84+ in 7.

if you think you have an idea of just how often and how many diapers you will change when you have a newborn, you are sadly mistaken. i thought i was pretty mentally prepared to change a million diapers, but i didnt expect that my little man would need to be changed just about every five minutes.

not only does he poop every single time he eats, which lately has been about every two hours, he poos just for fun in between feedings and pees almost constantly. the best part is when im changing him and the exact moment his little heiny feels a clean diaper underneath it, he feels the need to poo again, so then we get to start the entire process all over again. fun fun. especially when hes a little cold and hating the fact that the lower part of his body is uncovered.

a word of advice.

in my head the reason that people enjoy my blog is because i am brutally and sometimes too honest with the things that i go through. but i have always been an open person and i believe that a lot of other women have gone through these same things but are too embarrassed to talk about it. and even if they havent, who cares?

as i am sure many of you remember, i touched on the subject of kegel exercises back in march when i first realized that every tiny sneeze or burst of laughter may cause me to pee on myself. i started the kegels and after a short while i did notice that i was no longer crossing my legs to prep myself before every sneeze. this particular blog is to warn all you preggos out there that you must, i repeat, you must continue the kegels as soon as you can after you give birth.

once home from the hospital after pushing a 6 lb baby (i know, hes little, i have no right to complain) out of my downtown, i was not thinking of the kegels or anything else that work the muscles of that area that was already sore, stitched up, and swollen beyond recognition. bad move. once i was healed, or on the way to a normal vagine, i shouldve started those kegels back up with a vengence! and you should too!

after returning home from some errands the other day, i squatted down to unbuckle avery and save him from the confines of his car seat. while in this fabulously attractive squatting position, i felt a sneeze coming on, and then realized that is is terribly difficult to clench the downtown muscles during a squat and that there was no possible way that i could stand up in time... so i sneezed in my squat and i didnt just pee on myself a little, i definitely peed. i peed like i had been holding it for ten minutes and finally reached a bathroom. it was absolutely no fun and all i could think was 'thank goodness this happened while i was home.'

so to all you pregnant women out there reading this blog, continue with your kegels, they may just save you from peeing on yourself during a squat.

in other news: we had some pics taken of the little man! you can go to this website to get a little sneak peak at whats to come... hes just too cute!

libby benson photography

65 degrees is chilly.

ok, i have to admit that the only reason im making a blog entry right now is just to show off how adorable my baby is... i know, im such a mom. but geez, how cute is this little man? and i was so absolutely worried that i would not make a cute baby.

i decided the other day that i think i might have been kinda different throughout my pregnancy... never once was i really scared about how i would be as a mom after he was born, and i think thats a pretty normal worry that most new moms have. but the second we were left alone with him in the hospital, i was totally scared that i was gonna do something wrong; and that was in the hospital, where there are highly trained professionals that have the ability to fix any mistake i may make with my newborn son. so imagine my fear once we were finally home and on our own...

my biggest worry is SIDS.
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
and while i appreciate that there is so much information out there on how to lessen the odds, i also kinda hate it. i feel like i am constantly reading all the different things to look out for and all the different preventative measures you can take, and it is turning me into a crazy person! i read somewhere that if your baby gets too warm he can stop breathing so keep your house at 65 degrees, but you read everywhere else to keep your baby warm because thats the way he was in the womb and he likes to be that way. and then i find myself waking up every hour of the night even if he isnt crying just to make sure hes still breathing... its enough to drive any new mom crazy.

so after three weeks i feel like ive calmed down a little. the hubs and i even left the little man with my parents for a couple hours last night so we could have a mini date, but of course we missed him an hour into dinner. hopefully my confidence will continue to slowly build up and my craziness will start to fade away, but i doubt that will happen anytime soon.

dont be scurred.

my sweet little man.

it has been brought to my attention that i may have scared the poop out of some readers with my pregnancy story. that was not at all my intent, actually, i left out the bad parts to spare some of you who have not yet had children.

i know a lot of what i wrote probably did sound bad but it truly wasnt terrible. i think that the worst part of the entire day was the vomitting. the breaking of my water wasnt pleasant in any way, but nothing that would make you think 'oh my gosh i cant do this ever again!' ha ha! and there was some pain in the beginning when i was still trying to be all hard core and refusing pain meds, but after that, i truly didnt feel anything. youre so numb with the epidural that you really dont even know where youre pushing when they tell you to push. ha ha!

