Meighen

On Monday, Meighen turned three months old. Wow, time goes by so fast! It seems like yesterday she was a helpless little baby and now she’s a little girl waiting to take on the world. It seems like yesterday everyone was taking turns sleeping on the couch to be close to her as a newborn.

Back in August at our pre-natal reunion our teacher said something that stuck with me. She was at a conference where one of the topics was post traumatic stress syndrome after childbirth. After the experience I had I believe this is possible and that I could have a mild case of it. Once or twice a month I lose sleeping and get sensations that I’m back in the hospital going through it all again. It just so happened I went through this the other night – three months to the night I went through it for real.

I didn’t really write about my experience at first as there were a lot of emotions Ben and I had – fear, anger, frustration, helplessness but overall relieved Meighen was here and we were both ok. I had a fantastic pregnancy. My health was good, I stayed really active, I didn’t gain too much weight (35 lbs), the swelling didn’t come till around 30 or 32 weeks and my BP was great till 36 weeks. Since it was easy and complication free till then I had a feeling something bad was coming.

It started on Thursday June 26. My OB suggested I keep checking my blood pressure at the drug store. If it got too high for too long I was to call her about being induced. When I checked my BP that afternoon it was pretty high. She’d suggested induction a number of times without it actually happening so I reluctantly called expecting to be told to wait again. This time was different – she told me to head in and bring my bags cause I wouldn’t be leaving till I’d had the baby. By time I got the car packed, picked up Ben and checked into triage it was around 3:30 pm. After a bunch of blood work, fetal monitoring and blood pressure checks around 6 pm they gelled me and we moved to our private room (with a bathroom!). We were told it could take up to 24 hours to work and we’d see someone at 12 hours. Nurses came in every two hours to check my BP and every four hours for fetal monitoring (20 mins). 12 hours came and went and no doctors came to see us. My contractions weren’t progressing enough to warrant a doctor. Being nervous and anxious for all we knew the gel fell out, shifted or something. We just wanted a doctors reassurance.

Friday night around 8:30 (three hours after we should have been checked) we move into triage and find out there’s been no progress. The doctor suggests another round of whatever it was I had just had. That would mean possibly waiting around another 24 hours. I was pretty tired having not slept much the night before and just wanted things to get moving. I asked why bother with the same stuff if it didn’t work, had a mini meltdown and started to recess into my own dark hole. I sent my sister home, tried to get Ben to leave too but he wouldn’t. What else could they doctors do? That’s when he said “there’s another gel that we could try that has better success rates”. WTF!? Why didn’t they suggest that before? He gooped me and we went back to our room to wait six hours before going back for another dose. At 2 am Saturday morning there hadn’t been much progress so we had a second dose. Then at 8 am we did it again. All this time I’m hooked up to fetal monitors and BP machines every few hours.

Finally mid afternoon on Saturday I had progressed enough to move me into the delivery ward and break my water. After getting settled in with Mom and Ben, that’s when all the agony started. I was having wicked back pain – unbelievable cramps. I was expecting some kind of sensation in my belly not my back. They started by hooking me up to an IV for fluids (something to keep me hydrated and penicillin for Group B). My veins are crap and I knew this would be hard (last time I had an IV I got poked five times!) It took a couple tries but they got it in – it wasn’t as bad as I expected but it still hurt. After a few hours the resident came in to break my water and shortly after that I was given an epidural. The guy who did it gave me something really good that got my through the first one with ease (yes I said first) even though it took a couple tries. I now had two tubes running out of me. They hooked me up to the pump and gave me the button. For a few hours I was pressing and pressing it with contractions but was getting no effects. I could still move my legs no problem. The time came when I had to pee and asked the nurse if I could get up to do it or use a bed pan since I had full use of my legs. She said no, they’d have to do a bladder catheter. I pretty much refused and showed her I could use my legs by lifting them up and moving them around like I was riding a bike. She still wouldn’t let me. She pretty much forced the procedure on me without anything to numb the pain. I was furious, humiliated and screaming. It hurt like hell. She didn’t leave it in and took it out saying we’d to it again in an hour or so. No bloody way was that happening.

