Sunday, February 27, 2011
Waiting for the domino's to start
It's been three weeks since the birth center has seen any births. We have 3 women who have reached their due date and a handful who are due in a couple of days. Guesses as to who would start the domino effect took place in clinic this past week. Knowing that several women have a chance of going into labor this weekend in particular makes me a little nervous. Next week at school we have two major exams, one in A & P, and the other in Micro. I'm not so worried about A & P as I have an A in the class and I know I can drop my lowest exam, but the same does not hold true for Micro. According to the grades of our last exam, only two people in the class passed, and they only passed by one point! I was not one of them. I failed by 3 points. Studying this weekend is of absolute necessity!! I could, however, be slammed with births and not have much time for studying. What's a student to do? I feel that I can't keep up sometimes. My children need my attention, my husband needs my attention, my school work needs my attention, and my house needs my attention. And, oh, how my house needs my attention. Every week when I come home from being gone three or four days, depending on the week, my house looks like a bomb went off! I swear all the cleaning and picking up stops the moment I leave the house. Something needs to be done! As of this weekend, I am officially not doing a ton of house work when I come home. The rest of the family needs to figure out how to help keep the house up. It is not fair, and yes I know that life is not fair, that I have to come home and clean for two days. I have things to do. I have things I'd like to do with my kids. I would like to take a little time to relax. How then am I supposed to do it all? Especially with the crazy schedule that is approaching with woman after woman due? I keep telling myself it's only 2 1/2 more years. I can do anything for 2 1/2 years. Just know that this journal may be filled with the ranting and raving thoughts of this student midwife!
Saturday, January 3, 2009
A New Year, A New Perspective
Some people think I'm SuperMom, but I really don't think I'm that super! So let's just call me Mom. I am a bit sarcastic, fun loving, adventurous, a little scatter brained, and a bit of an over achiever. My wonderful husband of 9 1/2 years, we'll he's pretty much the same. We met while working at Disney, you know the happiest place on earth? We both worked in characters and were dancers for the parades. We were dance partners and we connected right away. We have three beautiful daughters, Wild Thing (8) who is spunky, sweet, sensitive, and yet has been a handful since the day she was born. Next is Monkey (5) who loves climbing trees, running around barefoot, jumping on furniture (despite thousands of reprimands), makes grunting and whining noises when she wants something, and although she is well trained and loving she sometimes gets mischievous. Then there's Gremlin (3), the name just about sums her up! She changes from the sweet, adorable, innocent Mogwai into the malicious green eyed monster! Lastly, we have our little boy who we call "Bubbies" but don't ask me where the name came from. He is 3 months old and doesn't have a real nickname yet but he is easy going, quiet, and just absolutely adorable!
So here we are in 2009 after a year that could be described as a nightmare! But let's just call it a great learning experience! Here is a synopsis of the past year to get you caught up on our crazy life!
Just before Christmas in 2007 my DH was offered a job transfer to Tennessee just across the North Carolina border. He's always wanted to continue his education and attend school for music ministry and possibly seminary to further his call to ministry. Just outside of town is a fantastic private school that offered just that, a great Pastor of Music program that was just calling his name! We though with the hours of the job in the job description he would be able to attend part time and finish in 4 years. The kids were young enough to acclimate, we homeschool and wouldn't have to have them go through the difficulty of changing schools, and I've always wanted to relocate to the mountains to live in a slightly different climate other than the scorching weather here in Florida, so we decided to give it a go. Little did we know, our perfect portrait was painted with water color and it was about to pour!
In January 2008, a few days before the movers were to pack our things and take them away to our new home, we found out I was expecting #4! We were absolutely thrilled and what else could be better than starting a new life in a new place with another little blessing? As I experienced with my other pregnancies I became violently sick for the first 16 weeks! I could barely get off the couch let alone teach my kids, cook, and keep a tidy house! Being a birth assistant I looked for a group of midwives that would attend another home birth and found that while there were practicing midwives around, they were underground and illegal in NC! So I found and obstetrician who would attend a home birth. Around the beginning of my second trimester I began having heart palpitations, sweats, difficulty breathing, and panic attacks. To our surprise I had a hyper active thyroid! The constant visits to various doctors began. Then at my ultrasound at 18 weeks I was diagnosed with a complete placenta previa, where the placenta completely covers the cervix, and I was put on bed rest! Now with a high risk pregnancy, a husband working an hour away each day, and not knowing anyone to help with the kids, we decided it would be best for me to come back to FL and stay with my parents until the baby was born. My mother would be able to help with the kids during the pregnancy and after the c-section delivery I was now expecting.
