3 Weeks old Today

What a cluster of time the last few weeks has been....

First and most importantly, I had my 2 week checkup with my Dr on Christmas Eve. I am 6 pounds above where I was at my "I am pregnant" appointment. Holy shit!! BUT, I am not bragging....my body certainly is not looking how it did 6 pounds lighter prior to pregnancy. My stomach flap is still hanging there with "pride".

I have No ab muscles whatsoever...if I squat down, there is no standing back up again.

I did comment to Mike today that I feel almost like a productive member of society today. Aside from a random heinous pain in my left side, that comes randomly, I would hardly notice I had major surgery 3 weeks ago.

My dr said my incision is looking good and there are no problems. I should be able to drive in 1 1/2 weeks, which will be a blessing and a curse. (I want to drive myself around again, but I like M doing it because I get help with the 2 mini's).

H is a PITA. She is much more time consuming than B. She is either sleeping or freaking out. Some of the time holding her shuts her up, but not always....BTW, if I sound harsh, it is because I have been listening to her scream for the better part of today..

B could care less if his diaper is dirty...H can't tolerate it. She also can't tolerate her own sneezing, or lights turned on to bright, on and on. She is very easily annoyed. I have NO idea where she gets this from?!!>!?!?

But, on a bright note, B is still doing fabulously with her. When I feed her. he sits next to me and says "hold the bottle" or "hold the beebee" which he will do for about 6 seconds before he is bored. But at least he is involved.

He has only thrown 2 tantrums. Gigantic ones, but still only 2 so far which is about 78 less than I thought would have happened by now.

So, all in all, things are well. I know time will help H, and it also helps I am feeling like myself again.

That is it for now...I will update with Christmas later.

More...

I love this picture because although my husband has gigantic hands anyway, they make Harlee look extra small, which she is anyway....




I HAD to have this picture because it was my only humor of my hospital stay.....The picture does not show as clearly as the plant in real life however in person, this is the fakest looking plant I have ever seen...and yet, this sign is placed in the planter. Shut the hell up.



And then these two pictures, taken about 2 seconds apart.

My mother says she is my kid because everything in life pisses her off.....granted her hat looks like it would be annoying over eyes like that but, to me there is no need to scream so loud China can hear....however, I moved the hat away about 2 seconds later and she was instantly asleep.

Whatever....





She had her 2 week appointment today. She is 7 lbs, 2 oz...up from 6 lbs 4 oz, and she is 19 1/2 inches long, up from 18".

Amazing how fast they grow...

I am down 27 lbs, but do not look it. I sweat about a gallon a night at least, and am down to maybe 1 vicodine a day. So we will see how the weight loss goes now that the drugs are almost done. 2 nights ago B tried to run across the parking lot and I bolted off after him and let me say I am not okay to run yet. My insides felt like they were about to pop out....but maybe walking might work for now.

My steri strips (aka tape used to tape my guts back together) is finally starting to fall off which I am so relieved off. I am not sure how they can cut you open, remove a child, staple you back up with 18 staples, only to remove them 3 days later and replace it with tape...but I am so sick of my stomach flap hanging there by a piece of tape. It is painful and yet itches like crazy. Besides, I am sick of nightgowns and drawstring pants. I am ready for a pair of jeans...even if they are maternity still.

My kid is up and mowing down food about every 1 1/2 hours to every 2 hours. Luckily for me, Mike is a late night guy so he has been up with Harlee till about 1:30, then I am on shift. But I go to bed about 8, so I am getting reasonable sleep...

And I even got lucky last night...M couldn't sleep at all for whatever reason so he was up with her till 1:30, and then again at 3. Hence why I feel like updating this blog with some pictures...It is amazing what that extra 1 1/2 hours of sleep can do.

Meet Harlee..

Kind of....

Here I am drugged and minutes from the beginning of a hellish recovery..



This is our first family photo....I love how she looks as messed up as I feel....


