Firsts

Today was the first time Camille has seen the rain! Yay for First Rain! It was crazy rain, thunder and lightening. And I sort of got a picture of her smiling! It's blurry but it's definitly a smile! It's amazing how time flies. I'm starting to contact people about day care. Which is good and bad. It breaks my hear to think about leaving her. Like hyperventilating, chest tightening heart breaking. But I know I need to do it. If we randomly came into about $20,000 to pay off cars and all debt and everything I think I might be able to stay home, but alas that has not fallen out of the sky. Fingers crossed though. And countdown to first big car trip. Less than three week until going to Santa Maria for Cruzin for Life. Can't wait to see Grandma and Grandpa again!

One Month!

Time is FLYING. I can't believe this little girl is one month old already!!!!!

Things have been busy. Brendan's parents came down and spent some time here. So Camille has met all her grandparents now. And they all love her!
My mom is down now, leaving tomorrow. I really love having family here. It's still hard for me to do everything on my own so it's great to have help.
I do think I'm getting the hang of things a little. She's growing so fast I'm just trying to keep up. She's eating really well, I'm still breastfeeding with no supplementing. I really hope to continue that. i want to read up a bit more on the supply and demand of breastmilk production. I do worry about when I go back to work being able to make enough.
She likes taking baths! Now that her umbillical cord thing fell off she can be in a little tub so I run in warm water and set her in. Her face is like "oooooh yeaaaa" it's so funny.
 
She smiled at me today. I think it was her first real smile. She was sitting with me on the couch and i was talking to her and she was just smiling smiling at me, looking all happy. She looked so beautiful! I can't wait until we see that pretty little dolly smile daily. She's such a good little girl I really feel so lucky.
One thing that blows me away is how people ask me when I'm having another one. Like strangers in the store! I have a one month old baby! She's so perfect and wonderful I honestly can't even imagine feeling the want/need for another one. That might change in the future but for now I'm so amazingly happy, she's all I need in the world.
Camille got her one month shot today. She cried big with real tears and everything. But she's a-ok now. She weighs 9 lbs 4 oz now! What a chunker! She's a little under 50 percentile for weight and she's not very tall but she has a big-ish head haha.  Here she is with her little band aid:

That's pretty much all we've got going on now. We'll be going to Santa Maria at the end of September for Cruzin for Life for about a week, that'll be her first big trip so we'll see how that goes! We got her a travel crib, it's purple minnie mouse!!! It's so cute!

One month down! She's growing into such a beautiful little gal! :-)

Short and sweet

My laptop died the other day. Luckily I have a handy husband who is replacing the hard drive. But it's on order so I am without for at least another few days. So the blogging is done from my phone and is a hassle. So short and sweet. Here's an awesome pic of Camille snoozing!

Damn.

I was all excited to write a blog post about dinner tonight. I made dinner! And it was good! It's shrimp pasta, with oven dried tomatoes and marscapone and peppers and whatnot. Even Brendan liked it! Here it is:

Weird Things

Throughout my pregnancy I came to realize there are all kinds of things that no one tells you about. You hear about the barfing and constant peeing and everyone tells you that labor and delivery hurts but really that leaves a lot out. How about the terrible heartburn. And the constant quesiness that never turns into barfing but is on the very edge for months on end. The insane swelling on feet and hands, the sciatic nerve pain every time you walk. The sleepless nights because you either a) can't get comfortable or b) are sweating even though you already turned the AC on again. I know some people love being pregnant. And parts of it were great. Feeling her move, hearing her heartbeat, the kindness of strangers, getting in the handicap line at Comic Con. All Awesome. But the rest was rough. I'm honestly surprised I didn't have more meltdowns! But the end result is worth it. This little girl was 100% worth it:




 
And now we are two and half weeks into her life here on the outside. I've only had her about a week and a half here home with me and only a couple days of being home alone during the day with her. We've watched the Olympics, taken naps, cleaned, bathed, eat and organized. I'm tired a lot but feel like I should be getting more done. I'm going to start trying to make dinner each night. I need to get some recipes together and plan meals and shop for them. Since I'm on disability for 12 weeks I'm making quite a bit less each month than I would be working so we need to find ways to save money and cut costs. I'm interested to see how much we can cut out and where all our money goes. I'm refusing to think about going back to work. I start to freak out when I think about leaving her all day. She's like my side kick, I don't want to go anywhere without her. I would give anything to be able to stay home with her, raise her instead of paying someone else to do it. Aaaaaa! Don't think about it!
So, anyway I was mentioning all the things that you don't hear about. I'm sure it's because not everyone experiences them. Every birth and baby are so different that I'm sure everyones healing process is totally different. For me, besides the normal milk related boob stuff and episiotomy related itching, I've had a couple random other pains. My knees are Killing me! Every time I crouch or get up and down they hurt! My feet hurt too. Feels like I've been standing barefoot on concrete for a week but I've been staying off my feet, definitly not on them more than normal. Maybe it's because the swelling is down so I don't have that extra cushion. Huh, I just thought of that. Also, I get a weird taste in my mouth when I breastfeed. It's just for a second right when she starts so I think it's some kind of weird response to that. It's weird but not painful or bad or anything. I had hoped my vision would go back to normal but it's still a bit fuzzy. I need new glasses
WHOA I just got projectile vomited on. That was pretty amazing. Good form, Camille! I will say that gross things like poop and vomit and spit up are totally less gross when it's your kid. Or maybe I'll be better about these things now that I have had a child. Who knows.
I got to Skype with my family today. My mom is up in Oregon, they had the memorial and scattering of ashes for my grandma. Ashes scattering always makes me think of the Big Lebowski. Luckily they didn't have any moments like that. My aunts and cousins are all up there so we skyped and chatted for a bit. It was sad and kind of odd to not have my grandma there. I was kind of like hey where's....... oh right.
Here's some pics from the last couple days.
Hanging out on her tummy. She's reading to go!

 I'm trying to do this yarn wrapped letter thing but it's harder than it looks. I've got one and half letters done.

 We call this look "Milk Drunk"

 Sweet Rocksy. She loves Camille, she thinks she's her doggy momma!

 Crazy look!

 I can finally show you this knit gift. I made this for my best friend. It's a little baby sweater for her girl due in Oct. I'm pretty proud of how it turned out and she liked it.

That's about all for now, Brendan is off Mon and Tues so maybe we'll get to get out and do some family stuff. I wish it wasn't so hot!! We'll see. I gotta get out of this house though! Oh but good news is some friends are bringing us dinner tonight and falling skies is on tonight! woohoo!

Living and Loving

When I last wrote a blog, it was early in the morning on Thursday the 2nd. That day when my mom and I went to to hospital we found out that Camille was being released that day!! We were totally unprepared, we had to go home to get her car seat, my hospitals bracelets etc, I had to take a baby CPR class, find a pediatrician and make an appointment all before we could bring her home. Well obviously we ran around and did it all and brought her home that day. Here's her in her carseat for the first time, getting ready to leave the NICU:

 

And here's her in her "going home" outfit and in her crib for the first time:

She's been home now for just over a week and it's been amazing. She really is a great baby. She sleeps really well, wakes up a couple times a night to eat, loves to nap in her swing and look outside. She does't cry much and really loves to look around and check things out. She eats a lot, I'm getting used to breastfeeding. I'm tired a lot but that's to be expected. I can't believe she's only 2 weeks, it seems like she's doing things that are beyond her age. She's like a little dolly, she's so amazingly beautiful. I try to imagine what she'll look like or talk like but all I can see is these beautiful big eyes and perfect skin. We've been lucky enough to have my mom here this whole time, helping out. She loves holding her and has helped out around the house a lot. I had to take her to the airport today to fly back to Oregon for my Grandma's memorial. It was really sad to see her go. The house is very quiet and I miss her already. She'll be back for a long weekend soon but it's still sad. With Brendan working, I'm going to have to find ways to get out and see people so I don't go crazy with cabin fever. I wish we could take walks, but it's 116 today. Even after the sun goes down it's way too hot for my girl.
It's still so strange to think of myself as a parent, as a mom. She's here, she's home and I can't imagine her not being here now. I worry about her and love her more than I thought I even could. It's a mind boggling experience.
 I've taken like forty billion pictures, here's a few of them. The first one is my favorite!! :-)

I think it's nap time for me now. I take them when I can get them!

