Mommy, Somebody Needs You

I recently read this article. http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4900686

The very watered-down jist of the story is all those tedious things that mothers hate doing such as wiping noses, changing clothes and patting backs, all those of obnoxious things we do are because someone needs us and that eventually those days will end and nobody will need us anymore and we will miss those days dearly. It's a great read, it made me cry. But then again everything makes me cry now.

So Emily's crib is falling apart. Our plan was to put the side back on the crib Nathaniel is sleeping in and move Emily into it and then move Nathaniel into the double bed that Little Jon is currently sleeping in and have them sleep together. It saves space it is the cheapest option. Little Jon loves to sleep with Nathaniel they've done it a couple times before however Nathaniel really likes having his own space. Tonight was the first night we instigated the boys must sleep together program. The boys weren't being very obedient so they were sent to bed early. When I put Nathaniel up in Little Jon's bed(it's a top bunk) he was virtually hysterical he did not want to sleep there however we decided that if we were going to go through this we had to be consistent. Plus all changes have a certain adjustment period. For 40 minutes I kept going back into their room telling Little Jon to leave Nathaniel alone and to go to sleep. Finally I decided to stay in there and rub their backs until they fell asleep.  Nathaniel fell asleep after about 13 minutes. Little Jon however, seemed quite alert. About this time I start thinking about how much I need to go feed Emily, and how much I don't want to be rubbing his back anymore, about how my arm is really tired from reaching over the top bunk to try to reach his back so I can rub it. I try explaining this to Little Jon, he just begs me to stay and keep rubbing his back. Write as I am trying to find a way, anyway, to get out of rubbing his back anymore a little voice in my head says "Mommy, somebody needs you." And so instead of leaving, and trying to find a way out of it, I stayed. For the first time in a long time I chose my children over cleaning the house or getting other things that I wanted to get done. This is something that I have really been trying to work on recently. I feel like I'm not a very nice mother and it's got me worried. I've been trying really hard to work on it and tonight I finally felt like I had a little piece of success. My house is a disaster, there are groceries all over the floor (but at least I got all the frozen and refrigerated stuff put away right?) but that's okay because tonight somebody needed me.

A Thought on Motherhood and Body Size

I have mostly been using this blog as a way to update my in-laews who are currently in the Philippines but today I would like to change my focus and write a letter to my dear sweet mother, because if I write it down I will be able to get all of my feelings out coherently... I hope.

Dear Mom,
I came to an amazing realization today and I owe it all to you. I have never thought you ugly, ever, not even once. When I think of you I don't think of how much you weigh of how your hair looks or whether the house was clean. When I think of you I feel love. I don't just think about it I feel it. Motherhood is hard and I am sorry for being a punk most of my life I am so sorry. I wish I could have had the foresight to see how much my actions affected you. I guess thats the curse of motherhood you never realize how hard it is and how much you're children's action affect you and your happiness. That however is a thought I will go into deeper at another time.

Mom,
You have always been beautiful to me, always. That has made me realize that my children too, will think I am beautiful. I believe there is a beauty that comes with motherhood, that or kids really don't care about how much their parents weigh or how they dress. It brings me such comfort to know that even though I may not always be happy with my body my children are. It is soft and makes a great pillow. It can hold them tight when they are hurt and it can kiss all the boo-boos away. My body is good enough, I am good enough. So I vow to stop the body bashing because really who does that help anyway? Also, if I ever voice those negative thoughts about my body it gives them power over me and in turn will show my children that maybe they need to question their bodies too, and they don't, they are beautiful. So the bashing stops now, that acceptance begins now because if I am good enough for them and they think I am beautiful what else matters? If I have only ever thought of you as beautiful why can't my children think of me the same way? I have confidence that they will, and that confidence helps me feel beautiful, just the way I am. So bring on the swim suits and unflattering pictures because I am beautiful and I owe it all to you.
Thanks Mom.

