Tiny's Transformation

I don’t want this to sound like a whine-fest but the struggle was real. If one could enjoy a struggle, I really did enjoy mine and I was thankful for every minute, but struggle I did.

To this day, I’m still not sure if I’ll ever be able to even look at scallions or riced cauliflower again. I turn the channel if they are featured on a cooking show. I could SWEAR the smell of that single meal was embedded in our hallway carpet; I would hold my breath every morning when I walked out of the bedroom. My mom even came to clean the carpet and our entire house and I still felt like I was trapped in an odorous prison. I was only 5 weeks pregnant with Tiny, and sicker than sick. For at least the next 15 weeks, I barely survived 3 stomach virus’, constant morning sickness, and intense acid reflux. I did my best to put on a brave face, but a few days were so bad, I almost had to go to the hospital because I wasn’t sure if I was even peeing any more. Let me repeat that. I’m a nurse, and I wasn’t able to distinguish a vitally basic bodily function. Imagine calling the on-call OB to tell him that. I felt mentally weak a bit idiotic, and mostly embarrassed.

 

I could barely keep my eyes open, I was so tired and beat down. I barely talked to anyone at work; it was all I could do to go through the motions. I let Dillon watch a ton of videos on my phone so he would sit in my lap and chill while I dozed off for who knows how long at a time, just to get through the day…..winning Mom of the year on this one, I know. Somehow living off applesauce and refried beans, I didn't cook, EVER. I was a hot mess, and Patrick was scared of me most of the time, but my skin was glowing, and it gave me this gut feeling that a girl was brewing.

Of course, we would have been thrilled no matter what, we already were. But if this was a girl, I REALLY wanted to know. I wanted to have bows and flowers and tutus, and all things pretty in her room, so I needed to rationalize. Yes, the gender surprise was amazing the first go around and I wouldn’t trade that experience, but this baby would be born in the winter and that would mean she shouldn’t be out and about like a summer baby, I said. Anyway, I wouldn’t have as much time to go out and get things after her birth because I would have TWO kids to tote around this time and be post c-section, I said. I NEED to know this baby’s gender, it just makes the most sense, I said. Patrick was finally convinced and on week 20 we got to change the title of my belly pics from "Tiny" to "Mabel Jane" and dress her in her very first bow, a digital pink lace one. We were elated! Patrick finally admitted that he was hoping we were having a girl, but felt too guilty to say it out loud. I say there’s nothing guilty about hope.

 

 

 

 

From this point on, my pregnancy would get much easier, minus the moderately painful suprapubic pressure Miss Mabel seemed to never let up on (a belly band helped, but who wants to wear an extra layer during the hottest part of the year?!?!), and enduring the excruciating heat of summer outside with Dillon, who seemed to never notice we were actively melting. We walked many, many miles of sidewalks. He was obsessed with pushing his ridable firetruck down the block and famous for not wanting to walk or ride back home, so I would end up carrying his 40lb-kicking-and-screaming-self back on one side of my body while holding the firetruck on the other, fetus Mabel cluelessly bouncing around in the middle. Around week 36 or so, I had Patrick hide the firetruck. I just couldn’t do it anymore.

 

Tidbits I remember about having Mabel in my belly:

1.     Dillon loved to use my belly as an arm rest and would curl up around it at night as I rocked him before bed.

2.     Mabel danced the most during girl talk and when we sang.

3.     Even though my Mabel belly didn’t look any bigger than my Dillon belly, it was shaped different and felt gigantic!

4.     Mabel liked to get aggressive at night as soon as I would lay down to go to sleep; sometimes she kicked or punched me so hard and sharp I would yelp out loud!

5.     I loved guilting Patrick into slathering the belly butter on my belly and back every night.

6.   I had obvious diastasis recti by about 16 weeks (and I'm still working on putting all that back together!).  

My Mabel Belly, Natalia (post Ale's belly), and Cristina's Lucas Belly

7. Mabel almost always laid the same way, pushing her butt out to the left side of my belly, making it lopsided. It felt sooooooo bizarre and awkward when she switched it up on occasion; you could watch the obvious lump slowly shift over to the right. I think she thought it felt as strange as I did, because she never stayed that way for long.

