Rio's Birth Story.

I've waited far too long to post this, and I NEED to share my incredibly redeeming experience. Again, this is a birth story; if birth, or placentas, or babies gross you out, stop reading now. 

If you have not already read it, I've posted my first birth experience on this blog, the birth of my daughter. It was both one of the most amazing and terrifying experiences I'll probably ever have, PROBABLY.  There is something I should edit about my first birth story, as I have learnt things that I did not know when I wrote it. What I have gained knowledge to is what caused everything to turn into chaos. Because of all the testing I went through to check for accretas during my second pregnancy, the obstetrician I saw during, and then upon my arrival in the delivery room for the second time and speaking with the nurses that were present during my daughter's delivery, I found out exactly what happened the first time around... There was never an accreta. What happened to me, was what's known in the medical world as "overzealous cord traction" meaning that the doctor pulled on the umbilical cord too hard, too soon, and before the placenta even had a chance to detach, therefore pulling my entire uterus out along with it still attached and causing a complete uterine inversion. This is evident in the fact that from the time I gave birth to my daughter, to the time I was in the operating room bleeding out, was exactly 4 minutes (a little bit too soon for many doctors liking). Now, from what I gathered with the delivery nurses is that what happened to me is widely talked about amongst the medical staff of the birthing unit at that hospital, but it's all under hushed whispers. I'm not angry at that doctor. The look on his face after seeing what he had done and the terror and remorse he must have felt was probably an unbearably heavy load on his shoulders. I've forgiven him for lying to me about what happened, possibly in order to save himself a malpractice lawsuit, because in spite of all of that, I'm alive. I cannot be angry because I have a beautiful son, when I came so close to not being able to have any more children at the ripe age of 22. 

But that is not what I want to dwell on, so on to Rio's birth story! 

 I had had so many false alarms nearing the end of my pregnancy. I would have consistent contractions for a few hours, get excited, only to have them stopped abruptly. I was a week overdue and to the point where I thought that it was some cruel joke and that I was going to be pregnant forever. Starting on Friday morning of the 5th, I was having one contraction an hour all day long, but by that point thought nothing of it and went to sleep thinking I would make it to my induction on the following Monday. I woke up around 2am on Saturday morning with bad heartburn, took some Gaviscon and when I went to lay back down in bed I suddenly had a big gush. So I woke up my husband and we headed to the hospital. They admitted us around 3:30am and told us that if contractions didn't start by 8am they would be starting pitocin. Within 4 hours, they had ten ladies come into labour and delivery with waters broken, and it got pretty crazy on the floor. Because I wasn't progressing and had no contractions I was told I would have to wait up to 12 hours to start the pitocin because other women were in active labour. So we waited in my delivery room and I prayed, and prayed. I prayed for God to give me peace, for me to stop worrying and start trusting that he was going to take care of me, and for him to be there with me through it (Like he was going to leave me, right?! lol.) It was during this waiting period that I was introduced to my nurse, whom just so happened to be at my first delivery. The second she saw who I was, she gave me a huge hug and said "you have no idea how good it is to see you with pink in your cheeks and a smile on your face." Over the course of the day I explained to her my anxiety because of what happened the first time, and it was then she decided to tell me just what happened in the delivery room. When she finished telling me everything, instead of being mad or sad, I was relieved. It wasn't just some fluke of nature that could happen again. She assured me I was in "the best medical hands possible" at the hospital and that they would NOT let that happen again. An overwhelming sense of peace came over me. SO. MUCH. RELIEF. 

