bettyanne&scott

Frisbee Golf

2012-02-19T13:00:00.000-05:00

James on His Head

2012-02-02T18:07:00.000-05:00

We are SUCH new parents. This kid cracks us up every day.

James Sits Up

2012-01-25T11:20:00.000-05:00

I've been.....slacking. I haven't written anything in a while. That makes me sad. I'm hoping to fix that sooner than later.

So today I'm simply posting a video of James.

The Trip Home...

2011-12-27T20:58:00.000-05:00

Today started out well. We got up and got the car packed and were on the road by 9:45am heading from Scott's parents' house in Northern Virginia to our home in North Carolina. Pre-kid, this was a 4.5 hr trip. And in fact, on the way up there on Christmas Eve night:

a) there was absolutely no traffic,
b) James slept the WHOLE way,
c) and we made it there in 4.5 hrs.

We couldn't even make that great of a travel time when I was pregnant. I was either early pregnancy (stopping to throw up!) or late pregnancy (stopping to pee!). I digress...

9:45 am: on the road! Rainy day ahead. Yuck.

11:45 am: time to stop. James is ready to eat, and so are we. Executive decision was made to dine at the fine Cracker Barrel establishment. Quick service. Bathroom with a changing table. Seems easy enough. I fixed James a bottle and fed him while we waited for our food. It became quickly apparent while James was eating that he was "multitasking". (read: pooping AND eating) The smell was....notable. After he was done eating, I put him back in his car seat just to get away from the noxious fumes. Scott and I both inhaled our food. Given the sexist country we live in, there was no baby changing station in the men's bathroom. Soooo... I got the pleasure of changing the nasty diaper. I grabbed the package of wipes, a diaper and the changing pad out of the diaper bag. I gathered the stinky child from the car seat and headed off to bathroom. Scott went to pay our check.

Of note: As a NICU nurse, I change diapers for a living.

Back to our story.

I laid my precious, sweet, innocent little boy on the changing pad on the changing table. I was afraid of what I was about to unearth in his diaper. The next several minutes of my life can only be described as comical, disgusting, and amateur-parentish. The poop was EVERYWHERE. His pants and long-sleeve onesie were covered in poop. The top layer long-sleeve shirt seemed to be okay. As I opened the pandora's-box-of-a-diaper, I was very glad I had an almost-full package of wipes. There was a lot, lot, lot of wiping involved. I had just about gotten all the poop off of the precious, sweet, innocent little boy when I noticed there was a sizeable amount of poop on the changing pad, which kept smearing onto him, thus restarting the wiping process. Good grief. At that point I was really sad this was a women's bathroom and Scott couldn't come in and help me.

Side note: extended periods of time (more than three seconds) of baby boy diaper-free-ness is NOT a good idea. I know this, but there was so.much.poop. Just before I was ready to re-diaper him, he peed. Everywhere. I managed to throw a couple of wipes on top of him to reduce the damage, but he'd already soaked his socks and doused the changing pad/table. I almost cried. I was really and truly fighting a losing battle. I turned to one of the ladies washing her hands at the nearby sink and asked her if she wouldn't mind letting my husband know it was going to be several minutes before we'd be done. She laughed and agreed to pass along my maydaymaydaymayday message. I couldn't quite figure out how to proceed. He was laying in pee. The changing pad was soaked. I didn't want to lay my naked baby on the bare counter. I did the best I could to wipe up the pee and cover up all the volatile areas quickly with a diaper. Another helpful lady in the bathroom volunteered to update my husband about our little crisis.

Oh, I almost forgot: Because James had just eaten, his belly was nice and full. As I kept him folded in half with his feet in front of his face while the extensive wiping took place, he spewed out portions of his lunch. This insured there wasn't a dry spot on his changing pad. At. all. Nice.

I put back on the long sleeve t-shirt he was wearing. I threw all the dirty clothes and changing pad into a heap, picked up my not-so-innocent child and finally left the bathroom. The bathroom that my child single-handedly stunk up.

Scott was waiting for us near the bathroom. I had poop/pee/spit up soaked materials in one hand and a pants-less baby in the other. Scott told me he kept having random women come up to him and tell him how cute his baby was and that we'd be out in a few minutes. I was trying to laugh at the situation, but mostly felt exasperated. I felt like Jeff Foxworthy redneck joke material. You might be a redneck if... It's December and you have your baby in a diaper and long sleeve shirt...

Scott procured us a bag from the Cracker Barrel store lady for the soiled items. I carried James wrapped in a blanket to the car.

Once in the quickly-heating-up car, we found some more pants and socks in James' bag. We got him redressed, situated in his car seat, and hit the road. We made one more stop at Starbucks before getting back on the highway. I don't know exactly how long I was in that bathroom with James. What I do know is that we got off the highway at 11:45. We got back on it at 1:15 pm.

Wow.

Between the traffic and the rain, our progress was slow. We didn't get into town until 4:15pm. We managed to cram a 4.5 hour trip into 6.5 hours. AWESOME.

Except for the Cracker Barrel scene, James was fantastic. He slept off and on the whole time. He didn't fuss at all. Maybe he knew he was treading on thin ice and figured he better behave....

Probably not...

Ceiling Fans

2011-11-22T13:51:00.001-05:00

Who knew staring at a ceiling fan, preferably one that is on, could be so fun?

I didn't. Not until today, anyway.

James was laying on his play mat. I was beside him on the carpet. Both of us on our backs, staring up at the whirling ceiling fan.

I promise neither one of us are on drugs. Well, I know I'm not. Who knows what that 5 month old does in his crib when I'm not around. Kids these days...

The sliding glass door is open with a nice spring-like breeze blowing through it. Weird...since it's November. The cats are coming and going from the back porch. They love the door being left open so they can come and go as they please.

As they please. That's typical cat behavior. Their whole lives are spent as they please.

Jealous.

Adoption Bloggers Interview Project 2011

2011-11-17T16:39:00.000-05:00

I had the pleasure of interviewing a fellow birthmother blogger this week. Meet Danielle of www.anotherversionofmother.com . (with her husband)

She's lives in Canada (I hear it's cold there, eh?) with her husband and two children. Danielle is a self-professed bookworm and enjoys a great political debate. She won't say no to a learning opportunity or a glass of wine. Of all her interests and passions, none compare to her love of coffee, as evidenced by her Tassimo she got for her birthday.

Danielle placed her son for adoption about 8 years ago. She describes it as a semi-open adoption. Most of my questions for her revolve around the adoption topic:

1) If you were to become a birthmother counselor in an adoption agency of your own design, what kinds of things would you want your counsel-ees to know? What would you want future birthmothers to know as they weighed their decision to parent vs. place for adoption?

I honestly don't think I would, based on my experiences with my agency, work for one or own one. Clearly, as you've likely read, have issues with how unethical adoptions are around the world. I feel like there should be more accountability to everyone, and not just those who are paying these agencies bucket loads (another issue that I find unethical) of money in the hopes of an infant child.

That being said love to hope see an agency who works with young moms to see if parenting fits for them first- give them a chance. If it doesn't work, then explore adoption as an option. I truly feel that woman should not be bombarded with the birthmother message until they have a chance to make the mothering part work. We should have women who don't feel pressured to adopt for one reason or another- they should be able to peacefully come to that decision after seeing if they can actually make it work. Obviously, this doesn't make money for the agencies, so with the current US industry, this is likely to not come to pass for years (it works brilliantly in the UK!) I'd hope that in the same aspect that adoptive parents would be informed completely about the struggle that she may go through internally. I'd also like the pre-adoption education to include more then just how much money you can give (I feel if a baby is going to go to different family dynamic, it shouldn't come with such an absurd price tag where someone is making money off the "transaction"), but about the differences between biological and adoptive parenting, and the issues that come behaviorally with an adopted child. I feel that adoptees are often done a disservice when their adoptive parents are just handed them as a child and not told anything about the issues they may run into down the road. Especially if they do end up having their own children biologically.

That being said, mom's considering adoption deserve to know what it looks like 10 years down the line, 5 years, the reality that their openness agreement is not legally binding. They need to see the side of being a birthmother that is the toughest; I feel that a lot of agencies paint it as this experience that you just get over- something that is simply untrue. I feel like one of the reasons I am struggling so badly right now is because I wasn`t told whole truths; I was told versions of contained truth and sometimes I was outright lied to. Everyone in the adoption triad deserve full honesty even if it means uncovering the uglier parts of adoption.

2) How did you choose The Kiddo's adoptive parents? Did you look at tons of family profiles? What, if anything, was on your "must-have" list?

I was given 15 profiles. Their profile was the first one I looked at and the only profile I actually related to. According to the agency I worked with, that was more then most girls were given access too, and I was told I needed to choose sooner then later. Sadly, that was the main reason for choosing the family I did; I enjoyed the Adoptive Father`s letter to the birthmother, and they seemed like a great fit. I had no list going in either; I saw a strange string of profiles- families with adoptive children already, families who were much older and had none, couples who wanted a completely closed adoption (I had requested open adoption profiles only- I saw 6 profiles who wanted strictly closed adoptions, despite my requesting only those who wished for open).

3) You've mentioned a group of accepting women that you get together with that you can be totally open and honest with (from your Birthday Friends post). Are these other birthmothers? If so, how did you find each other?

I know, other then online, no "real" birthmothers. Those girls in that post are just my closest girlfriends; we've all been through our own version of struggles. We are a very honest group of women, my adoption aside, so that makes it much easier to break through the crud and be completely open. Without fear of judgment.

4) What, if any, contact do you have with The Kiddo's birthfather now?

Minimal contact. I never blogged about it, and I should, but I recently asked him all the questions I needed to ask him. I got my anger out, and it seems other then the occasionally hello, I have no need for deeper contact. He is off doing his thing, and as harsh as this sounds, he's just the 17 year old boy (8 years ago) who never grew up.

5) Would you and The Hubby consider adopting a child? Why or why not?

This is a tough question. I used to say yes, but I want to say no. I think if the circumstances were correct, and openness was fully part of the scenario, then maybe.

