Madeline's Birth Story

Madeline turned 4 months old on August 21st, and I am only getting around to writing about her birth now. Oops. Luckily, it's still pretty fresh in my mind, and it was a pretty simple, uncomplicated birth, so there wasn't too much to remember anyways.

If you've been following my blog for a while, you know that I ended up going 12 days overdue. During those 12 days I had two ultrasounds to look at fluid levels and placenta activity, just to make sure there was nothing going on that would require an induction. I also had two very unpleasant membrane sweeps. If you don't know what that is, and you really want to, google it. Not pleasant at all. On Saturday April 20th, at 11 days overdue, I met with my secondary midwife (my primary had gone on vacation when I was 10 days overdue!!!) and she did the second membrane sweep, around 2:30 in the afternoon. She seemed optimistic that I wouldn't need the induction, but we planned one for Monday anyways.

Meanwhile, my parents were making the drive from Halifax. They had planned their trip thinking there was no way I would go 2 weeks late!! After I met with the midwife we went home and went for a walk to try to get things moving. Not much really happened, until, BAM, my water broke around 6:30pm. Fifteen minutes later my parents pulled in our driveway, haha! Perfect timing! Around then my midwife called to see how I was doing. I told her I thought my water had broken but I wasn't feeling any contractions yet. She told me to hold tight, get some rest, and call her when contractions were coming 4 minutes apart, or if I couldn't talk through them. Anyways, my water kind of broke in 3 stages. The first time, at 6:30, I was pretty sure it was my water breaking but not 100% confident, about 15 minutes later the same thing happened again, and then maybe 15 minutes after that I had the huge gush you see on TV. Seriously. It was a lot of fluid. And that is when my contractions started, almost immediately.

We figured I had quite a while to wait, since we'd heard so much about early labor and how long it can go one for, so my husband went to pick up some pizza. He decided to stop in and get some beer for him and my dad with supper too. Meanwhile, back at home I was having pretty strong contractions that were about 2.5 minutes apart. I could still talk through them but they were really uncomfortable. My husband arrived back home and I tried to eat a little but really didn't feel like it. I think I managed to eat a half a slice of pizza. It was looking like all of the stuff we had learned about the different stages of labour would be completely useless to me. My labour came on fast and strong, none of this contractions every 20 minutes crap.

When my midwife (henceforth known as Sandra :) ) called back around 8pm I was having contractions every 1.5-2.5 minutes and they were pretty strong, but I could still talk through them. She made the decision to come to our house to check me, since things were so close together. At this point my parents decided to check into a hotel, and they took Leroy over to my in-laws house where he would stay for a few days.

Sandra arrived around 8:30pm, when she checked me she figured I was only 2-3 centimeters. Usually she would have gone home at this point and waited a little while, but since everything was coming so close together, she decided to stay at our house. I don't remember how often, but between 8:30pm and 11pm I was probably checked about 3 or 4 times. At 11pm and about 5 cm dilated, Sandra suggested we head to the hospital before the drive was excruciatingly painful for me. I quickly agreed. The drive was awful. It was very difficult to just sit in the seat during contractions. They were very very intense at this point. We got to the hospital and all checked in around 11:30pm.

I tried so many different things to ease the pain. I got in the jetted tub. I laboured in different positions. I walked around. Nothing helped at all. Strangely, the most comfortable position for my was in the bed curled up in the fetal position. After a while I tried the tub again, no luck. I was so disappointed because I had heard such good things about labouring in water!! It did nothing for me at all. Back to the bed I went! Sometime around 12:30, Sandra talked to me about trying a shot of morphine. I had really really wanted an unmedicated birth, but she encouraged me to try this intervention because I was so tired at this point and things had been so hard and painful right from the start, she was worried I wouldn't have any energy to push the baby out. I hesitated but eventually agreed to try it. She told me it wouldn't make the pain go away, but that I'd feel kind of drunk and would be able to get a little rest. Yeah. No. It did absolutely nothing for me!!! I didn't feel drunk or any relief at all, and certainly didn't sleep.

After it was clear that morphine wasn't going to work for me, around 3am Sandra suggested I try nitrous oxide. I was in transition at this point (at about 7 cm) and contractions were one on top of the other, no break at all. I was desperate for some kind of relief, so again I agreed. This did help a little, I think it was mostly that it forced me to focus on my breathing and it calmed me down a bit. It made me feel light headed and loopy, but didn't take the pain away at all. I liked the noise of the machine though, I found it pretty soothing. I used it until I was ready to push.