It was around 3:30pm, once several babies had been delivered that they decided to start pitocin and did an internal check for the first time. I was 3cm dilated 25% effaced, but had a second layer of water to be broken. They broke that layer and began the drip. At first I thought "meh, I could totally handle these" but within an hour and a half the contractions were pretty friggin intense and about 2-3 minutes apart. I had NOT experienced contractions to that degree before. I still remember thinking  "how do women manage to scream during contractions?!" For me the pain was so intense that I could not make a sound come out of my mouth even if I tried. The nurse finally came in to ask when I wanted my epidural and I requested it right away. It was another hour before my epidural was put in, and once it was in, I was in heaven! By 11pm I was ready to push. I remember thinking "OK God, this is it. This is my chance to experience the delivery my daughter and I deserved the first time around. Here we go!" The obstetrician who delivered Rio was amazing, so calm and reassuring, she made a world of difference. Six pushes and 20 minutes later Rio was born, screaming and pink! They placed him on my chest immediately , and he calmed almost instantly. They waited for the cord to stop pulsating, let daddy cut the cord, and then waited more while Rio remained on my chest. I looked at him, and of course in that instant felt an overwhelming amount of unconditional love and devotion for the little being looking up at me. There was a medical student assisting the OB and after Rio was born she looked at her student and said "OK, this is where you step back and let me handle it. There are two grandmas' in this room who are not going to breath until this placenta is delivered." After 10 minutes or so the OB looked at me and said "okay honey, it's detached you can go ahead and give a little push." I would be lying if I said that in that moment I wasn't panicked something was going to go wrong. I took a big breath and thought again, "OK God, here we go." It came out perfectly fine, all in one complete piece without any complications whatsoever. I looked at my son, who was still on my chest waiting to be weighed and measured, all wrinkled and puffy eyed and thought "I came SO close to not being able to have you, to you never being part of this world, and this is how God redeems us"

We are so in love with our son and I'm amazed at how good I felt immediately after the delivery. I kept telling everyone in the days and weeks following it, "So THIS is how your supposed to feel after giving birth?!" It's still no walk in the park, but a TRILLION times better than what I had to go through the first time. I thought going from one child, to two children would be exhausting and overwhelming but it's incredible how much calmer, relaxed and how much easier everything is this time around. I am so greatful to God. He allowed me to experience giving birth a second time, and I have had so much inner healing happen since. 

There is a great quote by Mark Twain, "In my life I’ve experienced many tragedies.  Most of which never really happened." The birth of my daughter was not a tragedy, yet I have spent so much time thinking it was. I mean, I came so close to dieing right? No, it wasn't a tragedy. I didn't die. I'm very much alive. Out of that experience I have the most incredible little 2 year old, and now I get to raise her and her baby brother alongside my husband. I think that's probably the greatest victory one can experience. 

Finding Rio.

Adalyn has been obsessed with the movie Finding Nemo as of late, we watch it almost daily. Today we sat together watching the movie, and as the opening scene unfolded, and the chaos took place I couldn't help but think to myself "I'm Marlin."

I have always had an irrational fear of death. Even as a young child, I would lie awake at night in my bed, praying to Jesus that I wouldn't die. I would tell myself that if I could just get through the night without dying, everything would be alright in the morning, and it always was. After what happened with my delivery of Adalyn, I have become almost paralyzed by the fear. It's to the point that I am in constant fear for Adalyn, and a little bit of a freakazoid (Marlin). I panic when I bring her swimming, at meals, at the park, when she gets sick, and almost anywhere else anything can go wrong. Sometimes, I'm really good at looking calm and collected, but on the inside I'm an absolute wreck. I know I have not dealt with the trauma, as much as I've tried I can't figure out how to recover from it, but I don't want my children resenting me because of how fearful I am.

Over the course of the movie Finding Nemo, Marlin learns to deal with his irrational fears by going on a journey to find his son and everything ends well. As I prepare to give birth to my son any day now I have had more and more fear, and have been quite a bit more anxious than usual. I have been praying constantly for God to take the fear away and replace it with peace and comfort, but it keeps creeping into my subconscious and then into the forefront of my mind. How do I deliver this little boy without the fear? I want it gone, but it keeps coming back. I keep telling myself to trust God, and to stop being crippled by fear in every situation, He took care of me the last time, he will take care of me again. Alas here I sit, feeling very "Marlin-esque" and anxious. 

