motherhood

Lately I've had a thought on my mind and since Mother's Day is tomorrow, and since I was prompted by a friend, I figured I would try to write those thoughts down.

Not too long ago I was on the phone with my mom while I was feeding Willa. I tend to make my phone calls during that time because I know I won't have to worry about her suddenly crying and not being able to hear the other person or needing to quickly get off to see to her. She must have thought I was talking to her because she locked eyes with me and just smiled the entire time I was talking. I started laughing and told my mom, "Willa's eating and grinning at me. It's the cutest thing!" Her response, "Aw, I remember that. I always loved when y'all did that."

I'm not sure why, but even as I type that it brings tears to my eyes. These days I'm getting to share experiences with my mom that I never considered. We discuss lack of sleep, the beginnings of training, nursing, and so many other things. I am just now on the receiving end of these experiences, and they are over for her. It breaks my heart to consider being in her shoes one day. 

As I love and nurture my sweet baby it brings home to me that my mom did all of that for me. The incredibly huge and difficult sacrifices. The long, lonely days. The sleepless nights. The hours of holding a crying baby when all you can do is rock and cry along with them. Feeling inadequate, frustrated, unworthy, worried, and so in love...all at the same time. It's every emotion you've ever felt mixed with sleep deprivation and joy and it's overwhelming. It's motherhood and it's rewarded by those sleepy smiles, those tiny hands reaching out to touch your face, the little nose nuzzling in your neck.

I said it breaks my heart to consider being in her shoes...but I look at Willa and I wish for her all the joys that life has to offer. I wish for her a husband of her own one day, a house to make her own. Children for her to love and nurture. And I know I'll be there too, just as my mom and mother-in-law are. Always there to call and ask questions about dirty diapers, breastfeeding, and sleep. Always there to say "it's ok, give her a bottle if you need to", "let me come over between feedings and hold her so you can sleep", "no, you eat right now while I hold her", "you're doing the very best for her, just trust yourself".

I believe one of the hardest parts about being a mom is the guilt we feel if we ever do anything that doesn't fall under the description of being a mom. But when I take up the offer to babysit and I see Willa with her grandmothers, when I see their love for her, their care and their nurturing towards their granddaughter...I realize that once you have a baby you never stop being a mama. I get to share motherhood with my mom now, and it is the sweetest thing. I am more grateful for her than I've ever been, more thankful than I could ever express...and I know she understands.

Happy Mother's Day!

Willa's Birth Story

I wanted to document this story here because even though I journal, I also go back through old blog posts occasionally and read the "polished up" stories of my history. I also love reading birth stories and thought just maybe, there's someone out there who would enjoy reading mine.

We didn't find out the gender of our baby until she was born, but we had a boy name and a girl name picked out from the very beginning - before we even knew I was expecting. We didn't tell those names to anyone, not even our family! They knew the middle names would be mine or Brandon's depending on the gender, but that was all. All along I knew I wanted Brandon to tell me who it was I had given birth to.

I was due on December 17, but I was ready to get that baby out by Thanksgiving. Pregnancy was definitely NOT something I have any fond memories of. It was fun feeling her move, but that's where the good times ended! However, nothing was progressing...at all. I believe I may have had some Braxton Hicks but even that I'm unsure of. I was so incredibly swollen and around 7 months my stomach went pretty numb. I'm not sure what I felt beyond discomfort.

I was at the point where I was going to the doctor every week. At around 36 weeks the baby was already measuring over 7 pound so our bags were packed, carseat installed, and Brandon was instructed to have his phone on him AT ALL TIMES! No one thought I'd make it to my due date but after every appointment I had to text my parents, in-laws, and siblings and say "nothing yet".

Finally, at one of those appointments a couple of weeks before my due date, we went ahead and scheduled to be induced on December 19. I love love love my doctor, and this insured she would be on call and I wouldn't miss her by winding up going into labor over Christmas. Plus, this baby was big and none of us thought my body could handle going much longer.

Sure enough, December 17 came and went like any other day. Then the 18th passed us by, and December 19 was here. That week was an eternity long! It was a Thursday, and I spent the day resting, packing the rest of my things, showering and curling my hair, and I made BLT's for supper. We were supposed to be at the hospital at 8pm so we cleaned the kitchen, then tried to watch a show. I was fighting a panic attack the entire time and broke down sobbing on the way to the hospital. I still get weepy thinking about it. It was our last night just the two of us, and oh how I loved my time just the two of us! Brandon will always be my favorite person in the entire world and I was so excited to give him this gift of our baby but I also needed to say goodbye to this phase of our lives. HE played Christmas music the whole way there and pointed out all the houses lit up for the holiday. It's my favorite season, and how special we were on our way to have the best gift of all.

We got checked in and I got checked and sure enough - NO PROGRESS! It's funny now, but we just shrugged our shoulders. Whenever someone would ask me my birth plan I told them I had one step: get an epidural. I'm honest about my lack of pain tolerance, and I was TERRIFIED of labor and delivery. I knew I would have to "suck it up" for the healing process, so I wanted to enjoy having this baby as much as possible. Being induced isn't ideal and I hope next time I go on my own, but I will always hope for an epidural! It was truly amazing (for me).