I reached 10 cm and was ready to start pushing at 4:15am. A second midwife arrived to help with the delivery. I was so excited to get to this stage, it meant I had made it without an epidural! Yay! There were so many thoughts running through my head at this point. I could feel when I needed to push, but I couldn't tell if anything was actually happening when I did. It felt like it was taking FOREVER. I looked up at the clock and it was 4:45 am. I remember asking how much longer they thought until Madeline arrived, Sandra told me it was probably going to be about 30 minutes. That made me feel SO much better. I really do well with an end point in sight. When Sandra told me she could see her head, I asked her if she had any hair!! She said "not much!" and I remember being excited that she had any at all since both my husband and I were bald as babies. This gave me the strength I needed to finish the job :)

I only had to push for an hour, which is apparently pretty fast for a first time mom! And Sandra was bang-on with her estimate of 30 minutes. Madeline Rose was born at 5:15am on Sunday April 21st. She was 8 lbs 11 oz and 21 inches long. She latched on almost immediately and was so alert right away! I can hardly believe she's already 4 months old :)

Our first big house project - Basement Renovation!

We bought our house from a builder about 4 years ago now, and have been living here for about 3.5 years. Since it was a new build, we haven't really had to do any major renovations, of course that hasn't stopped us from spending tons of money here. For major expenses, we've put up a fence, built a deck, added eavestroughing, and an air conditioner. Smaller projects have included mostly painting, and upgrading some of the light fixtures. We've also purchased a lot of new furniture over the years. None of these things have involved much of a renovation, or much effort on our part. My dad did all of the painting, and built us our deck. Home Depot did the fence. My husband and I are pretty much the least handy people on the planet at this point in time.

We are hoping to change that a little with our big basement renovation! Of course we won't be doing all of the work ourselves. In fact, a lot of it will be hired out, and some of it will be done by my dad. BUT, we are still excited, and we are going to attempt some of the stuff ourselves. You have to start somewhere, right?

The builder finished the largest room of the basement, which is currently our "family room". There is also a roughed in bathroom, a furnace room, and another small room under the stairs. We are planning to finish the small room, which will eventually become a play room for Madeline. We're also finishing the bathroom. We figure it'll add a lot of value to the house, and won't it be nice not to have to go ALL the way up one flight of stairs to go to the bathroom when in the middle of an intense The Walking Dead marathon? We thought so! As an add-on we will be replacing the carpet destroyed by Leroy with some nice laminate floor, which will run through the family room and the playroom.

That mat is TOTALLY covering where Leroy ripped up our carpet...

I have made a huge to-do list and will update the blog once we've done enough to really warrant an update. Hopefully I will also remember to take some photos as we go. Here are some "before" photos, although the electrical work has been done, so they're not truly before, but close enough!

Leroy photobombing my shot of the playroom! The closet will cover that ugly stuff. 

Leroy loves photobombing!

Bathroom, you can see the roughed in plumbing!

And on to the big list:

1. Add electrical to both rooms. (75% completed - the electrician will come back after the room is painted to finish up)
2. Put up framing/drywall in both rooms.
3. Prime and paint both rooms.
4. Install light fixture in the bathroom.
5. Install light fixture in the playroom.
6. Install fan in the bathroom.
7. Rip up all of the carpet and remove baseboard in the family room.
8. Lay laminate flooring.
9. Lay ceramic tile in the bathroom.
10. Add baseboards and trim to playroom and bathroom.
11. Install the vanity in the bathroom.
12. Install the faucet in the bathroom.
13. Install toilet.
14. Install corner shower.
15. Put up glass tile backsplash over the vanity.
16. Hang a mirror in the bathroom.
17. Put a door on the closet in the playroom.
18. Replace the door of the playroom with a folding door.
19. Put up some shelving in the playroom closet.
20. Hang art in the bathroom.
21. Hang art in the playroom.
22. Come up with some kind of toy storage solution in the playroom.

