Hard, Happy Days

The last couple days have been a bit exhausting for me.  I worked three days in a row, early in the morning (getting up at 5am is not ideal for me... 8 sounds much nicer!).  I was looking forward to a restful weekend, but Kalyn got a nasty cold, and a few errands needed to be run.  Saturday turned out to be slightly less of a break than I anticipated.  However, there is always Sunday! Thank goodness for Sundays.  It was stake conference, so church was an hour shorter than usual.  I was happy about that since I had to go by myself.  Kalyn was still sick.  I did get some rest, but I also started getting that weird feeling in my throat, nose, and head that you get when a cold is coming on.  I was catching Kalyn's cold just in time for an early start on Monday morning (today), followed by a six-hour shift.  I was feeling a little bit hopeless because I desperately just wanted to sleep.

Among all this exhaustion the Lord sent me a few tender mercies.  I found a babysitter with ease.  Rex beat his record of hours of sleep a night: 7 hours one night!  I know how rare that is for a two-month-old.  I tried on the next smallest pair of pre-pregnancy pants that my legs didn't even fit into last time I tried putting them on and they actually fit.  Then, on Sunday night Rex rolled from his tummy to his back on his own for the first, second, and third time in his life.  I am so proud :) All I can say, is that I am prepared for a tough semester (even though I am not in school), but I can get through it with a smile because among all that is hard there are such happy things happening too.

Blessings

I am feeling extremely blessed right now, and very humbled.  I wanted to write about it and share more about how being a mother has helped me grow.  I have only been a mother for two short months, but in that time I have been humbled a lot.  A couple weeks ago we moved into a new apartment.  A new home means changing ward boundaries, unfortunately (or maybe it will be fortunate too).  I was just becoming very comfortable where I was, and as the Lord often does when people are comfortable, He threw a few growth opportunities at me.  I won't call them trials, because I can't say my baby boy is all trial.  He is mostly blessing.  When he was born I was given a dose of reality of how much help I really would need.  For one thing, I could hardly move on my own when I first got out of the hospital due to the third-degree tears.  My mom was there to help make sure our apartment didn't become a trash dump and to keep me from being insanely overwhelmed every time Kalyn went to work.  Some people brought us meals.  Others volunteered to babysit when I was desperate to find someone while I went to work.  I couldn't pay any of them, because of our tight college-student budget, but they all were willing.  In fact most of them told me thank you for letting them watch him! Ha! I wasn't expecting that since they were the ones helping me out.

Then came the time to move.  With a month and a half old baby this took about six times longer than it should have.  In fact we took several days to finish everything.  A few people helped us clean and even more came to help us move.  I don't know how I would've gotten it done on my own.  Then we had to unpack our new apartment (which I am still finishing...).  Let's just say I was feeling drained at that point and I, again, felt like it would be impossible to finish everything.  Then Kalyn called his mom, who agreed to come help us babysit while I attempted to unpack.  It was good timing, because between the stress of working and moving and finding babysitters among the usual stresses, I got sick.  I think it was mastitis.  I had just under a 101 degree fever and was completely useless for a day and a half.

All that calmed down for about a week before we realized that school was about to start.  I am not in school this semester, but Kalyn is, and that means less hours of work for him, and more for me.  Again, finding babysitters became a problem.  Being in a new ward, I was worried to death about finding people who would be willing to watch Rex, especially since I couldn't hardly pay them.  A couple of posts later on Facebook I found myself not with one babysitter for the semester, but five girls who were willing to do it.  I can't even put into words how that made me feel.  Some weird mixture of relief and discomfort.

Asking for help has always been something I struggle with.  I don't like to do it.  God has given me a huge lesson on how important it is to take care of other people.  Everyone needs something!  I have been thinking more and more about how little I have done for others and know I need to change that.  I have set myself a goal to help people as much as I can.  It might not be a lot right now, because of how much I need help myself, but I know there are opportunities everywhere.  I'll be looking.  I really believe that God is looking after little me.

