My doodlebug's birth story

                                                       
                                                          Maeve- 2 weeks old


Maeve was a welcomed surprise. But again with all my children, the fear I wouldn't be able to carry them was always in the back of my mind. Maeve stuck with us(yah)! Which brings me to April 15, 2010. I was on modified best rest. My mom happened to be in town. I didn't feel bad, I just didn't feel right either. Around 2pm, I decided maybe I should call my doctor. She said probably I should come in to the office. I step out of my mothers huge SUV and boom...my water breaks. I am the kind of person that when your water breaks, its it a little like Niagara Falls. I am waddling, but not too much (I was only 34 weeks along), and wet. Every move I make (haha), its excruciatingly uncomfortable. For those of you to have your water break, you hear me, RIGHT?!?!?!?

I take the elevator to the 2nd floor, I walk into the office. I tell them my water broke. The receptionist looks at me, and I kid you not, says, "are you sure you didn't pee yourself?" I stare blankly.
ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME????

I called Greg. He was out on recess duty and asked me the same thing. If there was ever a time that I could magically reach through a phone this would have been the time.

My doctor checks me. Confirms that, indeed my water did break. DUH! I am 2cm dilated. She sends me to the Chambersburg hospital in order to be taken to Harrisburg Hospital. I had ALL my children here and I love it. I love their NICU too...

My second time in an ambulance. The nurse tries to have a conversation with me. I laugh (hysterically) in my head. Little known fact: you can't hear anything inside an ambulance.
Soooo....I am wheeled into Labor & Delivery around 4:30pm and in walks my nurse. I can tell I am going to LOVE her. I am now close to 4cm dilated. No seriously, I did LOVE her for the 35 minutes she was there. SHIFT CHANGE. In walks Nurse Ratchet. You laugh now but I am telling you this woman was in her late 70's and a scowl on her face that looked like maybe she was born with it. She was old school. I immediately asked for an epidural. The one I had gotten with Rowen had failed hours before she was born so they took it out and for all you woman who do it "naturally" more than once, BLESS you.

Once was enough for me.

GIVE ME THE EPIDURAL before I feel the pain. PLEASE.

Two hours later, around 6:30pm I got an epidural. No worries, there was no pain. My best friend, Eva (who happened to be there for ALL my babies births) was waiting with Greg and I and for some reason were were watching CNN. Yes, CNN. I am now 7cm dilated.

You'll get a kick out of this, my doctors' name was Dr. Plummer. NO JOKE!

Nurse Ratchet was terrible. She was not attentive to the laboring (not really) girl. Ok, I was 30 or going to be 30. I have a hard time remembering my age. Either way this nurse hated me from the beginning. She even forgot ice chips. Eh, I wasn't too upset except for when I watched Greg eating his dinner in front of me. She forgot (oopps!) to put in a catheter which stopped my progress with Maeve. Jerk.

8:30....9:30....10:30.........8cm dilated. FINALLY, my doctor puts in the catheter around 11. THANK YOU, JESUS! I received my first ever and last ever shot of pitocin around 11:30. Boom! Call my parents who were staying with my aunt in Harrisburg and say Hey! I might have that baby soon. The NICU doc comes in and she chats with us. She says, "this is going to be a cake walk compared to Rowen's stay at the NICU. There will be nothing to worry about. She is 34 weeks." Sometimes I still cry when I replay those words in my head.

12:15am April 16th....time to push. Honestly, it was harder to push with an epidural. But at 12:56am, miss Maevey (doodlebug) came out. Screaming. Crying. and 6 pounds 2 ounces. HOLY CRAP! Imagine I had gone full term....I would have been the one crying.

It was beautiful. And scary ALL at the same time. I didn't hold her, I have never held any of my children after birth. But this one...she was NOT going to be a cake walk. We got a call in the morning that she had a bad night and had to be intubated. She wasn't breathing on her own yet. WAIT, WHAT? I thought this was going to be a "cake walk"? I won't go into all of the scary weeks in the NICU with Maeve. Although, she was the shortest stay she had some serious issues in the beginning and still to this day struggles with mild neutropenia.

She came home on May 3rd, 2010. And she has shocked the #$#()@ out of us ever since.



We love you, doodlebug. Happy Happy Birthday to my green-eyed giggly monkey!

                                                                       Happy Birthday Photo Shoot- 4/15/14

an anniversary of sorts

...this has been a long time coming.

One year and 58 days ago, two very precious humans were born (and to think, so voodoo doc said there would be no kids for me: CRAZY!). This was the hardest. The hardest pregnancy, the hardest delivery, the hardest WAIT. I could go on and on...but seriously, who wants that and think of all those others who had it even worse than I. It was bad thats all you need to know because details are for crazy people like me.

BUT: the point, my friends, is that 1 year ago TODAY we brought home two, 4.9  pound babies. So excited, so scared. One on a breathing monitor, one that I watched even second of every hour to make sure she was, in fact, breathing. We spent the next 48 hours wide AWAKE. 

Like I said, I will save details for another post. But for today, we are just happy. Happy to have these two, crazy little people in our lives. We made it a year with them, I guess we will keep them. Ha! Thank you, to all the wonderful people who have been on this journey with us. Thank you! 

 February 21,  2012- one year ago today

TODAY

NICU

a good friend from my NICU support group wrote this for me. and this is what it was like. This is William and Nora, on December 29, 2011 just 2 days old and both just over 2 pounds.