Now, let's talk budget! My husband is an accountant, so naturally he's very in to budgeting and such. We talked a lot about what we wanted to spend, and got some quotes for the electrical and drywall work. We also took a trip to Home Depot to figure out just how much things like showers and toilets cost! After all of the we figure we're looking at about $6000. That includes everything, and tax. So far we have purchased a few things and I am happy to report we are under budget! I think I'll do up a budget post once the project is completed. After everything is done we are also planning on asking my real estate agent mother-in-law to do an assessment so we will know how much value we possibly added with this project :)

One of my friends is coming on Monday to start framing and drywalling, and then my husband and I are planning on tackling the painting job so that the electrician can come back and finish his work in the next week or so! Wish us luck! It should also be mentioned that any work that we will be doing ourselves will have to be done during Madeline's super short 45 minute naps (ugh), so it should be a bit of a challenge. I should have an update for you soon :)

Breastfeeding is hard, yo.

I've always known I would breastfeed my kids. Well, I have always known I would attempt to breastfeed my kids. There are so many things that can go wrong, so many possible challenges, so I figured going into it with an open mind would be ideal. My mom was unable to breastfeed my older sister, so didn't even try with me. That was her choice and given the anxiety it caused her, probably the best choice to make her the best mother she could be. 

For me, all of the things I thought would make it hard (pain, infections, bad latch, low supply) have been such a breeze. It's the things I didn't think about, like having a baby who isn't a milk monster, that are making it difficult. It's mentally difficult for me. From the beginning I have had an oversupply which is super annoying and uncomfortable. In order to battle this I was feeding Madeline A LOT. Like every hour a lot. This worked for a while, but then she started developing her little personality and a mind of her own, and she stopped cooperating with me. This is probably the first instance of this in a whole lifetime of her being uncooperative I'm sure. I digress. She stopped wanting to feed every time I wanted her to. 

This has been really tough for me, mentally. It feels like I have been rejected by my own flesh and blood, which is silly, I know. She doesn't have the mental capacity to reject me, and she shows me her affection in other ways, like when she doesn't want to be held by anyone but me, and when I get so many smiles and laughs out of her over the course of our day together. But still, each time she refuses to nurse, I feel rejected! I'm working on getting over this. For one, she doesn't need to eat every 1-2 hours like she used to. Sometimes she goes 4 or 5. I am trying to trust that she will let me know when she's hungry. It's proving difficult to do, but I will get there. We've made it 4 months so far, I'm sure we can both make it work for much much longer. One day at a time.

This post didn't really have a point, just had to get it out.

I've been bingeing...

On Gossip Girl! It's my nap time activity of choice these days. I watched the first two seasons when they originally aired but stopped when I moved in with my husband who couldn't be less interested in the scandalous lives of Manhattan's elite...

But it's on Netflix now and I just can't help but get pulled in to its soap opera-esque drama. I've made my way through 4 seasons already! Good thing Madeline has been napping well this week because it is getting seriously intense! It's too bad I'll have to wait for season 6 to go up on Netflix to finish it off. 

Any other way too old for this Gossip Girl fans out there?

XOXO...

Long weekend musings...

It's a long weekend here in Ontario, which means I'm parenting with my partner, my hubby, for an extra day on Monday. While it has always been awesome to spend extra time with my sweetie, it's extra awesome now with a baby. An extra set of hands!!! Woohoo!

We had some friends over for a BBQ yesterday and it was the first social event I've ever hosted that didn't feature at least one homemade dish. It's just one of the many things I used to love to do that has seemingly fallen by the wayside ever since a certain someone has entered my life! I know this exhausted feeling is just temporary, which is great because I'd really love to feel a tiny bit like my old self soon.

Even so, I've begun to really think about how motherhood changes you. Mentally, and also physically, I am almost a completely different person, and there is nothing wrong with that. Look what I (maybe I should be saying we?) did, I created a new life! And when I did I accepted that it meant that my role as mother would mean shaping my child's life and putting mine on the back burner for a little while. 

Interestingly, the things I miss from my old life are not the things I expected to miss. I expected to miss traveling on a whim, going out to nice restaurants, poker nights with friends. In reality, I mostly miss cooking, baking, and cleaning. Seriously. The level of grossness in our bathroom is horrifying to me. I should possibly be doing that right now instead of writing this blog post... Hmmm... Anyways..

The good news is that these things I miss will come back shortly. Madeline is taking better naps and I am starting to feel human again, it's at the point now where I don't feel like I need to be napping when she's napping, so there's a little room for cooking, baking, cleaning, and BLOGGING. There's also a career/professional task (paperwork to become a P. Eng) that I've been putting off for so long that needs to get done before I head back to work, so that needs to occupy some of my free time too. 