My First Mommy Terror

I had my first moment of absolute terror as a mother tonight.  It had been one of those days where I felt really exhausted and wanted to sleep desperately, but the baby won't fall asleep.  I was hungry, because I had been trying to coax him to sleep for about two hours.  Finally, I laid down next to him on the couch, nursing him until he was asleep.  I got up and left him there while I stuck the now-very-crispy-and-dried-out toast in the microwave.  I figured if I toasted it for the third time it wouldn't be edible anymore.  Just as I opened the microwave to take it back out, I heard a little "thunk!"  I turned to the source of the noise and saw my little boy (previously on the couch) on the floor.  He had landed on top of our laptop.  It took about two seconds for me to run and grab him off the floor.  When I picked him up his face was frozen in a yelling expression.  There was no noise coming out, but his face had turned bright red.  His whole body seemed frozen and ridged.  I was freaking out.  I pulled him close to me and finally there was noise, but it didn't help me feel any better, because it was the worst sound I've ever heard.  It was real screaming.  Not the "I'm hungry/poopy/want to be held" scream.  I paced back and forth for a few minutes trying to calm him down and when I finally pulled him away from me I saw a snotty, tear-smeared, drooly face that had left it's mark all over my shirt.  It didn't take long for me to be distracted from this though as he had a mark on his forhead where he must have bumped it on the computer.  I can't even describe how horrible I felt.  When Kalyn came home from work about a half hour later I still felt so bad that when he looked in my face he could tell I was upset.  I started crying and scooted close to him on the couch.  That's when he saw our little guy's first wound.  "What happened to his head?" I told him what happened and was given a few sweet words about how no harm was done, the baby was okay, and he wouldn't hate me.  I still feel horrible, but I know he's right too.  I suppose a lot of moms freak out like that when their babies get hurt.  I'm sure I'll have to get used to kissing boo-boos since I have a little boy.  I just have to learn to not cry every time he gets hurt.

Dear Mom and Dad

This is a message to my wonderful parents, because after only six weeks of being a mother myself I have a whole new appreciation for them and anyone else out there who is a mother or father.

Dear Mom and Dad,
If I take a moment to think of the hardest thing I have ever done it would probably be when I ran my first marathon when I had fallen behind on training.  I couldn't move afterwards because I was hurting so much and my friend had to carry me to the car to drive me and Kalyn home.  That isn't the hardest thing I have ever done anymore.  Being a mom is.  Don't get me wrong, I love it! Looking down at the tiny little guy in my arms makes me glow with pride because he is my son.  However, when people told me that being a parent was hard it didn't exactly sink in.  I was picturing the getting up at night, the messy house, the millions of diaper changes a day, the getting peed and thrown up on, and much more.  What I wasn't prepared for was the emotional part of it.  I have never been so exhausted in my life.  I feel so lazy when my husband gets home from work and it is actually messier than when he left instead of cleaned up.  When I change little Rex's diaper I sit back down with him and he immediately fills it back up.  I have twice as much laundry to do because if the baby doesn't manage to get it messy then I spill all over myself and whatever I'm sitting on just so that I can get a few bites to eat.  I have to do everything one handed now, and have never felt clumsier than I do now.  When I go to the store everyone stares at me trying to calm my screaming baby who wants to be fed right NOW!  I can't go anywhere at all without hauling a diaper bag and car seat and wiggly baby.

Through all of this though, I have also learned the meaning of service, because I have been on the receiving end a lot lately.  The happiness I feel when I watch Rex learning to smile makes up for all the crying.  I feel closer to my husband as we work as a team.  And the craziness I go through everyday is teaching me patience and endurance.  The more I go through with this little baby, the more grateful I am you two went through it for me.  If you hadn't gotten up a thousand times in the middle of the night for us, hauled us back and forth every place you went, cleaned up after our messes, and still loved us, then I wouldn't have learned how to do that for my baby.  So thank you for teaching me how to love a child.  I love you so much and appreciate all you did when I didn't know how to do it for myself.