i dont know that everyone would agree with me on this because my dad and my sister reported hearing a few very loud and seemingly in pain other pregnant women down my hall... they were worried that i would hear them too and freak out, but i didnt, so that was good. and when i was going through my pushing time, i didnt make any noise, i think all the screaming that some women do is just for effect, or because they too became obsessed with the discovery health channel and watched 263 birth stories and felt the need to emulate all of those women that screamed bloody murder during labor.

so dont be scared. even though i am not one of those ladies that absolutely loved being pregnant, i still plan on doing it a couple more times, so it couldnt be that bad.

my baby boy.

my little man is sleeping next to me right now so im thinking i have a little time to start to tell you all of the awesome tale of averys birth. ha ha!

we arrived at the hospital around 7:15 AM on the 18th. i get all checked in, change into my fabulous hopsital gown and by 8 AM i am all hooked up to my IV with pitocin pumping into me. ahhh! the contractions start shortly after, at this point they really arent anything i cant handle.

a couple hours into the pit and my dr decides that she is going to break my water which is about as pleasant as you might think it would be. she took what looked to me like a solid crazy straw with a point and put it in my downtown, after poking around for a bit she thinks she has broken it and i am instructed to let the nurse know when i feel the 'water' come out. this does not happen. so about an hour later they decide it needs to be done again, after some more poking around they think that the little mans head is probably blocking things which is not allowing the water to come. bah.

after the attempts at water breaking the contractions are starting to get pretty painful, but i am still holding strong to my efforts of going au naturale. by around 3-ish i am in tears and have decided that i need something for the pain. and of course by the time i decide i want something, the anesthesiologist is going to be busy for awhile so they offer to give me meds through my IV. i was a little worried about this option because i knew those meds would affect the baby but my nurse convinced me that doing it just once wouldnt be terrible and they were monitoring the baby so everything would be fine. oh yeah, at this point i have an internal fetal monitor to keep an eye on the baby. so i get the IV drugs and it totally knocks me out and made me feel so weird. i kept falling asleep and everytime i did i would dream and the dreams were like the prius commercials with all the people that make up the trees and the sun and such...

Prius Commercial

finally the crazy drugs wear off and the epidural guy comes to the rescue! im not sure if many of you know this, but i was absolutely terrified to get an epidural, i honestly think i havent been more scared in my life, i was literally shaking when i knew it was about to happen... i am so lucky that i had my husband and my mom in there with me. wade was absolutely wonderful in keeping me calm. :) the pain finally stops when the meds kick in but im not completely numb, i can still move my legs with some effort.

hours later and still no little man, so i need another epidural. this time they definitely gave me more than they did the first time because i could not move anything below my waist at all. it was a little weird. and i also now have a catheter because i cant walk to go to the bathroom. so im like some weird tube lady laying there with a million tubes coming out of her everywhere...

at this point it had been well over 12 hours since i had eaten and you know im a fat kid so i start having some terrible heartburn. im ok'd to try a tums or a pepcid to help with that. terrible idea. maybe an hour after i take the pepcid, i start vomitting, only i hadnt eaten anything in forever so it was basically stomach bile that was tinted purple from the meds. blegh. and the vomitting continued throughout the rest of the day, we even had to take a break from pushing because i was dry heaving so much. not fun at all.

it is now around 9 pm and its finally time to start pushing, but at this point i am so exhausted i am literally falling asleep between contractions. since i banished wade to 'head up' (i cant imagine how attractive i could seem to him after seeing all the grossness come outta the downtown...) he is given the job of putting an oxygen mask on me in between the pushings. and my mom and my sister are holding my legs which birk did not want to do at all... ha ha! so everyone in the room is being super supportive and trying to talk me through pushing and they are all so into it that i cant even hear the dr counting so i have to tell them to take it down a notch. then the dr tells me to 'push like i have to poop,' after wil hears this he decides that his new method of encouragement will be 'poop babe, poop!' but then i am trying so hard not to laugh that im not pushing at all so i then have to tell him to stop telling me to poop. ha ha! crazy kid.

at 10:18 my little man finally made his fashionably late grand entrance into the world. i instantly woke up, the exhaustion completely disappeared the moment they put my tiny little baby in my arms, and i was totally selfish and held him myself the whole time, wil and i just stared at him, it was amazing.