Happy one month birthday, Georgie girl!

This past month has felt both flown by and felt like one very long day and night. We survived the first four weeks, and that "we" includes Georgie. All in all, she has put up with her very inexperienced parents very well and is responding to us more and more - I love it when I can tell she recognizes me or my voice!

This month brought some unexpected challenges with it. Not only have we survived the sleepless nights, we have learned and re-learned and then re-learned again how to breastfeed. We survived Georgie choking and starting to turn blue on her first day home. We survived me having postpartum high blood pressure (basically pre-eclampsia, only after delivery) for two weeks. We survived Georgie not gaining enough weight and the accompanying guilt and extra feedings. We survived finding not one, but two black widow spiders in our living room (plus one outside our bedroom window). We survived my having the beginnings of a yeast infection, which then developed into an allergic reaction to something (still not sure what) that spread across my chest, down my arms, and up my face, swelling one of my eyes almost completely shut. Who knew that my health would be the roadblock to a smooth first month at home?

Mostly, we have learned so much in our Parenting 101 crash course. For example, we've learned that the less sleep I get, the less I am able to cope with a crying baby who won't eat no matter what I do and when I start crying too, it's time for Tim to step in. We've learned Tim's still got mad staying up all night skills when the situation calls for it (and I bless him for it). We learned that setting up a crib in your bedroom doesn't mean that's where the baby will be the happiest sleeping. Cleaning your kitchen takes a very far backseat to sleeping when we get the chance. And having something to watch during the long hours of the night not only makes them go a little faster, it also helps us stay awake. 

Most of this month has been operated in survival mode - one meal at a time, one load of laundry at a time, one hour of sleep at a time - and I'm not afraid to admit it. Just the fact that we made it this far is enough for me. It has felt like a "two steps forward, one step back" dance so being able that we have made progress is very rewarding. We're on the other side of a month and I know that in another month, things will be different again. Maybe not better, but different. Today I took Georgie for a walk, and tomorrow we will attempt to go to church. Slowly, something resembling normal life is creeping back into our home. Par for the Parenting 101 course, I think. It helps that Georgie is so stinkin' cute, makes it easier to remember why we decided to sign up for this course in the first place. And I know that someday, probably sooner than I think, I'll be looking back on all this fondly and wishing a little bit that my girl could be so tiny again.

How she got here

Georgie is three weeks old today, and I feel like I am still processing her birth. Is three weeks enough time to understand such a tremendous experience? Probably not, but I wanted to make sure I got the details down before I started forgetting things. Standard long birth story follows - skip to the photos if you want!

First thing to know is that I planned on doing a natural childbirth. It's something I thought a lot about and I really wanted - I wanted to be able to be fully present for the birth of my baby. Tim and I did the Hypnobabies home course and it was awesome. The relaxation techniques really helped me stay calm and positive throughout my pregnancy instead of being an anxious basket case all the time. I felt prepared and was ready to do it.

Because I had been measuring small and every ultrasound showed that the baby was a little small, we expected that I'd be a late. When I hit 41 weeks, we went to the hospital for a nonstress test and ultrasound. Everything checked out just fine, but one of the midwives I'd been seeing (let's call her Carrie) happened to be at the hospital so she came in and talked to me about getting induced. She wasn't my favorite person to work with before that, but then she threw out things like "increased chance of stillbirth" and "the baby's getting bigger and your pelvis is only so big." Fun things like that. I had to be really insistent that I didn't want to be induced, especially because the only reason for it was that I was overdue - there were no actual medical concerns. I knew it would be much harder to have a natural birth if I didn't go into labor on my own, so I told her no. I was very proud of myself for speaking up, especially when if felt like Carrie was trying to scare me. 

I went back two days later (Wednesday) for another nonstress test. The ultrasound was fine and I thought the nonstress test was too, but then Carrie came in and told me they were seeing some variables on the test. The baby's heart rate was dropping slightly when I was contracting, which indicated she could be in some stress. It wasn't an emergency, but it was a concern. Carrie told me that I needed to be induced and even started talking about keeping me there overnight. I asked to just come back in the next morning, and she agreed - I'm pretty sure it's the only reason she let me leave the hospital. Now that I'm not in the moment, I can see why she was so insistent but at the time, I felt manipulated and scared and heartbroken that I wouldn't be allowed to go into labor on my own. I went home to Tim with a 6:30 induction scheduled for the next morning, but as we talked (and I cried) and processed, we felt strongly like it was all for the best, especially since the midwife I liked the most, Dena, was on call the next day so I wouldn't have to deal with Carrie. We let my doula (and best friend since high school ) Natalie know and got ready and excited to have a baby the next day.