The girls and I arrived in FL during the last week in May and by mid July things had taken quite a radical turn! My thyroid was now normal and the placenta had moved, but I was now borderline gestational diabetic and my blood pressure was high. I was not on bed rest anymore but I was still trying to stay low key. Around this time my mother was diagnosed with Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma and we were looking at several months of chemo. I felt like God placed all of these circumstances in our path to get us to where we were. I was now there for my mother!
My husband would visit every other weekend and continued to work in TN while we anxiously awaited the arrival of our new addition. September came and we scheduled an induction so we could time my husbands vacation time appropriately. As a birth assistant I was aware of all of the consequences of an induction but we decided in this case it was the only option to ensure my husband could be there! During the induction my little Bubbies decided he wasn't ready to come out and he turned himself right around to a complete breech position! We decided to stop the contractions and try an external manual version, the technical jargon for turning the baby around. We tried twice to stop the contractions but they just wouldn't let up so we went ahead and did the version through them and boy was that worse than any of my other natural labors! I finally decided to get an epidural, my first one ever, and last might I add, to take away the pain from turning the baby. One hour later I was trying NOT to push and waiting for the doctor to arrive! Our beautiful baby boy was born minutes later! From the start he was difficult to get to nurse which had not experienced with my daughters as they took right to it and ate vigorously. Compounding the problem was my being readmitted to the hospital after a trip to the ER for severely high blood pressure with a headache. They reported that I had a pulmonary embolism and I would not be able to nurse for 3 days following my CAT scan! So onto the bottle he went with stored breast milk that I had been pumping. I spent the next two days in the hospital before a second opinion came in that I did not in fact have a PE! My doctor decided to do an additional scan to make sure and it was clear and I was released from the hospital to restart our life with our newly expanded family! My little Bubbies still refuses to nurse most of the time and I continue to pump breastmilk for him every 6 hours. It's been quite an overwhelming experience and I've found myself diagnosed with postpartum depression despite prayers and a constant awareness of the need to be happy. In my 8 years of birth assisting I have seen many mothers through PPD but I never thought I would be in their shoes one day. I am thankful for the little blue pills I take each evening before bed that allow me to feel like myself again!
We had a wonderful Chrismas with my husband being here for two week! I was glad he was here as we finished off our year on a sad note when we had to put our family dog of 13 years down the day before New Years Eve.
My husband has been looking for a job back in FL and we are awaiting word on a possible transfer back with the same company! Tomorrow I take on the roll of the single mother again as he leaves to return to work for two more weeks after which he will be home for his birthday. I will be so relieved when our time apart will be over and we can be together as a family under one roof again! Oh how this has changed our family! It has taken a toll on each one of us including our children. But it has also made us stronger as individuals and as a family unit! We've grown closer yet we were apart.
Living at my parents house has been challenging at best, but it has taught me more about myself, God's tremendous grace, my ability to persevere through the roughest season in my life, and how much I treasure my family! I look forward to a fabulous New Year with so many possibilities and many more blessings!
So here we are in 2009 after a year that could be described as a nightmare! But let's just call it a great learning experience! Here is a synopsis of the past year to get you caught up on our crazy life!
Just before Christmas in 2007 my DH was offered a job transfer to Tennessee just across the North Carolina border. He's always wanted to continue his education and attend school for music ministry and possibly seminary to further his call to ministry. Just outside of town is a fantastic private school that offered just that, a great Pastor of Music program that was just calling his name! We though with the hours of the job in the job description he would be able to attend part time and finish in 4 years. The kids were young enough to acclimate, we homeschool and wouldn't have to have them go through the difficulty of changing schools, and I've always wanted to relocate to the mountains to live in a slightly different climate other than the scorching weather here in Florida, so we decided to give it a go. Little did we know, our perfect portrait was painted with water color and it was about to pour!