This was kind of a jumbled mix of thoughts, but after reading this post today, I think that's ok. 

Baby Sleep Part 1! Learning to go with the flow...

Having a new baby is hard. Very hard. There are the sleepless nights, the screams and cries you can't quite seem to calm, the constant nursing, the constant baby bouncing... Shall I go on? When you are deep in the trenches it's so hard to see the other side, but eventually the clouds do part and you come out the other side, relatively unscathed. One of my biggest pieces of advice to new mothers is that you need to let go of the idea that you are going to have any kind of control over the situation (i.e. your baby). This is hard for those type A's out there, like myself, but I swear, once you accept that you have very little control things will start to get so much better. This was particularly true for us with Madeline's sleep.

Sometime around 3 weeks old, we decided Madeline should be going to bed earlier than her normal 11pm bedtime. We were both exhausted, and we wanted some time to ourselves before going to bed. I read about lots of babies who were going to sleep for the night at 8pm, why wasn't our baby doing this?? We started trying to get her to sleep earlier, we tried to establish a bedtime routine of bath, reading, swaddle, nurse, bed. However, it went more like this: bath, reading over her screams, swaddle, nurse, scream, nurse, scream, scream scream, nurse, bounce, scream, nurse, bounce, bounce, unswaddle, watch some tv, nurse, bed at 11pm. It was so awful and stressful. My husband and I hardly ever fight and we were arguing non-stop. No matter what time we started this routine Madeline went to sleep for the night at 11pm. Finally we just said screw it. She will do what she wants, and the stress was just not worth it. We started doing the routine more like this: bath, reading (although she still screamed while we read, she just wasn't into sitting and not moving at this age), go downstairs and take turns bouncing her around, nursing her when she showed signs of hunger, and then, finally, around 10 or 10:30 we swaddled her and put her to bed.

This new routine has caused so much less stress. We are all much happier. My husband and I have both accepted that we have virtually no control over the sleep situation at this point. Over time Madeline's bed time has gotten earlier, at 3 months she's going to bed some time between 9:30-10, with the occasional night at 9:15, or the unfortunate occasional night at 10:30-10:45. I am convinced that she will slowly get down to that coveted 8pm bedtime, so for now we are just following her lead.

I am definitely not a baby sleep expert, and I am sure there are lots of people out there who think I am doing it wrong. Maybe they think my baby is spoiled because we let her decide our bedtime, whatever. I really don't care because it works for us. Anyway, this is all to say that I certainly would not want to give anyone advice about baby sleep. I don't know how to get a baby to sleep better, longer, earlier, whatever. I have no clue. We have been blessed with a relatively good sleeper. However, I regularly dispense the "go with the flow" advice, because I really do think that can work well for everyone. In my very limited experience, babies don't do what you want them to do, so why spend all of your time trying to make them?

Stay tuned for Part 2, dealing with an overtired baby!

I'm back!

These last three months have been such a whirlwind of emotions: happy, excited, frustrated, tired, confused, insecure, inadequate… I could go on and on. I’m pretty sure I’ve felt almost every emotion or feeling there is since Madeline has been born. I have missed the blogosphere so much and am only feeling human enough to make my way back here now.  So, hello friends J

Madeline is napping and I am spending way too much time watching Gossip Girl while she does. It’s so bad but so addictive, isn’t it?? This is the second series I am embarking on, I watched the entire series of Friday Night Lights first. Some day my sweet baby girl won’t be napping this much so I am trying to take advantage of the “me” time I am being given for now.

I have been pondering the level of online privacy I would like for my family. In the past I have been pretty much an open book, but it’s shocking how different I have felt since Madeline came along. I feel so protective of her and that is why I have yet to share any photos. I’m scared of putting her pretty little face out there, when the internet is so vast and I have no idea who will be looking at my photos, or what they might be doing with them. I never thought I would be this paranoid, but that’s where I’m at right now. I hope you will all understand and continue to read my blog. I’m working on some baby posts, some tips and tricks, and just general ideas I have about parenting. For now, no photos L

If you do want to check out some pictures of Madeline, you can add me to instagram (mcsarahanne)… it’s a private profile but I’ll add anyone who doesn’t look like an internet creepo :P