After a few more hours of agonizing cramps the nurse clued in the epidural wasn’t working. The guy came back in (fresh from a smoke break) and tried again. This time he didn’t give me the happy drug and had to try about six times to actually get it in. Every time he missed he huffed really loudly! This whole time I’m bawling and screaming on Ben’s shoulder. It felt like forever but I think it was only about 20 minutes. By the end of it all this epidural worked and I was able to get relief. The only catch was having not eaten or slept in a long time after a couple shots of relief I had to throw up. This went on all night. I also got another bladder catheter which thankfully I was not able to feel this time (this one was not removed). The nurse said I’d need to be turned every half hour so the pain medicine didn’t collect on one side. Since my body was now dead weight I was getting frustrated I couldn’t turn myself over and Ben was having a hard time helping too with all the hoses attached to me.

I have no idea what time the next batch of probes started but they had to attach a small monitor to Meighen’s head because the external fetal monitor wasn’t picking up her heart beat and they wanted to make sure she was ok – she was. This stupid thing fell off a few times so she had three little holes in her head when she arrived. Shortly after that, the monitor stopped picking up my contractions so they put in another probe to keep an eye on me. By now I haven’t slept in three nights and am totally over emotional and frustrated (crying most of the time). Mom and Ben would calm me down then they both left to grab some coffee. This was when the doctors decided to do the contraction probe which just set me off again. When Ben and Mom got back they were like “what did they do to you now!?” Everyone was getting frustrated and annoyed at what was going on.

Around 7:45 Sunday morning – 20 hours after being moved into the delivery area the doctor on call decided a c-section would be the best and since his shift was ending I’d only have a moment to agree and sign the papers. This was the last thing I wanted and I had a bit of mental breakdown. I had been through so much, was so tired, drugged, hungry, sore and everything else you could imagine. I wanted nothing to do with it. I had no choice but to agree to the surgery but I insisted I be put under for the whole thing. I’d had enough, I just wanted to be knocked out and forget about everything I had done to me and was about to be done to me. The anesthesiologist said she’d do what she could and they moved me into the operating room where they left me exposed on the table which felt like a long time. They gave me more stuff that almost knocked me out but didn’t. At that point my anesthesiologist came up to me, said her shift was over, she was leaving and the new person knows I want to be put out. She wished me luck and left. I was shaking really bad and could hardly talk but I wasn’t cold. I felt a lot of tugging and poking and remember Ben coming in. I threw up a couple times and passed out for good. Ben said it was because I was shaking so bad they couldn’t do the procedure – I needed to be still. When I woke up (only for a few seconds) I looked over and saw Ben with our baby. She was wrapped in a blue blanket with a blue hat on. I asked if she was a boy, Ben said no and I passed back out.

Next thing I remember I was being moved into recovery and I got to see Meighen for the first time. I held her for a couple minutes but couldn’t for long – I was too tired and weak. The nurse in recovery monitored me for an hour and was worried about my breathing because I’d almost stop breathing when I fell asleep. He wanted to send me to the observation ward for them to keep an eye on it. The lady from that department said I was ok and should go to the maternity ward. I was under the impression I could have Ben or Mom and Meighen with me there since the hospital totally prides itself on being a “family orientated facility” where mother, child and partner are together at all times. Those rules didn’t apply in observation. I was up there for a couple hours starting at 11 am Sunday morning. At the end of it the observation supervisor said it was ok to go to the maternity ward but the OB resident said I should stay in observation for 24 hours in case I needed oxygen – they weren’t equipped. How on earth can a part of the hospital not be set up with oxygen?? This made me semi-hysterical because I’d be without Ben and Meighen for 24 hours. It was bad enough I couldn’t really be with her for the first six hours but now throw on another day. I was so frustrated and deflated. I really wanted to breast feed and bond with her and they were making it near impossible. There was a bit of back and forth between departments then Mom then stepped in. It resulted in me being able to go to the maternity ward with Ben and Meighen and they would check my oxygen levels for 24 hours to make sure I was ok. I ended up being just fine. So, we get to the mat. ward mid afternoon on Sunday. All the tubes and hoses came out the next morning. We had two amazing nurses (one day, one night) while we there. I was feeling pretty good the next day and was up walking around without pain killers. We were able to head home Wednesday July 2 (six days after being admitted) and got out of there as soon as we could (around 9 am).