In January 2008, a few days before the movers were to pack our things and take them away to our new home, we found out I was expecting #4! We were absolutely thrilled and what else could be better than starting a new life in a new place with another little blessing? As I experienced with my other pregnancies I became violently sick for the first 16 weeks! I could barely get off the couch let alone teach my kids, cook, and keep a tidy house! Being a birth assistant I looked for a group of midwives that would attend another home birth and found that while there were practicing midwives around, they were underground and illegal in NC! So I found and obstetrician who would attend a home birth. Around the beginning of my second trimester I began having heart palpitations, sweats, difficulty breathing, and panic attacks. To our surprise I had a hyper active thyroid! The constant visits to various doctors began. Then at my ultrasound at 18 weeks I was diagnosed with a complete placenta previa, where the placenta completely covers the cervix, and I was put on bed rest! Now with a high risk pregnancy, a husband working an hour away each day, and not knowing anyone to help with the kids, we decided it would be best for me to come back to FL and stay with my parents until the baby was born. My mother would be able to help with the kids during the pregnancy and after the c-section delivery I was now expecting.
The girls and I arrived in FL during the last week in May and by mid July things had taken quite a radical turn! My thyroid was now normal and the placenta had moved, but I was now borderline gestational diabetic and my blood pressure was high. I was not on bed rest anymore but I was still trying to stay low key. Around this time my mother was diagnosed with Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma and we were looking at several months of chemo. I felt like God placed all of these circumstances in our path to get us to where we were. I was now there for my mother!
My husband would visit every other weekend and continued to work in TN while we anxiously awaited the arrival of our new addition. September came and we scheduled an induction so we could time my husbands vacation time appropriately. As a birth assistant I was aware of all of the consequences of an induction but we decided in this case it was the only option to ensure my husband could be there! During the induction my little Bubbies decided he wasn't ready to come out and he turned himself right around to a complete breech position! We decided to stop the contractions and try an external manual version, the technical jargon for turning the baby around. We tried twice to stop the contractions but they just wouldn't let up so we went ahead and did the version through them and boy was that worse than any of my other natural labors! I finally decided to get an epidural, my first one ever, and last might I add, to take away the pain from turning the baby. One hour later I was trying NOT to push and waiting for the doctor to arrive! Our beautiful baby boy was born minutes later! From the start he was difficult to get to nurse which had not experienced with my daughters as they took right to it and ate vigorously. Compounding the problem was my being readmitted to the hospital after a trip to the ER for severely high blood pressure with a headache. They reported that I had a pulmonary embolism and I would not be able to nurse for 3 days following my CAT scan! So onto the bottle he went with stored breast milk that I had been pumping. I spent the next two days in the hospital before a second opinion came in that I did not in fact have a PE! My doctor decided to do an additional scan to make sure and it was clear and I was released from the hospital to restart our life with our newly expanded family! My little Bubbies still refuses to nurse most of the time and I continue to pump breastmilk for him every 6 hours. It's been quite an overwhelming experience and I've found myself diagnosed with postpartum depression despite prayers and a constant awareness of the need to be happy. In my 8 years of birth assisting I have seen many mothers through PPD but I never thought I would be in their shoes one day. I am thankful for the little blue pills I take each evening before bed that allow me to feel like myself again!
We had a wonderful Chrismas with my husband being here for two week! I was glad he was here as we finished off our year on a sad note when we had to put our family dog of 13 years down the day before New Years Eve.
My husband has been looking for a job back in FL and we are awaiting word on a possible transfer back with the same company! Tomorrow I take on the roll of the single mother again as he leaves to return to work for two more weeks after which he will be home for his birthday. I will be so relieved when our time apart will be over and we can be together as a family under one roof again! Oh how this has changed our family! It has taken a toll on each one of us including our children. But it has also made us stronger as individuals and as a family unit! We've grown closer yet we were apart.
Living at my parents house has been challenging at best, but it has taught me more about myself, God's tremendous grace, my ability to persevere through the roughest season in my life, and how much I treasure my family! I look forward to a fabulous New Year with so many possibilities and many more blessings!
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