For those who asked about cloth diapering...

Let me begin by saying I am no expert.  I am just a beginner.  But now that I've started, I love it!  And when I love something, I love sharing that something. 

Lots of people have asked me in recent days about cloth diapers.  Personally, when I was pregnant I thought briefly about it, but when Marshall said "No way!" I didn't argue, thinking I didn't want to mess with pins and poop anyway.  I didn't really look much into it, and didn't think anyone really did cloth diapering anymore anyway.  It was pushed out of my mind.  The end.  Little did I know that even with disposables I'd have to touch and deal with baby poop anyway!

After Jilly was born, a friend of mine (hi, Krystal!) started talking to me a bit about cloth diapering.  I saw pictures of her sons wearing cloth diapers and thought, "Wow, those are really cute!  Is that what cloth diapering is?"  Krystal sent me a diaper to inspect and try, and I was super surprised how cute and easy to use it was.  So I started asking her a million questions, and started doing some research on my own.  She gave me some great links to sites that sell diapers, and I saw that I could make it as expensive or affordable and I wanted.  And it wasn't too expensive to start either.  So I started buying diapers, detergent, pail liners, wet/dry bags, and became so excited to start.

Lots of people have asked me in recent days how this works.  So, I made a little tutorial of pictures to post here.  This will show you all what they look like and how to use them.  I think you'll be surprised.  I know I was.

There's a few different types of cloth diapers, but what I settled on are pocket diapers.  These come in two components: the cover and the insert.


On left, the cover.  On right, the insert.

 Pocket diapers are so called because the diaper is a pocket that you stuff th insert into.  As if you couldn't figure that out for yourselves, hee hee.


The pocket

 While they do sell cloth in sizes, the most economical option is the one size cloth diaper.  The one size diaper contains a row of snaps to adjust the length of the diaper.


The vertical rows of snaps are to adjust the length.

 The snaps on our Sunbaby diapers give you three settings for length.  Unsapped is large, snapped to the top row is medium, and snapped to the bottom is a small.  Jilly wears a medium right now, so I snapped the diaper to the top row.


Super easy!

 After adjusting the diaper to the correct size if needed, you slip the insert into the pocket.

Your whole hand can easily fit into the pocket, so slipping in the insert is quick and easy.

The stuffed diaiper (and hi, Lisa feet!)

I put the diaper on Jilly's favortie stuffed animal for viewing purposes.  Putting on the diaper is really easy.  They go on just like a disposable.  There's a row of snaps for a hip adjustment and a row for the width adjustment.

The many snaps let you get the diaper as tight around as you need, and the hip snaps help keep in the poo.

The tab of the diaper contains three snaps, one for the hip, and two for extra hold around the waist.

And voila!  You have a fully diapered baby (err...stuffed giraffe).

George Girraffe is super confy in his fluffy butt

When the diaper is dirty, you just take it off (duh), and separate the insert from the cover before throwing it in your diaper pail.  I like to just untuck the insert a little bit and shake it into the pail, that way I don't have to really touch it too much.  I give it a quick spritz of a water and baking soda solution before throwing it in there, too, just to help keep smells to a minimum.  I've run across a few tricks like that on the internet.  I don't get any more dirty than I do changing a disposable.

Slightly untucked so I can shake it right out

I put the dirties right into my hanging wet bag.  Once I get my big trash can for in here, this will line the can.  I bought bags made out of the same material as the diapers, so when it's time to wash them I can carry this whole thing downstairs, empty it into the washer, and throw my bag right in there with the diapers and wash it all at once.  I bought two bags, so I can swap them out with the dirties.  Super convenient and easy!

After they're clean, I go ahead and set them to the right size and stuff them.  Then I throw them back in the laundry basket and and just the basket of clean diapers by her changing station.

Clean fluff!

I grab as I need them.  Super easy-peasy!  It's exciting to give her a new cute look every two hours or so.  Today she's wearing an Indians T-shirt from Auntie Bre-Bre and whatever diapers I fancy.  Every diaper change she gets a super cute butt.  I love it!

Hope this answers some of your questions.  Gotta go feed by Jillybean now. She's starting to wake up from her nap!

Springtime! Outside!