Love,
Ashley

The Scoop on Rex Walker

Hello friends!  I am happy to say that on Monday, I delivered a healthy baby boy!  I thought I would tell the story for those who are interested, but I warn you that this could be long.  It is just a really big deal and it was an incredible experience for me.  Anyone who has had a child or seen one born can relate.  Here is the scoop:

On Sunday night I called my doctor to see if I was going to have an induction appointment for Monday or would have to wait until Tuesday.  She said I was good to go for Monday at 7am, so Kalyn and I made sure to have everything packed and ready to go.  We cleaned up the house and laid down for bed at a reasonable time since we would be up early for an exhausting day.  We had no idea how early or how exhausting at the time, but it was a little hard to sleep.  We were just too excited to finally have our little guy in our arms!

Just before 2:00 am I woke up to pee (a very common occurrence when pregnant), but when I laid down to go back to sleep I noticed that I was starting to feel like I had cramps.  Not small ones either.  I couldn't sleep through it.  Then I realized they were coming and going in regular(ish) intervals every few minutes.  I thought, "Holy cow! I think I'm going into labor!" but I waited an hour before waking Kalyn up, because doctors like you to have contractions for about that long before going to the hospital.  When it became a little too painful for me I leaned over and kissed him on the check and asked, "Are you awake?"  He woke up and I explained what was going on. He told me he thought that might happen.  So up we got and headed to the hospital.

By the end of the half hour drive I was starting to feel a little sick.  We had to enter the hospital through the ER, because the main entrance was closed at that time of night.  The receptionists there checked me in.  After a couple minutes of giving her my information, I told her I felt like I was going to throw up.  It must have taken her less than 2 seconds to get a barf bag into my hands.  I suppose if you worked in the ER you would have to have barf bags on hand all the time. She got me checked in while a nurse from labor and delivery came to get me.

I got changed into a hospital gown and tried to make myself comfortable until the anesthesiologist came to give me an epidural.  I was already dilated to 3 cm.  Kalyn and I noticed one of the charts that was posted on the wall.  It had a bunch of circles labeled "1 cm, 2 cm, 4 cm, 6 cm, 8 cm, 10 cm."  Every time a nurse came in to check how far I had dilated Kalyn pointed to a circle on the chart.  Luckily I was numb from the waist down, so I wasn't cranky about it and could laugh instead.  My contractions started slowing down a little bit again after I had the epidural, so I was given some Pitocin to speed them back up.

I was surprised how quickly the next few hours passed.  A nurse came to check on me a little bit before 11 am and said, "Let's check how far you're dilated, just for fun.  You probably haven't moved a lot yet."  But to her surprise, I was already at 10 cm.  She went to get the doctor.  I was told to expect about an hour of pushing since it was my first baby, but I surprised them again.  He was born about a half hour later.  They lifted my newborn son onto my belly while they rubbed him clean and dry with towels.  I remember trying to comprehend that this beautiful baby boy had just come out of me.  He was mine.  I touched his head and looked at Kalyn.  I think we were both tearing up a little bit.  I was able to hold him for a while before they took him across the room to weigh and measure him.

It wasn't until later that I found out that I had 3rd degree tearing.  On the very last push I tor all the way from the vagina to the rectum.  Even when the feeling came back to my legs (when the epidural started wearing off) I felt pretty good, so I told the nurse I wanted to wait on taking any strong pain medications.  I stuck to  only a large dose of ibuprofen.

The first time I got up to go to the bathroom, however, I was feeling pretty ill.  The nurse helped me to the bathroom and told me to pull the red cord on the wall if I needed help.  I think I was in there less than a minute before I started feeling like I was going to pass out.  A mixture of all the blood in the toilet, the massive changes in hormones, and the exhaustion were getting to me.  I was able, with help from Kalyn and a nurse, to get back into my bed, but I was shaking a lot.  Let me just say, I should have taken the pain meds when they were offered.  By the time it was the middle of that night, I couldn't sleep because I was in so much pain.  With some prodding from Kalyn to do so, I finally asked for some pain medication.  It took a long time to start working.  Kalyn must have been exhausted, because he fell asleep quickly.  I laid there for 45 minutes trying to sleep, but gave up.  I reached over next to me and touched Kalyn's arm to wake him up.  I asked him for a tissue, but the real reason I woke him up was because I was sobbing and needed a good cuddle to calm me down.  He made me feel better a lot faster than the medication, because I was finally able to sleep.

