Mistakes in Motherhood

I needed time to process my thoughts on various subjects. On Tuesday December 28 2010, at 9:07am my fourth son, Liam Michael was born weighing 7lbs, 3.4oz and was 19 inches long. A big part of accepting his labor and delivery is to let it go.

Liam’s birth was supposed to be my second (and final) homebirth. At 33 weeks, my blood pressure was slightly elevated for a second time in my pregnancy and I was risked out of homebirth for PIH (pregnancy induced hypertension). My midwife ran labs to make sure I wasn’t developing pre-eclampsia, and then consulted with an OB, and together they agreed that for our safety, it would be best if I could deliver at the hospital. My best chance of having a natural birth was at the hospital 26 miles away in a bigger city. I was crushed. I was angry, heartbroken, disappointed, scared, and then I let it go. “It is what it is” I told myself over and over, until eventually I believed it. I accepted this new challenge as a way to heal from my last two hospital births in which I succumbed to a domino effect of interventions that led to me being on my back, numb from an epidural pushing my baby out on command. I told myself my new goal was to have a different experience and I diligently wrote up a birth plan that included no pitocin, no epidural, no back pushing, laboring and delivering in the water and I was determined I would have my homebirth in a hospital.

The rest of my pregnancy had its ups and downs. The OB’s office had me waiting over an hour to be seen my first two appointments, and I was getting frustrated by how little time I spent with a provider, vs. my homebirth midwife where I was greeted at the door, never had to wait beyond a couple minutes *maybe* twice, and each of my visits was an hour long. Accepting that I was still important even though I no longer felt like a priority was difficult, but I had to remind myself my homebirth midwife has a lighter patient load because she chooses to. My blood pressure was never elevated again which was bittersweet. My birth plan was accepted and it was decided I could have a planned hospital waterbirth. Now I just had to wait to have my baby. It seemed everything was lining up perfect and this birth would be my “healing” birth.

Stay tuned for my update of Liam’s birth story.

2 Comments | In: This is how I roll | tags: Family, Health, Pregnancy, Updates. | #

A week after my last post we started the moving process, a trip that took us several days and was a whirlwind of activity. We arrived in Spokane on March 4th, on the 5th Bobby, Sophia and I headed over to Olympia to look at houses and we signed for the first one we looked at. The house itself is not perfect, I would have loved there to be a bigger basement bedroom, more storage, a larger kitchen, and of course, more storage. However, the location is as perfect as you can get and the yard is HUGE. Overall there were a lot more pros about the property than cons. By the time we were done with that we decided to bed down for the night here in town, and Saturday we went back to Spokane. On Monday we loaded back up all the kids and headed back to Olympia and our stuff was delivered the next day. Other than a few small things, everything arrived in perfect condition and I was super impressed with the moving experience. Everyone was so kind and professional.

It is almost 4 months later and we still have not settled in completely. We have to organize the garage and have about a dozen boxes out there we have not touched. We have only hung a couple pictures and still have to build some shelves in the storage room. We have a good excuse, but more about that in another post.

When I said the location here is perfect, I mean it. I love the schools, I love how close we are to a neighborhood park that is just gorgeous, and huge. We are a couple blocks from a 22 mile trail that runs miles through the county, and will soon be expanding to be 48 miles long. We are minutes from walking to lakes, ponds, streams, etc. On our back deck, we can sit outside and listen to a chorus of frogs at night. I have never been happier in any other city. The plan is to keep renting here until we sell our home in Colorado and then consider buying, but I have no desire to do that for another 5 years or so.

Ok, more updates to come, I am going to break them up by major events instead of backdating them to when they happened.

No Comments | In: People, Places & Things | tags: House Stuff, Moving, Updates. | #

It’s been about 18 days since Bobby got home and it is unbelievable to me that it wasn’t just yesterday. These last few weeks have been a blur of activity, and I feel like I have not even had time to exhale, yet alone process. He’s spending a lot of time working at home, and my routine of taking kids to and from school, cleaning, and going to appointments has resumed. But the craziest thing of this is that we are *still* in limbo. We still do not have authorization to move! Yes, here we are at 16 days past the day I planned to be gone, and we don’t even know when and where we are going.

I cope by knitting another row onto an afghan I have been working on for two years. I listen to Bob Marley and remind myself that “every little thing, gonna be alright”, I drink tea and sometimes wine, and take walks and watch documentaries on Netflix. But no matter how much I distract myself, I am still frustrated that we still don’t have the information we thought we would have at the end of December; and every other Wednesday I am thankful that he still has a paycheck, and insurance, and a job, even if he is at home driving me nuts.