Here is mom's (grandma K) with our clan of children


B and I with Harlee. Love my finger <3


And the view from my beach front hotel, I mean hospital.

She is here

We are home with our new addition. Harlee Rae.

6 Lbs 11oz

Born at 9:37 am



You have no idea how much more nerve racking it is getting a scheduled C-section than the first one I had with B. With B, I had literally 10 minutes to process what was going on before I was drugged up and B was being removed. With this one, I had an hour drive to the hospital and then 2 hours of BS prior to the actual surgery.

And then I had to make it through the actual surgery.

This time around, it was not so easy.

Neither is the recovery.

So I got to the hospital at 7 am, and went back to my room.

My nurse and her student nurse began the prep. Student nurse was in charge of inserting my IV. Real nurse numbed my hand with a shot, and student nurse went at it. She dug around for about 3 minutes in my skin with her needles. No shit. Mike had to walk away it was so bad. She finally pulled it out, stopped the gushing and asked real nurse for help.

I am sqeemish so this was not a good start to things.

Real nurse ends up getting the IV in my right hand, which would have been fine IF I didnt have stiches in my left hand. So this pretty much left me useless.

So after that debocle, I was nervous to say the least. Afterall, that was an IV....I am about to have my body cut into and a baby sucked out.

So, then I have to make the nerve racking walk to the OR. I get my drugs, they lay me down and I begin to panic.....my Dr comes in, I feel pressure.....and more pressure and then my Dr. says "Sorry Christy this is taking so long, but you have alot of scar tissue built up from the previous C-section...it is hard to cut through"

Thanks

I will spare some other fabulous details...

Then I finally hear these magic words "We are about to pull the baby out, do you or your husband want to watch?"

Fuck off. NO!!!!!

And so she was born.

They had to talk M into cutting the cord. Which he eventually did.

18 staples later I was wheeled into recovery.

And am still feeling it.

Getting out of bed the first time Monday was miserable...as I expected. This was the only similarity between the two recoverys.

I knew once I made it through the first "getting out of bed" life would be grand....

But it didnt work out so well this time around....

Here it is a week later and I am still on pain meds every 4 hours on the nose.

Today I got risky and thought I would go longer...so I went 5 1/2 hours and then made the mistake of trying to lay on my side...WTF was I thinking?

I can maintain some comfort by pacing around.

I will admit that each day is better.....so given the fact that I am still on pain meds every 4 hours and it is needed.....can you imagine that pain levels the past week?


Anyway....

Given my condition, it has been a blessing that Harlee is fabulous. She took a bottle immediatley and sucks that food down. Every 2 hours on the nose...

She is a great sleeper in between so far....

It has also been a blessing that my in laws were able to spend the last week here at the house with the other kids allowing Mike to spend the days at the hospital with me and H.

B has responded well to her and is quite the helper. He likes to "hold her" and hold her pacifier and bottle in her mouth. And he is excellent at taking dirty diapers to the trash. Of course, my in laws were here too providing added entertainment to him, so I hope his good behavior continues now that they are gone.

And on an even better note, I have lost 16 pounds.

3 days to go..

Things freaking me out:

Today is my last official day to get anything done around the house.

I am having BH contractions keeping me up at night and am completly terrified that the kid is coming early. (Doesn't she know we have shit to do all weekend?)

M and I have about 106 errands to do tomorrow including buying a pad for the changing table. (Can we say unprepared?)

I am not going to be able to spend so much alone time with B anymore, and yet he is driving me crazy right now because I have NO ENERGY.

I have a head cold, and stiches in my finger and will not have finished all my medications prior to delivery. Do I bring them all with me to the hospital?

Should I pack long sleeve shirts and short sleeve shirts?

Did I forget to pay any bills?

Do I get my tubes tied white under anesthesia?

How is B going to respond to X?

Do I like X's name?

What if X has colic?

When will I be able to sleep again?

I could go on and on.........

I feel like such a freak show....for weeks and months I was just wishing this day would come faster....and now that it is here, I can't help but think....was being pregnant really so bad?