Having gone through hell and back in the hospital my recovery was pretty good. Not as great as the pregnancy but better than a lot of c-section stories I’ve head, read, seen. For about four weeks I was losing all my excess water through my incision. This was scary at first given the amount of water coming out at a time but it eventually eased off and stopped all together. About a week or two after coming home my incision became infected and I took a course of antibiotics. It took a couple weeks but that too cleared up. I wasn’t bed ridden or in need of many pain killers from the first day home. I was up and about quite a lot – well it took me forever to get up, but when I did I was on the go. My second day home (fourth after having Meg) Ben and I were downtown at my office (getting paperwork for maternity benefits) and enjoying a nice lunch out. By the end of the week we were at my folks for a few days and took in a movie. I had a wicked head ache for about two weeks and I still occasionally have shooting pain from my lower back to my neck. It felt like forever but at around four weeks post-partum I had lost all my water (no more swelling!!) and by eight weeks I was back down to my pre-pregnancy weight. There’s been no looking back since then…. until I go through reliving it all once a month.

For the most part I think I’m ok about it now although I get really angry when I think about everything that went down. Am I happy with the end result… very much so, I love my Meighen more than anything. Would I go through it again? If I knew going into it how it’d be – yes I’d do it again to get her. Does that mean I’d intentionally do it again for a second child? That – I’m not too sure about.

I’m a little late with this weeks update but here it is anyways.

Wow, Meighen’s 12 weeks old now and she’ll be technically three months next week on the 29th. This week didn’t bring any huge changes in what she does day to day. She may be going on a growth spurt as she’s eating a ton more. Meighen’s new thing this week is waking up at some ridiculous hour (4 or 5 am), crying for a bubby (bottle). After she gets that and a cuddle she’s back to sleep for a while longer.

She’s up to about 46 ounces a day but not really packing on the pounds. She’s in no way a chubby baby. I may start her on a smidge of pablum in her bottle is she continues to get up at night. I don’t get why she’s starting to do this now when she’s been a phenomenal sleeper so far. Ah well it could be way worse so no complaints here.

I’ve heard from a few moms with older babies to enjoy the cuddles now before they disappear. Soon she’ll be pushing us away wanting to start her own toddler adventures. I hope she still wants to snuggle at some point… even it’s only before bed for a while.

Something cool that happened this past weekend was Meggy took some baby steps. We hold her up to stand (usually on our lap or tummy) so she can get used to putting weight on her legs. She holds this position for a while before her knees drop and she’s on her bum (we hold her around the tummy the whole time). When I was holding her she took a forward step from my lap to my belly, then my belly to my chest, then to my shoulder, etc. She was taking little steps! It was awesome and a glimpse at what’s to come.

She’s also getting ready to laugh. A couple times she almost did it but it was short a syllable or two. It was more a ha-ha vs a ha-ha-ha. She leaves us hanging every time!

We’ve had a busy week so far. We got up twice to take Ben to the train so we could have the car during the day. We hung out at the car dealership while we got our tires re-rotated back to the original position (the first rotation made it way noisier) and we went downtown today for an appointment. This weekend we’re going to Grammy’s to celebrate her birthday. It’s actually on Thursday but it’s not the easiest to get to her place during the week. Her birthday is also our wedding anniversary (our third this year). = ) We always go out for a nice dinner – seems to be traditionally Red Lobster because the Endless Shrimp promotion is on at the same time every year.

That’s about it for now. If I don’t update again early next week I’ll be sure to after her three month check up on October 2.

welcome to our new meggy blog…  jess will probably be keeping it up to date mostly!