It's springtime here in Germany, and that means the flowers are starting to bloom, trees are starting to bud, and the weather is becoming downright gorgeous.  We've had temps in the 70's the past few days (or at least mid to high 60's), the sun has been shining for at least part of the day, and the breeze is cool without being cold.  Perfect weather to enjoy being outside.

I used to daydream about having a baby to take outside when the weather is nice, to sit on the lawn and play.  In my little fantasy, the baby would be happy to be enjoying the fresh air with Mommy.  We would play, maybe look at a book, and in the end the baby would fall asleep on the blanket in the grass, snuggled up under my arm, and I would look at the clouds or read a book of my own while enjoying the sunshine-y day.

Now that I have a baby, I could not wait to make this a reality.  The first day I tried this, she was already having a super grumpy day.  So when she just laid there like this:

I thought it was just because she was having a bad day.  When she started crying, I thought, Well, this is no different than what she's been doing all day today, poor girl, and we went back inside.  I was convinced it was not because she hated the outside, and was determined to try again later.
Yesterday, the weather was beautiful and my baby was super happy.  So I packed up a laundry basket with my big playmat, toys and a book for her, her bumbo seat, a blanket, my nursing cover, water and a snack for me, and a book for me optimistically thinking maybe she'll take a nap outside (another of my favorite spring and summer activities) and I can lay down with her and read my book.  Then I put her in my sling and walked out.

For a few minutes, we sat there together, feeling the spring breeze on our faces and basking in the sun.  She was happy and content.  I took her out of the sling and put her down on the mat on her tummy, which is her favorite way to play right now.  Then I grabbed the camera ready for her normal tummy-time smiles, and ready to capture our playing outside on film.  Instead, I got this:

Apparently, my daughter hates playing outside.  She likes walks.  She likes being in the ring sling outside.  Just not on the ground.  Can you hear the sound of my shattered daydream?  Hee hee.  I guess we'll try again at a later date.  I think it's kind of funny, but I can't believe how much she hates the outside right now.  We'll keep trying when she's a little older, but for now we'll be content with tummy time in the house.

"I would NEVER do that!"

Before I begin, and in my defense, I never actually said those words in regard to parenting.  I'm a "to each their own" kind of girl, so I didn't do the stereotypical when pregnant "I would never let my baby to this," or "I would never do that with my child," kind of thing that a lot of women supposedly do.  I try really hard to stay open-minded in all things, especially things that I have no experience in, such as raising babies.  :)  That being said, I'm surprised to find that I did have a few preconceived notions of things I thought I wouldn't do, and am now surprised to find myself doing on a regular basis, and things that I swore I would do religiously that I just don't.

Biggest case in point:  bed-sharing.  I swore up and down that there was no way I would let my baby sleep in bed with us.  It is so dangerous!  What if I roll over on her in the middle of the night?  Eek!  Plus, it only makes it harder for her to get used to sleeping on her own.

She started off in her bassinet.  By the end of the first week of her life, I still had not gotten a good night's sleep even though she was sleeping up to 4 hours at a time.  I was constantly getting up and peering into the bassinet to make sure she was still sleeping and that she was breathing.  We were having problems with breastfeeding on top of it all, and I was super stressed out.  I opened up a couple of the books I have on breastfeeding, and they all said the same thing:  put the baby in your bed for a day or two of nothing but sleeping and breastfeeding.  Spend that time getting to know each other with no distractions.  So, I grabbed Jilly and climbed into bed one night with her.  She scooched herself right into me and fell straight to sleep, and so did I.  I slept better than I ever slept.  If I woke up to check on her, she was right there with me, so I barely have to rouse out of sleep to be sure she's okay.  Happy mama = happy baby.  Yay!

Still, I felt guilty.  I caved in on something that was a solid stance in my eyes.  Isn't it wrong to have your baby with you in bed?  Marshall and I discussed it a few times, and he was never bothered by her being in bed with us.  He sleeps on the left, I sleep in the middle, and Jilly sleeps on the right with my arm tucked around her safely and a rolled up blanket behind her.  Then, a ran across this article talking about the benefits of co-sleeping.  No more mommy guilt, yay!