If you are reading this, please pray for me. I don't want to live the rest of my life in constant fear, and fear of death. As a Christian, I know I should not fear death, but I do. I know that for some of you, reading this will shock you, as I seem calm and collected about my upcoming delivery, and most of life in general, but I am not. I'm not as strong or as calm as I can make myself seem. It has always been difficult for me to talk openly and honestly about how I'm feeling. I need all the support, prayers, positive vibes, and encouragement you can offer. If you have any good bible verses that I can read, please send them my way, as I've no clue where to even start. If you feel compelled to offer me any words of encouragement, PLEASE do. In the meantime, all I can do is continue to pray that God takes this fear away, and that I can welcome my son into the world with the courage and strength of God and the comfort of Jesus being with me through every moment. 

As Summer Approaches.

Summer weather has finally arrived and we have our vegetables planted in our garden, now we wait for the veggies to sprout! We will be building a deck for the backyard this June (pictures of the event are a given lol) and everyone is excited to spend our time outdoors.

 In the meantime we are in crunch time and busy getting the apartment in the basement finished. It has been quite a long and tedious process. We had walls and ceilings to rip out, foundation cracks to fix, walls to re-build, drywall to install, a shower to convert into a tub+shower, colors to pick, floors to install, and so much more. We are finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, and it has come a long way. The only room that remains to be finished is our master bedroom. The project has taken us well over 6 months, and it has been an entire family ordeal. Mauro and my dad have been coming home after working a full day and heading down into the basement to continue the renos until late into the night, only to get up early for work the next morning. They are both awesome. We have managed to save a HUGE amount of money on certain things by scouting out sales and taking the time to compare prices with different retailers.  There are pictures of before and after, but won't be posting any of them until it's all finished! Unfortunately we won't be able to get everything done that we had hoped to with the time that we have left before our baby is due, but we will continue working on smaller projects here and there once fall/winter comes as we are going to have quite a busy summer ahead of us.

 We've had to keep a lot of things in storage, and the house has been a bit upside down while renovations are happening, but we've worked together while having to compromise space and time. Mauro and I have been sharing our room with Adalyn, my mom and dad have had all of Adalyn's belongings and her dresser in their room, and 4 of us have been sharing 1 bathroom. Yes it's been stressful at times, but we are learning to communicate with each other and make sure that we're not only thinking about ourselves. You can't just go about your day only thinking about what you have to do and where you have to be. For example, we have 3 vehicles and 5 of the 6 adults all have to leave for work bright and early. This means that we need to plan who uses what vehicle when and who drives who where, ahead of time. There isn't an option for having a vehicle to yourself for an extended period of time without having to pick someone up or drop someone off. We have also been sharing the responsibility of meals. We meal plan as much as possible, but sometimes everyone is just too busy and we all have to take turns figuring out what to get for dinner and who is going to make it. 

We have discovered what community is, and that when everyone pitches in and helps out things go a lot smoother. It has been really great in the sense that no one has decided this isn't for them and just checked out of the family and started doing their own thing. With two little babies due this summer, we are preparing for how all of our lives will be different and how we will all help and lean on each other because we KNOW it is going to be a little chaotic for a bit while babies are adjusting to schedules. It really does take a village to raise a child, and that's exactly how we plan to go about things.



 Until my next post,


 Cheers.

Mai-Tei Carrier!

I found the greatest free pattern to make a Mai-Tei carrier, and I'm going to share it with everyone. Here is the link to the pattern from Grumble & Grunts. http://www.grumblesandgrunts.com/2010/10/how-to-sew-mei-tai-baby-carrier.html Her tutorial and pictures are awesome, and she gives a list of all the supplies you need to complete the project!

 It was pretty time-consuming, but I'm no professional and quadruple check my measurements before heading over to my sewing machine. I would highly recommend NOT skimping out on the batting for the carrier itself, it gives it a way better feel and look with all that extra padding!

PS don't mind the 34 weeks pregnant crazy woman hair! lol

 

Easy (and cheap!) Red Velvet Brownies!