It's Different This Time

Dear Mom,
I've noticed a very interesting phenomenon with Emily. You see usually right after I have a baby I enjoy having a newborn, for about a week and then I get bored and wish they would learn how to smile, or roll over or anything really. With Emily I am completely basking in the newborn-ness. I love to sit and look at her I don't mind nursing her for an hour plus (except that it's hard to keep the boys occupied that long). I sit and think about how much I love having a newborn. I've been wondering what has been different this time around and Jonathan helped me realize that currently she is my only child that doesn't destroy the house. I think he is on to something. I love having a baby that is so sweet, small, and immobile.
Little Jon has really blossomed into his older brother role. I ask him to help me do things all the time and he is so willing. He helps burp Emily, helps Nathaniel find his shoes and when Nathaniel is having a hard time getting up the slide or out of a whole Little Jon is there hand outstretched offering his service. It is adorable.
We had quite the experience at the grocery store today. Grocery shopping with 3 kids is hard because I don't have room for them and groceries, the cart simply isn't that big. So today Little Jon was standing on the outside of the cart, on the front and holding on. He likes to jump off and on, which is super obnoxious, and occasionally I bump into his feet accidentally. He thinks its funny, most of the time. I also can't see Little Jon when he is on the front of the cart because Emily's car seat is just too big. Anyway we were going through the store when Little Jon hopped off. I didn't know this and so I plowed on trying to get through the store as fast as I could. I rammed into Little Jon which hurled our cart to an immediate halt causing me to hit Little Jon in the head with the cart and, even better, Nathaniel who was standing in the basket flipped out and landed on the floor. It was a pretty nice bonk. Nathaniel is crying and as I tell Little Jon not to jump off the cart, rather forcefully, i see that he has a goosed on his head which makes me feel even worse. Thankfully everyone is ok, except my mommy ego.
SLY

Firsts

Dear kids,

Emily you smiled for real for the first time today and it melted my heart.

Little Jon today you played your first game of catch with your dad and he was so proud of you and had so much fun. You giggled the whole time. Dad can't wait for you to get bigger so you guys can play all kids of sports together.

Nathaniel you still aren't napping well because you are sick. I hope you get better soon.

I want to try to write a little bit about how the kids were that day so they have a fun record to look back on.

We are trying to put all of our camping stuff in one place which is requiring me to clean out or storage and it's making me super nesty.

Dad is trying to teach me how to throw  a  ball. He is failing and in sad to say it's not his fault. 

A Holy Woman

Dear mom, 

I read this book recently by Elder Russell M Nelson's wife. It's called What Would a Holy Woman Do? The gist of the story is that she goes on a three day challenge where every day she takes one ordinary tasks and thinks what would a holy woman do and sees how that changes her day. She also challenged several of her friends to do it with her. And the book is all about their experiences and what we can learn. As I read the book I had many thoughts. I have found that unfortunately I am in the habit of yelling at my children. It seems to be my go to when things go wrong. I came to the realization when Betsy was here helping out. I noticed as she would spend time with the children that when they would do something wrong she never yelled at them once but very calmly or even sternly corrected them and counseled them. I remember thinking as things went wrong what my reaction would be and then seeing what Betsy did instead and realizing that her way was better. Yelling does not accomplish the task that I was trying to do. It is not something a holy woman would do. It is something that I am striving to work on.

The other realization I had was how important it is to be with your children. When I spend time with them it is important that I am not just give them half of my attention while I scroll through Facebook or anything else. But when I'm spending time with my children I need to be with them.

When I nurse Emily I almost always open Facebook and start to scroll through that. My problem is when I scroll through Facebook I don't want to get off until I've seen all the new news because I want to make sure I haven't missed anything. Which in reality if it's that big news I'm going to see it because lots of people are going to comment on it and so it's going to be at the top of my newsfeed a lot. However I found that this is a major problem. I will be nursing and the boys will come up and want some of my attention but in my mind nursing time is Facebook time so I ignore them which leads to a lot of problems. The few times I've tried to do story time during nursing like you suggested have gone really really well. I need to stick to that or at least be available to chat with them so that they feel like I'm not just ignoring them multiple times a day. I have also realized that Facebook is a very poor use of my time. If the boys don't want my attention while I am nursing I should use it is time to study my scriptures. I've really been struggling to try and find a time to sit down and have a few minutes of quiet where I can read my scriptures and as I pondered upon this I realized that nursing is a good opportunity to do that. So a holy woman, in my opinion, would spend her time nursing giving her children the attention they need. If they are happy on their own using that time to better herself through scripture study.