So here's what I've discovered.  Jilly and I went breastfeeding pro a few days after I put her in my bed.  Seriously, I call her "Barracuda Baby" when she eats because it's a chomp and gulp that reminds me of an animal attacking it's prey.  We both sleep better and longer.  Ironically, I usually wake up just before her when it's time to eat.  I'll stir, notice her stir, then wake up, then she'll wake up.  So by the time she's fully awake to eat at night or in the morning, I've already gotten enough wits about me to know what's going on.  (Fortunately for me, my daughter and I wake up the same: slowly and drowsily.)  Since sleeping together, there has not been ONE time where she's woken me up by crying or fussing.  Even on the rare occasion she wakes up before me, it can't be that long she's awake because I wake and look at her to see her staring at me like "Oh, hi Mommy!  It's boob time!  Wake up!"  But no fussing.  It's like we are so in tune together that we can read each others' minds.  Freaky!  Freak-ay!

My favorite things about bed-sharing that made me decide to keep doing it are as follows (well, actually there's a ton of things I love, but I'm narrowing it down to a few here):

-  We sleep skin-to-skin.  I'm down to my sports bra style super comfy nursing bra and undies, and she's down to her diaper.  More skin-to-skin means happier baby and mommy, at least for us.  I luuuurv (that's love in strang language) feeling her baby soft skin against me as we snuggle off to dreamland.

-  The first thing I see every morning is my baby.  The first thing she sees when she wakes up is her mommy.  The first thing we do upon waking and making eye contact is give each other a huge smile.  There is nothing better in the entire universe than seeing your baby look at you and smile every single morning without fail.  God, I love her!

-  Rivalling that baby smile in heart melting ooey-gooey love is what she does when we lay down.  I lay her on her back with her head resting slightly on my arm, so her head is about even with the bottom of my chin.  She will roll onto her side, scooch herself right into me so we're pressed together, and look up at me until she falls asleep.  Or she'll whine a bit until she gets her paci that she loves oh-so-much, then look at me and fall asleep. 

-  Lastly, for humor, because I think this is hilarious, sometimes I wake up because in her sleep, she has placed her baby mouth around my boob like it's chow time.  Over my bra.  She's not actually trying to eat, but I think it's hilarious because it's like she just wants to have it there for comfort.  "Don't take that boob away, Mom.  I'm just gonna put my mouth right here so that I know you're not taking it away."

I've never once even come close to rolling over on her like I was afraid of.  Mommy instinct, I think.  And it's really nice that we all get to cuddle together like a family.  In a couple months, when she sleeps fully through the night, I'll start integrating her into her crib, and I think it'll be harder on me than her!

One more funny Jilly fact about her new skills and habits.  She's discovered she has a voice.  She'll look at me and coo, goo, and mostly growl and grunt, then smile and start the process over.  We'll talk to each other, which she loves.  Anyway, lately, her favorite thing to talk to is, you probably didn't guess this, my boobs.  She'll eat a bit, pull off, and grunt and coo and smile at them for about 30 seconds to a minute, then chomp back on and eat again.  I think it's the funniest thing I've ever seen.  Her eyes get all big and she moves her hands and feet excitedly.  I imagine she's thanking them for the meal they are providing her.  She gets so excited about food!

Okay, that's enough of my random ramblings for today.  Bottom line message is my daughter is awesome and I adore her!  ♥

Marshall and the Med Board

The title of this post sounds like a bad children's book, lol.  Anyway, for those of you who have been following Marshall's situation and the craziness that has found its way into our lives, I have an update for you!

To recap for a reminder if needed, and very briefly:  Marshall started breaking out in hives after we moved here.  It's been going on for a year and a half.  After a year, they ("they" being Air Force peeps) decided to send him to a Physical Evaluation Board (aka Med Board) because they think hives are the devil for some odd reason, and that Marshall cannot possibly function on a day to day basis with his job if he breaks out in hives every so often.  His first board came back with the shittiest judgement possible: discharge with severence pay and a 10% disability rating.  Basically, they pooped on us.  So, we decided to appeal to the formal board, meaning Marshall had to leave Feb. 2 to go to Texas to meet with this new board, in hopes that they would not poop on us and see how stupid it is to remove an excellent Airman from his duties because of stupid hives.  (Whew, that was a giant rambling mouthful!)

