking???

Well here's the evidence!! What I didn't mention is eating Hypnotic Donuts first. That place makes me happy.

My Mom and cousin Blake came to visit for the weekend with plans of helping us get some last minute stuff accomplished and cooking good food, and with only so many precious days left before the weather turns into triple digits, we took them to White Rock Lake to enjoy the wildflowers in bloom.

There's such a small window of the year when everything is so effortlessly green. 

We took, what could be, our very last family photo with just us 2 humans (if you don't count that gigantic belly I'm sporting) and 2 fur babies (who were apparently way more interested in something other than posing for the camera).

On our way out, I took notice to the most solid blanket of fallen cottonwood blooms I'd ever seen before in my life. 

Impressed by the irony and beauty of it all, I had to plop myself down in the middle of it for a cheesy photo or two. 

I'm so glad to be practically immune to all the gorgeously disguised allergens floating around during the spring season, but sadly my Mom and Blake fell victim, so we called it a day and headed indoors.

Lucky for us, indoors happens to be a very pleasant place where men cater to our every need, including but not limited to bringing my mom margaritas and holding her straw up to her mouth to prevent her manicure from slowing down her alcohol consumption.

Now that's what I call a Saturday agenda!!!