THIS baby.

I was trying to catch up on blogs tonight, but I was more behind than I thought I was... whoops....

I just read on someone's that she's glad she and her husband went through everything they went through to get "here", because if they hadn't, they wouldn't have THIS child.

I've really started feeling that this week. He's literally the best kid for us. Ever. He just fits so perfectly. It's insane. 

Don't get me wrong. It doesn't just fix everything. There are deep emotional wounds from what we went through. I already worry about whether we'll have to go through it all over again for a possible second child. But I'm so thankful that we had any baby and I'm in awe of it getting to be THIS baby. 

Aaaand some updates:
F is getting more and more of a personality. He belly laughed for the first time today. Obviously it was at E. They're straight-up besties. I spend 24/7 with the boy while E is at work and sleeping but E's his favorite person in the world. Ugh. But it's so cute I'm not even upset. E was playing with F during dinner and all of a sudden F just let out this deep belly laugh and we both just looked at him, bug eyed. And then he did it again! So cute.

F takes more daytime naps now.

He's rolling onto his sides from his back now. Sometimessss onto his belly from his back. He's just such a little munchkin.

He also started getting scared though. I dropped something in the kitchen the other day while he was in his highchair in the breakfast nook (he loves sitting up like a big boy- either in the high chair or propped up on the couch or even in the exersaucer. HATES laying down like a baby!) and the noise FREAKED him out. His little lip quivered and he just lost it. About an hour later we were playing and I was making faces at him... I got a text and stopped for a second to check my phone, and then resumed the game... but he wasn't ready. It caught him off guard and again, $#!+ was flipped. Poor kid. Both times I picked him up and held him and he snuggled his face into my neck and chilled out.

Homeboy's not much of a snuggler. He's the cuddliest and smooshiest when he's sleeping, but other than that he's on. the. go. Constantly. His feet never stop moving, he's looking at everything, flirting, smiling, giving people and things the side eye. Non-stop...

Thank Gd he's still an AMAZiNG sleeper. He sleeps for like 10+ hours at night. It's unreal. He's been going to sleep around 10 or 11pm and sleeping until anywhere from 7 to 9am. PLEASE GD LET THIS CONTINUE. Apparently I was the same way as a baby... and still. And yet I'm up at 4am writing a blog post??

Oh and in a surprise turn of events... I GOT MY FREAKING PERIOD THIS WEEK. I have been the Queen of MIA periods my whole life. Now, 12 weeks postpartum, pumping 100x/day, my body is like, "oh right, bleeding seems like the right choice." Right. And it brought it alllll the way. I was in some majorrrrrr pain this weekend. Major.  

It's clearly time to head to bed.

...but first, some catch-up photos from 1 month-2 months old: 

Thanksgiving:

F is turning 3 months later this week(!!!)so maybe I'll do a catch-up photo post for month 3 then! 

Birth Story: Part 2 (Better Late than Never??)

It's a little ridonk that I'm writing this as my 12.5 week old sleeps in the other room... whoops! I'm sure I've forgotten a million details.

***I'm going to edit this tomorrow, hopefully, with E's thoughts and input and memories. ;-D
Last time I left you, they were fiiiiinally wheeling me into a L&D room from triage. I should probably reread that post but it's 2am and I'm tired and lazy. I'd gotten the epidural and it had been helping for a while- I could still feel everything, but it was less painful than before. Welp, after a few hours, that didn't feel true anymore. I'm not sure what an epidural is SUPPOSED to do, but I'd been under the impression that I wouldn't be in completely excruciating pain... and yet, I was. So there's that. I'm really good at pretending nothing's wrong around people (except for poor E), so I didn't actually bring that one up to the doctor, but I'm pretty sure something was off there.

I'm not really sure what we did next. We were in that room for hours. We didn't watch TV. We didn't listen to music... I don't think we even played with our phones. I have no idea why. We definitely should have done all of those things. I think we just hung out and talked. Which I guess is also nice? But I probably would've been calmer if I'd been distracted.

E's parents arrived first and I think they came in a talked to us and the doctor for a while. There were some awkward moments thanks to some majorly different political/world views. They all "behaved" but my brain was short-circuiting with a RED ALERT over it. Then my parents and brother arrived. I think we all hung out for a bit? It's been 3 months. Don't wait 3 months when you're writing your own birth story, k?

At one point I definitely vomited. PS- I *always* try to put 2 T's in vomited. I let it be known to everyone that I wasn't feeling well and the second everyone was out the door, E grabbed a garbage can from the bathroom and BOOM. E called the nurse, who brought me a bucket and some alcohol-free mouthwash... because that'll get the job done. I think I vomited again, and another nurse came in and took the bucket away for me. And I felt like a loser. After that I tried to nap, maybe? Unsuccessfully.

The doctor came in between 6 and 7am and suggested we try pushing. We tried once and he decided it wasn't time yet and went to get a cup of coffee because he'd delivered like 50 babies that night. That's probably definitely an exaggeration. The nurse explained HOW to push, which fun fact, is that you push like you're trying to poop. I'd been focusing on getting a baby out of my vagina, but apparently it's more like you're pooping it out. Which is super great news when your biggest stupid fear of the night has been that you'll poop during childbirth in front of a bunch of strangers and your husband. Yep. Spoiler alert: I didn't!!!

So I guess then we tried a practice push or two with the nurse, and she was like Oh, that's interesting, wow, you're doing a really great job, whatta great pusher, oh holy crap we need the doctor STAT. So he walktzed (I'm going to leave that typo in there because it's pretty perfect... walk/waltzed) back in and was shocked at my newly acquired pushing skillz. I was getting legit back-to-back contractions with practically no breaks in between at that point, and they kept asking me if I wanted to skip a contraction so I could... rest? Or something? But like I mentioned earlier, the epidural may or may not have been working, and everything hurt like a B**** and I just needed this kid out of me ASAP because I COULD NOT STAND THE PAIN.