Well, I'm really starting to think God is trying to tell us something with this.  First off, my husband arrives with no problems on last Wednesday.  Thursday, he meets with his attorney, who tells him that with Marshall's awesome APRs and the letters he had from supervisors saying he's #1 and how awesome he is, it should be no problem to get him returned to duty.  Marshall calls me and tells me this, and we get excited and joyfully talk about how our lives can finally go back to normal after this.  Woo hoo!  Or at least as normal as they can be while adjusting to parenthood.  His attorney was supposed to call him that afternoon and tell him when his hearing would be, but for some reason, Marshall never hears from him.  We assume he'll call the next day.

Friday, Texas gets a freak snow storm of one inch of snow.  The base shuts down.  Marshall still doesn't know when his hearing is, and everything is closed.  Saturday, I call Marshall's room for the first time.  When he answers the phone, there's 30 seconds or so of nothingness before a tentative hello.  Turns out, his room phone ringer doesn't work.  A little light blinks to indicate a phone call, but no ring.  He just happened to be sitting right next to the phone and catch the blinking when I called.  So if anyone was trying to get a hold of him, they couldn't.  A work order was placed for a new phone, which as of today he still has yet to receive.

Anyway, Monday morning he stops into the attorney's office first thing, and finds out his hearing was in half an hour.  Score one for him for finding out just in time.  Of course, they had been trying to call him, but since his phone doesn't ring he had no idea.

Marshall called me after his hearing feeling pretty confident.  After all, his attorney was confident he would be returned to duty, and Marshall said they asked him questions such as "If you end up being in the 1% of people this doesn't go away for in a few years, what will you do?"  We would be receiving an email in our home email with the results.

I checked the email like a hawk.  A few hours later, we got the results.  Discharge with severance and a 10% disability rating.  The same thing as the first board.  So apparently, hives really are the devil to the Air Force.  We had just heard that someone just came back with a heart condition they were born with and they were returned to duty.  Hives, apparently, are worse than a heart condition.  Big exasperated sigh of confusion!

There's another board.  This is a big one.  He'll have a JAG officer as his attorney.  Last night, he told me he's going to appeal this, too.  So, we're back in medical limbo.  This time, it'll be at least 6 months before he goes to this board (right now there's a 7 month backlog).  He's got a really good plan for how we're going to spend this time waiting.

Okay, baby's up now, so that's all for now!

Clockwork

I worried a lot before Jilly arrived about how to get her on a schedule.  I kept trying to picture in my mind how exactly I would make it so she would understand when to sleep, eat, play, nap, etc., knowing that it would be important to do so, but baffled at how you get a baby to do those things.  I'm surprised at the fact that she seems to have a schedule of her own that I've just adopted.  Maybe I'm just lucky, but in my head I never pictured a two week old having any structure to her day.  Although, I pictured a two week old as crying all the time, never sleeping, and pretty much doing nothing exciting or interesting besides laying there between crying and small amounts of sleep, to be honest.  I was wrong.

Jillian's day is pretty much clockwork.  We wake up at 7:30-7:45 a.m., get a fresh diaper, then eat breakfast in bed while Mommy watches the tail end of some celebrity gossip show on AFN and the start of Law & Order (which, for the record, doesn't interest me much but does make time go by much faster during feedings).  We get up, Mommy puts on some music, and we sing, cuddle, dance, and play until shortly after 9:00 a.m. when we take our mid-morning nap.  This is when Mommy enjoys a cup of hot tea, plays on the internet, writes blogs (sometimes, hee hee), and showers and gets ready for the day.  We wake up a little after 11:00 and eat, then play and have tummy time and snuggle until 1:00 p.m., when we eat again then take our afternoon nap.  Mommy sometimes sneaks a little nap here, too, or she calls her mommy for a nice chat.  Around 3:30 we wake up and eat, then after snuggles have some bouncy chair or swing time to look around and make funny noises.  We eat again at 6:00 or 6:30, depending on when Mommy decides to eat her own dinner (and we usually plan our food for as soon as she gets done fixing hers without fail).  We spend some time on the couch playing with Mommy again or take a bath here instead, then at 8:00 we eat again, and then it's bed time.  We wake up to eat at 11, sleep, 3 a.m., sleep, then start our day again at 7:30.  Although we have occaisionally gone until 8:30 before waking up.

