Not a recommended way to lose weight

Today, one week after Mackenzie’s birth, I weighed in at just 4 lbs heavier than my pre-pregnancy weight.

You might ask: “Wow, Anne… how did you manage that?”

Not on purpose, I’ll tell you that right now.

Let me introduce you to my friend The Stomach Bug.

Unfortunately, my dad brought a nasty gastrointestinal variety of the Dreaded Gamboo with him from California when he came out for Mackenzie’s birth. He didn’t realize it until it hit him hard the day after she was born. Many lysol wipes and buckets of purel later, Scott and I were both sick as well. Scott’s mom was spared, as was (thank you for answered prayers) Mackenzie.

My dad stayed on several extra days, taking the graveyard shift with Mackenzie so Scott and I could try and recover fully from this sickness. I honestly don’t know how we would have made it without his help.

I remember a low point one night when I needed to take her upstairs and feed her, but I honestly didn’t have the strength to lift her up from the couch and carry her up the stairs. Scott was already passed out in bed. In tears, I asked my dad if he would carry her for me, then I collapsed in the glider in the nursery and fed her.

Several positives have come from this crazy week:

- I’ve been very blessed to have an abundance of milk, despite my sickness and not being able to stomach many calories.

- We have been humbled and now accept offers of help gratefully, rather than try to do everything on our own.

- Because I have very limited energy reserves, I’ve had to consciously stop myself from cleaning up around the house and doing less important tasks. This has helped me really focus on Mackenzie and just loving her and comforting her every way I can. I’ve truly had to give up some of my desires so I could have energy to be a good Mom to her.

- We spent some really great time with my dad, taking more photos of Mackenzie, learning his philosophy on parenting, and just enjoying his company.

- Mackenzie got some late night bonding time with Grandma Bean before Grandma had to catch a plane back to Utah. This was another tear-inducing moment for me, when I stumbled down to the basement at 4 am to take Nancy up on her generous offer to help “anytime, really”. I was fighting the feeling that I had somehow failed as a mom because I reached the end of my rope and needed a break. Phew! Glad that’s behind me.

- One memory that will stay with me for a long time, was waking up at 9am on my own, after a very restful stretch of sleep. Grandpa had Mackenzie in the basement most of the night, and I was just called in for her feeding times. The night before, I had felt like I had been through the wringer and would never be normal again, but because of my dad’s help… I woke up feeling like a sane person. I walked down to the basement in a state of shock and was greeted with the sight of my dad stretched out on the air mattress asleep and snoring with his tiny granddaughter sleeping on the floor next to the bed, all bundled up and sighing contentedly in her sleep. Needless to say, there were more tears.

- My mom moved heaven and earth to come out a week earlier than planned, so she will be here tomorrow to help out. We’re excited to introduce her to her granddaughter!

- There was a time when we were very worried Mackenzie had caught the same bug we had. When we had her checked out by a pediatrician and were told she was fit as a fiddle, the relief was overwhelming. I realized it didn’t so much matter to me that I was sick (though all things considered, I certainly prefer not having horrible stomach cramps), I was just thrilled that our sweet girl had been spared.

- We have learned to appreciate Mackenzie’s angelic disposition. She really is a sweetheart and a great nurser and so fun to hold. All I have to do is look at her face and know it’s all worth it. All of it.

In case you doubt the angelic disposition:

Mackenzie’s Birth Story

These next few posts are guaranteed to contain detail that nobody but me, Scott, and Mackenzie will ever care to read. That notwithstanding, I’m blogging about every detail my sleepy brain can remember at the moment.

Right now it feels like each detail will be burned into permanent memory, but the emotions I’ve felt in the past 5 days are so new to me and fresh in my mind that I wanted to write them out just in case.

Here’s the basic timeline:

December 18th- Grandma Bean comes to visit for Christmas. Ah, who are we kidding? She was totally there for Baby Bean’s arrival.

December 19th- Could have been induction day, but Scott and I wanted Baby Bean to come on her own time and we felt it likely that she would (I had been having contractions, etc.)

December 24th- A fantastic Christmas Eve, filled with contractions that I tried to ignore. I didn’t *really* want a Christmas baby, I had an induction scheduled for December 27th, and my dad was flying out on the 26th so I wasn’t in a huge hurry.

December 25th- A fantastic Christmas, filled with contractions. It was very fun to have Scott’s mom there to spoil us with a Bean Traditional Christmas Breakfast (biscuits and gravy, hot chocolate, and orange slices with powdered sugar). We spent the day relaxing and giving updates to family members on the phone. They pretty much went like this: “No, no baby yet. We’ll call you when she arrives.”

December 26th- After a pretty awful night’s sleep (I stayed up way too late putting together a Christmas puzzle and then had every pregnancy symptom in the book keeping me awake. Reflux, restless legs, anxiety, etc.) we rolled out of bed and headed to my 9am scheduled Dr. appointment. On the way out the door, I took a quick shower, grabbed a small roll and a half a glass of water. Scott put on a hat.

When we arrived, we got a bit of a shock. My doctor pulled out the doppler and the room was scarily quiet for a few very long seconds as she looked for a heartbeat.

This was, of course, silly. I could feel the baby moving around inside of me, so I knew she was alive and kicking (literally).

Still, though… the moment was tense. Then, the heartbeat was found but a few seconds later the baby rolled and the heartbeat slowed down. A lot. To the point where my doctor took my pulse to make sure she wasn’t picking up on that instead.

Scott and I just kept exchanging anxious glances as the doctor tried to get the baby to move and the heartbeat to pick back up. She took us to another room and got me hooked up to a fancy monitor. I shifted every which way on the table, but the heartbeat registered at most around 100 (I believe they look for it to be 120s to 140s). That was an improvement over what she found with the doppler, but low enough that she wanted us to go straight to the hospital to be monitored and induced ASAP.

labor

I find myself quite unexpectedly in labor.

An induction was scheduled for tomorrow so we had a busy day planned for today. But, at my appointment this morning, my doctor was concerned about the baby’s heart rate and sent us straight to the hospital.

The baby is fine, I’m hooked up to four different machines (wonderful for peace of mind, because I can hear the heartbeat constantly). I am starting to feel the contractions more.

For all you number lovers, I’m dilated to a 4, 90% thinned out, and I’m a -2. The contractions are 3-4 minutes apart, each lasts about 1 minute, and Baby Bean is not allowed to come for at least 5 more hours because that’s when my dad’s plane lands.

I’m blogging from my iPhone, which means even this brief post kept me occupied through more than a dozen contractions. Only a few more to go…

Due Date!

But she’s not so much doing anything yet.

Hope you’re having a Merry Christmas!