6) Being a birthmother is a part of who you are, but it's not ALL of who you are. Help paint the fuller picture of who Danielle is. Birthmother, parenting two kids, wife... I know there are many, many facets to you!

I am a bit of a bookworm; I will devour anything in sight if it catches my interest. I enjoy a great political debate, I love learning and drinking wine. I have a quirky sense of humor that few people appreciate and understand. Eventually, I plan to go to school; I'd love to double major in social work, and writing/editing. I'm not religious, even in the slightest, which is a far off place from my religious upbringing. I love food, a little too much, and have a rather romantic relationship with coffee (I got a Tassimo for my birthday, need I say more?!) I am quiet in groups of people, yet I am always observing. I would rather stay home for a date with my husband then go out.

7) Is there anything/anyone that is your go-to happy place right now? You are wading through some deep stuff. Is there anything that is guaranteed to make you smile?

I'm trying to balance it all; and I won't lie, it's been tough. Having two young kids who have such big, silly personalities helps. I take time to connect with The Hubby, who is quite funny. If nothing else, a good glass of wine usually gets me relaxed enough to laugh a bit.

I so appreciate Danielle's time with this interview project! Go check out her blog at http://anotherversionofmother.com/.

To read her interview of me: click here. This interview project was put together by Heather of Production Not Reproduction. Lots more interviews to browse through at that website. All different sides of the adoption triad are represented. Thanks Heather and Danielle!

Stuck

2011-11-15T14:16:00.000-05:00

On work days I'm gone for 13+ hours.

On non-work days, I breathe a huge sigh of relief that I'm off. I waste half of my time off in recovery from the work days.

I feel like I'm half-@$$ing every area of my life. Motherhood, wife-hood, work-hood.

I am not the first working mother. This has been done by bazillions of women before me. Why do I feel this way about it?

STUCK.

Bittersweet

2011-11-07T21:50:00.000-05:00

Bittersweet. I read on another blog that this term may have been created just for birthmothers. I agree with that. I don't quite know how to describe what I want to share.

There are countless precious moments that I've shared with James in his short little life thus far. Just one example: walking into his room in the morning and getting him out of his crib...seeing that cute little drooly face grinning up at me...it makes my heart melt. Okay, really anytime I look at him and he smiles back at me, I melt.

I've had the thought a few different times, though, that this is bittersweet. I placed my first child, Chloe, for adoption. It was the hardest decision I have ever made. I knew at the time that it would be hard in the future. There would be hard days. Days, weeks, months of heartache. Sadness over what I was missing out on in her life. But since she was my first child, I was speculating about what all I would be missing.

Now that James is here, I'm seeing first hand what I missed with Chloe. That's what I mean by bittersweet. When I watch in awe and wonder as he discovers a fantastical new skill like blowing spit bubbles! or gnawing on his feet or rolling over, it makes me sad that I missed all these nuances with Chloe. I've had the thought "I didn't know I was missing THIS."

Don't get me wrong. I'm enjoying my son immensely. There is certainly way more positive going on than negative. But I didn't quite anticipate the delayed grief.

I don't know if this makes any sense to you, the reader. That's okay if it doesn't. Sometimes that's what happens when I #justwrite.

Monday Morning at My House

2011-11-07T11:33:00.000-05:00

James transitioned nicely from play time to nap time...

Nestle enjoys a little relaxing in James' room...

Otto, the lazy bum, hasn't even gotten out of the bed yet. (And therefore he has not yet MADE the bed...)

And me? Well, I look AWESOME. The glasses, the rockin' bed head, the clothes I slept in. Yeah.

We don't like to rush into Mondays around here...

Just a Lazy Saturday...

2011-11-05T14:42:00.000-04:00

Help Me Name My Blog

2011-11-04T20:09:00.000-04:00

So...I'm sort of creative. Sort of. But not REALLY creative, like some of you are! So help me name my blog! "Betty Anne & Scott" served it's name-purpose for a season, but now I'm ready to move on. Not from Scott, mind you. We're still a thing. :)

Here's what you need to know to make suggestions:

1) My name is Betty Anne Davidson. Perhaps a word play on my initials or name such as these folks:

http://theiveyleague.com/  Her last name is Ivey.

http://www.misselaineouslife.com/  Her first name is Elaine.

http://thebkeepsushonest.blogspot.com/  Her last name is Lieb. I thought this one was particularly creative!

2) I blog about my experiences as a birthmother, a i-gave-birth-to-this-kid-and-am-raising-him mother, and life in general. So my blog name could be something mom-related:

http://notmommyoftheyear.com/

http://www.raising-humans.com/

http://lilkidthings.com/

http://www.adventuresinbabywearing.com/

Oh....did I mention that I'm giving away a $25 Target Gift Card to the best blog name idea suggested??! So please, suggest away!

Football

2011-10-31T21:50:00.001-04:00

I have a love/hate relationship with football.

At times, I love watching football. The competition of it all, the mind-numbing effect of staring at the tv for a few hours, listening to the announcers try to fill every second of air time with game-related chatter. Watching football with Scott is one of his love languages, I'm pretty sure. Wait, I'm POSITIVE. He's told me so before. And when a guy says the phrase "love language", one should listen carefully.

At times, I hate watching football. The commercials seem to have a LOT of scantily clad women in them. I don't particularly enjoy watching scantily clad women, in general, much less on tv. The announcers during the game are all "Let's spend twenty minutes watching that play again from seven different camera angles to determine if that was an incomplete pass or a fumble." And every twelve seconds of game play requires three commercials. Enter said scantily clad women again. Sheesh.

My absolute LEAST favorite part of football is pre-game, half-time, or post-game shows. A group of men sit around and speculate what is going to happen during the game. At half-time they discuss what has happened so far and what needs to happen in the second half. After the game is over, the men folk rehash the whole game and talk about whether they were right or not.

Wait, it gets even better. How about a talk show about FANTASY FOOTBALL. Now the group of mostly-men are sitting around talking about fictitious football games occurring only in the land of make-believe. What players should the fantasy football league manager play that week? Who should be benched? Speculate, speculate, speculate. Blah blah blah. And this isn't even REAL!!! I can hardly stand it.

Sadly, winning at fantasy football happens to be a tremendous talent of Scott's. He listens to the jabbermouths on the pre-during-post-fantasy talk shows. He wishes I would play in his fantasy league.

Maybe I could sign up to be a scantily clad woman and advertise something instead...

Life as a Military Kid

2011-10-24T22:25:00.000-04:00

My dad was in the Air Force. We moved a lot. Until college, I had never lived in one city for four consecutive years. People asked me as a kid if I liked moving around a lot. That's like asking me if I liked being a girl. I didn't know any different. I liked it because it was all I knew.

I realize, in looking back, that I developed some coping mechanisms to handle all the moving. Some healthy, some not so much. Pretending to be aloof, nonchalant, acting like I didn't care about anything...this was one of my strategies.

I spent my 9th grade year of high school in Illinois. I spent 10th-12th grade in Maryland. That's not a big deal. Two high schools. My brother went to four. I consider myself lucky. The first day at my new high school in Maryland, I had my defenses up. I went in ready to blend in and not stick out. This was particularly challenging because I was in the minority in my school.

In one particular class, the guy next to me struck up a conversation with me.

Attempting-to-be-nice-guy: "You're new here, aren't you?"

Aloof-me: "Yeah."

ATBNG: "Did you just move to the area?"

AM: "Yeah. My dad is in the Air Force." <looking disinterested>

ATBNG: "Oh really, my uncle is in the...."

<me interrupting> "I didn't ask."

As you can imagine, the conversation pretty much ended there. Wow. Nicely done me. Way to stay disconnected, disengaged, DISTANT. So distant I didn't even care if I was down right rude.

What a strategy. I've spent a lot of time trying to undo my self-taught "disengage" coping mechanism. I don't have it all figured out. How to be present, engaged, emotionally available. But I've come a long way since that chilly conversation in high school.

Now I have roots in a city I've lived in for more than 7 years. I have long-term friendships that have weathered me moving away for a few years and then moving back. I have an elderly cat that has been mine since he was a kitten. (You don't understand...we never had old pets. We didn't really move with our pets. We would find them new homes or take them to my grandparents farm.) And I have a new kind of relationship in my life that is unlike any I've experienced before. Being a mom to baby James. Lucky for him he doesn't have climb over my heart-walls like almost everybody else has had to do.

He was born an insider.

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I'm linking up with Heather of The Extraordinary Ordinary for #justwrite.

Baby Gear Must-Haves

2011-10-22T12:29:00.000-04:00

New moms: As you've probably already discovered, the more moms you ask about baby stuff you absolutely must have, the more recommendations you'll get. Well, here's my two cents on the matter.

Bare essentials list, in random order, followed by pictures of what I chose:

1) Place to sleep. Could be a bassinet. Could be a crib. At times you'll want that sleeping containment area as close to you as possible. At other times you'll want to move it to another country.

*baby not included

2) Diapers. Cloth, not cloth. Whatever suits your fancy. Take the advice of those that have gone before you, you're going to want to cover up that cute little butt.

3) Food. Formula, breast feeding, again, whatever suits your fancy. Kid's gotta eat.

my freezer stash

Although I chose breastfeeding, I felt a picture of my boobs would be inappropriate. Not ready to head in that direction with this blog...

4) Car seat. Lots and lots of choices here. Ask your friends what they like/dislike about the car seat they chose. The hospital staff won't let you go home from the hospital with your new little babe without this key item.

5) Clothes. Options are endless here. I'd recommend CUTE.

The non-bare essentials list:

A) Some sort of baby bathtub, so as not to drown the child while trying to get them clean.

B) Swaddle blankets. I highly recommend swaddling your kiddo to keep them happier. These light weight blankets (Aden & Anais) were awesome:

C) Regardless of your feeding choice, you will need bottles at some point. Lots of them. If you are breast feeding and pumping, extra pump parts would be helpful, too.

D) Pacifiers. Wow. These absolutely improved our quality of life for the first several weeks.

E) Comfortable chair. I've spent a LOT of time in this chair and in the recliner in the living room. You need a comfortable spot to set up "shop" for all the millions of hours spent feeding your baby.

