Sickness

I tried to start doing something I don't normally do. Appreciate the moments when everything is O.K. I started doing this a few months ago. Taking a moment, a breath, when times are going just as they should. When I am neither up a hill, nor in a valley. Just to appreciate and be thankful that right at that moment, things are good. Doing that has helped me get through the past few weeks, and it will help on the next few weeks coming up. Recently, my littlest got sicker than she's been in 8 months. William has been running a fever for 2 days around 104.8. My immediate family had a hard diagnosis recently, and myself, well, I have a cyst on my Thyroid that needs to be taken care of. It was found last Saturday and after 8 hours in the ER, they've said I have to go to a ENT specialist and have a tiny little needle put in my neck to get the fluid in it biopsied. I am pretty sure they'll have to remove it, as it's about 2 inches in size, and affecting my ability to swallow, breath, cough, laugh etc..... I'm not terribly excited about this, and actually a bit freaked out. So for now, I think back to those moments, those times when things were good, to give me strength to get through this next bit, because it will be that way again soon.

I hope.

You have not failed me.

A letter to my body.

Dear Body,

First and foremost I want to say thank you. You have taken me 30 years thus far with little to no failure. For that I am eternally grateful. You have managed to overcome all the damage I have subjected you to, only to turn around and ask "What's next" with a smile. At times you have stumbled, but never for long, and always have dusted yourself off. Which brings me to my point. I want you to know, you have not failed me. You have not failed me in the most important task I've asked you to do. Create life. You have given me 3 beautiful healthy children. You provided a home, comfortable and warm for a full term for each of them. You fed and nurtured them as good as I could have imagined. Although you were unable to (whether fault of my own or not) give birth naturally or feed them enough to help them thrive, you have not failed me. I sit here looking at my most recent addition and she is beautiful. Regardless of anything anyone says or thinks, you have not failed me and I love you for that.

Love,
Michelle

the Story

The story.

It started Weds night at about 7:57pm. (I know what a general approximation of time). I had litterally just put my plate up from dinner. We had these Mediterannian Pizzas that Danny makes. I remember eating it thinking this would be my "last supper" before Claire came, even though I still had 2 days before she was set to arrive. And that's when it started. At 7:57pm I had a contraction. Nothing to severe or worse than I had in the past few weeks, so I pushed it off as a Braxton Hicks. 5 mins passed. I had another one. 5 more minutes, another one. I decided to lay down on my side and it seemed like the were less intense when I did that. I layed there for about an hour, and consistantly 5 mins apart, I'd have a contraction. So I texed my mom and sis and asked them what they thought we shoud do. Of course they said to go to L&D. I've done this 2 times before but each time it gets more and more complicated because I have more kids. I didn't know what to do with Alice and Will, and I was convinced it was a false alarm....By this time it was a little after 9pm. My sis had just returned from 3 days at Science Camp with her 5th grade class and was exhausted, not to mention an hour away, and it was getting late and I didn't want to bother my Aunt in Roseville to come down to watch Alice and Will. I logged onto Facebook and noticed my friend Jaime was online. I messaged her to see if she could come and sit at my house until my Aunt could be down from Roseville to relieve her. See Jaime only lives a few blocks away. She graciously accepted and came right over.

On the drive to the hospital the contractions were still 5 mins apart but becoming more and more intense. It felt like something out of a movie. The pregnant wife going into labor, the nervous husband speeding down the freeway, trying to go fast, but not too fast as to attrack attention.

As we arrived at the hospital, I was dropped off at the ER since it was now close to 10pm and the normal entrances were closed. I registered with the front office and was waiting for Danny to come meet me. He finally calls me and asks where I was. He was already up in L&D. How he managed to do that, I have no idea, major security breach I suppose....So once he came down to the ER, I tried to get past a large security guard who would let the husband with the 'vistor' tag go up, but not the pregnant woman in labor. He escorted us back to the ER and we had to wait for a chaperone to the 4th floor. Finally we got one and got up to L&D.

The hooked me up to all the monitors and such and started tracking my progress. By 11pm, the had decided it was actual labor and had called my doctor. Since I had just eaten at 8pm, they have to wait 9 hours before doing surgery, so they scheduled the C-Section for 5am the next day.......April 1st.

I was in labor for 9 hours, with contractions every 2 minutes. The only gave me a local pain killer that litterally lasted 10 mins. I give MAJOR props to women who have natural labor w/o any pain killers. Worst pain I have ever felt, OMG. So finally at 1am on 4/1 my parents arrived at my house. I was told to call them at 4am so that they could make in time for the birth of Claire at 5am. I called at 4am and they were already on their way. Evidently Nonnie was a little anxious to meet her 5th grandchild.

The surgery went well. I was awake and lucid during the whole thing. even was able to watch in a reflection on the cubbard them sew me back up. I managed to control my breathing and anxiety. It helped too that I had the BEST anethesiologist ever. He's officially invited to Claires birthday parties and her wedding. He was amazing. He became part of the expierence for us, helping me look over the sheet when she was pulled out (oh and did I mention she was Breeched?? That stinker flipped her self back over, so even if I had wanted to try the VBAC, I wouldn't have been able to). He also tapped up the side of the drape so I could see them working on her and giving her the 50 point check over to make sure everything was in it's place. :-)

Claire Barbara Hewitt was born on 4/1/10 at 5:16am weighing in at 9lbs 2oz and 20 inches long. She couldn't wait to be born on my birthday as scheduled 4/2. But wanted to be the jokester and come in on April Fools Day.

So there's the story of the birth of my beautiful baby girl Claire.

:-)

Waiting, waiting, waiting.....

It's about 10 days, 18 hours and 10 mins until Claire's scheduled appearance. Not that I'm counting. I am currently on Short Term Disability because it was getting to be too much at work, and because I have an awesome doctor. But here I sit at home, waiting...waiting....waiting....... I know I should be relaxing and enjoying the quiet time until absolute and pure chaos take over my household, but for an OCD person like myself, I need constant distraction and things to do in order to feel useful and not lazy. You add that on top of the constant pain and numbing in my body from by beautiful little girl...I'm beyond anxious, which I'm sure is one of the reasons she's 'sitting high and mighty' with no sign of decent anytime soon.

So here I sit. Watching too much t.v., and just waiting...waiting...waiting.....