The next few days were a blur of visiting family and friends who came to show us their love and support.  We got to share with them our new little addition.  We love him so much already and are so excited to raise him.  God has trusted us with one of His children and I'm so happy about it!

Pregnancy Updates: Now 6 Days Late

I remember visiting my cousin several weeks ago and me and Kalyn pointed out to her that if our baby came one day late his birthday would be exactly between our birthdays.  She told him not to wish that on me, because I would really be ready to be done with being pregnant by then and a day late would be like torture.  Well, here I am six days past due.  Tomorrow will mark a full week, and I know exactly what she means now.  The other day when my husband was leaving for work I looked at him and he stopped for a second, because he saw that I had that look in my eyes.  The one that is really easy to hide from anyone else that I am holding back tears.  He picks up on it pretty quickly though, so he asked how I was doing and then it sort of started spilling over.  I told him I was just tired of being pregnant.  He understood, because he has been there with me the whole time and knows how uncomfortable I've been.  I think he felt bad having to leave for work right then when I was sad like that.

Luckily, I had a doctor's appointment yesterday morning to get some tests done on our little guy to see how he was doing.  They did an ultrasound to check the fluid level in the uterus first, because low fluid can mean that it's becoming a less ideal environment for him in there.  The ultrasound tech made an estimate on the baby's weight, but before telling me the weight she said, "Well, these things aren't necessarily accurate.  I think this is off, because there is no way you have an 8-pound baby in there!"  This was a reference to how small I still look at past 40 weeks of pregnancy (although I feel huge and have stretch marks, so any bigger would possibly kill me).

After the ultrasound I got hooked up to two monitors to do a fetal stress test.  For anyone who doesn't know how that works, I got put in a recliner chair with my feet up (cozy!) with one monitor strapped to my belly to keep track of the baby's heart rate.  A second one is strapped to the top of my belly to keep track of contractions.  I was given a button on a wire that I was supposed to click every time I felt the baby move.  Of course, after all the jabbing and shifting that he was doing while I was in the waiting room, he took this very moment to take a nap.  After ten minutes of the test, a nurse came in and put a device on my belly that vibrates hard and made him jump pretty violently against the other side of me.  He definitely woke up and moved for me after that.  He passed the tests with flying colors, and everything was going perfectly with him so far.  That brought me a lot of relief, but also made me wonder if they would make me wait longer before inducing me.

I had nothing to worry about.  They decided that I was safe waiting through the weekend since he wasn't distressed at all, but said they would put me on a waiting list for Monday and if nothing opened up I would have an appointment for Tuesday.  This meant one thing to me: if I'm not in labor on my own by Tuesday, I will be put into labor anyways.  Therefore, I have an end in sight!  I could have cried I was so happy.  Having an exact day in mind as the end helps my emotional state so much.  I think of it the way I though of a cross country race.  When I was in cross country I knew where the finish line was, so when the end was coming I could push a little harder.  Now, that I see the end of the pregnancy I can feel peaceful and just enjoy the time I have to sit, read, watch a movie, and go get Italian ice with my husband.

Patience Lessons

Well, I am due to have a baby today, and so far nothing has happened except for a little nausea this morning that I haven't been able to shake.  It's at the point where everyone that knows me asks me, "What are you doing here?" when I show up to anything, because they know I should be in the hospital.  My husband tried leaning down and having a talk with my belly last night that went something like, "Baby, why don't you just come out already?"  I hope I am not one of those women who goes two weeks past their due date.  How do people live with that much anticipation?!  I guess we will find out if Kalyn's little "talk" with our little guy sunk in at all if I go into labor today.

I guess it comes down to God's timing, not ours.  It's one of those little tests of patience I am being given.  I remember a time when I was asked to speak in church in my home ward on patience, and about a month or two later when I went back to school I was asked to speak in church on the same topic again in that ward too.  I ad one of those moments where I had a talk with God saying, "I am sorry, Lord.  I must be getting into some very impatient habits, and I will try to do better."  I must be needing that humbling message again.  I definitely am being reminded that the Lord's timing is not my own.  Besides, what difference does it make if I have him today or in a week?  That will give me more time to get the apartment cleaned up, and a few more days to spend quietly with my wonderful husband.