However, despite all the BS, there is one thing that is undeniable. I can't wait to have myself back to myself.

In 2 weeks or so I will:

Be done with antibiotics and should therefore be cold and sickness free.

Be done with pain medication I will have from C-section

Have my C-section staples out

Have my kid out

Have my hand stiches out

I will be like a new woman!

Countdown: 6 Days

Here is the finished tree and gifts. I started decorating it myself on Sunday in pain and on vicodin while Mike watched Jingle all the way, and the kids sat around picking their butts...so I finally gave them a "I am 9 months pregnant with a hand wound" freak out lecture, and what followed shockingly was..............the tv off, and help! Holy shit! it worked for once! Merry Christmas to me!



I had my final Dr's appt of the pregnancy today. Baby was going wacko. HB 165-175. She is ALWAYS in the low 140's....

Mike thinks she is like hercules trying to bust out and therefore exerting a ton of energy. My dr. asked if I could feel her moving because it was so high and I could not. No one was concerned about this....obviously, she has no room.

I am a fingertip dialated. Which per my Dr. means I could or could not go into labor before Monday.

I LOVE my Dr. because of her attitude. And really. she cant give me any concrete information...anything can happen.....but still. Couldn't she leave me with a statistic or 2?

So, as I left, she said "See you Monday unless I hear from you before!"

Nice.

You know, as much as I wanted her early...she best be staying in till Monday at this point. Wayyyy too much planning is involved now.

Here are some picture of the nursery.....which I worked my butt off on getting it put together, but as I took these pictures, realized it looks a mess. The car seat and bouncer and other randomness are things that will be removed once she is born..so it still looks like a clusterfuck in there...but you get the idea. I think.

1 week

from today, I will be in recovery from delivery.

However, currently I am recovering from a 2 day vicodine induced state due to this:




Friday afternoon, I decided I would finish the nursery. I was cutting open a sock monkey to put on X's shelf, and cut my knuckle off.

No shit.

I glanced at it while chopping through it, saw white, and then felt like I was about to pass out. I called M, who came running and said immediatley "we need to go to the Dr."

So, he wrapped it up and off we went.

I mentioned to the dr how squeemish I was and told him to not talk about it until it was fixed.....I saw the bloody towels and the horrified look on his face though.

6 stitches later...and sewn diagonaly across my index finger knuckle, I have my new bandage. As I was leaving he told me that I was thisclose to cutting right through a tendon. F off! Disgusting.

And since I chopped the skin off completley, he had to stretch my old skin back across my finger rather than sewing the wound shut, thus requiring me to have stitches in for at least 10 days.

10 days from stitch date? C- section.

So, there I was, trying to plan my removal around my hospital departure.

I felt like Mike.

Anyway, the Dr. wouldnt give me anything for pain, short of Tylenol, which I didnt think much of since it was numb. Until about 11 pm.

I had the worst night of my life I think.

I finally called my OB Saturday morning at 8 asking her about pain medication. She was pissed off and shocked they wouldnt give me anything and told me Vicodine is fine to take.

So, after arguing with my stich Dr. and pleading, he finally gave me vicodine.

So, not only do I feel like a complete a-hole for the wound in the first place, now I have to finish my last baby free week with a bandage on my finger on pain medication. AND I still can't sleep because it hurts worse laying down....so I stand around..which causes back pain....blah blah blah.

What a nightmare I caused myself.

And then to bring home X with stitches in my hand???? Fantastic.

So, due to M and my ailments, I thought I would post a picture of our bed. This is it in movie watching mode. We have to bring in the couch CUSHIONS to prop up backs, fingers and feet from swelling. Seriously.

I LOVE how our curtains dont fit right because all of our medicines, tissues, water, ect sits in the window sill. Klassy.




Despite the BS, we did get the tree up.



And have time to go to a really neat tree lighting at a local shopping center, where Santa was....This is B giving santa a thumbs up sign. M is only doing it because Brody started it first. How funny.