Her Story So Far

Our baby girl was born July 25, 2012! She's amazingly beautiful and perfect! Here is her story so far.
It started Tuesday July 24th. I was feeling restless so told Brendan I wanted to go to the mall to eat dinner and then walk around the mall because I always read that walking helps move along labor. Id been having mild cramping, it felt like menstrual cramps but nothing bad. So we had dinner and walked. I made it one loop and was super tired so we went home. Oh I should warn you, I'm going to just tell it like it happened so if you're grossed out my bleeding, discharge and the like, you may want to turn away!
Anyway, I noticed that I was having some watery discharge. I'd been losing my mucus plug for a couple days so I assumed it had to do with that.
The next morning I had an appointment with Dr. Bodon for an ultrasound so get an idea of how big she was. I went to work early that day then left for my appointment. We did the ultrasound, the tech said she had a big belly but not so big head. And that she was probably around 8 lbs 6 ounces. Yikes! I went in for my checkup with Dr. Bodon and waited for a while. When she came in she asked about the watery discharge. I told it'd started last night and she checked it for amniotic fluid, which it was. Apparently my waters were leaking. She told me that I would have to go to the hospital and probably be induced, since we weren't exactly sure how long they'd been leaking.
And so I got out of there and called my mom since she had to fly here from Oregon. Told her to get a flight and get down here. Then I called Brendan and told him to get off work and come home. I went back to work to hand out some of the things I was working on then went to the house to get everything we needed.
We got to the hospital around 11am. They were expecting me, so we went to our room and settled in. They hooked me up to antibiotics just in case of bacteria from my waters leaking. We just kind of hung out there for a while until the pitocin they also gave me started to kick in. It's a medicine to help induce labor. Well for me it started to kick in a little too well. Normally contractions come and go, like ebbing and flowing, peaking then settling down. For about two hours, my contractions just kept coming. It would get bad, start to come down and then start back up again. I had no rest. And my contractions were low so the monitor wasn't picking them up. I was miserable. Finally the epidural man came. Hooray!!! He was explaining all the risks and everything and Brendan was asking questions but I totally didn't care at all and just wanted him to help. So he put in the epidural. Brendan said it was pretty weird to watch but I was in pain and didn't even really care. After that kicked in I was feeling totally fine. At around 5pm I was 5cm and was trying to rest and take a nap. That didn't work out so well with all the wires and my blood pressure cuff going off every 10 minutes. But at least I was able to rest a bit. My moms flight was getting in at 7:45 and my dad was on his way too. I'm not sure exactly what time he got there, but it was awesome that he made it!
The next time the doctor came in, she checked me and said you're 9 1/2, it's time to start pushing. I started to panic a little bit, my mom wasn't there yet and I wasn't sure if I was ready! But that doesn't stop babies! So they turned off my epidural and I started pushing through the contractions. Honestly the next while is a bit fuzzy, but it was PAINFUL. I was pushing and Brendan and the doctor could see the top of her head but my back was hurting so bad I couldn't even think straight. All I could think about was my back and making it stop hurting and getting away from the pain. Down there wasn't even registering on my pain-o-meter. The doctor told me that her head was face up so it was a little bit harder for her to come out. Turns out when they're head up it's like giving birth to a baby that weighs an extra pound. It's really hard to push them out. So after a while of pushing as hard as I could and crying and thinking I couldn't do it she offered to help with the vacuum. She attached it to her head and starting trying to get her out with my pushing and the sucking of the vacuum. It got to a point when I honestly didn't think it was going to happen. I didn't think I could push anymore or that my pushing was going to get her out. I was trying with all my might and suddenly she was almost there! Her head came out and that's when my mom ran in the room! She JUST got there to see her get totally pulled out and be born. My mom made it! And Camille was finally born! July 25, 2012 and 8:00 pm. They took her and started cleaning her and making sure all was right with her. I stayed on the bed and Dr. Bodon started stitching up my insides, while I attempted to wrap my brain around it all. Brendan stayed by the baby and took pictures and watched them clean her up. She weighed in at 6 pounds 12 ounces, WELL off the expected weight but THANK GOODNESS she wasn't 8lb6oz! I don't know how that would've worked at all!