18 minutes after I started pushing, at 7:08am, our baby boy was born. 9lbs and 22.5". Yay!

We'd been warned that since he'd probably swallowed meconium there'd be pediatricians there during the birth and he wouldn't be able to be placed on my chest or anything because they'd need to assess him. So... that happened. That was the most emotionally and mentally confusing time of my life. It literally went by in a blur AND slow motion. We had no idea what was happening. There had been a baby inside of me and now he was outside of me and now the baby was in a bassinet thing next to my bed but I still hadn't seen his face, and they were suctioning him and I think they intubated him, and my placenta was coming out and the doctor was making jokes about how he's giving me 2 stitches just as a precaution but that if I'd just given birth in a field instead of a hospital then he'd just apply pressure and that'd stop the bleeding just fine, and the pediatrician isn't telling us anything and E is trying to take a photo so I can see what my freaking baby looks like and the pediatrician is telling E to not "harrass" the baby because they need to see if his levels or breathing or something improve on their own and he's interfering.

I don't know. Everything up until that point was absolutely amazing and I'd 100% give birth in this hospital all over again, but that pediatrician really could've been a lottttttttt different and calming and helpful. Even a small word of encouragement or reassurance would've been great. But, nope. Nothing. Just a scolding.

Eventually she left and a NICU doctor came and assessed the situation and determined that the baby would have to go up to the NICU because his oxygen levels were too low. He was so sweet and reassuring and let us hold the baby for a few minutes before they took him up which obviously wasn't enough time, but it was what it was.

And then E and I were alone in the room. Just looking at each other, confused.

Soon after that, I guess we called or texted our families who were in the waiting room and I asked for my mom to come in first and we told her what had happened and.... it was super awkward? Hey, mom, congrats, it's a boy, but.... he's not here... right now...? Right. The rest of the family eventually came in and we all just kind of hung out. We texted friends and updated facebook to announce F's arrival and that kept us distracted.

[Funny story, I just went to facebook to get the exact number of "likes" our announcement had gotten, because it was something absurd like 300 or 400, and THE POST IS MISSING. What. The. Eff. It's just not there!!!!! WHYYYYYYYYYY!!!! UPDATE: I found it. 437 "likes" and 233 comments. Holy poop.]

Guys, I'm fading. Long story short, F went up to the NICU, they wheeled me up to my room, and we spent from Wednesday morning until Saturday morning going back and forth between our room on the 9th floor and the NICU on the 13th floor (maybe the other way around), over Jewish holidays where E is only able to eat inside of a hut which is on the ground floor and it's like shabbos, and the hut is outside (Thank Gd there even IS a hut/sukkah at that hospital). There were a million miscommunications between us, the NICU nurses, the NICU doctors, the lactation consultant, the other nurses, etc. One overnight NICU nurse flipped her $#!+ on us at one point because of a miscommunication and there were a LOT of tears. The baby was on an IV for the first ~24 hours and that set off a slew of issues with breastfeeding and we never quite got the hang of it but I'm still pumping and giving him everything I can plus supplementing with formula, which we had to start doing in the hospital because he was a big baby (9lbs, 22.5") and his blood sugar levels we low one time and everyone flipped and kept him in the hospital for an extra day because of it. Which, at the time, seemed like the end of the world because we were alone and sleep deprived and hormonal and traumatized and had just been severely told off by that nurse over a misunderstanding (on her part) and we were feeling like the worst parents in the world. All we wanted to do was go to our quiet little home and cuddle our baby and get to know him away from all of the NICU beeps and alarms and chaos. We spent almost all of our time down in the NICU but they closed from 7-8 am and pm for shift changes so that's when we'd pee and eat and get pain meds and vitals checked, etc before running back down to wait by the door for them to open. On one of those trips upstairs, the nurse came to routinely check my blood pressure and she happened to catch me in the middle of a minor panic attack (right after the NICU nurse incident!) and physically placed me into my bed and made me take a short nap. E told her what had just happened and she and the other nurses up there were so sweet and caring and amazing and sympathetic and angry at the other nurse on our behalf.

Oh and while F had to stay for an extra day, I was discharged so we kind of lost our "home base" (my hospital room) and had to sleep on couches in a "family room" Friday night with another woman who snored louder than anyone I've ever heard snore before. She actually drowned out the sound of E's snoring. It was that intense.

So, wow. Eventually we got to go home on Saturday. F was really not in actual major danger at any point, and I'm so beyond thankful for that. This whole thing was mostly people crossing their T's and dotting their I's and taking precautions for F. E and I really super bonded during those days since it was really just the two of us figuring things out on our own. He was already my bestie (cue the cheese) but things really, I don't know, solidified in a whole new way during those days. I'm not saying it's because of the baby. We went through (what felt like) hell during that time and came out stronger. Side note- later in our stay, the super nice NICU doctor randomly stopped us in the hallway to tell us what a great job we were doing and that he had a 6 month old at home and told us that it's so important that we take time for ourselves and our own relationship at least once a week. That really stuck with us.

Fast forward 12.5 weeks and here I am at 3am and this enormous kid (way off the charts for height and average for weight) is going to be waking up in a few hours, so I need to catch some Z's. All in all, it was a huge learning experience and we walked away with a beautiful healthy baby KA"H and that's really all that matters. I'm really glad that I finally typed this up.

Oh- and all of that running around 2 seconds after birth might've helped me heal faster, maybe? But I also had insanely swollen feet and ankles for weeks afterwards. Like scary, hideously swollen. So... whatever. I have no real advice, but if you can, keep your damn feet up. And let someone else do the dishes when you get home. Don't be a crazy person. That's all.