I'm really satisfied with this.  She's always so happy, and that makes me happy.  It's amazing to me how routine she is, and it makes it easy for me to plan my day.  I feel so lucky to have such a cooperative little baby. 

Seriously, I thought I'd have a terror on my hands.  I wanted a baby so bad, I had myself convinced that when it finally happened I would have a demon child to deal with, because I couldn't possibly get lucky enough to finally have a baby and have her be perfect.  But instead, I have a baby who's as close to perfect as you can get.  It's baffling, lol.

Speaking of baffling (interesting segway here), Marshall is gone this week doing the Med Board thing.  He left on the 2nd, and won't be back until the 10th.  I'm getting pretty nervous about what the outcome of this will be.  He did meet with his attorney yesterday afternoon, and his attorney is very confident he'll be able to get Marshall returned to duty.  Yay!  I hope this isn't just a case of giving us false hope.  I don't want to rug ripped out from underneath us, so to speak.  It makes me really happy to hear this though, and I could tell in talking to Marshall last night that he feels way better about the situation, too.  So now we can just hope that the attorney is right and Marsh will still be an active duty Airman next week.  His hearing will probably be on Monday.  He has to get a few last minute things turned into the attorney today to show he's good at his job. 

I wish I could be there with him.  He's at Lackland Air Force Base right now for this, and won't have anything to do but relax this weekend.  He's planning a trip to the Riverwalk for some shopping, and I jealously want to be there, too.  I can imagine it in my head: me, Marsh, and Jilly strolling around, looking at all the stores and in the mall, stopping for some Mexican food (ooh chimichangas!), and enjoying our day together.  I miss him a lot, especially in the evenings.  Jilly can get kind of fussy right before her 11 p.m. feeding as I'm getting ready for bed and changing her diaper, and I really miss having him here to hold her while I brush my teeth and put my PJ's on.  He'll be home soon, though, hopefully with good news.  Hopefully I'll get a phone call from him today with an update on when his hearing is officially!

Things I've learned about being a Mother

Jillian is 11 days old now, and we're starting to get into a routine.  We're settling nicely into our mother-daughter roles.  The transition has been both the hardest and the easiest things I've ever done: hard to have to change how I do every little thing, yet easy because of how natural and welcome the change seems to be.  She's almost 2 weeks old already, and she's changed so much, both in looks and behavior.  She's awake a lot more throughout the day.  She's a great sleeper though, I'm one of the lucky ones.  We usually go to sleep after our 11 feeding, and then wake up at 3, then at 7 for the day.  Then we take a midmorning nap from around 9-11, and then we're up and alert for the rest of the day.  We're just starting to be awake enough to do some tummy time.  It's amazing to me how well she can lift her head!  I had her sitting in her boppy pillow so it was kind of propping her up, and I'm not joking Jilly was trying to sit up.  Smart little girl!

I've learned more in the past 11 days about myself and life in general than I realized I could in such a short time.  Now, I'm sharing some of my favorite, sometimes funny, things that I've learned about mommyhood with all of you.

-  Babies poop.  A lot.  I obviously knew already that babies would need to go #2, but I didn't realize how much!  She is a poop factory!  Maybe it's because she's still getting rid of some of the jaundice, but she poops with almost every diaper.  And it smells.  Whoever said breastfed babies don't have smelly poop is a liar!

-  Learning to breastfeed was the hardest, most nervewracking experience of my life.  Those first few days were brutal.  She cried constantly, I was constantly trying to get her to eat, and a lot of the time she wouldn't even latch on.  I cried more about breastfeeding before my milk came in than I've cried about almost anything.  It's a helpless feeling as you're trying to get your baby to eat and they won't.  But once my milk came in, this little girl turned into a piggy!  Now, it's the best decision I could have made and I am so happy to do it for her.