I used to romanticize the idea of working from home, but if anything, the last couple weeks has taught me that working from home is the equivalent at working in prison, with between one to five noisy cellmates hanging off of you like a bunch of baby orangutans. I sometimes wonder if he volunteers to go to the store in the evenings just to get away from it all, and even then he usually has to drag along a few primates with him. I really respect that he hasn’t gone all “Here’s Johnny!” on us and redrum-ed the kids and I.

So whenever I complain to myself that I am tired, frustrated, or frazzled (the trifecta of mommy-hood) I just remind myself that not only is he dealing with the same triple-punch, but on top of that has deadlines and reports and real-actual-get-paid-for-work that he has to complete without a nice, quiet space to run off to. Sometimes the silver lining is obvious, sometimes you have to dig deep to find it, but know that it is always there.

1 Comment | In: A lot about nothing | tags: Bobby, Domestic Diva, House Stuff, Insanity, Lame-o, Moving, Updates. | #

I am not the type to make formal resolutions, but I have really let myself go in the last year. Not in the typical “boy she let herself go”, sort of way. In fact I have gotten quite a bit healthier in the last 6 month (she says as she crams caramel corn into her face). More I have let myself go creatively… and I have really let my blog suffer. Seems that once again I have let real life get in the way, and I probably spent a bit too much time on Facebook too.

So the last month has been a whirlwind of emotion. You know the feeling of standing on a rug, then at the last minute having it yanked right out from underneath you? Well, that was my December. For the last 11 months, we have been looking for houses in North Virginia… just to find out that we may be going elsewhere. No big deal, except for… we have no clue where we are going. We won’t know for another week… but we have to be there in a month. Yes, a MONTH. Simply put, I am a freaking, freak-out, McFreakerson, mess.

We have also had a ton of health surprises with our little princess. She “failed” her 18 month well-baby checkup so to speak. She got the label of failure to thrive because she is growing too slow. This has earned her a couple referrals to specialists, a long list of lab tests, xrays, and a visit for her strange way of walking yielded a referral to a cardiologist for a heart murmur. On the bright side, December brought me a baby who can FINALLY walk. I had decided when she turned 16 months old that she would crawl off to college; and the tender age of 18 months and one week, she joined the upright world. She took off running, never looking back.

2010 will bring good things to anyone who looks for it. The second month of 2010 will bring home Bobby from Iraq, and new adventures in a new city and state. Thankfully, January should fly by since I will have just 3 weeks to find a place to live, interview and hire moving companies, research schools and neighborhoods in a new location, and all the other little bits and pieces. I am looking forward to the last month of his deployment not dragging, like the 9th month of pregnancy always does. I am really hoping I can keep busy enough that it will seem like no time before he’s home.

No Comments | In: People, Places & Things, This is how I roll | tags: Family, Health, Ramblings, Sophia, Updates. | #

Last night, I was so wound up from a long busy week of trying to get work around the house done that I just needed some me time. After the kids went to bed I climbed in a scorching hot bubble bath and just read. I read page after page until my toes were prunes and my water cooled down. It was bliss. When I was done with my bath, I climbed into my bed and read some more. I got so into my book, The Secret Lives of Bees, that it was 2 am before I finally saved off my page on my Kindle and turned the light off.

This morning I am paying for it. I have a bad case of the lazies and I just can’t seem to get myself out of this funk I keep hoping for a burst of inspiration to get back to work on the office that needs to be turned into a nursery, or finish hanging lights, painting, or installing the CO2 detectors, or even knitting would be a step up from what I am doing now.

On a positive note, I have been better about carving out time to make sure to get 30-60 minutes a day of exercise. Last night I was able to pull out a box of clothes I wore 6 years ago, before I got pregnant with Matthew and after I had lost 50 lbs, and the larger of the two sizes fit. I was so happy to have some new clothes that fit since all my others are too small. Unfortunately, these were all summery clothes, and we have snow on the ground here, so they will be around the house clothes or workout clothes until I can drop one more jean size.

1 Comment | In: This is how I roll | tags: Family, House Stuff, Me, Updates. | #

I took Sophie to the lab at the hospital today for her blood draw. That place is a maze, I spent more time lost then we did in the lab. Twice we needed volunteers to take me where I needed to be when we were lost, and I am talking down long hallways and up elevators… and after we navigated the maze and got to the right lab and the right valet, we did not even get any cheese!

Sophie did well. They were able to get the blood they needed from her bruised little arms, without drawing it from her head. I won’t know the results until next week, but I am hopeful we will get good results.