A holy woman also cares about her body. Meaning that she exercises and eats healthy she does not ignore it and let it fall by the wayside and gain unnecessary pounds. She would cherish the gift that her Heavenly Father gave her and protect it and keep it healthy and strong. 

These are all things I am striving to work on things that I feel are important to change. I am so very glad that I had the opportunity to read this book. And I hope that I can become a more holy woman as I work on these tasks. 

SLY

Cabin fever

 Dear mom,

It has been so nice to have Betsy here. She is great with the kids and has helped out so much around the house. We will definitely miss her Shadow especially. We aren't sure what Betsy did to encourage her but Shadow is convinced they are best friends and won't leave her alone, it's been obnoxious. Today Jonathan dug up the back yard in preparation for the excavator to come really dig it up and put in the new water main line. I am excited to have this done even if we have to go without water again for a day or two. I've decided that being mentally prepared to have your water turned off is the biggest battle. Anyway Jonathan's boss and co-worker came over this morning to help and in just a couple hours they were done however it was hard work and Jonathan has the blisters to prove it . His hands are so sore it even hurts to type. He wore gloves too but it was just that difficult. 

The doc told me that if Emily gets sick in the first 3 months she will automatically admitted to the nicu. I thought having a baby in the summer meant we wouldn't be stuck at home as long. I think this is because she spent time in the nicu because that wasn't the rule with any of our other kids. I'm really looking forward to getting back to our schedule and everything. I am excited to clean the house and go to the store and go back to normal but I still have to wait a few weeks before I can do any major cleaning and now I have to be careful with Emily too. It's a little disheartening but I guess I will just get used to it. We love and miss you tons and it was so good to see your faces a couple days ago. SLY!

Emily Kristen Baird

Sweet Emily was due on the 2nd of August. I had been having quite a bit of false labor in fact I called my parents telling them it was time to come and they came but then the baby didn't. Sound familiar? The same thing happened with Nathaniel but then he came for real like 36 hours later, this little one didn't. We thought for sure she would come early or at least not too late because of all of my false labor. On Wednesday the 6th I really thought it was the real deal which would have put me 4 days past due, that was what Nathaniel was when he finally came. Looking back I wonder if my body was ready and tried but she was just too big. Anyway I went in for an appointment on Tuesday the 12th, 10 days overdue. They did an ultrasound and told me my baby was 12 lbs 12 oz. At first I laughed because I knew she was a big baby but as the day went on I started to get nervous. We really wanted to have another unmedicated VBAC, but then I got nervous at the thought of squeezing out an almost 13 lb baby. After talking to my husband and mother in law I got some much need comfort and we figured that if my body went into labor on my own and started progressing that meant my body was ready and could do this but if not I would just have a c section. Because I am a VBAC induction is not a great idea because of the forced labor and we all (midwives included) felt like it wasn't a good option. The doctors told me to just schedule a c section for the next day because Wednesdays are when they try to schedule all of their c sections because it is the day they have the OR scheduled for them and it's just easier. Even though I knew I would have been 11 days overdue if I did that I had to wait until the last moment or else I would have wondered the whole time if I had just given her one more day if she would have come. So I asked if I could wait until Friday which would put me 13 days overdue and at that point heavily encourage anyone to be induced or have a c section because placentas aren't meant to last forever and mine was getting old. I had a couple contractions randomly a few days before but I think she was just too bid, who knows. 

