Briefly a Runaway

Breastfeeding my little bundle of sunshine is one of the most rewarding and amazing things that I've ever experienced. It has also completed destroyed my fingernails. This morning, I finally decided to do something about that, and I ran away to get a manicure and pedicure. I left Shane at home with a very happy Arabella.



An hour and a half later, I returned home to find this:


Could I fall anymore in love with these two?

Who I Once Was

I was the one who was always relaxed, the one who didn’t worry. I was the one who said that if your four-year-old didn’t want to eat, don’t make him. He’ll eat when he gets hungry. I was the one who said if your newborn will sleep for four hours, let her. Don’t wake her to make her eat. She’ll wake when she’s hungry.

Before I had Arabella, I was a lot of things that I’m not anymore.

I am now the one who wakes up in the middle of the night and stands over the crib, anxiously awaiting movement of any sort – just enough to prove that she’s still alive. I’m the one who waits and worries because her nine-day-old daughter hasn’t had a dirty diaper in three and a half days – even though everyone says that’s normal. I look at her and study her skin tone, wondering if maybe she really is jaundiced. I watch as I feed her, fearing that she’s not getting enough and I’m inadvertently allowing her to go hungry. Uncontrollable irrationality has become a second skin.

I think this is what they mean when they say that having a child is like having your heart walking around outside of your body.

Happy Birthday, Arabella!

For my entire life, I have had three major fears. To me, these fears would be the true sign of whether or not I had been a success or a failure in life.

(1) Never fall in love.
(2) Never get married.
(3) Never experience pregnancy and natural child birth.
(4) Never have a child before my paternal grandfather passes away.

From August of 2007 to February of 2009, all three of these fears turned into goals, and all were accomplished. My boyfriend of one week proposed to me on August 14, 2007; and, on February 9, 2008, we were married. On February 13, 2009, we became first-time parents to the most amazingly beautiful little angel.

For the pregnancy itself, I had a couple requests of my unborn child. It was sort of a game between her and me, as I knew she would come on her own sweet time.

(1) Do not deliver before or on February 9, 2009.
(2) Do not deliver on February 14, 2009.
(3) Do not go into labor after a day at work unless I have at least an hour’s sleep.
(4) Deliver on March 6, 2009.

On Thursday February 12, 2009, I worked a full day as a high school English teacher. Thursdays are one of my busier days, schedule-wise, and I was looking forward to getting home, taking a bubble bath, and collapsing on the couch while my husband made dinner. For the first time in months, I wasn’t experiencing any contractions, which was quite disappointing. Only the day before, at my routine OB-GYN visit, Dr. Handcock had advised me that I “was going to go before the weekend”. I was 4cm dilated and 90% effaced.

Shane and I headed for bed around 9:45 that night, with sleep coming around 10:30. It was around this time that I started experiencing menstrual cramp-style pains. I even commented to Shane that I didn’t feel well. Nothing was wrong; I just didn’t feel well. Figuring that sleep would help make it go away, we both settled in for the night. An hour later, the pains woke me up. Still not quite contractions, it simply felt as if I was beginning on the onset of incredibly painful cramps, as if a big dose of Tylenol and a heating pad could keep it at bay.

By midnight, I began to wonder if maybe it was more than that. Waking Shane, I told him that I thought we might need to go to the hospital, then I let him call Labor and Delivery. We’d been into L&D twice by this point with minimal progress, and I’d already told Dr. Handcock that I was not returning unless there were body parts hanging out of me. The nurse who answered advised that we should come in, so Shane and I quickly (Shane quick, me very slowly) packed our hospital bag, and I called my mom to let her know what was going on.

We arrived at the hospital at two in the morning, and I was immediately hooked up to monitors and checked. My progress was, once again, minimal – 5cm and 90% effaced – but still, they chose to keep me. Before I knew it, an IV was inserted (for the saline), and my husband and I were settling in for what we thought would be an extended stay. Shane brought our bags in from the car while I panicked over leaving my wedding rings at the apartment. (We debated sending him back for him but, not knowing how long my labor would be, I didn’t want him to leave my side.)

Shane was amazing. With my head falling left to right both in pain, as the contractions increased and I began to feel them, and out of fatigue, he pulled a chair to the foot of the bed and gave me a foot massage. I fell asleep for three hours, courtesy of him.