-  Guys still get to sleep 8 hours a night uninterrupted, and will still complain the next day about not getting a good night's rest.  Seriously, I've just let this one go.  I get up with her, change her, feed her, and get her back to sleep while he snores away.  It doesn't bother me much, but it cracks me up when I hear him telling his friends the next day how tired he is from having that new baby in the house.

-  Daddy can be the biggest and best help you could possibly ask for, especially when they love baby as much as Marshall love Jilly.  He's always more than willing to hold and snuggle her when I need to do something and she's being fussy.  He'll take her in for a nap, and lay there cuddling her for a while.  He loves us both, and treats us both so wonderfully.  He's helped me every step of the way wholeheartedly.  I wish his parents could be here to see him be such an amazing dad.  They would be so proud to see him.  I know I am.  ♥

-  No matter how prepared you think you are to become a mom, when the moment is finally upon you, you realize a.) you don't know jack about being a mother, b.) you're expected to take care of this person yourself, with no one to do it for you, and c.) you are terrified to your core.  My nurse said 70% of new moms have a breakdown at the hospital, and the other 30% have one at home.  Mine was at the hospital, when I was being released.  I'll be honest, I was terrified, having a panic attack, about how I was having trouble breastfeeding and now I had to take her home.  Who was going to help me?  Aaaahh!  After arriving home, we adjusted pretty quickly.  I guess I just needed to get all those fears out before moving forward.

-  Swelling doesn't end when the pregnancy does.  In fact, it can get much worse.  All that water and extra blood has to go somewhere.  For many, it disperses itself throughout various parts of the body.  For me, it all went into my ankles and feet.  I had tree trunk legs for almost a week before finally getting back to normal. 

-  Breastfeeding means a lot of work for the mommy, especially when your child is like mine and won't take a bottle of pumped milk for anything.  All she wants is the boob!  But it is so rewarding.  I cannot imagine doing anything else.  I need it just as much as she does now.  Plus, it helps everything shrink back up quicker, and I am loving that!

-  The stares from strangers doesn't end when the pregnancy does, either.  Just instead of staring at you for being so big they're trying to figure out how you're even able to be upright, they're staring at your little baby.  It's okay, but when they try to touch, then I bite.  :)

-  Explosvie farts.  Enough said.

-  Babies don't care if the diaper is off, or if you've just cleaned off a massive poop-plosion and they're all clean and shiny again.  They'll poop on you and not even think twice.  Or they'll pee, sending a river of ickies all over themselves, you, and the changing station.

-  The sick kids at the pediatricians office waiting room are the most horrifying things ever.  Seriously, every time we go in for a doctor's appointment and a snot covered 2 year old starts running over to us pointing at the baby and trying to touch her, I want to curl up into a protective ball around her and start hissing like a cat in a turf war.

-  It can be frustrating when you're trying to get something accomplished and little baby is being a fuss and only wants to be held by you.  But it's equal parts frustration and amazement, since it's also the coolest feeling ever to know that she needs you, and wants you, and loves you enough to be upset when you let her go.  ♥

-  Hearing your baby cry when you are unable to get to her (like when you're in the shower) or unable to get her to calm down is the most heartbreaking experience.

-  Best, most warm and fuzzy inducing moments of my life:  when she's laying on me with her chest against mine sleeping, and she snuggles her head right up under my chin.

-  Nature really does make you forget.  For the first week I would get nauseous just thinking about the possibility of going through pregnancy and labor again, and now I'm already starting to forget the horrors and think about labor with amazement.  I'm trying to remind myself how much it sucked, but I just can't remember being 9 months pregnant, or how bad exactly it hurt to have her coming out of me.  For an experience so painful, it's a wonder to me that I'm starting to forget about it!

- Her smile.

-  The number one thing I've learned, though, is that no one could possibly have prepared me for how overwhelming and wonderful my love for her would be.  Sometimes, I look at her in total amazement and get all teary eyed just because she's mine.  We like to stare at each other.  I feel pride, happiness, tenderness, love, and just about every positive emotion on the planet.  I still can't believe she's mine.