F) Bumbo. I haven't really gotten a ton of use out of this yet. But some moms swear by them.

*duck not included

G) Bouncy seat or swing. Could NOT have survived our first few weeks without our bouncy seat. James was a huge fan of sleeping in it. And we were huge fans of James sleeping. Sooo.... We didn't use our swing much at all, but some babies love the swing.

H) Play mat. Our kid loves his.

I) Boppy. I've found this very, very helpful with breastfeeding.

J) Not at all helpful: a sunbathing cat. As I was walking around the apartment photographing all the various baby gear items, I saw this on the back porch. Not only is Nestle NOT helpful with the baby, she actually helps create more mess for me to clean up. If you don't have pets already, now is not the time to get one. :)

K) Last but definitely not least, the most helpful thing to have when you have a new baby: A PARTNER.

Even if said partner despises having his picture taken and posted on the interwebs.

The Second Worst Day of My Life

2011-10-19T10:47:00.002-04:00

**edit: This was in 2007, fyi.**

It was evening.

We were hanging out in the ICU waiting room.

Again.

We'd pretty much lived there for the previous few days. My sister was attempting to catch a few moments of sleep in the room across the hall where the medical staff meet with families, presumably to share bad news. There was a set of motorized double doors that separated us from Ron, my brother-in-law. He had multiple myeloma. His heart was struggling. In the waiting room, we started to recognize other families as family too. I mean, when you spend night and day in a small waiting room, you can only ignore each other for so long. Several people had blankets and pillows and were attempting to sleep. Whoever designs hospital waiting room chairs does an excellent job at creating the most uncomfortable long-term place to sit.

We can only visit Ron two at a time. At least one of his brothers was visiting him on this particular night, at this particular time. My oh-so-uncomfortable chair is sort of near the waiting room door.

Suddenly I hear a lot of commotion behind those double doors. Lots of beeping alarms and staff talking loudly. Somebody is barking orders. I work in a hospital. I know the tone of those voices and the beeping alarms could not be good.

I step into the hall and punch the button on the wall that opens the doors into the ICU. Ron's bed is straight ahead. There are so. many. people. around him. Their faces are concerned, but everybody is focused on the task at hand. After what seems like an eternity, the doors close. I never stepped through the doors, I just wanted to see if all the chaos was taking place at Ron's bedside. It was.

By now the rest of the family is in the hallway with me, staring at the closed doors. His daughter is crying. The rest of us are just in shock. Is he dying? Could this be it? It's too soon. He's too young. This CANNOT be happening. My heart is beating so hard and fast and feels like it's pounding out of my chest, I swear somebody across the hall could count my pulse just by looking at me.

Somebody needs to tell my sister. I volunteer. That was a stupid thing to do.

I creep into the dark room she's sleeping in and put my hand on her arm, saying her name gently. "There's something going on. We don't know what exactly, but I think you need to wake up." My tone and facial expression said far more than my words. She joins the crowd of us in the hallway.

We just stood there. It felt like forever. Some crying. Some wringing hands. Some clinging to each other. All praying. I remember thinking my heart is going to explode from the crazy pace and intensity with which it was beating.

The sounds behind the doors changed. The loud voices changed to calmer voices. The alarming beeps became more routine sounding. I was hoping and praying this was a good sign.

After 30-45 minutes, a medical person came out to talk to us all. We were hanging on his every word. Ron stopped breathing, which stopped his heart. They got him back. He's on a ventilator now. I don't think I heard much after "We got him back". That's all I cared about. The next days could take care of themselves. But for now, we've got him back.

---------------------------

The only day in my memory that stands out as worse than that evening, is the day I left the hospital without my daughter.

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I'm linking up with Heather from The Extraordinary Ordinary for her Just Write exercise. I need to quit participating, though, because more often than not, it makes me cry...

The Here and Now

2011-10-12T16:09:00.001-04:00

I sit here, my butt glued to this recliner. The baby is in his nearby room talking up a storm in his crib. He loves to try out all his sounds. Over and over. There's the Darth Vader breathing sound. And the pterodactyl sound. And the squeal-laugh-giggle sound. And a slew of others. So. dang. cute. Not taking a nap, like he should be, but that's okay. He's having a grand time talking to himself, so I'm not worried about him missing a nap.

Me? I'm tired. Just plain tired. Still struggling to find a balance between work life and home life. I'm not doing either one particularly well at the moment. My tiredness leads to grumpiness. My grumpiness leads to a lack of patience, with everyone, about everything. I don't like this "me". I like easy-going, glass-half-full me. Instead I'm uptight-glass-is-half-empty-and-probably-dirty-and-sitting-by-the-sink-with-all-the-other-dirty-dishes me.

The laundry is piled in the hallway. Pretty soon those piles will finish creeping down the hallway and will reach the front door. Nice.

I can't quite "win" in the kitchen, either. The dirty dishes are....many. The countertops (if you can even see them) are covered in bits and pieces of various meals from the ~~past few weeks~~ day.

Some sister-time today really helped. It usually does. :) Sisters are pretty important. Well, maybe that's not an accurate blanket statement. MY sister is pretty important. She listens. She hears what I'm really saying. She helps ME hear what I'm really saying. She's good people. I'm grateful. Our age difference kept us from being close when we were little. She was into boys and I still thought they had cooties. I was all care bears and rainbow bright and she was all fashion and make up and hanging out with friends.

But now, the age difference has all but disappeared. We can talk and "get" each other better than most. I like that. That makes the here and now a little more manageable.

Alas, the happy baby in a crib sounds have turned a lot less happy. I'm off to check on him. He who makes the here and now a little more tolerable...

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Today I'm linking up with Heather of The Extraordinary Ordinary's Just Write. Check it out!

4 Months

2011-10-10T22:23:00.000-04:00

Yay! We made it another month! You people weren't kidding. It does get better. And better. And better. :)

This little guy has certainly stolen our hearts for sure. So. dang. cute. I tell him over and over that looks aren't everything, but he sure is cute!! Watching his personality emerge is too fun. He can look straight through to your SOUL with those blue eyes.

He's slowly but surely starting to play with toys. Sophie the Giraffe is one of his best buddies right now.

He's still working on growing some peach-fuzz hair. :)

At his 4 month pediatrician appointment he was 14 lbs 4 oz (36th %), 25.5 inches long (72nd%), and 17.25 inch head (87th%). I was shocked by his weight. I really thought he'd weigh more. I was also shocked by his length. He's LOOOOONG. And his head? Well, all you have to do is look at him to know he has a big noggin. We both cried when he got his shots. I'm not going to argue with anybody over vaccinations. I'm pro-vaccine. But it hurts my heart to watch him get shots! It was all over very, very quickly (the shots, his and my tears), but still. Poor little guy. We came straight home, I gave him some tylenol and then he slept for 2 hours. All in all, it went very well.

He takes at least two naps a day and sleeps about 12 hours at night. I want his life. :)

Enjoy my first attempt at editing a video. It's James' resume to date.

Adoption

2011-10-04T12:51:00.000-04:00

Some days I like to just sit and think about her. Chloe. My first born child.

I like to look at pictures of her. She is a beautiful little girl. Is that selfish of me to say? I am her birthmother, after all. She looks a little bit like me. Is it bragging to say I think she's beautiful? I don't think so...

I like to replay memories of her in my mind's movie theater. Like when I went to her first birthday party.

Words can hardly describe how I felt being there. Honored. Privileged. Excited. Freaked out. Heart aching with a pain I hadn't known before she was born. I wanted to be at that party so badly. To be a part of her life. And yet while I was there I wanted to leave because seeing her, watching her play...it hurt. I decided the pain of seeing her was better than the pain of not. Seeing her is a constant reminder of what we are not. Mother and daughter. It's a reminder of what we are. Birthmother and daughter. Slight difference in terminology, mother versus birthmother, but HUGE difference in meaning. I'm not sure she's all that familiar with the term birthmother. Even now as a seven year old. Tummy mommy. That's a term she knows. She knows she grew in my tummy before she came to live with her mom and dad. I love hearing stories from Melissa, Chloe's mom, about conversations they've had about adoption. Melissa handles it with grace and compassion. Thanks to Melissa and Alvin, Chloe won't have a life altering conversation when she's fifteen and finding out for the first time that she's adopted. She'll already know. She's always known. She understands better than a lot of adults that this is another way families are made.

Adoption.

Now I have a son, James.

I'm learning to be a mom. A see-you-every-day-provide-your-every-need kind of mom. As opposed to a make-one-decision-for-you-that-impacts-the-rest-of-your-life kind of mom. I chose parents for Chloe. That's where my parenting decisions ended with her. With James, the decisions, from what others tell me, will never end. Strangers ask if he's my first. I pause because I'm not sure what to say. No. He's not my first child. Yes, I'm a first time mom. It's both.

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I'm linking up with Heather of the Extraordinary Ordinary for Just Write.

The Drive Home

2011-09-27T10:25:00.000-04:00

On work days, I leave about 7:15ish to drive home. Having arrived at the hospital around 6:30am, I am BEYOND ready to leave by 7:15pm. Gathering up my lunch bag, pumping supplies and whatever milk I've pumped that day, I head out the door in search of my car in the somewhat distant parking lot. My car is a 2002 basic model vehicle. There is no keyless entry or key fob. There's just a key. If I forget where I parked, which does happen on occasion, my car will not chirp at me at the press of a button. It will sit in solitary silence until I find it.

I throw my stuff in the passenger seat and start the drive home. This drive begins by negotiating my way through the parking lot where lots of my coworkers are walking to their cars. This requires slow, careful parking lot driving. At least it SHOULD. Some people don't get that. Moments before they were pedestrians, just like me, but as soon as they get in their cars, they have no problem practically running me down. Strange how that works. How they forget so quickly how unnerving it is to be on foot and have someone speed by dangerously close.

Anyhoo...back to the drive. Having successfully navigated the parking lot treachery, I'm on my way home. Lots of thoughts run through my head at this point. Thoughts about how my day went, how hungry I am, how I hope the day went for my baby and my mom who watches him and my husband who picks him up from my mom's. I hope to walk into the house and all be well. But I just never know what it will be like. Sometimes I can hear the baby crying while I'm still on the stairs climbing my way up to the 3rd floor apartment in which we live.