The morning of February 13 brought more contractions and a calm sort of excitement. It still didn’t seem real that I could be there, could be ready to have a child. Labor and delivery scared me, and I was dreading it, but I was also still convinced that I would go natural. I can do anything for 24 hours, I told Shane.

Mom and Amy arrived to the hospital about 8:30 in the morning, and despite the fact that he wasn’t the doctor on call, Dr. Handcock showed up shortly afterwards. An internal exam revealed that I was 7cm dilated and still 90% effaced. If I didn’t have any progress in an hour, he said, they would augment with Pitocin. (The thought caused me much dread!) At 10:00am, he came back in the room and checked me again, with the result being that I could continue to labor as I had been, but that the next time he came back, he’d break my water. My contractions were 2-3 minutes apart, but still so incredibly manageable that I was more impatient for the impending delivery than I was in pain.

My water was broken at 11:30 (totally cool feeling!), and what I consider to be the actual labor began immediately afterwards. Still coming every 2-3 minutes, the strength of the contractions now leapt off the chart. A nurse came in to teach me to breathe (Shane and I didn’t go to any laboring classes) and I reiterated my determination that I did not want an epidural. From 11:30 to 12:00, I dilated from 7cm to 9cm, and I began to experience a new feeling: complete and intense pressure.

The contractions felt like roller coasters. They’d begin slowly, a little tension, a little bit of tightening, and they’d build slowly – then jump to a peak that had me panting and crying that I couldn’t breathe. Shane helped out a lot, as he would tell me when the contraction had peaked. I remember him saying, “Still at the top… at the top… at the top… all right, coming down…” At my request, he also gripped my hand tightly, allowing me to not have to assert the energy to grip his. Meanwhile, my mom and my sister stood at my legs, holding on to my knees. They didn’t push in or pull out, they simply held on, which helped calm my intensely violent shivers.

Around 12:30, I began to tell the nurse that I needed to push, and she began to check me every few contractions. (My doctor, at this point in time, had gone back to his office.) “You’re nearly ready,” she advised each time. “There’s just a little flap of cervix left. You’re not ready to push yet.” Still, I felt like I was.

At 1:00, I finally gave in, and in the middle of a contraction, I begged for something to take the edge off. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, like no one was listening to me, and like I would die if I didn’t get to push. I was offered an epidural, but I refused. No longer positive that I could go naturally and desperate to feel some level of control, I gave in and accepted their repeated offerings. A small dosage of Fentanyl was inserted into the IV, but it was only enough to make one contraction – two, at most – bearable. Definitely by the third contraction, it was gone. Still, I felt the urge to push.

Finally, at 2:00 in the afternoon, the nurse agreed to call my doctor in to check. My cervix, she said, was still “a tad intact” and she wanted him to check it out. Dr. Handcock’s diagnosis, after arriving, was that what she had been feeling for the last hour and a half was not my cervix but my poor daughter’s ear. Apparently, my child’s head was turned sideways, with her ear down at the opening. For an hour and a half, when I could have been pushing, I had been laboring through for absolutely no reason at all!

They turned me to my left side and instructed me to push with each contraction; meanwhile, Dr. Handcock did his best to turn her. We’re going to do this a couple of times, then I’m going to run back to the clinic; I’ve got a patient waiting, he said. When I get back, we’ll have a baby. I pushed on my side through three contractions, and he stood up.

“You’re leaving?” I still remember feeling betrayed by him at that news and then feeling relieved when he said back down and agreed to let me really push through one contraction. All it took was that one contraction, and I remember hearing him laugh and announce, Guess I’m not going back to the clinic after all.

I huffed and puffed through the next contraction or two, begging him to hurry, while he suited up. As his gown was being tied, the nurse gave me permission to push, but I refused to do so until my doctor consented. That was all I needed. I pulled my legs to my chest; Shane stood to my right, helping me hold that leg; Mom stood to my left, helping me hold that leg and helping me hold up my next. My sister Amy and my MIL (who had arrived only a little while before) also stood by the bed.

After only two additional contractions, Victoria Arabella Hawkins slipped into the world. Without any medication in my system, I was able to feel every single thing, and it was the most amazing, most miraculous, most incredible experience in my life. I didn’t need anyone to tell me when her head was out; I already knew. I didn’t need anyone to tell me that her shoulders were out; I could feel it. The best part? It didn’t hurt. Not one single, minute bit.