On Friday morning we showed up to the hospital and spent 2 hours filing out paperwork and getting all set up and ready to go. We went in for the c section and the whole Time I was impressed how little pain I felt even the shots from all the anesthesia, getting poked over and over again was very painless. It is so nice have a planed C-section verses an emergency one. Everything is so calm and happy and not rushed. I didn't really feel anything during the c section which was good Jonathan and I talked to the anesthesiologist and just chatted while everything was going on and then the doctor said "are you ready for delivery dad?" So Jonathan looked over, they pulled her out and the doctor said "wow, you did not want that coming out of your vagina!" We all giggled and they lifted her up so I could get a quick glimpse and all I saw was a wrinkly forehead, but it was a cute one.

I was very conscious this time around and after they took Emily away I chatted with Jonathan for a little bit and then they sent her back over so we could hold her. Because I was laying down and still had the drape just below my face it was kinda awkward to hold her. She basically laced her on my collarbone and I used my hands to try to keep her from rolling over my face. I did ok for a few minutes but then one of my arms started going numb so I told Jonathan he should take her. He looks so good holding babies it was a great just to watch him hold her.

Jonathan left with Emily to run all the other tests while they finished stitching me up and moving me to the room. They both came back pretty quick and Emily latched right on and nursed for 40 minutes. I was blown away! It didn't hurt at all it was like I had already been nursing her for months I was very surprised but pleased. We cuddled a little and then she nursed for another 20 minutes. This girl knows what she's doing! Aside effect of the anesthesia I was on was that it made my face super itchy. I kept trying to dose off while holding Emily but every 3 minutes I had to itch my face and it would wake me up, it was so obnoxious. The nurse came in and asked to hold Emily because she looked a little "dusky" which I wasn't sure what they meant but she was grey. They got her pink again and Jonathan started cuddling with her while I tried to sleep with my overly itchy face. We all kinda dozed but the nurse came in and took Emily because she was really grey again and they couldn't really get her to cry. They came back and said they needed to monitor her for a couple hours in the nicu. My parents were just about to bring the boys over to meet their sister but we called them and said you better wait she is being monitored. No one was happy about it but it needed to be done.

Emily has stayed in the the nicu since then. Because Emily was so big her arteries are having a hard time opening up enough to get oxygen to her lungs. We can visit her as much as we want but we can't hold or nurse her or really stimulate her in anyway because that makes her breathe harder which is only bad because she starts to expel a lot of carbon dioxide which alters the ph of her blood and is bad. So we can sit by her and put our hands on her and that's about it. It's been very hard to not have her with us in the room and to not be able to hold her. They did call us down when it was time for her to eat and they let me hold her while we bottle fed her my pumped milk plus a little formula which I really appreciated. Just holding her for those 15 minutes or so lifted my spirits a lot. She has only been in the nicu for 26 hours or so but it seems like she has been gone forever. The oxygen she is on is helping her a lot she is showing a ton of improvement. We are hoping by Sunday night she will be off oxygen but we will just have to see. I feel like I am in the middle of that marshmallow experiment where they say you can eat one now or wait 5 minutes and then you can have 2. I want to hold her so bad and nurse her now but if I wait for her to get better then I can take her home and have her be healthy as opposed to delaying her progress and keeping her here longer by holding her now. 

I have been feeling great my pain was like a 2 or lower this whole time so this afternoon when they came to give me pain meds I asked for a half dose but then I showered and walked around for the first time and now I am feeling it so I am back on full doses :) I have to remind myself that even though I feel really good I am not super woman and I still need to take it easy. 

The boys have come to visit me but still haven't met their sister because we need to keep her calm and not stimulated. Little Jon is doing well Nathaniel doesn't understand why we don't come home and has a hard time. I think he is realizing life is changing but he isn't quite sure how yet he hasn't seen the whole picture. It will be good when we can all be home together again.

Overall we are all doing well, just tired of being separated.

 13 days overdue

 Going in! Can you tell I am excited?

 First picture before the took her away

In the nicu

 Holding our sweet baby girl