So long, and thanks for all the poop

Happy Black Friday everyone. Also, Black Friday makes me want to die. I want to take advantage of the sweet coupons and sales at Joann. And so does everyone else in the Treasure Valley. People with carts filled to the brim with bolts of fabric in a line stretching to the back of the store at 7 am. Which, mind you, is nothing compared to the Super Joann that we went to in Draper, UT last year. I am so glad that I wasn't there to buy fabric. Holy crap. Let me tell you what, Mormons sure do like to quilt with fabric that was purchased on sale. That place was insane.

Anyway, back to this morning. I wouldn't have minded waiting in line for all that time except I had Ben with me, and I had failed to coerce my husband into coming with me (it didn't even occur to me to ask him). I figured if I got there at 6:30 am, I would beat some of the crowd. And maybe I did. I just underestimated the size of the crowd. But we have three Joann stores in Boise, for pete's sake. Ben has this new sweet little habit of waking up in the middle of the night and crying inconsolably for three or four hours. Last night was one of those nights. Luckily, I did have Chris to care for him for about an hour until my alarm went off, so I could get a little bit of sleep before waking up to go to Joann. We all have colds right now, so that makes everything slightly crappier. Also, a little tiny three week old baby with a cold is so sad. I wonder if he wakes up and cries because it's hard to breathe through his snot nose even after it's suctioned out.

So Ben cried intermittently all the way to the first Joann store. He usually falls asleep in the car, but he kept waking up to cry some more. When it seemed he was not going to fall asleep again, I stopped the car in a parking lot to try and console him. He fell asleep as I pulled into the parking lot, and didn't wake up again until we got to the second Joann store (I didn't even go into the first store I went to. The parking lot was packed.). He was content in his carseat perched on the shopping cart for about ten minutes. When I took him out and held him, he was fine. All was well. I picked out my fabrics with one hand and went to line up for the cutting table. And that's when I realized I was a moron for not taking my husband with me. The line was so long. It would take forever, and I knew Ben would get hungry before I got out of there. Now I don't mind breastfeeding in public (especially since my mom and I made some sweet nursing covers from here), but I didn't have anyone to stand with my cart. I put my fabric back and left. Ben was happy all the way home and snuggled up with me to go to sleep. And we slept for a very long time. Well, he did. I wish I could sleep and eat at the same time. Oh, and poop, too. He's a multi-tasker, that one. But I got a lot of sleep during the morning hours.

And here's another reason that Black Friday sucks.

This is going to sound really cheesy, and I guess it is. I was thinking today about how unprepared I was to fall so completely in love with this baby. I mean, long before I ever conceived, when we wished and prayed constantly for kids, I knew I would love my baby. But I was unprepared for the real thing. And it's so awesome. I looked at my little squirmy guy snuggled up to me tummy to tummy, and I realized that this is exactly how my mom felt, too. Even though she had six kids, she had individual time with each of us, at least while nursing, and she felt the same way I do about my kid about me and each of my siblings (but more about me because I'm THE baby, heh). And then I thought about my teenage years, and I felt pretty bad. Sorry about that, Mom. But invariably, I also thought about our Heavenly Father and how much he must love us. And wow. That's a lot. Okay, so this ended up really not being written very well because I'm not so good about verbalizing feelings, but I think you can gather where I was trying to go with this. In short, being a parent is the most fulfilling and will be the most heart wrenching experience I will ever have. I'm so incredibly blessed to be mom.

And here are some more pics.

This whole taking care of another person thing is kind of insane. Especially when that person doesn't like to sleep by himself and relies on your milk bar as his sole source of nutrition. This is actually a rare moment that he's sleeping in his co-sleeper. I was able to brush my teeth, use the bathroom, and eat some breakfast.

I shouldn't have jinxed myself. I am now a prize Jersey milk cow. I'm kidding. I actually like it when he's awake during the day. It's the night time waking that's hard for me. He's been having tummy troubles at different times during the night, and I feel so bad for him. It has to be something I ate because I'm also having tummy troubles. Poor little guy. I try to pump his legs and rub his belly, but it doesn't seem to help. The only thing that helps a little is to hold him upright with his bum in my hand and jiggle the toots out of him.

Anyway, how do you get your kid to sleep in his or her bed? I swaddle him, and that helps a lot, but he will still usually only sleep for about an hour before waking up.

Also, here is another picture of my little boy. He looks so much like his daddy to me.