ONLY A NICU PARENT KNOWS:

-THE PAIN OF HEARING A WOMAN IN HER THIRD TRIMESTER IGNORANTLY COMPLAINING ABOUT HER PREGNANCY AND WONDERING WHAT THAT WOULD BE LIKE

-the fear of seeing their child for the first time.

-that Brady's are not referring to the Brady Bunch.

-what CPAP means

-the pain of not holding your child for days

-the workings of an isolette.

-what each beep means.

-how important kangaroo care is (to baby and mom/dad).

-that a parent's job is to fix whatever hurts their child - and know the pain of realizing   you can't.

-what a PICC Line is.

-just how important surfactant is, and what it is for that matter.

-understands the realism of adjusted ages.

-what it feels like to cry the first time you see your baby in a crib.

-the agony over sending birth announcements.

-how amazing tiny fingers feel clenched to your hand.

-finally understands the metric system.

-there are no choices in the NICU - you have to be strong.

-cracked and bleeding hands from washing them so much and coating them constantly with hand sanitizer.

-how hard it is to trust 100+ people you have never met before care for the child for whom you have waited a lifetime.

-what it's like to argue with each other over who changes the diaper - because you both want to - its a chance to touch your baby.

-every inch of their NICU, what walls they cried against, what nurseries they 'lived in', -what shifts each doctor, nurse, therapist, and staff member works.

-that you will be a germaphobe for at least the next 2 years, people will think you are weird, and you will know you are literally saving your child's life.

-50 nurses by name, and their kids' names.

-Can give better directions to the cafeteria, gift shop and parking lot than the employees.

-that every day in the NICU makes you one of the lucky ones.

-just how important each new day is and how much significance a new day holds.

-Sure, every day to a parent of a healthy, full term baby means a lot, but we go in not knowing... and that is scary

This is William and Nora on August 11, 2012. 7 1/2 months old and thriving.

my crazy kids.

December, January, February, March, April....

Don't give up on me. I swear an update is coming soon. loaded with pictures. i promise.


here are the twins. William on the left and Nora on the right.

stay tuned for lots more!

Happy Thanksgiving (early)

We celebrated Thanksgiving early this year for a couple of reasons: many of us weren't going to be home on the actual day of Thanksgiving and the arrival of new baby White to Donnie and Kristen is suppose to arrive any day now (due date being Thanksgiving day). Also, I am not allowed to travel after November 18. Boo. We have NEVER had a family photo like this...EVER! Especially with dad in a tree!! Until I saw this photo, I never stopped to think how incredibly blessed we are to have everyone home. It doesn't happen often and typically never on an actual holiday but we sure know how to make it a holiday! I see the bigger picture now. and it is beautiful!

White Family Thanksgiving 11.13.11

Grandkids 11.13.11

and of course, by February there will be 2 more from me. YIKES! Still digesting the fact that there are TWO, yes 2 babies kicking around in there. Its getting cramped for sure and soon i will be on bed rest. but trying so hard to keep these babies in until 35 weeks. Aren't they cute. Baby A is a little girl and Baby B is a little boy. Still don't have any names. we are working on that but figure we have some time left. I feel once i am on bed rest I might have some more time to catch up in all the awesome blogness i missed this summer, so be on alert for past blogs, don't want any one to miss what we were doing with our lives then!

if i should have a daughter....oh wait, I have two!

If I should have a daughter…“Instead of “Mom”, she’s gonna call me “Point B.” Because that way, she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I’m going to paint the solar system on the back of her hands so that she has to learn the entire universe before she can say “Oh, I know that like the back of my hand.”

She’s gonna learn that this life will hit you, hard, in the face, wait for you to get back up so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.There is hurt, here, that cannot be fixed by band-aids or poetry, so the first time she realizes that Wonder-woman isn’t coming, I’ll make sure she knows she doesn’t have to wear the cape all by herself. Because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I’ve tried.

And “Baby,” I’ll tell her “don’t keep your nose up in the air like that, I know that trick, you’re just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him. Or else, find the boy who lit the fire in the first place to see if you can change him.”

But I know that she will anyway, so instead I’ll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boats nearby, ‘cause there is no heartbreak that chocolate can’t fix. Okay, there’s a few heartbreaks chocolate can’t fix. But that’s what the rain boots are for, because rain will wash away everything if you let it.

I want her to see the world through the underside of a glass bottom boat, to look through a magnifying glass at the galaxies that exist on the pin point of a human mind. Because that’s how my mom taught me. That there’ll be days like this, “There’ll be days like this my momma said” when you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises. When you step out of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you wanna save are the ones standing on your cape. When your boots will fill with rain and you’ll be up to your knees in disappointment and those are the very days you have all the more reason to say “thank you,” ‘cause there is nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline no matter how many times it’s sent away.

You will put the “wind” in win some lose some, you will put the “star” in starting over and over, and no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life.

And yes, on a scale from one to over-trusting I am pretty damn naive but I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily but don’t be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it.

“Baby,” I’ll tell her “remember your mama is a worrier but your papa is a warrior and you are the girl with small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more.”

Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things and always apologize when you’ve done something wrong but don’t you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining.

Your voice is small but don’t ever stop singing and when they finally hand you heartbreak, slip hatred and war under your doorstep and hand you hand-outs on street corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.

amazing. insightful. i can only try to instill in my daughters these things. here is the video, which is 10x better. gives you chills.