No Comments | In: People, Places & Things | tags: Health, Sophia, Updates. | #

On Tuesday, my sweet baby Matthew turned FOUR! It is so hard to believe that he is already four, but on the same hand I can’t believe I have only known him four years because I just cannot imagine life without him, it seems like I have always known him. For his birthday dinner, he wanted to go to Olive Garden, which hit a sweet spot with me because that was the place I always went to for my own birthdays.

Sophie is sick with a fever and a cold. It started with a low grade fever on Tuesday and by Wednesday morning it was up to 103.5 and she had me up all night long. She is still a little warm today, but she does not seem so dependent on Motrin or Tylenol. I keep expecting to see teeth or chicken pox appearing, but so far neither one seems to be coming.

Matthew started preschool on Wednesday, so Sophie and I were able to rest while he was away. He goes 3 days a week for 6 hours a day and he LOVES it. I really struggled with the decision between a home daycare where they center around play-learning or an actual academic preschool. Both have up sides and down sides, but in the end I really liked the teacher, philosophy, price and convenience of the home based daycare near my home. He is only around two other kids who are 2 and 3 years younger than he is, but he does not seem to mind. I also like that he is exposed to less germs. I was hoping she would have another four-year-old or two, but he does not seem to mind at all.

Having only one child here for 18 hours a week clears up my schedule when Sophie naps to get much needed projects done. Part of my frustration was the clothing situation we are having. Matthew was pulling all his clothes out of his dressers to find one shirt, and when he and his brothers cleaned his room, those clean clothes ended up in the hampers and I had Mount Washmore climbing to scary heights. I felt overrun by laundry and was ready just to institute a burlap sack uniform policy. I decided the only reasonable thing to do was to move all his clothes into my room into Bobby’s dresser. However then I had to decide what to do with Bobby’s clothes. I ended up hanging up all his clothing, to include his jeans. It was actually sadder than I thought. I felt like I was “moving on”, when in reality he is just overseas, not gone.

With Matthew’s dresser now empty, I decided to use if for Sophia’s clothing and then I moved all her diapers off the top of his dresser and into her old dresser. The room looks a lot more orderly now. We will see in time how this arrangement works.

The older two kids have been busy this week with state standardized testing. Austin is done and Christopher has another week left, but I think they are both feeling pretty sick of those stupid tests.

I braved the post office this week when I mailed off a 17 lb box to Bobby, it took me 45 minutes of standing in line to get it mailed out, but I needed to take a helper and I knew that would mean going at a busy time of the day.

Today I am feeling like a drill sergeant, the kids have overrun the house with their toys and messes and enough was enough. It was time to take control of the situation and put them to work cleaning up toys, their bedrooms, and all their other little messes. I still have to go through the house and clean up all the little hot spots that they have gathered on tables and the kitchen could use a good scrub down. All the floors need attention from a vacuum or mop too.

Last night I had my first bad night since Bobby left. It was the first time I REALLY started missing him. I mean I miss him every day, but we also talk, email, and chat daily. It has been almost four days since we have talked, which is the longest we have gone without talking since he left in January for training or February to Iraq.

Matthew is also having a hard time, he went from only 2 or 3 accidents at night a month, or 4 or 5 or more accidents a night a week since he left. I forgot to bring it up with the doctor on Wednesday at his physical to rule out anything medical. I am also having other issues with Matthew and Christopher both that I won’t be bringing up on here to protect their privacy and keep from embarrassing them later in life.

I guess we all deal with changes differently, and we all have our good days and our bad days, all our trials and triumphs and in the end we will find our own ways to work through it all and be stronger for it.

4 Comments | In: People, Places & Things | tags: Austin, Bobby, Christopher, Domestic Diva, Family, Health, Insanity, Matthew, Me, Milestones, Parenting, Ramblings, Ranting, School, Sleep Deprivation, Sophia, Updates. | #

I still have hives, this is what my legs, arms, hand, feet look like. My belly is spotty, but to a much lesser extent. My shins, feet, hands, arms itch the most.

I went back to Urgent Care on Thursday and saw the same PA who gave me the ammoxacillin, she did not remember me and I felt bad saying “You did this to me” I just said that I was there on the 26th and prescribed ammox for a double ear infection. She was stunned that not only the “doctor I saw” missed it, but also that the pharmacist missed it.

She put me back on prednisone, 20mg for 5 days, 10mg for 5 days, and then 5mg for 6 days. I have already had the hives for 2 weeks, and the PA told me it could be another 2-4 weeks before they are cleared up. I also am taking Claritin and Tagamet (yes, the heatburn medication) which is also an antihistimine. It was actually my facebook friend who told me about using the two over the counter meds, my mom confirmed my dad was on it for his shingles, and I talked it over with the urgent care doctor who agreed they were both good medications to add.