Again...back to the drive. Traffic at 7:15pm is usually non-existent. That's a perk. Both coming and going from work are non-peak times for the rest of the world. No traffic is nice. My "commute" takes approximately 12 minutes. I love that.

While sitting at one of the stoplights, I glance over at the grassy median. The grass is overgrown. I wonder whose job it is to mow that grass and how frequently it gets down. Then I wonder if there are any snakes in that grass. Why do I care? I don't have to walk through that grass. Still, it bothers me to think there MAY be a snake within 15 feet of me. Even though I'm in a car, totally protected from unprovoked snake attacks.

Why am I thinking about snakes? I hate snakes. I'd rather think about my baby. James is WAY more fun to think about. I think about how being a working mom is a tricky beast. I enjoy having some time away from James. I like the adult interaction at my job. Funny thing, though, because besides the other adults I work with, the patients I work with are babies. I enjoy time away from taking care of baby James, so I go to work and take care of other peoples' babies. Whatever. It works for me. I don't enjoy time away from James when I come home and hear he's had a rough day. I speculate "If I was home with him today, he wouldn't have had a bad day." There's no guarantee of that, but that's usually how I it goes in my head.

When I get close to my house, I roll down my window. The weather isn't so oven-like hot anymore. Especially in the evenings. I enjoy the breeze briefly. I turn into my apartment complex. Almost home. That is one of the greatest feelings. Being almost home. A couple turns later, over three speed bumps and I'm pulling into a parking spot. I gather my stuff from the passenger seat and crawl out of the car. It will take most of my remaining energy to climb the two flights of stairs standing between me and my front door. My legs never feel heavier than at that moment, trying to get up those stairs. From the waist up, I can't WAIT to be home. From the waist down, my body is in no hurry to get anywhere.

I put the key in the lock and open the door. I hear no crying. From Scott or the baby. :) When I open the door, I see James asleep in his bouncy seat. Scott says dinner is on the stove. I breathe a sigh of relief. I have a window of time to change clothes and eat dinner before James wakes up.

It's good to be home.

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I'm linking up with Heather from The Extraordinary Ordinary for her Just Write exercise!

That Darn Cat

2011-09-20T10:46:00.002-04:00

Sleep, for a family with a newborn, is very. very. important. I'm so grateful that we are sleeping a lot more than we used to. You can understand my frustration, then, when something OTHER than the baby wakes me up in the middle of the night.

Enter Otto the Orange.

Sometimes he just gets bored in the middle of the night. That's my best guess anyway for why he does what he does.

The other night:

It's 2:46am. I'm sleeping. I'm cozy under the covers. The fan I use as a sound machine is whirring in the corner. I awake to the sound of a plastic bottle scooch-scooch-scooching across the top of my dresser, followed quickly by said bottle hitting the carpeted floor. I decide not to open my eyes just yet. "Give it a minute," I tell myself. The next bottle begins to scooch-scooch-scooch across the dresser. I sit straight up in the bed and loudly whisper "OTTO!!! CUT IT OUT!" His paw is outreached, still touching the bottle that he's slowly pushing off the dresser. There's no denying he is guilty as charged. Just for good measure, he pushes the second bottle onto the floor. Thankfully these are plastic bottles (lotions) and they are landing on carpet, so no breakage involved. He meows at me as if to say "What?! I'm bored." I twiddle my fingers together to beckon him onto the bed. He makes a glorious leap from the dresser to the bed, landing with precision, as he always does. I pat the bedspread in his favorite sleep spot. He circles a couple of times and then strategically lies down. I pet his head for a second then I lie back down. The whole incident felt like an exercise in futility to me, but whatever. He's going back to sleep. I'm going back to sleep. Hooray.

I'm linking up with Heather today for her "Just Write" adventure:

The Extraordinary Ordinary

Cat Tales and Tails

2011-09-14T00:00:00.004-04:00

Once upon a time there were two kiddens named Otto The Orange and Nestle The Stupid.

One day, Otto The Orange was crunching the numbers and he discovered that if he and Nestle The Stupid didn't do something quick,

they'd be forced to live in a box.

When living in boxes, the food supply is not quite as abundant.

Vacations and travel are non-existent.

Nestle The Stupid suggested she could take up a less than honorable career as a lady of the night to earn a few bucks.

After all, she did possess some bedroom skills (sleeping).

Otto The Orange texted a few of his sketchy contacts, but came up with no "clients" for Nestle The Stupid.

He opted instead for the superhero route. Surely superheroes get paid well, right?

He rescued damsels in distress.

With his superhero-brains, he learned to turn energy he soaked up from the sun into a marketable product.

Although time consuming, it was a profitable business.

Otto The Orange earned a LOT of money. He and Nestle The Stupid lived like Kings.

And Queens.

And most importantly, they lived happily ever after.

The End.

Peepaw

2011-09-12T10:38:00.001-04:00

My Peepaw. I miss him. "Betty Boop". That's what he called me. If anybody else called me that, I'd kill 'em.

Peepaw was a kind-hearted old man. Always looking to help out others.

If something broke, he was the fix-it man. He wasn't too much into aesthetics, so his "fix" may be an eye-sore, but the formerly broken thing would at least be functional again.

He loved camping. He and Granny were my "camping" grandparents. Granny and Peepaw had this cute little blue and white Scotty trailer. They camped in that thing all over the U.S. When our family would join them, we'd usually bring a pop-up trailer with us. Maybe a tent, too. Sometimes we'd take turns eating in the Scotty trailer with Granny and Peepaw, since it wasn't big enough to hold all of us at once.

Peepaw, far left

He used to ask me how school was going. "School" could be kindergarten, high school, or college. School was school. Education was pretty important to him. I'm guessing it's because he didn't go to college. I don't know though...we never had that conversation.

There are lots of conversations we never had that now I wish I had the opportunity. I wish he could meet his great-grandchildren. I'm sad that James doesn't get to go camping with him. Sure, Scott and I can take James camping, but it'll be different. Peepaw never met a stranger in a campground before. He talked to everybody. Found out where they were from, how many kids they had, how long they'd been married, what they were having for dinner that night... He was a friendly kinda guy.

In the past year, I've missed my Peepaw more than usual. I think it's because I'm a parent now and I realize how MUCH I don't know. How much I need the input and experience of those that have gone before me in this adventure. I'm so grateful to have my parents and my in-laws involved in my life. Lots of wisdom there. Grandparents are a whole 'nother level of wisdom, though. I wish I still had access to all that they had to teach. I guess this is just how it goes, though. When you're a punk kid and have plenty of time with your grandparents, you don't care as much what they have to say. As an adult, as a parent, when you want their input more than ever, they are no longer around. <sigh> Hindsight is 20-20. Now my parents are the grandparents. I wonder if that scares them as much as it scares me. Before, I was two generations away from being the "older, wiser generation". Now I'm only one generation away. If something happened to my parents, me and my siblings would be the "older, wiser generation". That is SCARY. We don't know enough! I don't know enough...

Back to Peepaw. He was bald. He said things like "God only made a few perfect heads...the rest He covered with hair..." He had a "Bald is Beautiful" bumper sticker on his pick-up truck. He also had a "Virginia is for Lovers" bumper sticker. Now that I think about that, it grosses me out a little bit...

Peepaw always went on walks with a walking stick. He was not dependent on a cane or walker to move around. Quite the contrary. But for some reason, he always had a walking stick, whether we were walking around a neighborhood or hiking in the woods on a camping trip. I thought it was the thing to do...pick out a good walking stick at the beginning of a hike. Pretty sure I was doing it wrong, though, because early on I'd get tired of lugging it around and I'd toss it by the wayside.

Peepaw, far right, WITH walking stick

One time we were all eating dinner around at his house and his brother, Uncle Sam, pulled into the driveway in his HUGE RV. Pretty sure Peepaw didn't consider camping in a HUGE RV "real camping". How he displayed his displeasure at the pretentiousness of the monstrous vehicle was by shaking his head and saying "Good Gosh!" We all laughed and laughed when he said that.

Oh Peepaw. I wish you were here to live life with us now. With your grown up grandchildren. With your children who are now grandparents. With your great-grandchildren who don't even know they need a walking stick to go hiking... You are missed.

3 Months!

2011-09-10T00:00:00.004-04:00

-Time has FLOWN by. Everyone said it would. They didn't lie. 3 months old already. Wow.

Self portraits always turn out so well...

-James is cuter than ever. Still holding on to those blue eyes!

-He is sleeping through the night most nights*. If he doesn't sleep straight through, he wakes up once and cries and then goes back to sleep without any assistance. Words cannot express how ecstatic I am about this. (*n=10 days, perhaps not statistically significant, but it matters to ME)
-He's experimenting a lot with sounds. At various times he sounds like an owl "hooo...hooo...hooo" or sometimes a pterodactyl (think high pitched squeals). Just for fun, I think you should pronounce "pterodactyl" like this: puh-terr-oh-DACK-tull. Go ahead. Say it out loud. Right now. Good job!! *patpat
-James really enjoys being on his play mat and batting at the dangling toys above him. He spends a lot of time there because it makes him so happy! I'm sure this is contributing to the flatness of his head, but whatever. A happy, flat-headed baby...that's what we'll have.

-For now, James is still breastfeeding or bottle feeding my milk when I'm at work. I wondered how he would do when I went back to work, but so far, so good. He doesn't seem to mind going back and forth between bottles and nursing. We're taking this week by week as far as how long I'll continue nursing him...

-I am in the middle of switching out his clothes from the 0-3 months size to 3-6 months. Most of the 0-3 months stuff is too short. The onesies still fit width-wise, but he's too long for them.

-Daycare: Having my mom watching him when I'm at work is going well. At least I think so. Maybe we should ask her?? We are very fortunate that she's willing to do this for us!

-Weight loss: I've lost most of my "baby" weight. However, the "Betty Anne" weight that is left is...different. Squishier. Saggier. That's fun.