We went in late the next morning because I elected to sleep in a little (and Dena didn't come on call until 9 am). Dena started me on a cervix softener around 9:30 since I was still just at a 1, and since you have to wait four hours after a cervix softener is administered to start pitocin, we watched two episodes of Pushing Daisies while we waited. Dena came back and broke my water at noon, and the contractions started to pick up. In the process of moving around to find a comfortable position, I got really dizzy so I had to be in bed and on oxygen for most of the rest of the day. At two, they started up the pitocin. I think I would have been okay to labor naturally if I'd been able to move around and change positions, but the contractions were already pretty intense so I asked for some drugs in my IV to take the edge off. Mostly the drugs just made me sleepy but between that, the relaxing music I put on my iPod, and my Hypnobabies training, I breathed my way through the next three hours. I went from a 3 to an 8 in that time and was feeling "pushy," but I was already completely exhausted, both physically and mentally, so I asked for an epidural. Once that kicked in, I was able to take a nap for about an hour and a half, which was awesome and exactly what I needed.

When I woke up around 7 or so, I was (finally!) at a 10. We put on my "Feel Good" playlist to help wake me up and set the mood, and when Dena came in to get everything set up, we totally had a dance party. That's one of my favorite details of the day - I can't wait until Georgie is old enough to appreciate that there was literally dancing and singing when she was born! There were only six songs on the playlist (the rest of my music hadn't transferred for some reason) so we listened to them about four times while I pushed. After almost exactly an hour, Georgie was born a minute before 8:30 with lots of blonde hair. The cord was wrapped around her neck twice, but she wasn't ever in distress - her heart rate had stayed steady throughout the entire day, during the contractions and drugs and pushing, everything. She came through it all like a champ. 

They put her up on my stomach right away and those first moments of holding her were indescribably surreal. I was so exhausted and so awake at the same time. I remember lots of people around us, lots of hands reaching in to wipe her off, cut the cord, etc., but they seemed so disembodied; I only had eyes and ears for her. Tim was the only other person in focus - the rest of the room was literally a blur. They cleaned her up and cleaned me up and when I finally got to hold her again, it was just incredible. I couldn't believe we were a family of three and I was holding the tiny person who had lived inside of me for all those months. And watching Tim hold his daughter and bond with her - priceless. He was (and is) so in love. These pictures aren't the best quality, but I love how much they capture the emotions of those moments,

 And even though this photo is blurry, I can't get enough of the look on Tim's face.

And here are some more recent pictures of our sweet girl, just for fun:

 Can you tell I haven't slept much?

 This was totally un-posed, by the way. So stinkin' cute!

This cute little dress is the only thing that actually fits her right now - she's still too little for her 0-3 month clothes.

Tim went to California for a few days for his brother's wedding and holding Georgie was the first thing he did when he got back.

 
This is the look we get when she's totally chilled out. When she purses her lips like that, it means she doesn't want anything else to eat. I think it's hilarious.

Conference weekend

As much as I love General Conference weekend (and I do!), it took a back seat to staring at (and feeding, changing, bathing, and calming) this cutie:

We've survived the first 10 days, mostly with a lot of help from my mom. Tim is going to go back to work tomorrow and I'll be on my own for the afternoons. We are still trading off being awake at night but hopefully we'll be able to all three sleep at night (and all in the same room) soon. Georgie is a very chill baby, for the most part. Just in the last couple of days she's started to sleep less and fuss and scream more, which is to be expected now that she's not brand new. But she's generally pretty easy to calm and we are starting to recognize her cues better, which definitely helps. Mostly we think she's adorable and that makes even the screaming easier to deal with.

I am feeling pretty good, up and about and sort of dressing myself. I don't think I've slept for more than 2 1/2 hours at a time since we came home from the hospital, but Tim is amazing and makes sure I get enough naps to be able to function. We are just taking it really easy, one day and night at a time. Sometimes it's just one feeding at a time, depending on the amount of crying going on (either hers or mine - postpartum hormones are so crazy!). It's amazing how days and nights just run together when you have a new baby, and amazing how much stuff ends up everywhere - wipes, blankets, burp clothes, dishes, water bottles. It's  really about survival at this point, but I keep reminding myself that it will get better and even in just a week, we'll have made progress. In the meantime, I'll just keep enjoying my tiny snuggly baby. Love her!