So I’ve come into a bit of money and been doing some shopping. I’m trying not to get too carried away and am putting a good chunk of it on my credit card, some aside for Christmas shopping, and money towards a possible road trip in October. Meighen doesn’t really need anything – she’s got lots of clothes and doesn’t play with toys just yet. That somehow hasn’t stopped me from dropping $150 on baby stuff. Toys-R-Us has a big “baby days” sale on right now. If you buy two can Nestle formula you get a $10 gift card for the store. On specially marked tins you also get a coupon for Blockbuster for two free new release rentals and a package of popcorn. So, I bought four tins and got $20 in gift cards. When I went back this weekend to get the third and fourth tin they had a mega two-day sale on diapers! Ka-ching! A 112 pack of diapers for $15 (marked down from $25) so I bought four packages, haha. Hopefully she doesn’t outgrow them before we can use them all. I also picked up six large bottles since she sometimes drinks more than five ounces at a time and that’s all our current bottles hold. I kind of cheaped out on the large bottles (plastic Gerber) so I may exchange some for the glass ones. Hopefully we have enough formula to do her a month and diapers for two months! Since I’m on mat leave I now pay attention to the flyers we get in the community paper and shop around for all the sales.

Today we did dim-sum with my sister (yum yum dim sum). It was Meighen’s first time, but not her last. When I was pregnant and we were checking out Sears last fall, I saw a pair of training chopsticks for kids – how sweet is that! Since then I haven’t been able to find them anywhere (no Wal-mart, Toys-R-Us or Sears!). We were heading up to the Vaughan Mills mega mall to hit Bass Pro so we stopped in at Baby-Land. It was a fantastic store full of everything you could imagine for babies. Thing is, everything was WAY overpriced. I saw a package, a single package of wipes, for $25! What the hell! They were also selling a single glass Evenflo bottle for $15 when you can get the same thing at Wal-Mart for $4. Crazy! Anyways, they did have the chopsticks so I grabbed them to put away till she’s old enough to use them. When I was cashing out I noticed they also had little two ounce food containers that you can freeze and microwave. I bought a few packages of those. They’ll come in super handy when Meg starts on big girl food in a few months. I’ve heard that ice cube trays do the same thing but they seem better off for mushy fruit and veggies. These containers come with lids so I think it’d hold up a bit better than uncovered cube trays – we’ll have to wait and see.

Yesterday we went to Kelsey’s with Pere (Ben’s dad) for lunch. Our waiter was a newbee. He was trying his best but really lacked in personality. It was funny though, he gave us a card with our bill that was handwritten. “You win the Kelsey’s award for the most well behaved and quietest baby.” It’s true! Meg’s awesome when we go out. We were out and about for six hours today and she didn’t fuss till we were almost home. She’s always been good as gold in restaurants and stores. Hopefully that trait will continue though her toddler years. Wishful thinking I know.

(this is the last post from the previous site on babycrowd.com)

The last few weeks I’ve been trying to get Meighen to wear things on her feet since Fall is coming up quick. She seems to be ok with socks meaning she doesn’t freak when wearing them BUT she kicks them off in no time. We don’t have any shoes for newborn, they’re all quite large for her. There’s one pair of bunny slippers that fit her but they too don’t stay on long. We were given a few pairs of Robeez baby shoes as gifts. At first I thought they were a bit unusual looking but I thought I’d try them on today. They’re awesome! She hasn’t been able to kick them off all day! Genius idea. I’m lucky to have three different colours: pink with lambs, purple with butterflies and white with ladybugs – a pair for every outfit, tee hee. I can’t wait till she fits into the moccasins Grammy bought her. That’ll be cute (and comfy for Meg!).

 It’s been a good week – we finally got out of the house! We’ve been staying in mostly out of my laziness but times are changing. Early this week we walked over to Wal-mart, did some shopping and stopped at McDonald’s for lunch – a two hour trip. Wednesday Ben had the boys over for D&D so I took Meg shopping for a few hours. Yesterday we went downtown to my company to have lunch with a couple of the girls. After we went back to the office and hung out for a bit catching up on all the recent changes. We then went to Ben’s office and hung there for an hour or so. When we got back we walked over to the grocery store to get some things for tonight’s dinner – that was an hour trip. Tomorrow we’re seeing Pere (Ben’s dad) and Sunday we’re dim summing with Auntie Julie and visiting with Ben’s friend afterwards. Our weekends are pretty full till after Thanksgiving. Now if only I can get motivated to start sorting the basement.