-My hair is falling out! A lot. I know it's normal. It happened last time, too. And this article says its fine. We all know the internet NEVER lies. But still...it's kinda weird and a lot annoying to always have several hairs on my shirt, on James, on my pillow, etc. James has been experiencing some hair loss as well. But we've already talked about that.
-Scott and I are adjusting to the working life. We're still tweaking my hours at work to figure out what works best for us. I haven't officially cut back hours, but I have been volunteering to stay home pretty frequently, on days when we're overstaffed (called "flexing" at my job).
-Now that we've added work back into the mix and almost have a routine down for that, we're going to add another huge time commitment: FOOTBALL. Yes, folks, 'tis that time of year again. The time of year when Saturdays (college games), Sundays and Mondays (NFL games) and some Thursdays and Fridays (misc. games) are consumed by the viewing of enormous amounts of football. Go Gamecocks! Go Wolfpack! Go Dolphins! Go every-person-on-Scott's-two-fantasy-football-teams!

Looking Back...

2011-09-08T00:00:00.001-04:00

Excerpt from my journal three weeks after Chloe was born:

"Another challenging day... I saw Chloe for the first time since the hospital. I knew from talking to Melissa last night that they were bringing Chloe [to church] today. I didn't know how it would work out or how I would respond. As it turns out, it was extremely painful to see her. I was thinking I would see her after church, not so much during church. There was an altar call for those wanting prayer at the end of the service. Before I knew it, Melissa and Alvin were down front to be prayed for and Alvin was holding precious baby Chloe. I saw them walk up and then I saw this teeny little head full of hair cradled in Alvin's arms. My first thought was "That's my baby girl!" I just started sobbing, as did mom who was sitting beside me. It was SO SO great to see her and SO SO hard at the same time. Very much a double-edged sword. Physically, something in my core ached when I saw her. My hands got all shaky. I felt for a minute that I was going to pass out. I did end up sitting down just in case. It was not as painful as, but reminiscent of, leaving the hospital. I feel that adoption was the right decision and I have peace about that, but it still HURTS. Does it make me a sadomasochist that I want to see her again?!

After church I figured I would gather up all the composure I could muster and go say hello to them and hopefully get to hold her. But I didn't exactly rush around looking for them after church and I think they headed out fairly quickly. It's totally fine that I didn't see them again or hold her. Probably for the best. I don't know how to explain the dichotomy I'm experiencing. I busted out sobbing when I saw just her cute little head resting quietly in Alvin's arms, but I want to see her again as soon as I can. I want to hold her so badly. I want to tell her I love her and miss her terribly. But, not yet...

...This is such a difficult situation. I know one day it won't hurt so bad. But for now, only by God's grace, I must walk through this. Lord, thank you for your grace and mercy. Thank you that you truly don't give me more than I can handle IN YOU. Thank you that through the pain, I have HOPE. You have a plan for me and a plan for Chloe. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of bringing Chloe into this world. I count it a privilege and an honor..."

Baby Baldness

2011-09-06T00:00:00.002-04:00

There are a few of you that noticed James' lack of hair on his head. The bath picture in particular makes him look totally bald! I thought I'd post some more pictures that prove he has at least a few hairs, although not arranged in any sort of sensical manner. :)

Look carefully...there's some peach fuzz! Don't get distracted by the BLUE EYES.

He's got a nice bald spot in the middle of the back of his head...

...right above what appears to be a mullet-in-progress. :)

Don't forget about the long wispy hairs on the top!

And full body cuteness, just for fun.

Updates!

2011-09-04T00:00:00.001-04:00

Sleeping:

There is much improvement in this department in the Davidson household...at least over the course of the past three nights. Three nights makes a TREND, right?? Three nights ago: James ate between 7-8pm and woke up around 2:30am. I went in, changed a diaper, but him in his bouncy seat with his pacifier, and left the room. I hoped and prayed he would go back to sleep. If he was starving, this trick wouldn't work. Apparently he wasn't all that hungry because he went back to sleep and slept until around 5am. Woohoo!! Two nights ago: Same story. Ate between 7-8pm, slept until 12:30am. Diaper changed, moved to bouncy seat with pacifier, went back to sleep until 5am. Last night---this is where it gets good---he ate at the normal evening time and then slept until 5am!! No diaper change or bouncy seat or pacifier required! I'd like to say that I slept that whole time, too, but I didn't. I went to bed about 9:30pm and then woke up at 4am in an absolute panic because I hadn't heard him all night long. I tip-toed into his room and put my hand on his chest to feel him breathing. He was sound asleep, sucking on his thumb.

I do believe his new-found love of sucking his thumb may be the key to him sleeping through the night. We shall see... For now, though, I'm so well rested today I don't know WHAT to do! I haven't slept 6.5 consecutive hours since long before James was born. Sleep most definitely is not overrated. :) You people have just been saying that to me to make me feel better about missing out!

Belly Button:

I give you James' new and improved belly button!

Hopefully it is all healed up now. There's no more oozing or weirdness to it, just a small pinkish part where it is finishing healing (she said hopefully).

So, you know what that means...

BATH TIME!!

He doesn't look very thrilled with bath time here, but believe me, he loved it. I'm going to have to master the art of giving him a bath in the tub versus on the counter top. It's so much trickier in the tub! Just getting him out of the tub into a dry towel is a test of coordination. He's so slippery! Or "slickery", as one of my nieces used to say.

Work:

As expected, things are slowly improving on the work-front. Scott and I are getting into more of a routine on mornings that we both work. I have taken a couple of days off to help get our feet under us. We're getting there. If James really does start sleeping through the night, the quality of our lives will improve drastically. :) Figuring how and when to pump at work is still tricky. Some days it's no problem. Other days are extremely busy and it's difficult to find 15 minutes to leave the unit. I'm not sure that will get better with time. I will have to find time to pump when I can! So far James doesn't seem to mind going back and forth between bottles and nursing. I'm really glad about that. Before I went back to work, I thought if he gave up nursing and preferred bottles, I would just pump and bottle feed him for a while. Now that I realize what a PITA it is to pump and bottle feed and wash pump parts and bottle parts, my story is changing. We would switch to formula pretty quick-like if he stopped nursing. I don't know how women pump and bottle feed for months and months. Kudos to you ladies. That is a challenging task, to say the least.

I have enjoyed NOT being pregnant at work. As you can see from this picture, my belly was LARGE. It got in the way a lot. If I dropped something on the floor, I could hardly reach it (and breathe) to pick it up. I could only get so close to the isolettes, where the majority of our babies are. Now I can reach behind the isolettes, pick up stuff off of the floor, walk quickly without waddling and all sorts of other fun things!

These are all the updates I can think of at the moment. Is there a category I missed?

Comparing

2011-09-02T00:00:00.001-04:00

This motherhood thing is no joke. And I'm only three months into it! One of the challenges I've experienced already is the comparison game. It starts even in pregnancy.

Somebody else didn't drink caffeine while they were pregnant, but I did.

I feel like a bad mom already. I worry my kid will have three heads.

Now that the one-headed kid has arrived, the comparisons go through the roof. So-and-so's kid can hold his head up already. My kid can't quite do it yet. OH NO! HE'S BEHIND!! James doesn't sleep through the night yet. Johnny-sleeps-a-lot does. ACK! MY KID IS DEVELOPMENTALLY DELAYED! I read books to James about once a week, if I had to guess a frequency. It just happens when it happens. Other people have an established bed time routine including story time and such (so I'm told). Somehow I feel like not-as-good-of-a-mom because we don't have our routine all figured out just yet. Also, since we don't read books every day, I'm pretty sure he's not getting into Harvard.

In my head, I should be an expert at everything I do, including motherhood, the very first time I do it. Sounds reasonable, doesn't it?

A dear friend described one of her family members like this: Her plate gets full very quickly. What that means to me is that it doesn't take a whole lot to overwhelm her. As soon as I heard her say that I realized that I'm the same way. My plate fills up pretty fast, too. If I have a doctor's appointment and a lunch date, I consider it a full day. My dear friend (MDF for short) is nothing shy of Superwoman, in my opinion. She's a wife, mother of grown children, full time employee, active church member (including small group once/week), elderly caregiver and entrepreneur. Yet MDF always makes time for lunch with me. If I have an appointment on the same day that she wants to do lunch, I'm not sure I can make it. MDF, however, will have ten different scheduled things on the day we do lunch. Somehow she still makes me feel like she has all the time in the world. I find myself comparing me to her. Why can't I juggle things like she can? This week I finally became aware of the fact that I am comparing me to her. Passing judgment on myself because I'm not MDF. I'm struggling with balancing going back to work and caring for a child. Just one child, mind you. (Mrs. Duggar would laugh at me.) MDF wouldn't have trouble juggling one child and work. But then it hit me: I'm NOT MDF. I'm me. And as such, I'm not an expert yet at the motherhood thing. Definitely not an expert at the working mom thing. It's cruelty to compare myself to anyone else, so I need to stop doing it. Just because lots of other people have more complicated lives, it doesn't make my life a cake walk. This is hard TO ME. And that's okay. Acknowledge and move forward. I'm choosing to quit spinning my wheels in the "but other people can juggle more things than I can" mud.

So today I'm breathing a bit easier, allowing myself a little grace. My house is messy. The toilet is some kind of color that it hasn't been in my whole married life. The pile of mail on the table has stuff from June in it. But I do have a very happy, healthy baby boy. I have a husband that is in the trenches with me, not behind enemy lines hurling accusations at me. I have a gracious mother who is providing childcare for us so I can work. I have two fuzz-butts (what my dad calls my cats) that don't really pitch in and help around the house, but they do improve the quality of my life. There's much for which to be grateful. With all this new-found free time since I'm not wasting time comparing myself to others, who KNOWS what I can accomplish!

ps.-- This article on babycenter.com addresses some of what I was talking about. Apparently I'm like a lot of other moms in my comparison-tendencies. Good to know...

Kid's Exchange Sale

2011-08-31T20:56:00.001-04:00

Even though I'm a Dave Ramsey fanatic, I'm not all that good at couponing, bargain shopping, or finding awesome deals. I work with women that are EXPERT coupon-ers. I'm pretty sure each of them has a grocery budget of $10/month. They are that good at it. (Ladies, you know who you are...)

