I Miss Tuscaloosa

Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows – a painful reminder that we no longer live in t-town 😦

Normally we’d dress up and attend the midnight movie premiere with all of our fellow dorky friends, but this year we are in Memphis. Sigh. I’m really missin’ t-town. It didn’t really hit me until after the move – I guess I had too many distractions before leaving to really think about the fact that I was LEAVING!

Every time I go to the grocery store I find myself looking at other people and evaluating them as possible friends – lame…I know! Tonight I was on the baby isle and a lady walked past me with twins that looked about the same age as Harper. I seriously wanted to get down on one knee and pop the question: “Will you be my friend?” How creeper is that? I wonder what she would’ve done. If she’s been on baby lockdown like I have, maybe she would’ve jumped at the chance to have a new mommy friend too. Who knows.

I’m holding out for tomorrow. I’m doing something out of the norm for myself simply out of desperation to find friends. I went online and found a group of stay at home moms that live near me. They meet up 2-3 times a week and tomorrow they are having a potluck at a park. I’m excited and nervous. I’ll be the new gal and I’m hoping that I won’t show up and bomb it (by being awkward). We’ll see. Maybe twin mamma will be there too haha.

I wonder if Memphis will ever feel like Tuscaloosa did.

Firsts

Well, we’ve had a few “firsts” in the past two days. Yesterday Harper had his first bath and today he had his first doctor’s appointment, which was also our first outing with just the two of us.

The bath was fun. I really thought he was going to scream because he hates the slightest change of temperature on his rump, but to my surprise, he seemed to enjoy the bath. He didn’t scream until we took him out. Maybe I’m terrible, but I think he is adorable when he is mad so I had to take a picture:

I could just eat that precious face up! Juggling an angry baby while trying to take his picture was rather difficult, and I probably should have been focusing more on getting him dressed and warm, but I just had to get a picture of that face Here is the after picture:

That faces says that I’m forgiven 😉

Today was his two week check up and it went great! He was back to his birth weight plus some which made me feel a lot better! Last Monday he had gotten down to 9 lbs 2 oz. Through filling me up, literally, the lactation consultants figured out that I didn’t have enough mammary glands and wouldn’t be able to produce enough milk for him. It wasn’t at all what I wanted to hear because I had hoped to breastfeed exclusively, but I was glad to finally have an answer to why my milk wasn’t coming in the way it should have been. So yeah…since last Monday I’ve been supplementing with formula and it’s apparently working 🙂

Another picture. This one is from the check up today:

He is such a sweet baby 🙂

Stay at Home Momma!

Well, my first official day as a stay at home mom went great! I managed to get a shower and to clean the kitchen, all while keeping the peace with Harper 🙂

Knock on wood, I think I have given birth to a “good” baby. So far, he only cries when he is hungry or needs to be changed. My only real complaint before today was that he had his days and nights mixed up, but even that seems to be getting corrected. I feel so blessed to be Harp’s mommy! Seriously. Waking up to this is the best thing ever:

Benji should be home any minute now and I’m looking forward to spending the evening with him and the Harp. I can’t believe I’m finally here in Memphis with them both. For a while there it felt like I’d never get here.

Tomorrow I’ll have my first trip outside of the house with just me and Harper. It’s for his two week check up. I’m kind of nervous, but I’m sure he will do great – at least I hope he does!

My Little Harp

It’s been a week since my little boy was born, and I’m finally starting to feel like myself again so I decided to blog about everything while it’s still sort of fresh on my mind. The past week has been…interesting. I guess I’ll make this post about Harper’s birth story.

It was a dark and stormy October night…

Okay, I’m not really going to start it that way, but I totally could seeing as how there were tornados everywhere while I was laboring in the hospital 🙂 Those of you who have kept up with my blog know that I was induced a week early due to my high blood pressure. I was admitted at 5PM on October 25th to start the process. I started having contractions later that night and between those and the stupid hospital bed, I pretty much stayed awake all night because I was so uncomfortable. The nurse came in once and gave me a shot of something amazing (it made me feel like I was flying) that allowed me to forget about the pain and sleep for about 2-3 hours. At 7AM the next morning, Dr. Smith came in and broke my water and started the pitocin which of course increased my contractions.

I can’t remember for sure what time I got the epidural, but I didn’t last very long. I think I asked for it at around 11AM maybe? I have a very high tolerance for pain, but ummm…those suckers HURT! The epidural wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It certainly didn’t feel good to have a needle put in my back, but it was much better than suffering through the contractions and it completely took away my pain…for a few hours. While it was working, I was in heaven, but it ended up wearing off three different times – that was pure hell! Each time, the anesthesiologist had to come in and redose me. The first time worked like a charm, second time worked a little, but by the third redosing, I was getting no relief. Luckily the third time was close to the end of the process so I didn’t have to deal with the pain for too long.

I dilated very slowly throughout the day. By 7PM that night I was only at 7cm. I was absolutely exhausted, mentally and physically and I was beginning to think Harper wouldn’t be born until the next day. At around 9PM, the doctor came back in and I just knew that I was going to be dilated past 7cm. With the pain I was dealing with, I didn’t see how it could be possible to not be dilated more than that, but when she checked, I hadn’t made any more progress. At this point, she started talking c-section. I went into the hospital being anti c-section, but at this point I was so exhausted and discouraged that I didn’t care how Harper arrived. The doctor said they would turn up the pitocin and wait another hour to give me a chance to make some progress, and if that didn’t work, I would have a c-section. The thought of waiting another hour in that pain sent me into tears. I felt terrible for crying in front of the doctor, because I didn’t want her to think I was upset with her. I was just tired. She was very compassionate about it though and shared with me that the exact same thing had happened with her delivery, so she completely understood how I was feeling. She made me feel a lot better about everything.

Surprisingly, an hour passed quickly. When the doctor came in, I had made no progress and was prepped for c-section. The anesthesiologist came back in to get me ready. After he was done, he asked me to move my legs, and I still could. He seemed surprised and I overheard him telling his assistant that I shouldn’t be able to move – not really what you want to hear when you’re about to be cut open. Then they started whispering. Again…not something you want to hear when you’re about to be cut open.

In the end, I didn’t feel anything during the c-section. It didn’t take long before I heard my sweet baby crying, which made me cry. And then they showed him to me. No words can describe what it’s like to see your child for the first time. It was the best of the best. I only saw him for about a minute or two before they took him away to be cleaned. They began the process of cleaning and stapling me up and this is the part where I started to feel again – ugh…why me? I told the OR peeps that I could feel them stapling me and within two minutes, I was out. The next thing I know, I’m in my room and Harper is beside me.

So…there it is. Harper’s birth story.

I tried not to go into the hospital with expectations, but honestly I did and nothing happened the way I expected it to. Thankfully though, the end result was a perfectly healthy and happy little boy and I love him so so much.

That’s all I’m going to write for now because I feel like I’ve already written a book 🙂