Alright so I admit it, I SUCK at being and staying organized. Its just not a thing that was encoded into my DNA. If I look at a table and it has a paper, a book, a CD, and maybe some sunglasses on it, I get overwhelmed. Where the hell am I supposed to put all those random things?! Usually, they end up going on another table, or bookshelf until I decide to try to look at them in a new light and figure out spots for them. Why does my brain not know how to look at several different things at once and know where to put each thing in it's rightful, individual spot?
I REALLY wish I knew how to process things in a neat and orderly fashion, but my brain is a chaotic mess. I will start seventeen different projects at one time (I'm serious, last night I sat down and actually counted how many projects I've started in the last several months), yep SEVENTEEN, and not finish a single one of them. My enthusiasm in the beginning of a project is through the roof. I'm excited, I love life, I'm amazing, I love my house, I love my haircut, I love my pyjamas (kudos if you know who I am referring to). My optimizism is of no end. Until reality sets in and I realize that I'm trying to paint bedroom furniture, build a pantry, finish my basement, organize my mail/bills, catch up on all my laundry, learn portuguese, go through all the books I want to donate, oh and raise a human being. Then, I start to feel like I suck at everything and that I'll never amount to anything if I can't finish something.
For so long I've been trying to figure out the secret to being organized and I've come to realize, you either got it or you don't. Organization is effortless for some, neurotic for others, and a struggle for me. I have people in my life that organization is their "raison d'etre". Now, I don't want to be like that, the mere thought of that stresses me out. My disorganization doesn't overwhelm me to the point of insanity, but it does put a damper on my level of inner peace. I was googling the other day "ways to get organized", and you want to know what I came across? There are "professional organizers", what?! Really, these people come into your home, organize it for you, show you what they did and how they did it, and then I guess they leave? It would be awesome if they could stay forever and just organize your life for you, but unfortunately I suppose they have lives and families too. Seriously though, what a great idea for someone who is super organized, why not use it to make money? Now only if I could find a way to make money being DIS-organized, the only probable way would be to start a reality TV show......NEXT PROJECT?!
Anyways, I'm getting off track. How fitting that it's an un-organized post about disorganization. (Maybe THAT'S what irony is? Can anyone confirm or deny this?) After asking a few of my facebook friends how the hell they stay organized, I got a few good answers. First, don't start seventeen different projects at once, and second, prioritize. So I have started to do just that. I made a list of the projects I have already started, I prioritized them from most important to least important, and I have started on the first one, while putting all the others on the backburner until the first one is finished. Once I can accomplish this a few times I MAY start to try multi-tasking again. For the past two days I've been painting my bedroom furniture, a project I started last April. Please send me "non-distraction" vibes. The rest of my projects are going to have to wait. Well, other than the whole raising a human being, I can't really put that one aside unless that reality TV show really takes off and I can hire someone to be my personal organizer and nanny.
Until my next post,
Cheers.
ps. if you're wondering why I titled this the "IZE" post, its because after I finished writting it, I went to use the spellchek (so sue me) and it kept trying to correct all my "ize's" to "ise's" and there were LOTS of them. Organize, realize, prioritize. It doesn't know that I'm Canadian, not british, and this is the way we spell things.
Tuesday 13 March 2012
Tuesday 6 March 2012
my birth story
I woke up the morning of June 16th
feeling a little bit crampy. I went about my day, cleaned the entire house and
vacuumed all three floors of it. I was schedule to be induced at 7AM the
following morning and had a Doctors appointment at 2:30pm for a stretch and sweep to see if
that would get things kick started. My mom came with me to my appointment and
we decided to stop and grab a bite to eat before hand. While we were eating, my
mom got a phone call saying that my grandmother had passed away after being in
the hospital for a week with a bowel obstruction, it was just the beginning
of the chaos to come.
We rushed to my appointment and asked
if we could be seen right away, told my doctor what had happened, he said he was
sorry and performed the stretch and sweep and told me to take care of myself. From the
appointment we went straight to the hospital where my grandmother had passed to
say goodbye. It was very sad and difficult, she was so excited and looking forward to
meeting her first great grandchild.
Around 3:45pm as we were leaving the
hospital I started getting contractions about 10 minutes apart. I went home,
started getting everything together and we headed to the hospital where I was delivering at 5:00pm. The contractions had picked up and were 7-8 minutes
apart, and we had a 40 minute drive to the hospital. 
(my grandmother and me at my baby shower)
We arrived at the hospital around 6:15pm, I was admitted into triage, checked and was 4cm and contractions were 4-5 mins apart. They admitted me and we got settled and comfortable in a room. I requested my epidural right away and the anaesthetist came up around 7:45pm to administer it while I was still not in a lot of pain. At 10:30pm the doctor came in to break my water, at 12AM they checked me and I was 6cm, so they started pitocin.
(just admitted into my labour room)
(trying to smile through some big contractions)
(after getting my epidural, everything was wonderful)
By 3:45am I was feeling lots and lots
of pressure during contractions, the nurse came in to check me and I was 9
3/4cm, so she called the doctor and I started pushing at 4AM. Pushing was HARD
WORK! I opted for the mirror and it was the best choice I've ever made (other
than my epidural). I could see the progress I was making with each push. My doctor
was incredible, he coached me through the whole thing. He had one of my legs up
on his hip, Mauro had the other, my mother in law was responsible for hydrating
me, and my mom was responsible for helping get my head to my chest to bear
down. The doctor took his time, I did not have a
single tear and did not need an episiotomy. After 1 1/2 hours of pushing, I saw
her head crown and with the next contraction, she was born at 5:36AM. I watched
my baby come out of me, and it was the most incredible experience in my life.