They say that I opened my eyes and I saw her coming out, but I don’t have any recollection of this. My first visual memory, post delivery, was opening my eyes to find my doctor place her on my stomach. I reached for her, still in shock, and commented, “She’s so heavy!” then promptly begged them to cut the cord. What a strange feeling it was, to have a child on my stomach, a placenta still inside, and a cord connecting the two. Moreso than anything else, I hated the feeling of that cord.

As Shane refused to do so, my mom is the one who cut the umbilical cord. Compared to the pain of panting through push-worthy contractions, delivering the placenta was incredibly easy. Unfortunately, what followed after that was not.

In utero, my daughter always had her hand up by her face. I had previously commented to my husband that I fully expected her to come out in such a position, and Arabella didn’t disappoint me. After her head popped out, I began to tear, and when I had torn enough, her little hand followed – right up next to her face, just as I expected.

The absolute worst part of the entire thing was the half hour that my doctor spent, carefully and expertly sewed me up. Though Lidocaine was given twice, I still feel like I felt every single stitch of my second degree tear.

Dr. Handcock told me that I acted just like an epidural patient, and both the nurse and he told me that I was the calmest, quietest woman they’d ever had during a conscious delivery. (They both also told me that I managed to have my natural, medication free delivery.) My mom said that I never raised my voice above a whisper, even during the most painful of the contractions – which explains why I was feeling like they weren’t listening to me. How could they, if they couldn’t hear me?

A week later, as I write this, I am still overwhelmed by the entire experience. I cannot believe that I was finally able to experience pregnancy, and I can’t believe that I was able to deliver a child. My daughter is my new love, and I’m too amazed by her to even begin to comprehend how great that love really is. She was born weighing 6lbs, 15oz and was 19” long. The general consensus is that she is the spitting image of my husband, though as each day comes to pass, more and more people have begun to comment that she looks like me. Regardless of who she resembles, she is – to me – the most perfect baby.

And, yes, as I sit here and write this, with my eight-day-old daughter asleep on the couch next to me and a prescription of Vicodin waiting on the counter waiting to be taken, I will admit to one thing: I’m ready to do it all over again.

Beauty

Everyone always told me that my wedding day would be the single most important day of my life. They said that it would be a day I would never forget. A day that I should not compromise for anything.

For a while, I bought their words. Having never before pictured my “dream wedding”, and having little-to-no advice on how to plan one, I was in a sort of sink or swim situation. In the end, the wedding was beautiful, the budget was way overshot, and the photos collect dust on the bookshelf.

All in all, it was an amazing day, but the people who told me that it was the single most important day of my life were wrong. The wedding was incredible, but the single most important day of my life is everyday that I wake up with my husband beside me. Everyday when he rolls over, tosses one arm around my midsection, and pulls me closer to him. Everyday when he cups my belly, with our growing child inside. Everyday when he launches himself out of bed to prepare my breakfast or my lunch, to carry my bags to my car, to kiss me good-bye before I head off to work.

Our wedding was simply the beginning.

Does pregnancy ruin your teeth?

All right, I’ll admit it. I don’t have the best teeth in the entire world. It’s a family thing. None of my family has good teeth. To be honest, though, I’m pretty sure I’ve got the best out of the bunch. I’ve never had to have a root canal, after all.

A dental hygienist once told me that everyone has either an acidic or a base mouth and that people with one get a lot of cavities and people with the other tend to get gingivitis. I fall into the cavity category. No matter how well I take care of my teeth, I still get cavities. It’s frustrating!

I’ll also admit that I don’t floss like I should. I probably floss about once a week. I do, however, use a pre-mouth wash (for plaque – to see where it is) and Listerine Whitening mouth wash before I brush. After brushing for three solid minutes (I have a timer), I use Listerine Cavity Defense mouth wash. I do what I can, basically, to prevent cavities. Since I’m pregnant, I’ve given up all caffeine, so I know that helps a little too. I also brush on a minimum of twice a day.

So, why is it that since I found out I was pregnant, I’ve started having teeth pain? I’ve never had teeth pain in my life! It’s not a consistent pain by any means. It’s not sensitive to heat or cold. It’s only sensitive to irritation (like if I poke on it to see if it’s a cavity or if I brush it). I know that it’s the teeth since my dentist only recently told me that I have incredibly healthy gums.