So if you're anything like me, you love anything red velvet. And if you are anything like me, you also love when something is easy to make and it's inexpensive. I have come across so many red velvet brownie recipes, but they all called for a ridiculous amount of time and ingredients, so I pieced together some of the recipes I found and made my own, which I'm now going to share with everyone, I cannot explain how delicious these were!

First of all I'll give you a list of the ingredients:
1 pack of Great Value Red Velvet Cake Mix from Walmart (you can use whatever brand is your favourite)
1 large Egg
3/4 cup of butter (after melted)
1/2 cup of water
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Pre-heat oven to 375.

Combine cake mix, butter, egg, and water in a large bowl. Beat on low speed with electric mixer for approx 2 mins. Add chocolate chips, and mix well. I'm no baking expert, so if there is a certain way you like to mix your ingredients, please do!

Grease a medium-large size baking pan. I use shortening, but again use whatever you like

Pour brownie mix evenly into pan. Lick bowl of brownie batter clean. LOL kidding, except if you're me, you actually did.

Bake at 375, on middle rack for 23-25 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool for about 15 minutes

ENJOY!!!

Continuing our veggie garden!

So yesterday snowed, what the heck mother nature? BUT, today was nice again and so we all got back outside to continue preparing our garden. We're making sure we're ready to plant for the end of May. Below are pictures of what happened today.
We started off with a layer of newspapers, 2 sheets thick.
Put a layer of mulch on top of that about to hold down the newspaper and add some nutrients to our soil.
Then some dead leaves on top of that about 2 inches
And then put about 4 inches of triple mix for the top layer

We have a huge compost bucket but the stuff in there is not yet ready to use, so tomorrow we will be going to buy a truck load of compost from the dump and adding that to the soil and then tilling it all to make a nice nutrient-rich soil for our veggies!

PS. I need some tips on good ways to start some herbs indoor in small potting plants and putting them in thewindows. We have; Thyme, Parsley, Sage, and Chives. Any advice/tips would be great appreciated!

10 Rainy Day Activities!

Being stuck inside is such a drag, especially with a toddler who's bursting with energy! So here's a list of some activities we do to keep occupied and have fun!

1. Wake up in the morning and go for a car ride in our PJS so that we can listen to and watch the rain. Adalyn especially loves when there's a flash of lightning, she cheers "cool light!" and I think it's thrilling even as an adult!

2. Put on a favourite cd (in our case Adalyn's is "One Direction") and have a dance-fest in the living room.

3.Take a nap. Falling asleep listening to the rain is actually one of the most peaceful naps you can have IMO.

4. Bath painting! I got the idea from this blog; http://www.growingajeweledrose.com/2012/08/contained-body-painting-in-bath.html Seriously, genius. The whole mess is contained and it's easy clean-up! Couldn't resist the urge to post pics!

Supplies needed:
-a bathtub (of course)
 -non toxic, washable paint (I used crayola 3D sidewalk paint and it washed off the tub without any issues)
-paint brushes
-container for the paint
-a big sheet of blank paper or board (OR if you can find bath paint you can paint directly on the walls!)

5. Make Jello and cut out shapes using cookie cutters. These were devoured too quickly to take any pictures haha.

6. Grab the pots and pans out of the cupboards and have a drumming session.

7. Have some fun and let them take pictures with the digital camera. (Not recommend if you have an extremely expensive DSLR lol) She decided half my leg and our messy entrance was going to be her first photo shoot!

8. Paint toe nails!

9. Get out the colouring books and markers and colour at the table. I LOVE colouring lol!  Sitting down and colouring with your kids can be a really great bonding and relaxing experience.

10. Make necklaces out of string and fruit loops. I just so happen to be an avid crocheter and have about a million rolls of yarn handy for this. If you don't, the Dollar Tree sells rolls for $1.00! PS I cannot guarantee these won't be eaten by little mouths almost immediately after being assembled and put on (as the photographic evidence suggests)

And now this exhausted and very pregnant momma needs a coffee or her bed.


Cheers :)