Meighen is 10 weeks old now. This past week she’s started drooling. Now that there’s excess liquid she’s making bubbles. It’s kinda cute but I’m always wiping her mouth, heh. Another new thing for Meg is watching TV and computers. Before she ignored them but now that her sight is better and her little mind is developing she’s quite taken by them. It could also be the light, she loves lights and bright things. Meggy also loves to sit up. She’s no where near ready to do so on her own but she loves it when we sit her up and she seems to accept being in her Bumbo for short periods of time. She’s taking shorter naps during the day and going down around 10:30 – 11:30 pm for at least 7-9 solid hours. She must have Mommy’s sleep gene.

I’ve been trying to get a video of her smiling. We play a little more each day and she’s all smiles, till I pull the camera out. Then she’s more interested in the little black box and not what Mom is doing. One day I will get it!

My little girl is two months old now (9 weeks). We had our monthly check up last Friday and she’s doing great. She’s up to 10 lbs 12 oz and is 23.5” tall. I question the height since she was 23” last month. Surely she’s grown more than that! She also had her first round of immunizations. It was harder on me and Ben than it was her. She only cried for a few minutes and was easily calmed after snuggling with Mom. She slept most of it off on the ride to Grammy’s but I think it upset her tummy for a couple days as there was more spit up than normal. While we were at the doctor I had my post-partum check up. Everything’s ok. My blood pressure is still slightly elevated but on a good note I’ve lost ALL the baby weight already!! I’m back down to my pre-pregnancy weight. I’m hoping to keep it up and hopefully lose another 50 lbs. I’d like to lose more but 50 is a good start.

Grammy’s was good. We got to take in a movie (Death Race), sleep without worrying about Meg, chill in the pool with alcoholic beverages and swing by the amazing second hand baby store to pick up a stroller. While we love the Graco Snap-and-Go stroller frame for the carseat I wanted something more robust that she can lay down in while we walk around the neighbourhood. They had an amazing Graco super duper stroller for cheap but it didn’t collapse easily, wasn’t compact when collapsed, Meighen couldn’t lay all the way down in it, and the handle didn’t flip from front to back – all features I really wanted. It’s important I can handle collapsing it and getting it in the car when I’m on my own. We settled on an older Peg Prego model that’s not as snazzy and pretty as the newer ones but it has everything I wanted and was really clean – for $75 we can’t go wrong.

Last week we swung by Ben’s brothers for a visit and to check out some baby clothes. Out of four boxes we took two. I don’t think Meggy needs any more clothes till she’s at least a year old (maybe older). We’ve got a number of boxes cleaned, folded and ready for her to grow into. They’ve also got a play saucer (not sure of that’s what it’s called) and a crib aquarium that we can have. Oh, and we got a box of toys too! Meg is certainly well taken care of through our families.

I started looking into daycare the other week (not sure if I already mentioned). Can you believe that daycare in downtown Toronto is $1400 a month!?! That’s for an infant to attend full time. Good god. It gets cheaper as she gets older (18 months +) We can sort of afford that, it’s about what I’m losing each month being on mat leave but it wouldn’t leave us with very much to put away in savings. We can’t do daycare closer to the house since we’re gone almost 12 hours a day between work and the commute. Our best option is to bring her with us downtown each day to avoid paying the hefty fees if we’re late getting her. This way she’s only in daycare from 7:45 am – 5:30 pm vs 6:45 am – 6:30 pm. Our neighbour (who we adore) mentioned she might consider taking in a kid or two to bring in some extra cash (her husband is the sole salary in the household and they don’t have kids). This is the perfect solution for us. I’ll be sure to ask her about it next time we do tea. Another option we’re considering is moving and getting out of the city. Our money will go so much further anywhere outside of Toronto . If we relocate closer to my folks I can probably get away with working part-time (if Ben get’s a great job) and Grammy would look after Meg on those days. This way I’d be able to mostly raise her myself and when I do have to work at least she’s with family. We’re totally considering it – we’d get a bigger and better house, taxes are cheaper, automobile fees are cheaper, the air is cleaner, smaller class sizes when Meg’s in school, and we’d be able to have more “extra” money for adult toys and family vacations (something we do without right now).

That’s about it for this week (if it wasn’t long enough already). Lots to do around the house this week to get ready for our annual BBQ. We’ve got 12 people coming next weekend to squeeze in one last hurrah before fall arrives.