Now if only I was getting any relief from any of it. I am sure it is helping, but I still itch like a dog with fleas. I try hard not to scratch, but it does not work that well. I just hope that it clears up soon, it is embarrassing to go out in public looking like I have something contagious. Oh and I am SURE my insurance company is loving the 4 visits I have had with doctors over this in less than 45 days from joining them. Not to mention my visit with the rheumatologist and Matthew’s physical yesterday…. not to mention all the visits we have coming up!

No Comments | In: A lot about nothing | tags: Health, Me, Ranting, Updates. | #

I have been sick since Monday.

Last Monday.

That seems like an eternity to me.

It started with typical cold symptoms, runny nose, fever, aches. By Wednesday I knew I had an ear infection. I called at 8:01am Wednesday morning to get in to get checked out and she has two appointments that week. One is at the exact time I have to be at my son’s school to pick him up, the other is Saturday. At that time I scoff Saturday, I just *know* I will be better by then, or I will just go to Urgent Care.

I take it as easy as I can the next few days, which of course is not easy at all. On Friday I tell myself I *will not* leave the house under any circumstance, except to take Austin to and from school… and then fate intervenes. An angel from heaven swoops down in the form of a tax refund. The tax refund I did not think I would get for weeks because I forgot to add the kids’ social security numbers to my rough draft in the tax software and it showed me getting almost nothing.

So of course my promise not to leave the house is broken by 9 AM, the time the Mac store opens. I gather up all my paperwork, and by noon I am am not a PC anymore. I am a Mac. I will refrain from gushing, because if you were like I was, a die-hard PC lover, you won’t want to hear it. But I will say, all my misconceptions of a mac were wrong.

Friday night around 5pm, I go check the mail and I got a shocker. It was a letter that made absolutely NO sense. It was from my insurance company and it seemed like it was proof of coverage, until I looked closer and it said “Covered until 1/31/09″. Holy crap, I am sick, and I don’t know who my insurance company is! A little bit of research yielded who I think may be my insurance company, but without proof, no one would accept it. Thankfully I knew that we have one public hospital that will bill you if you have no insurance, instead of expecting payment at the time of service like a lot of private Urgent Care centers do. So Sunday afternoon I head to the Urgent Care and I have a double ear infection! The one that hurts really bad was just starting to get infected, where the one that had not started hurting until that morning, figure that one out.

Anyways, it took about 15 minutes on the phone this morning to get the mess sorted out, I am holding now to pass the information on to the hospital now.

I just hope that the 60 pills I have to take over the next 10 days clear this mess up!

1 Comment | In: A lot about nothing, Geek Speak, People, Places & Things, This is how I roll | tags: Finances, Health, Insanity, Lame-o, Me, Ranting, Technology, Updates. | #

It’s 4pm, 24 hours after I broke the news to the older kids that I quit, and that it was every man for himself. All but one load of laundry has been washed, the rest is put away, except for a basket of the little kids’ clothing.

Tonight I bit Austin’s head off at pickup, he did not get out to the car until 3:40, school releases at 3:15. Turns out the kid we take home had to stay after school, and they announced it on the intercom, but Austin was more worried about hearing his own name and not paying attention that his friend was called.

Anyways, we get home, I am in a foul mood because of waiting in the hot car, drama from the neighbors, working my ass off on laundry all day, and just general moodiness. Matthew was tired, Sophie was tired, I am tired and I just did not want to deal with anything more. I later apologized because I did not need to be as snappy as I was, but when I went downstairs to check on laundry, Austin was obviously upset. I asked him why he was crying and he said all day today he felt really bad for not helping when he was asked to. I also had a talk with Christopher, who was not as remorseful, but he said he did not like the idea of having to earn “privileges” (I was going to require that they do extra chores to earn “credits” to use much like change would at a laundromat).

Well tonight, they actually *asked* if they can work together to make dinner for the whole family as a peace offering. As soon as my jeans are in the dryer I will let them put their clothes in the hampers and I will combine their clothes with my 1/2 loads and start a few more loads tonight. I am hoping with some gentle reminding that we will make life easier on everyone if we work together, that we can keep up this rhythm and become a cohesive unit again.

This afternoon we all went in the back yard together and Austin helped me fix the fence and clean up, Chris cleaned up dog poop, and it was so nice to have my boys back.

1 Comment | In: This is how I roll | tags: Austin, Christopher, Family, Me, Parenting, Updates. | #