Tonight, I gave my mouth a close look and, sure enough, #14 and #19 appear to have cavities on the exterior side. #20 has a funky vein-looking thing on it, maybe an 1/8 of an inch or so long, also on the exterior side. The space between #2 and #3 is sensitive on the inside but does not appear to have any cavities.

These cavities were NOT there two months ago. And I don’t want them to be there now, either. What gives?

The question – does pregnancy ruin your teeth? Is there anyway to prevent tooth decay while pregnant? Did your teeth act up during [any of] your pregnancy?

Pregnancy Milestones

Four days before my baby gets a heartbeat, and I’ve already reached two (semi-) major milestones.

My mother and my sisters warned me that the first would come one time. Just wait, they said. Wait. Just wait until you get to the point where you sneeze and you wet your pants. I, of course – being the naïve pregnant female that I am – laughed. I would never reach that point, of that I was certain.

Uhm, yeah. I reached that point today. On the bright side, since I was already in the bathroom, on the toilet, it was funnier than it was sad.

Still. I reached a milestone.

The second milestone would be the phase-of-disgusting-food-combinations. As I’ve been craving a banana split for the past couple of days, Shane got the great idea that we go to Sonic when he gets off of work. He tried to talk me into eating a cheeseburger before I ordered my banana split, but I was not having any of that. He ordered both at the same time, and I very nearly starting eating my dessert before we even had the opportunity to pray!

I sat there in the car, alternating between inhaling the ice cream and snacking on the burger. At one point in time, in an attempt to be a somewhat sensible adult, I even relinquished the banana split and concentrated on the burger.

That kind of lasted as long as it took me to break off a piece of burger… and see that banana split sitting right there. Looking so good. So cold. So… I wonder how it would ta- The thought hadn’t even completed itself when my hands took over and the action was completed.

Yes, you guessed it! I, the person who will eat nothing even remotely disgusting, found that dipping a cheeseburger into ice cream is quite delicious.

Second milestone reached.

Growing, Growing...

Lindsay, Liz, and I went to dinner the other night at Roaster’s and, man, do I wish I had tried this place years ago. So good! And, believe it or not, so much better than Boston Market!

The dinner conversation, as most of them are doing these days, rotated around the topic of the new baby. Everyone has advice; everyone has suggestions. My poor husband has no idea what he’s gotten us into, and even he has suggestions for me!

At this time, though, the topic of what’s-best-for-the-baby came up. I was amused to find a pretty high dichotomy within both Lindsay and myself. Lindsay is very much pro-organic foods and all natural products during the pregnancy but strongly supports the idea of a drugged labor and delivery. I, on the other, am concerned (but not overly) with going all organic and natural during the pregnancy but am determined to go through the labor and delivery without any drugs. Add on top of that Shane’s and my decision to circumcise any son we have, and it gets to be a bit funny. How on earth can we be pro-natural in one circumstance, but pro-medical in another?

Speaking of, I found the place that I want to deliver! It's called the Austin Area Birthing Center, and as soon as I found it on the internet, I knew I wanted to deliver there. They offer individualized birthing rooms with queen size beds and tubs for laboring and/or delivering. Since it's all midwifes, they'll also support my plan to go au naturel. For those worried, it's located no more than ten minutes from two major hospitals - and only ten minutes from Shane's and my new apartment. Not the best part but still incredibly awesome is that it's all-inclusive (minus the diagnostic ultrasound and lamaze classes) and it's less than $4000.

It has been nine days since we found out that we’d conceived a baby, and the changes in my body are already evident – at least to me. It’s true what they say: you’re never just a little bit pregnant. In the last week, I’ve noticed my breasts getting larger and my stomach rounding out. I feel fat most of the time right now and have already began losing muscle mass in my stomach – meaning that it’s no longer quite so easy to hold it in. You know that line that most females have, moving horizontally across their belly button? Where the skin folds over itself when you sit? Yeah, that’s disappearing too. Quickly.

To prove that I’m not just losing my mind, I took the following picture. I'm 4 weeks, 5 days in it. Please excuse how blurry it is; for some reason, my camera is acting up. It does this every once in a while, especially since Shane likes to take it out to shoot thunderstorms. :-)