When I found out I was pregnant, people all around me started offering up ideas of how to get baby stuff for cheap. One of the greatest ideas told to me was the semi-annual Kid's Exchange Sale in Raleigh. It is a HUGE consignment sale with a ton of variety of quality used items for kids. It is so hard to know pre-kid what you'll really use or need or want to have 10 of. While pregnant, I went in January with my friend Amy. She advised me on what types of things to get at this sale: bathtub, play mat, pack 'n plays for mom and mom-in-law, clothes, bouncy seats, to name a few items. This past July, I went to my second sale. This time, I had a 6 week old baby to shop for. I had a little better idea of what I wanted/needed/couldn't live without. My mom and mother-in-law joined me at this sale. We had a great time! Lots of great deals were found.

Here we are with some of the loot: (mom on left, mother-in-law on right)

Mom got a diaper champ and a bouncy seat. Gail and I both got high chairs (the kind that secure to a chair). I got a Pottery Barn rug for $60 that matches the nursery perfectly. Gail got a Radio Flyer Wagon, which conveniently served as our "cart".

Searching through a mountainous pile of crib sheets.

The loot, waiting to be packed up.

Oh, I also got a jogging stroller for cheap! Haven't tried it out yet, though, because apparently you have to wait until the baby is older to put them in such an apparatus. Who knew.

Thankfully Gail drives an SUV. We would've had significant trouble cramming this stuff into my Honda Civic.

Happy shoppers!

After a couple hours of shopping, we treated ourselves to a lovely lunch at Remington Grill. Yummm.

Side note: At 6 weeks post-partum, I was still living solely in my Target-brand nursing tank tops, exhibited in these pictures. :)

If you are not familiar with this sale and you have kids, or nieces or nephews or grandkids or neighborhood kids you like a lot, I'd recommend you checking it out! It is every January and July in the Raleigh area. There are lots of other cities that have these sales as well. Check out their website. If I can plan well enough, I hope to get James' clothes at this sale and not have to pay full price for clothing. Ever. Because James is so young, I haven't ventured into the "toy" section of this sale yet, although it is EXTENSIVE. The whole area is brightly colored and fun looking because of all the exciting toys. Maybe at the January sale I'll get him some toys. :) As a 6 or 7 month old, he won't know Christmas isn't in January, right??

The great thing is that as James outgrows stuff or we realize we aren't using certain items we have, we can sell them at the next sale. Maybe there's hope for me learning to be frugal!

Have you ever been to a large-scale consignment sale? What types of things have you purchased there? What would you never buy used?

Survival

2011-08-25T01:00:00.000-04:00

Let me paint a picture for you:

Imagine Scott stretched out on the couch, arm draped over his eyes, as if any more light will make his head explode. I'm folded up in the recliner in a most non-chiropractic-friendly position, trying to keep my eyes open. The baby is asleep.

It's 8 pm.

We are totally wiped out. At 8 pm. The house is a wreck all around us. Baby gear and burp cloths on the floor. Dishes strewn about the kitchen. Piled up mail and miscellaneous papers cover the dining room table. Laundry baskets, ours and the kid's, are overflowing. The bathroom is so dirty...well...let's not discuss that.

Last week Scott and I started back to work. We've been off together all summer. Maternity leave for me. School teacher summer off for Scott. Break is over. Back to work!

I told Scott I feel like we're free-falling right now. Grasping at air around us, trying to stop the fall. He said it doesn't feel like free-falling to him. More like survival mode. Side note: I'm a cat lover. My analogies relate to cats. How I feel right now is like one of those time-lapse photography thingy-boppers that show a cat falling and twisting in mid air, ultimately landing on their feet. Except I haven't landed on my feet yet. Scott is an Eagle Scout. His analogies relate to his boy scout experiences growing up. It makes sense to me that he feels like we're in survival mode.

When you're surviving, only the very top priority items get attention.

Food, for example. We are all eating. Well, most of us are eating. The problem is that one of my cats, Otto, gets canned food on a daily basis. Long story shortened into one run-on sentence: He has health issues and is losing weight and to try to stop that downward trend, we started canned food, which he loves more than dry food. Poor Otto. He either gets his canned food zero times a day or several times a day. Who knows. Scott and I are doing well to keep ourselves and the baby fed. We can't keep track of whether we fed Otto or not. So it's possible we BOTH fed him. Or neither of us did. Again, poor Otto.

Employment is important. Well, most of us are working. Money being the necessity it is, Scott and I have been going to work. James isn't working yet. Neither are the cats. Lazy freeloaders...

Personal hygiene. Well, most of us are bathing. I'm pretty sure Scott and I are still showering on a regular basis. (Well I KNOW I am, just can't speak Scott.) Poor James is getting left out of this one. For a little while I was doing nightly baths. Counter-top baths, not in a bath tub, for reasons explained here. But now, it's been a few (several?) nights with no bath-ing going on for James. I've been too tired at night! And he doesn't smell too bad. Yet.

Some things that have not been making the priority list: Sleep. Cleanliness of the home. Grocery shopping. Details, details.

I know we'll find our groove soon. This is very much a phase, not a destination. We started out the summer learning to do life with a newborn. Now we're learning to do work + life + a newborn. It is very doable. It just takes some adjusting!

Today when I was driving around doing errands, I noticed at one particular stoplight that after I went through the intersection, none of the people behind me followed suit. Either they were all waiting to turn left like I was and oncoming traffic would not permit them to do so, or (more likely) I ran a red light. Immediately after turning I could not for the life of me remember if the light was red or green. I'm not an intentional red-light-runner. But today, due to a little case of distractedness, I may have run one.

Umbilical Granuloma

2011-08-23T21:04:00.001-04:00

Have you ever heard of such a thing? I haven't. And I'm a nurse. And I work with babies. Apparently, this happens to 1 in 500 babies. Way to go James! Way to be 1 in 500! :)

When he was borned, his belly looked like this:

Four long weeks later, his cord finally fell off. I was so excited to finally get to put him in a bathtub instead of doing counter-top sponge baths. After the cord fell off, the tissue underneath was yellow looking and moist (for lack of a better word). I didn't feel comfortable putting him in a bathtub yet, so I waited. And waited. And waited. Two weeks later, it was just not looking right to me. Every onesie he wore was stained yellow-ish by the end of the day. His belly button area actually looked BIGGER than when the cord fell off. Off to the pediatrician we went. When I made the call, I was expecting to have to "defend" my reasoning for needing an appointment. I guess I thought it was like I was at work, calling a doctor or nurse practitioner. It's best to have all your facts straight prior to making a call. Not that I always have my facts straight when I call an MD or NP, but it would be best if I would. I thought the call would go like this:

Pediatrician office-lady-person: "And what is the reason for this appointment?"

Nurse-mom-me: "My son has something wrong with his umbilicus. His cord fell off two weeks ago. It's like a wound that won't heal. It oozes a serous fluid on his clothing. He is afebrile. (no fever) He's eating and voiding/stooling normally. He doesn't appear to be bothered by this umbilical issue. Do you think we could get an appointment for this?"

How the conversation actually went:

Pediatrician office-lady-person: "And what is the reason for this appointment?"

Nurse-mom-me: "My son has something going on with his belly button. His cord..."

Pediatrician office-lady-person: <interrupting me, in a good way> "Alright! We'll see you at 3pm."

Wait...that's it? They didn't make me explain anything at all! That was AWESOME. When we got to the pediatrician (visit #1), they weighed him. He was several ounces heavier than his two week check up. If we learned nothing else at that appointment, I felt reassured about how the breastfeeding was going! I explained to Dr. Monroe that I wanted someone who was medically trained and way more well-rested than I was to take a look at his belly button. It looked like this: (Sorry for the blurry pictures. I am not a fan of my new point and shoot Fuji camera.)

(It looks like a small brain!!)

She immediately said "Oh, that's a granuloma. We'll put some silver nitrate on it." She silver nitrated the mess out of that thing. It was quickly obvious to me that there were no nerve endings in this granuloma-thing because James didn't hit the ceiling when she applied it. We think James has a crush on his pediatrician, Dr. Monroe, so maybe he was just trying to be brave. After learning that silver nitrate can stain clothing, we changed him into another onesie we had in his diaper bag. An "ugly" onesie that we didn't mind getting stained. We left the office with an appointment the next week for follow up.

The next week we went back. The appointment (visit #2) went exactly as the first. Weight check, silver nitrate, change into ugly onesie, leave with appointment for the next week for follow up.

The next week's appointment (visit #3) was shaping up to be the same as the previous ones. No noticeable change observed in the granuloma. Silver nitrate was not winning this battle, so they referred us to a pediatric surgeon. Before we left the office they had already made us an appointment for that Friday.

At the surgeon's office, the beginning part of the appointment (visit #4) was much the same with the weighing-in part. The doctor decided to apply some lidocaine (topical anesthetic) for 15 minutes and then tied two really tight sutures around the base of the granuloma, cutting off the blood supply. In theory, this would cause it to fall off within a week, according to the surgeon. James was fine with the whole process, right up until those two sutures were cinched down nice and tight. Apparently there were some nerve endings SOMEwhere in there! My heart hurt to watch him hurt! It was very brief, but still. It hurt both of us. :( We left there with instructions to come back in a week if it hadn't fallen off.

That very night during one of his diaper changes, it fell off! There was MUCH rejoicing! Okay, it was just me rejoicing, but I was happy. Once again I had visions of putting James in a bathtub, hopefully prior to high school.

The Monday after our Friday surgeon appointment, James had his two month well visit. Back to the pediatrician. Again (visit #5). At this point Dr. Monroe was probably thinking we LIVE in her office! She said that his belly button should heal up within a week or so. Well, that was August 8th. Now it's the 23rd and it still hasn't healed. Yes, I should've taken him back to the doctor by now, but I keep hoping against hope that it will heal on it's own! I got some silver nitrate sticks and had a nurse practitioner friend treat his belly button again. That was two days ago. Folks, if this doesn't heal it up, I don't know what will!