I'll give you a real post at some point. I'm still adjusting to my new schedule, which is to say, I don't have one. Ben is amazing. I loved him when I was pregnant with him, but I didn't know how much more I would love him when he was born. I think I can understand why the Duggars have so many kids. Clearly, they have a chronic addiction to newborns. Here is another picture. I have no doubt that you will get tired of seeing my kid in the somewhat near future, especially when we finally catch his little open mouthed smiles on camera.

My cup runneth over...

Er, quite literally, but you probably don't need the details of that.

Wow. Where do I even begin? The event I've been dreaming about for years has finally happened. The birth of my little boy, Benjamin.

I woke up at about 1:15 on Monday morning and felt like I had peed myself. So I got up and continued "peeing" on myself all the way to the bathroom. I was pretty sure it was my water. So I woke Chris up, who wasn't really even asleep yet. He had stayed up kind of late. I called my doctor, who of course told me to go to the hospital. Heh, when I woke up my mom (who flew in on Saturday, yay!), she asked if maybe we should just keep sleeping and see if I started having contractions. It made me laugh, but in retrospect, I really wish we could have.

So to the hospital we went, and triage did all sorts of horrible things to me trying to determine if it was indeed amniotic fluid I was leaking. I am so glad I never had to go in for a false alarm. I was admitted, but still not really in labor. I was having contractions, but they were extremely mild and irregular. But I was so excited! I was going to have a baby in the next 24 hours! The doctor on call wanted to go ahead and start me on a high dose of pitocin to get things moving. Wanting to try and deal with the pain without medication, I asked if we could try to avoid that. So they gave me 6 hours to try and move my labor along myself by walking and using the jacuzzi and the birthing ball. After that check, I was 2 cm and 80% effaced, which was definite progress from my initial 1 cm. So they let me hold off on the pit. Time after that became a total blur. I think it was a few hours, but I started having some much heavier contractions and was a lot more uncomfortable. All for one more cm. My doctor (who was now a different doctor on call and is so freaking awesome) suggested I go ahead and start pitocin, and they would gradually increase the dose. We were, after all, on a time schedule. The goal is to have a baby within 24 hours of your water breaking because the chance of infection to the baby greatly increases after that.
So I started working through much stronger, more regular contractions. And they got really really hard. They were coming every 1-2 minutes, and they had multiple peaks. I really thought that if I wasn't in transition, I had to be close. The contractions felt constant. At this point, it was well into the evening on Monday. I had about an hour and a half of sleep from the night before when my water broke. I was incredibly tired. At the next check, I was 4 cm, 100% effaced. Now, you know I'm a crybaby, and I totally cried. I felt so overwhelmed. I had great support from my husband, my mom, and my mother in law. They told me how great I was doing, but I felt like I would die if I couldn't sleep and I had to keep having those contractions with little to no progress indefinitely. So I asked for some Staidol to help with the pain. Unfortunately, it didn't help with the pain of the peaks of my contractions, so I would fall asleep and wake up in the middle of horrible pain and have to try and get it together to breathe through it. This went on for about half an hour (or something, like I said, time was a blur), and I asked for an epidural. I needed sleep. I had been in labor all morning, afternoon, and evening. It was about 9:30 pm when I asked. They didn't waste any time in getting it for me either. The anesthesiologist rushed in and did his thing, and I felt like a different person. I figured they would just up the pitocin at this point, and I would sleep until it was time to push. I told my husband to go ahead and run home to let the dogs out and feed them.
After he left, my doctor came in and checked me. I was at 5 cm, but my cervix had started to swell. He recommended I have a c-section because it was very unlikely for my labor to continue successfully. I quickly agreed, and my mother in law called my husband to tell him to come back.
It all happened really fast after that. They wheeled me into the operating room. All the nurses and doctors were all joking and chatting and getting me ready. It was really relaxed, which made me feel more relaxed. My epidural was increased, so I didn't feel anything. My husband came in and sat beside me, and the next thing I knew my abdomen felt like it was being pulled and squished like taffy. It didn't hurt, but it was weird. I heard someone say how big he was, and then how hairy he was. And then I heard that he looked like he was too mad to cry. Chris peeked over my blue sterile canopy and told me he was so hairy! And then I heard Ben cry. And it made me cry, too. Because he was finally here. My sweet little booger man.


Benjamin Grimm
Born 11/03/2008 10:35 pm
Weight: 7 lbs 12 oz

Welcome home, little guy.