Despite the challenges, I loved being pregnant, and feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity. Every kick. Every nudge. Every hiccup.......those are the things I'll miss the most. It's such a special feeling, growing a new person and having that tiny person with you every second of the day and knowing they are so cozy and happy and have all of their needs met, yet have the building anticipation of meeting them all the while, brewing such a feeling a excitement. It's truly a life changing experience. 

Guilt and Answered Prayers

Parenthood is associated with many feelings that are felt much more intensely once you've experienced it first hand. Love. The kind of unconditional love that has no competition. Joy. The type of joy that radiates contagiously from one silly face to the other and then seeps down deep into your soul and grows roots. Fatigue. The kind of fatigue that has you looking forward to nap-time, just so you can take a nap too! Pain. I'm not talking about physical self-infliction like stumping your bare toe on the coffee table pain. I'm talking about how your child's physical and emotional pain might as well be your anguish. Guilt. Oh the guilt. Even if you know you deserve that night out, or that hour of working out alone, or that massage/facial (and believe me, we all deserve those things), the guilt is always lingering, especially when tears are shed upon your departure.

Lately I've been feeling some guilt about Mabel already being 14 months old and me not having written a single blog post about her life, or even her gestation! Writing is like working out. Once you get out of habit, your brain gets floppy and the more time passes, the harder it is to start again. The words get jammed. It's like speaking a different language you haven't used in years. The bright side is, I still have many years of my two darlings to write about. So bare with me as I polish off the rust from my writing machine.

To start from the beginning, the very beginning, Mabel was a perfectly timed answered prayer (as all prayers answered or even un-answered are, even though it doesn't always feel that way). We started trying to conceive as soon as Dillon turned 1. A few months later, I went back to my OB to request the same process to conceive that worked in the past. After two rounds of treatment, we were still at ground zero, so I started seeing an acupuncturist who specialized in Herbal Medicine. This lady was a formal nurse, and she was hardcore. She insisted I lose 10 pounds, change my diet, decide to be content no matter what happens, and see her very often. She talked a great deal about the temperature of food's chemistry. I didn't eat salads or have ice in my drinks; I cut out all processed foods, carbs that weren't in the form of a fruit or veggie, gave up dairy, ate mostly organic, and took some giant herbal supplements. I don't know what you'd call it but I call giving up icecream, cheese, and bread, just to get pregnant, a supreme level of dedication. I'm not going to lie, her intensity stressed me out a little bit. I also retired from working 12 hour nightshift's and accepted a dayshift position, hoping it would help with my hormones. In order to do this, I had to take a second job, but we thought it would be worth the sacrifice.

My friends joked that I wasn't suppose to get pregnant yet, since we were destined to have our second round of babies in the exact same order that we had our first. First Ale, then Cristina, then me, then Jessica. March rolled around and we were about to have Ale's baby shower when Cristina told us she was expecting...........

In this picture, 3 out of the 4 of us are pregnant!

Meanwhile, I was also referred to a fertility specialist who was very sweet, but scared the crap out of us by going straight into talking about IVF, and wanted to do a slew of timed tests on me. I was completely honest with both the my Western Medicine doctors and my Eastern Medicine practitioner. Guess what? None of them were thrilled about the other. They were each skeptical about the other's methods! I will always wonder why both worlds can't just get along and treat cohesively, for an all around wholistic and safe approach. 

Here comes the good news. I never needed to go back to see that fertility specialist. One day while I was at work, I started breaking out in hives. These things meant business; giant itchy whelps covered my entire body every day for a week. I was miserable. Patrick was in high anxiety mode about my mystery allergic reactions and it didn't help that he was already worried about the Chinese herbs ever since the Fertility Specialist snubbed them.