She got all cleaned up and I got all stitched and cleaned up and they gave her to me to hold. She was so beautiful. It's impossible to describe that moment, I was just so happy. It was amazing.
We hung in the room for a while longer, letting everyone hold her and her getting a bath. I was starving and thirsty but it was late and nothing was open so the nurse brought my a sandwich. It was bread and turkey, which I balked at first, but then totally ate it. Poor Brendan was starving too, since he hadn't eaten much all day either! So I told him to go get some food while we waited to be moved. Eventually they figured out which room we were going to and we started getting ready to go downstairs. Recovery is like on the OTHER side of he hospital so they put me in a wheelchair and my parents loaded up our stuff onto a cart and away we went.
We had the room all to ourselves which was really nice. It had an adjusty bed for me, crib for Camille and a terrible chair that turned into a terrible bed for Brendan. That first night was rough. I tried to feed the baby a couple time, it was only working so so. I got an hour and half sleep that night. Every time the baby would move I was worried something bad was happening. I was so worried I was going to break her or hurt her.  Thursday, my parents came over while Brendan went home to try to get some real sleep. We just kind of hung out in the room while the nurses came and went with all their million tests and checks. I was insanely thirsty but otherwise was a-ok. I was able to take a shower which seriously felt like the most amazing thing ever. That night my mom stayed at the hospital while Brendan slept at home. I got like 3 hours of sleep and was feeling fine. Friday, we were hoping we would be going home that day and Raime came to see us! She held Camille and brought us flowers :-) But then the nurse came in and said the pediatrician wanted to talk to me on the phone. When I got on he told me that the baby had an infection and needed to go to NICU and wouldn't be going home with us. The nurse told me that Brendan could go with her but I had to wait until I was discharged. I was devastated and crying. I felt like I had done something wrong, was somehow unfit and was hurting her. I was crying and she was crying and I was trying to calm down but I was freaking out about her leaving me. We hadn't been apart really yet and it was killing my heart for her to leave.
I was discharged a couple hours later and headed upstairs to the NICU area. She was in a bed with a warming lamp and already had a ton of wires and tubes coming off her when I got there. Brendan explained what was going on. I'm so glad that he went with her so that she wasn't alone. Basically she probably swallowed amniotic fluid and maybe meconium while she was being born and she got a little infection. They gave her some shots but it wasn't enough so they had to hook her up to an IV of antibiotics. She would be staying there for 7-10 days. And I had to go home every night without her. There aren't beds in the NICU so I couldn't stay with her all the time. Looking around the NICU I realize how very very lucky I am, there are babies in bubbles, with tubes breathing for them. It's heartbreaking. But it doesn't make leaving her there any easier.
We've fallen into a routine of being there for her 8am feeding and pretty much all day. We leave around 9pm and I come home and pump twice during the night so she has food for the nighttime when I'm not there. She's a good baby, she's not too fussy, loves to just sit up and look around. My mom comes with me on most days and we've got a system all worked out, setting up privacy screens and the pumping station, I feed her, then Grammi holds her while I pump. I keep reminding myself that she's okay there, she doesn't even know any different, she's never gone home, doesn't know that there's an awesome room waiting for her.
I am hopeful that the doctors will give us a date soon of when she'll be able to come home. The nurses have told us it's 7-10 days but they have to assess her numbers so they couldn't give a day. We should be getting new infection test results soon. Every time she's had them the numbers have halved. her high point was 1.44, then .89, then .45 then .28. Fingers crossed that the next one is at zero. Friday will be a week since she's been there. I want to hold my baby without cords and wires coming out of her. I want to bring her home and snuggle her. She's so beautiful, she's like a little baby dolly. I know I'm biased but I'm seriously blown away by how pretty she is.
Here's some random pictures

Fingers crossed, pray, do a rain dance, whatever it is you do, please do it for Camille to come home and be healthy. Thank you for all the love you all have given us.