I want her to stay this little forever.  I'm cherishing every day and each moment, because she's changing so quickly.  Some day she'll be a little girl instead of a baby, and I want to remember exactly what this feels like.  I love being a mommy!  This is exactly what I was meant to do with my life.  I thank God every day for this little sweetheart he's brought into my life.  By the way, as I'm writing this list I keep adding more and more things at the last minute that are amazing to me.  It seems I can't stop thinking about things I love about being a mommy to Jillian.  I'm cutting myself off now, before this turns into a book. 

Jillian's Birth Story

My daughter is sleeping peacefully away in her bouncer, so I thought I'd write a post about her birth to fill you all in on the craziness.  It definately wasn't easy, and was actually slightly scary for all involved, but we're happily home and healthy now.  Here's how our journey ended, in all it's traumatic glory. 

I woke up in the wee hours of the morning on the 18th to go pee for the umpteenth time and noticed my panties were all wet.  I didn't think much of it, just was mildly irritated, changed them and went back to sleep.  When I woke up for the day, it was the same thing.  I was starting to get a little worried, wondering what it was.  It wasn't until a few hours later, when we were walking around the BX and I had been to the bathroom 3 times in 30 minutes to change out a little pantiliner I was wearing that I realized "Oh my gosh, I think I'm leaking water."  We got home and called L&D, and were on our way.

By the time we got into L&D, it was around 3 pm on the 18th.  So by my now estimation, my water had been leaking for probably 8-9 hours.  Yeesh.  If you haven't ever had to get checked for leaking amniotic fluid, they use a little strip of paper that turns blue if it detects amniotic fluid.  But since there's a few factors that could affect the reading, they take a swab similar to getting a pap done and check it under a microscope for a ferning pattern.  Well my paper test turned blue right away, but my ferning test came back inconclusive, so the nurse said no, I probably wasn't leaking water.  The doctor did an ultrasound, which showed my fluid levels were slightly depleted, but it did show there was a pocket around baby that looked okay.  He said I was probably just peeing on myself or had a slight yeast infections, and it probably wasn't my water, but to come back if I started soaking through more than 2 pads in an hour. 

Now this is a really weird answer from a doctor, considering it's recommended your baby be born within 24 hours of a leak due to the risk of infection.  I was really unhappy to be sent home, especially b/c I just knew it was my water.  I started having more frequent and stronger contractions that night, but always irregular.  An appointment with my midwife for my 38 week check-up was the next morning, so I planned to talk to her in detail about what happened and get some answers as to what was going on with me.  I stayed up pretty much the whole night worried.  What was wrong with me, if not my water?

When I filled my midwife in on what happened, she was really concerned about me.  She also seemed shocked and apalled that I was turned away with what so obviously sounded like my water being broken.  My blood pressure ended up being pretty high (I attribute it to stressing about my water and losing water), so she sent me up to L&D to meet with the midwife on call, who was going to personally perform the amniotic fluid check for me and monitor my blood pressure for a bit.  The midwife did the check, and said she didn't even have to look at the slide b/c she could see so much of it pooling that it was obviously my water.  We had no idea how long it had been broken, just knew it was over 24 hours since I noticed the leaking.  It was decided I needed to be induced since my risk for infection was pretty high.

I started pitocin around 1:00 pm on the 19th.  By 2:30, I was in full on active labor, and coping well with it.  They upped my pitocin again an hour or so later, and suddenly my contractions were one on top of the other with no break in between.  It was around 5:00 when I was checked to be 7 cm and 100% effaced, and my pitocin was turned off in hopes to give me a break between contractions.  I decided then to throw my natural childbirth dreams out the window and get the epidural.  I think it was 6:00 or so when the lady came in to give me my drugs, and by 6:30 I was happy as a clam and laughing about having no feeling in my legs.  She did an awesome job, because I could still move my legs and feet, just not very effectively.  It really helped when it came time to push, since I could feel all the urges to push. 

Things started getting hairy around 10:30.  First off, I started to feel like I needed to push, and was checked to be almost fully dilated, except for a small lip of cervix on the right that needed to go away.  By 11:00, I had to constanly pant to get through not pushing, as it was still there.  Shortly after that, I started getting numb and tingly in my fingers and face.  I thought it was just because I was holding in a baby, but the nurse kept taking my temperature.  I started pushing at 11:30, with them taking my temperature after each pushing contraction.  It was rising apparently, and so was my heart rate.  By 12:30, Jillian's head was in sight even between pushes, but I was feeling really weird.  I can't describe it, but I felt completely unwell.  I thought I was just tired.  Shortly after that, the nurse ran to get the doctor, then came back bearing some news.