I guess I should post a picture of what it looks like now, but he is sleeping. To be SURE I'm not waking a sleeping baby for a blog post. :) Because of the silver nitrate, it sort of looks like we lit a firecracker in his belly button. It's all dark gray/blackish around his belly button. Scott says we could try the firecracker-route if this doesn't work.

I can no longer football-hold James for his counter-top baths. He's way too big for that. One day he'll get a real bath...

disclaimer: I know there are a million worse health problems my kid could have. If this is the worst health-thing we go through with him, I'll be grateful. It's a nuisance, but that's it.

Aug. 24th update: Here's a picture of his firecracker belly button:

This picture also portrays his pot-belliedness quite well. :)

Back To Work

2011-08-15T12:14:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow is the day. THE day. The go-back-to-work day. To be honest, I am not excited.

Used to, I thought women who came back to work after maternity leave and cried were sissies. Overly emotional sissies. If you were one of those women, I'm sorry. I misjudged you.

I get it now.

I get it that you've been attached to this baby for 9 (really 10) months of pregnancy and 9 weeks after. You've never spent more than a few hours away. A work day suddenly feels like a lifetime of separation.
I get that you feel like nobody can take better care of your baby than you.
I get that you even doubt your very-capable husband's ability to care for your child. Much less a grandmother or a daycare worker.
I get that you're afraid of missing something fantastic that your baby does for the first time. Or the hundredth.
I get that you feel like you're just starting to understand this role of "Mom", and going back to work to put on the "employee" hat might threaten your "Mom" role. Like it's impossible to do both well.
I get that somewhere deep inside you feel a little guilty for not wanting to be a full time stay at home mom. Because, to be sure, that makes you a bad mother.
For other birthmothers, I get that going back to work and "leaving" your baby feels like a distant cousin-feeling to leaving your child that you placed for adoption. And that stings. Your heart wants to run into a closet and hide in the dark to avoid the pain.

So tomorrow when I rejoin the work force, if I shed a few tears, I'll be sure and give myself a little grace in the process. I'm no sissy...

7 years ago today

2011-07-30T06:00:00.001-04:00

July 30, 2004 was a day that forever changed my life. At 12:28 pm, Chloe was born.

Prior to that moment, that life-defining moment, I didn't know what all the baby-craziness was about. I wasn't one of those people that always knew I wanted children. I didn't know if I ever wanted kids. Through the whole labor and delivery process, up until the second she was born, I was DEFINITELY asking myself why anyone would ever do this more than once.

And then...

She was born.

And in an instant, I got it. I understood why my mom and billions of other women do this multiple times. That tiny little person (who actually felt like a BIG HUGE PERSON on the way out) was absolutely amazing. There were no words to describe how I felt when I saw her the first time. I just remember thinking, "Oh. THAT'S why. That's why women do this. That is, by far, the coolest thing I have ever been a part of." People say freshly born babies can look like aliens. Maybe they do. But she was the cutest dang alien I'd ever seen. I couldn't believe I had the privilege of bringing her into this world. And it felt like a privilege. Like I didn't deserve this amazing gift, but here I was receiving it anyway.

To me, it was God's grace in action once again. For about a year before I got pregnant, I wasn't very interested in what God had planned for my life. I wanted to do my own thing. Live the single life to the "fullest", whatever that meant. I didn't want God messing with my "freedom". And then I took a pregnancy test and my delusional world shattered. I was in crisis mode and had to quickly figure out a plan. At first I didn't see it as a privilege to carry this little girl. I was overwhelmed, in denial, and too self-absorbed to see the big picture. But then, as the immediacy of the crisis waned, and I could breathe again, I had sense enough to ask God to help me. Help me make the best decision I could for this precious little life inside of me. I wasn't sure how God could redeem this situation. I was pregnant and not married. This kind of thing didn't happen in MY family. Growing up in a Christian home, I had been around Christians all my life. My parents were elders in their church. I was worried. In general, some people are good at this Christianity thing. Some people are not. I anticipated judgment. What I received was grace. God must have chuckled at my disbelief. He overwhelmed me with mercy, love and redemption.

When I told my parents I was pregnant and considering adoption, my mom cried tears of joy. Not tears of sadness, rejection, anger, bitterness, or judgment. Joy. She said "I'm going to have another grandbaby!" My dad said "A baby is a baby. That's a gift from the Lord." And then I cried. Tears of relief.

God granted me favor with my boss at the time. She did not, by law, have to extend to me health benefits (like COBRA) if I quit my job. I couldn't leave my job and leave my benefits. If she didn't go for this idea, I couldn't move home to NC (from SC). She accepted my request. Grace abounded.

I moved home as soon as I could after encountering such acceptance, grace and mercy from my parents. I started going to their church. More grace, mercy, love and compassion. That church loves people very well. It was a couple at that church that I chose to be Chloe's parents.

My husband says that Chloe is the reason we're together now. "Chloe changed you. Softened you." He knew me before, during and after Chloe. He noticed the change of heart that took place. My relationship with him, my marriage, is another way God demonstrated redemption to me.

There are more examples, but you get the idea. When Chloe was born, my heart was in such a different place than it was when I found out I was pregnant. That's why I can say with confidence that carrying her, birthing her, placing her for adoption with a stable, loving, Christian couple, was absolutely a privilege and an honor.

Chloe, you are an incredible, adventuresome, fun-loving, sweet, caring little girl. Thanks for changing my life forever for the better.

Love, your tummy mommy

7 weeks

2011-07-29T13:50:00.000-04:00

It's amazing what a difference a week can make. Last week I was banging my head against a wall. This week I feel hopeful. What's changed? Not a whole lot. Just my perspective, I guess. As everyone has mentioned again and again, it does get better every week. We ARE going to live through this newborn phase, as it turns out!

James is trying to become more of a 3.5 - 4 hour feeder most of the time. At night, sometime between 7 and 9 pm, he'll go for 5 hours (a couple of times even 6 hours!) before he eats again. That's when I get my longest stretch of sleep. LOVE THAT.

Here are some pictures from 6 weeks. I'm a week behind, I know.

These pictures were taken right after I bathed him. He was all fresh and clean and smelled purdy....for approximately 3 minutes before he loaded his diaper and spit up all over the fresh shirt. Whoever said "clean shirts make babies nauseous" was so. very. right. :)

A few numbers:

10 lbs. 11 oz. His weight at 6 weeks at the pediatrician's office.
11 lbs 1 oz. His weight 7 days later. He gained 6 oz. in seven days. Not too shabby for a kid who only eats 6 minutes at a time.
1x/week. How often we're going to the pediatrician. Following a belly button issue (umbilical granuloma). More on that later.
Eleventy billion. The number of times a day he spits up. Okay, maybe slightly less, but he's reeeeeally good at it. :) According to my internet searching, he's what is called a "happy spitter".
5 times. Number of times he's smiled at Scott or myself. Can't wait for more of this! It's so dang cute!
<3 weeks. How long I have before I go back to work. Actually, Scott too.
>100. Number of outfits we own for James.
<10. Number of outfits we are using for James. Who knew?
16. Number of burp cloths we own.
16. Number of burp cloths we USE. Again...who knew?
1. Number of cats in this household (out of 2 total) who have seemed to accept him into our "herd". Nestle head-butted him the other day while he was sleeping-instead-of-nursing. It was a very sweet jesture. Head-butting is Nestle's love language.
2. Number of parents in this household who are totally smitten with this little boy.

6 weeks

2011-07-20T21:03:00.000-04:00

Today James is 6 weeks old. I'm sorry there's no 6 week picture, but that requires entirely too much effort.

I thought by now...

...we'd be sleeping, on occasion, longer than 0-2 hours at a time.
(Feedings generally take about an hour. Not because he eats very long at all, but the eating/trying to convince him to eat/burping/diaper changing/calming him down/getting him to sleep takes about an hour. Last night he ate at 8:30pm, 11:30pm, 2:30am, 4:30am, 6:30am, 8am, 9am, 10am...)

...that I'd feel warm, fuzzy, and gushy inside about motherhood.
(Today I had a total meltdown. I felt weepy, tired, angry and frustrated.)

...that I'd feel more competent as a mom.
(Today I felt like an incompetent failure as a mom and wife. I can't make my baby happy, or keep him happy for very long. MOM-FAILURE! My husband has to swoop in and save the day all.the.time. WIFE-FAILURE!)

...nursing would be a breeze.
(He eats for 3-5 minutes at a time most of the time. I cannot seem to convince him to eat longer. He latches fine and is gaining weight, but this is certainly contributing to his short sleeping intervals. Well, that and he spits up as a hobby. Fun times.)

That's all. Sorry for the debbie-downer post. Just keepin' it real, folks.

Baby Showers

2011-07-17T19:01:00.000-04:00

The kiddo is here, as you may have already read, but I never told you about my wonderful baby showers! They were pretty amazing. Scott and I are surrounded by fun, quality people that showed us some serious lurv through a few different baby showers. Also, as a side note, I enjoyed getting my hair and toes done in preparation for each one.

The first shower was with a group of friends of mine from NC State. Everybody lived with somebody at the shower at some point during our college careers. We met at Sweet Tomatoes and had a great time. Some of these ladies traveled GREAT distances to join this party. I felt very, very special for all the effort made!

Shower #1, March 19, 2011

(L to R) Brandi, Carla, Lisa, BA, Robbye, Amanda, Tiffanee, and Rachel

Cute baby stuff was acquired.

We headed over to NC State to reminisce.

No NC State reunion is complete without a Goodberry's trip!

Shower #2, April 8, 2011

Momma Bain, as I affectionately call her, or Michele to everyone else, threw an AMAZING shower at her house with all my work people. The food was to. die. for. The decorations were so cute and appropriately giraffe oriented (the theme of the nursery). And she didn't make us play games. It was awesome. :) (Thanks to Naomi, Michele's daughter, for all the effort she put into this party, too!) Once again, I felt the lurv. Big time. Several people came to the shower (in the evening) AFTER work. That may not be a big deal to you, but we work 12 hours shifts. Doing ANYTHING social after work is note worthy. I so appreciated everybody coming to the party. Prior to all these baby showers, I thought if/when I went to a baby shower, it wasn't that big of a deal. But I felt like these people were coming to my WEDDING and I was sooooo grateful for their time, the thoughtful gifts, and the sacrifice lots of people made to spend an evening with me!