They started the induction that night and Brandon and I tried to sleep. I was constantly being checked and his "bed" was pretty awful so it was a sleepless night. I don't remember when they started the pitocin but it was sometime the next day. They ended up giving me a pain killer in my IV that allowed me to get some sleep through the contractions, and then that afternoon the epidural went in. I still wasn't progressing much though, and it was pretty disheartening. I was getting so hungry, and I kept sending Brandon out to drive around, eat something...anything to help him kill time. I had really bad sinus drainage my entire pregnancy and this day was no different. I started feeling pretty sick that afternoon and chugging water and sprite to "fill up" my stomach only helped me empty it. I only thought the past 9 months had been miserable...

I finally started progressing more late in the afternoon. We'd pulled an all nighter and just wanted to have this baby! At some point the epidural rerouted itself and I was in a ton of pain. Brandon talked me through each contraction but I was sobbing and the nurses were doing everything they could to help me. I ended up getting a second epidural and relaxed so much. I was talking about how I couldn't decide between Chick-fil-A or Arby's once I could eat again (I craved fast food the whole pregnancy) but at this point we were getting close to midnight. 

I don't know what time the nurses checked me, but I was finally close enough that if nothing happened in the next couple of minutes they were going to have to get me ready for a ceserean. Like I said, I had a simple birth plan. I only wanted to get my baby here as safely as possible for both of us. They called my doctor, I gave one practice push, and we were good to go! 

I don't know how long I pushed or how many times I did. I remember feeling so sick from the reflux laying flat on my back and they "broke the rules" and let Brandon give me some Tums. He picked a blue one and a pink one and melted all the nurses hearts. 

My doctor was the only one who knew the gender so each time a nurse's shift would end she'd tell the next one to text her when the baby was born and tell her what it was. I will never forget pushing (thankfully not feeling a single thing), and feeling like superwoman with the nurses, my doctor, and Brandon cheering me on and telling me how great I was doing. At 2:45am on Saturday, December 21, the baby was finally born. A misconception about epidurals is that you miss the experience...let me tell you, I did not. I fully enjoyed the experience and knew the second the baby was no longer inside of me. 

I'll never as long as I live regret not finding out if the baby was a boy or girl. The moment Brandon turned back to me and said, "It's Willa" will forever be engrained in my memory. It's a priceless moment to me, one I'd been looking forward to my entire life. I was shocked because I was convinced it was a boy, and the nurses were crying. 

She weighed 8 pounds, 4 ounces, and was 21.5 inches long.

We brought her home on Monday, December 23, 2019.

Our Christmas baby, a little angel.

My niece Josie was born in January two years ago, and my brother brought a huge bag of her pink clothes to the hospital for us!

I believe the "fourth trimester" is real and hard, and I'll talk about that (hopefully) in my next post. Thank you for reading!

hello again

I have no idea how to start this post so I'm just going to just jump right into it!

Honestly, I have SO MANY things I want to write about. I want to do a post all about my thoughts on postpartum life - the emotions, adjustments, etc... (it's so hard and I just now feel more like myself). I want to write about how my entire world has changed, I want to update you on our house progress, I want to write about all the things! But right now the most prevalent thought in my mind is fear.

About three weeks ago a tornado ripped through areas 30 and 45 minutes away from me. It literally touched down, destroyed homes and businesses, picked up and dropped the trash on my county, and then touched back down on the other side and was even more destructive. People lost their lives, an entire family was killed, and they are still working on the recovery of these areas. We got the alert on our phones late that night, we heard the strong winds, we experienced that eery silence and then the random hail that followed. I was nervous, but the tornado watch had already ended so I didn't know the extent until the next morning. Was I practicing faith or was I just able to relax because of my ignorance?

The following Thursday we were warned of heavy winds, rain, and hail coming through that night, the possibility of more tornadoes...in MY area. That whole day I held Willa tighter, called Brandon more, and prayed so hard. In these instances none of us are exempt. None of us have any control. We went to bed and I pulled Willa's bassinet right up next to our bed. We prayed, we fell asleep, and it only rained a little. God was there and he was protecting us. But where was my faith then?

Now we're facing a virus and the panic and chaos surrounding it is something I've never experienced before. It isn't just my county, my state, or even my country. I honestly haven't been sure how to react. There's a temptation to panic simply because everyone else is panicking. I have no advice on what we should do. When I heard they might close grocery stores down for 2 weeks I felt like I needed to go out and get a bunch of stuff but then I took stock of what we have. I was already stocked up on groceries because I have a three month old and I don't like to get her out much anyway (she never left our house until she was a month old). I've always practiced social distancing because I'm introverted. But faced with the chance of having no choice? Of stores limiting what we're allowed to buy? The government controlling where we go? That's different, isn't it.

I don't know what this is going to do to our nation. I have no idea what's going to happen to the economy. I don't believe we should bury our heads in the sand and act like nothing is going on, but I also don't think we can put our lives on hold. We're building a house and I want to move in. So Brandon goes to work, does what he can at the new house, then comes home and washes his hands before holding his little girl. I wipe our phones down with alcohol at night, I wash my hands more often. We take our vitamins, I keep my baby at home. Let's practice cleanliness as much as we can, let's not share our germs as much as we can, let's stay home as much as we can, and let's trust God to guide us when and if we need to do more. That's what we're doing anyway, and I remind myself multiple times a day not to dwell on "what if's". As a naturally anxious person I've learned the best way to not worry is to not think about the things that make me worry. 

As her mother and father, we meet all of Willa's needs and protect her. As our Father, the Lord will do the same for us. Have the faith of my three month old and rest in Him.