Everyone cried, and she was placed on my chest and I started bawling. She was
perfect, she IS perfect. Mauro got to cut the cord and she was taken to go get
checked out, he followed to take pictures and so did the moms.
(she's finally here, after this picture was when the chaos began)
(Mauro holding Adalyn while I was in surgery, not sure what was happening to me)
And that's when everything went
crashing downhill, fast.
While trying to deliver my placenta
it felt like something inside me was literally being ripped out of me. And as
soon as it came out I screamed and looked into the mirror and thought,
"That looks like a HUGE placenta..." My doctor screamed, "Who is the
OB on call? its a placental accreta! I need him in here stat, she's bleeding,
we need to get her into the OR now!" He shoved everything back inside me,
and they rushed me out of the room. The last thing I saw leaving was blood all
over the floor and my husband's face. I will never forget it, he looked completely
helpless and all he could say was "Toni, I love you." I couldn't say anything back to him, because I was afraid if I did, that would mean it was it, it was the last time I would ever say anything to him.
As they were wheeling me into the OR
I looked up at my doctor and could see the terror and panic in his face. Now if you know my doctor, you know he is the most cool and collected person, nothing phases him. When I saw how scared he was, I knew I
was bleeding to death. The OB came in right away and tried putting my uterus
back inside me for 30 seconds but I was loosing too much blood. He told me they
needed to put me to sleep and that I was going to have to have a hysterectomy
or die. I looked up at him before they put me out and all I could say was, "please don't
let me die." And then everything went black.
I woke up at 1pm that afternoon in
intensive care, just as they were taking the life support tube out of my
throat. I saw that I was hooked up to about a million different IVs and
machines, and then remembered everything that had happened to me. I wish that
it could have been blocked from my memory, but unfortunately, I still get flashbacks of the whole experience.
At 2pm they let Mauro come in and see me
and he just fell onto the bed beside me and started crying uncontrollably. The
only words he could muster were "I'm so happy you're alive, I love you,
I'm so happy your alive. Don't you ever leave me" I have never been so
happy to see him in my life.
The OB that saved my life and my doctor
came in a little bit later to explain to me exactly what had happened.
Basically, my placenta was stuck to my uterus because of scar tissue from a
previous miscarriage (although they are not 100% sure that's the reason, it is
their best guess) When I went to deliver my placenta, my whole uterus came out
with it and I started hemorrhaging immediately. He told me when they opened me
up they had minutes before I would have bled to death. He said my uterus was
completely inside out with some of my organs inside it. He was able to turn it
right side in, remove the remaining placental tissue that was attached to it,
and stop the hemorahgning WHILE being able to avoid a hysterectomy. He said if
I had made a choice to do a home birth that would have been it for me, and that
there was no way to know this sort of thing would happen. Sometimes they are
able to detect it in ultrasound, but often it is missed (which was the case for
me) I found out that had actually put me into a medically induced coma until my vitals were stable, and that I received 5 units of blood, which blows my mind, because your
body only holds 5, and that I would have to remain in ICU for another couple of
days to be monitored. He said that if I wanted to have any future babies I
would need to wait at least 2-3 years and I would need to have a c-section.
When they asked me if I had any questions my first one was "where is my
baby??" They then told me that I would not be able to see Adalyn until
later on that afternoon. She was being looked after in the NICU, but she was completely healthy. It was only because I was not stable enough to care for her and I would only be able to see her for a couple minutes. That was the longest day
of my LIFE.
(Getting to hold my baby girl for the first time)
(Not wanting to say goodbye to her for the night)
(Finally getting moved up to post-pardum, and getting to hold her again)
When they finally placed her in my arms, I just stared at her, I absolutely fell in love. They
only let me see her for a grand total of 10 minutes, and then another 10 minutes in the evening again. They pulleda lot of strings to allow a baby come down from the NICU into the ICU, so I am so grateful to everyone that the hospital that made it possible to see her. I had to remain in ICU for another day and a half without her until they finally transferred me to post-pardum. Even there I was only able to see and care for her during the day while Mauro could be there because I was nowhere near well enough to take care of her by myself. My heart ached I missed her so much during the night. Finally on Monday morning, my doctor
came in and assessed that we were well enough to be discharged and we were able to come home.
The whole experience was very
horrific, but I loved giving birth and I love my little girl more
than anything. I feel mostly sorry for everyone around me having to deal with what happened, especially my husband. I was fine, I had no clue what was happening when I was in the operating room, but for everyone still awake it was a complete nightmare. I am so grateful for all the prayers that were received in heaven for me. I am so blessed for people in my life that when struck with something so devastating, they got right on top of it and began praying imediately, then calling others to start praying who had no clue who I was. What facing my own death made me realise is that so many things we think are important, are not. We can all die in a split second and none of it would matter. Everyday I try to remind myself of this when I start getting stressed out about the little things. I try to remind myself to enjoy life, to experience as much as I can WHILE I can, and most of all, always feel blessed and ALWAYS be thankful.
(Our first night all together)
Until my next post,
Cheers.
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