Because my water was broken for so long, I had developed an infection called chorioamnionitis.  Basically, my amniotic sac was infected, and it was developing into a huge health risk for me and Jillian.  My temperature was up to around 102 degrees.  My heart rate had increased to be faster than my baby's, with being around 150 between pushes and 160-170 during pushes.  Her heart rate was around 160 between pushes, and going down to 140-150 during pushes.  Our heart rates were literally crossing each other, and they were having a hard time discerning whose was whose.  At 1:00 a.m., the doctor came in and said that since Jillian was so close to crowning, she was going to use a vacuum extractor to get baby out, as it was becoming urgent that she needed to get here for both of our sakes, and I was too weak with fever to continue doing an effective job on my own.  If she hadn't been so close already I would have had to have an emergency c-section.  It only took about 5 minutes or so after the vacuum was in place until Jillian was born.  It hurt like hell, and I tore pretty badly, but she was 100% perfectly healthy.

Jillian Rene` was born at 1:22 a.m. on January 20, 2011.  She weighed 7 lb. 14 oz., and was 20 inches long.  Despite my health and complicaions, Jillian scored a 7 on her 1 minute Apgar and a 9 at 5 minutes.  She was 100% perfectly healthy.  She did, however, have to go to the NICU for 8 hours for monitoring just to be safe that the infection wouldn't present itself in her after birth.  We were both given antibiotics periodically for 48 hours following delivery.  I got to spend a half hour with her before they took her away, then got to visit her twice briefly before they released her to me on the mommy and baby ward.  She got to stay with me the whole time, except for one little mishap.  She somehow ripped the IV out of her arm, and had to go back to the NICU to get it replaced.  It took them 3 hours to find a good vein, and my poor baby returned to me with an arm full of poke marks.  It completely broke my heart.

My recovery has been good.  My fever went away pretty quickly after her birth, and my heart rate and blood pressure returned to normal, too.  My doctor said I was an awesome pusher, and if I wasn't sick she would have been out sooner.  It's scary to think about, really, that if I lived 100 years ago I would have probably been one of the women who died during childbirth.  I am so thankful for medical intervention and advancements to be able to determine how sick and was and do what needed to be done.  It wasn't as scary at the time while all of it was happening, since I was just worried about Jill, but now, *shudder*.

And the irony that shows this story comes full circle in a way:  the doctor who discharged me was the same doctor who sent me home the night before.  The look on his face when he saw me and was looking over my chart was priceless.  It changed from happy doctor to very uncomfortable really quickly. 

Marshall is the best dad in the world.  I knew he would be a great one, but watching him be so beyond-great-more-like-fantastic-amazing-wonderful with her has been one of the best parts of this experience.  And she really loves her Daddy, too.  I love the way they look at each other.  It makes me teary-eyed just thinking about it.

A funny highlight from labor and pushing:  After the vacuum was on and I was pushing, things went from 0-60 really quick.  At one point, probably while her head was coming out, the labor scene looked like the following scenario.  There were a good 8 people at least in the room crowded around, yelling at me to "Push harder!  Harder!  You can push harder than that!  Lisa Push Harder!!!"  all at the same time.  Meanwhile, I"m yelling "It hurts!  It hurts!  It really hurts!  Ow, it burns!  Waaaah!"  between pushes and grunting like an animal during.  Suddenly, Marshall, who had stayed relatively quite and composed during this whole process, starts hysterically crying and shouting out words that sound like a frantic mixture of "Push!  Oh my God!  Woah!"  and other inaudible, excited noises.  It was at that point that I knew something was happening, and right after that I was suddenly looking at my daughter.

I love her so much!  She's the most beautiful baby I've ever seen.  I don't even care if I'm biased, I'm calling it.  Jillian is the most beautiful, perfect baby girl to ever have been born.  And she is all ours.  ♥