I knew something weird was going on with my body, so on March 15th I peed on a really cheap pregnancy test from the dollar store and the faintest pink line appeared in the window. It was so faint I thought it was probably just a figment of my imagination, my subconscious seeing what it wanted to see. I told no one, but it was all I could daydream about. A day later, I bought a nicer test, the kind for dummies, and the results we undeniable this time. I could barely swallow my heart back down into my chest, and immediately called my friend Jessica to take some very important pictures for me, and to keep from exploding with giddy excitement........secrets are HARD. I decided St. Patrick's Day would be a fitting day for Patrick to receive a life changing card with some adorable announcement pictures.......besides, how could I keep it a secret from him for much longer than two days?!?!? He wanted another baby just as badly as I did.

 From there, we managed to keep our little secret until Easter, to which we made some creative eggs to give to each of our parents.

From that moment on, we would endearingly refer to our growing baby as "Tiny".

Our prayer was answered, but my allergic reaction had us on the edge of our seat until the first ultrasound because I read that pregnancy hives are common with twins! Thank goodness for technology to ease our minds about THAT worry before a heartbeat can be auscultated!

 Oh, and flashing forward several months, Jessica told us the last of round-two-baby's was baking in the oven!

Dillon: 13 Months Old

 I'm writing this on the very day my Sweetness turned 13 months old. We continue to be trapped in a swiftly moving time warp. My baby is running. The little hard headed boy that refused to hold anyone's hand when learning to walk now comes to find me, grabs me by the hand, and pulls me to where he wants to go, which is almost always OUTSIDE (to the edge of the porch and grunts for a helping hand to step off.....to the swing, reaches up and grunts.....to the water hose and grunts....back to the porch and grunts for a hand to step on....to the fire truck, pats it and grunts to get in to be pushed around....to the other swing, reaches up and grunts......and away we go!). 

  If his request is refused, a great deal of window banging, grunting, and eventually yelling will invetibly transpire. My method of surviving Texas summers by hibernating beside an A/C vent is a thing of the past. Water tables, sprinklers, cool mist fans, splash pads, and swimming pools will now have to suffice. When is reverse global warming going to kick in?

Although he is a very cautious and methodical individual, he is exceptionally explorative in his comfort zone. A sensitive soul he remains, but is for the most part no longer getting his feelings so hurt when told not to do something (up until this point, there were always tears shed after the word "no").

Just today, I was getting ready for work while he rummaged through the bathroom......nothing out of the usual for us......until I noticed a suspicious movement in my peripherals. Amused, I watched him open the toilet lid, eagerly reach into a box of tampons and drop one into the bowl and then ever so carefully close the lid. Just as he was about to start the process over again I asked him, "What are you doing?!?"

He paused and stared at me briefly with those irrestable baby blues. I could see the "uh oh" look written all over his face. Then he turned back to the toilet, opened the lid, and started to reach in to undo his hard work, accepting he'd been caught.

"No, no, no. That's okay. Please don't play in the toilet."

I waited for the tears, but to my surprise they were absent, and after a moment of hesitation, he moved on. I could tell it was a difficult command to obey with such fun temptations at his fingertips, afterall, his favorite two passtimes are opening/closing things (espeically doors) and aiming his balls in the ball catching toys.

Other great passtimes of his include:

1. Trying to play with terrifying the dogs.

2. Feeding the dogs gourmet human food from his highchair, then dissapearing aroud the corner to eat the dog's dry food.

3. Carrying unconvential things around the house: wooden rolling pin, lawn chair, dog self watering tank, shower curtain rod, baseball bat, etc.

4. Pimpin' it like a boss during wagon rides

5. Rummaging through the cabinets and dragging everything out onto the floor.

I feared once the mobility really took off, he wouldn't want to be held anymore, but that's totally not the case with his boy. We still get our scheduled cuddles at least three times a day for a milk break, and, no matter how far or for how long he ventures off to play, he always comes back periodically to give a hug and be held. Even though he's a bit more sheisty with his kisses, I manage to get a few on command when I ask real nice and make the "mmmmmmmMUAH" sound. Big, open mouth, sloppy ones. The best kind.