Momma (Michele) Bain and I

Shower #3, April 9, 2011

This shower was hosted and attended by a combination of people. We had a sprinkling of my Wake Tech nursing classmates, lots of family, and some long time friends from NC State and USC (South Carolina, not Southern Cal, just for the record). Juli, one of the key masterminds behind this shower, happens to be an EXPERT at throwing baby showers. She has thrown some ridiculous number of showers in the past 5 years. (20+?) Like I said, expert. The food at this shower was also amazing. Particularly of note were the cupcakes, hand-crafted by the talented Melissa.

It's hard to see the red velvet cupcakes in this picture, but they have cute little animals on them. They were delicious. Trust me.

Nikki and Aunt Libby. Nikki was in charge of writing down who gave us what. Her commentary in that note-taking was hilarious to read later.

More cute stuff!

Awesome Ergo Carrier from Uncle John and Aunt Darla.

Notice the giraffe-themed bumper hanging from the curtain rods behind us. They got us our bedding for the crib and it was displayed nicely around the room.

Everybody got to make their own onesies. This is Jason's handiwork.

I'm not sure who made this one, nor am I am quite sure what that equation means. Something about feeding the kid every 1-3 hours? I guess I should ask my math teacher-husband. :)

Jason, the balloon bearer.

Shower #4, May 18, 2011

This shower was thrown for Scott and his coworker Brian by the math department at Scott's school. We played the super-gross "Guess which candy bar is melted in the diaper" game. Ewwww. Definitely an appropriate game for a shower thrown for two guys! We also played the game where you had a necklace (baby-themed) and if you said the word "baby", somebody else could take your necklace from you. Needless to say, I lost my necklace pretty quick-like. I did NOT win. :) Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from this shower. The math department knows how to throw a party, though! We had a great time with fun people and got incredible gifts.

-----------------------------

This time: As I said before, we felt very loved and celebrated throughout all these showers!

Last time: When I had my daughter, Chloe, various people offered to throw me a shower. I couldn't quite figure out how to have a baby shower for me, for Chloe, without it being this whole bittersweet event. The presents would need to go to the adoptive family, which I didn't select until 6 weeks before she was born. I didn't want to have to have a fake smile on my face, trying to look excited while feeling overwhelmed and unsure. I greatly appreciated the offer, though. As it turned out, there was a shower thrown for the adoptive family after Chloe was born. That, to me, was perfect. My mom and sister-in-law went. They took lots of pictures for me.

Melissa and Alvin, the proud parents.

Raegan, my niece (3 months old), and Chloe (3 weeks)

My mom, Chloe, and Melissa

I was invited to go, but I wanted it to be an exclusively happy event. I was afraid if I went, a) I might cry the whole time, or b) people would feel awkward by me being there. I've read blogs of other birthmothers that did have baby showers. It worked for them. It didn't work for me. As I've gone through this experience, I've learned that it is an extremely individualized process. What works for one birthmother or adoptive family might not work for another. And that's perfectly okay.

Leaving the Hospital

2011-07-06T09:46:00.000-04:00

Background info: I placed my precious daughter, Chloe, for adoption when she was born. I just had my second child, James, 4 weeks ago. In a lot of ways, my second pregnancy felt like my first because of all the differences from the first time around.

Leaving the hospital the first time, August 1, 2004:

Worst day of my life.
Copious amounts of tears.
Despite my resolve about my decision, I'd never felt pain like that before...including the two days prior when I gave birth to the most amazing baby girl ever.
I watched another family loading up their car with the new baby and the balloons and the car seat, etc.
My heart ached.
I was leaving empty handed.
Alone.
No baby.
Oh the indescribable pain.
My poor parents.
The discharge nurse walked out with us basically holding my mom upright. She was almost as much of a wreck as I was.
My dad was in servant overdrive mode, doing everything he could for my mom and I to ease our pain. I know he hurt too, but ex-military dads are more discreet about showing pain.

Leaving the hospital the second time, June 10, 2011:

I cried the day before leaving because I was scared. I dreaded "leaving day". It was so painful last time. People kept asking me if I was going to leave a day early because James and I were doing so well. I absolutely didn't want to move up "leaving day". I wanted to put it off as long as possible.
But instead, I felt joy. Oh the joy.
A few tears as I remembered the last time and the pain that went with it.
Complete unbelief that Scott and I were allowed to take this sweet baby home. Shouldn't there be some kind of qualifications you have to have to be a parent??!
My heart felt full. Full of love for this new baby, for my partner in this parenting-thing Scott.
I felt grateful. Extremely grateful for getting an opportunity to be a parent.
Not alone.
We packed our car with balloons, flowers, gifts and a car seat complete with our baby boy in it.

I didn't mean to make anybody cry. I cried typing this post. I share this to show how God has redeemed my life. He is in the redemption business. He takes things that were meant to be ugly, painful, and harmful and he turns the situation around for good. That's what he did with Chloe. He took a crisis pregnancy and used it for good. I attribute my relationship with Chloe's parents, my marriage, my new son, my nursing degree and many other things to God's redemption of my life. I was on a path of destruction and he saved me from myself.

Happy 4th of July!

2011-07-04T13:43:00.000-04:00

From our all American boy

Lessons Learned

2011-07-01T12:27:00.000-04:00

After 3 weeks of parenting a newborn, I thought I'd share some things I've learned thus far. For those of you without kids, hopefully this will be amazingly informative. For those of you with kids, you already know this and can probably skip reading the whole post. In no particular order:

1) Life with a newborn is no different than life pre-newborn...

...as long as your life pre-newborn involved caring for another human who cried incessantly, soiled britches, did not allow you to sleep, and routinely "gave back" (all over your clothes) some portion of every meal consumed.

2) I never knew how little sleep I actually need to function.

Since we're giving the whole breastfeeding thing a whirl, I'm the only one who can feed the kid. We're doing one bottle/day just to get him used to eating from a bottle, but even during that time, when Scott is feeding the baby, I'm pumping. This means that every 1, 2, or 3 hours, I'm feeding the baby. The feeding process can take an hour. (feeding off and on, changing a diaper or two, burping, etc) You do the math. Even if he eats every 3 hours (on a good day), at most I can get 2 hours of sleep. I don't call that a night's rest. I call that a nap.

Correction: I used to call that a nap. Now I call it a night's rest.

3) Putting socks on a newborn is an exercise in futility.

Newborns, according to my wise friend Andrea who has two kids, will only wear one sock at a time. I've found this to be true. I put on two socks on my child. I turn my head for a second and look back and somehow only ONE sock is still on said child. It's truly a mysterious thing.

4) Even die hard Dave Ramsey fans such as Scott and I would be willing to sacrifice LARGE AMOUNTS of money if it would help our screaming child settle.

James doesn't cry all the time. In fact, he probably cries less than 2.5 hours every day. Total. But when he DOES cry, and we've tried everything we can think of to make him happy and nothing works, it is in those moments that we'd bust our budget in a heartbeat if we knew it would make a difference in the cry-fest.

5) Newborns are hilarious to watch.

The total lack of coordination with every movement and the contorted facial expressions of newborns make for some great entertainment. Especially if one has had very little sleep (see #2 above), these type things make one laugh. A lot.

6) Working as a NICU nurse only mildly prepared me to care for a newborn.

Yes, I was already comfortable changing diapers and holding/handling a baby when I came home with my son. However, at my job when babies are crying, it is almost always food-related. Feed them, problem solved. If the problem is not food related, it is often dirty diaper or possibly position related. Change a diaper, reposition the baby and Wahlah! Happy (or at least quiet) baby. Being at home with a newborn is a whole new ball game. My recently fed, clean diapered, warm baby can be down right unreasonable. And that leaves me going "Wha?!?" So then we begin the cycle of trying out different comfort measures to make him happy. Swaddle him, walk with him, put him in the bouncy chair, take him out of the bouncy chair, play with him, turn on the vacuum/sound machine/bathroom fan, double and triple check his diaper, offer to feed him more...wash/rinse/repeat. Eventually, one of the things we tried 3 times already will finally work. And then there will be peace and quiet. And there is much rejoicing.

7) I definitely underestimated the amount of bodily fluids that would end up on my clothes.

I figured, since I work with babies for a living, I would be better than most new parents at avoiding getting spit-up, peed or pooped on. I was sadly, sadly mistaken. I thought our laundry would increase because of the baby's clothes and blankets and such. I didn't count on having to wash my own stuff so. much. more. often just because I can't stay clean to save my life.

8) I don't think I will be able to do any single task start to finish, in one sitting, ever again.

As soon as I start to do anything, on the computer, make a phone call, take a shower, watch a 30 minute show on tv, the baby needs something. For example, since starting this blog post, I've stopped and started at least 3 times. In 40 minutes. :)

Well, that's all for now. Stay tuned as this adventure continues!!

James' First Bath

2011-06-23T10:57:00.000-04:00

For those of you who missed this video on facebook...

My 1st Birth Story

2011-06-22T17:06:00.000-04:00

In July of 2004, I gave birth to my amazing daughter, Chloe. I placed Chloe for adoption. This is my story of her birth. (from a journal entry in August 2004...my memory is not this detailed!)

The short version:

Chloe

July 30, 2004 at 12:28pm

8 lb 4 oz

21 inches long

33 cm head

The long version:

It started Wednesday night, July 28th. I started feeling contractions about 11pm that night, just as I was going to bed. I was able to lay down and rest/doze for a couple of hours. About 1:30 or 2am, I got up because I couldn't quite sleep through the contractions any more. I ate a bowl of cereal. The contractions weren't SO intense, but uncomfortable enough to keep me awake. I went downstairs with paper, pen, and watch in hand. I started timing the contractions. From the beginning they were very regular and consistent. Every 5-10 minutes. I thought that was weird. But I knew they needed to grow in intensity and frequency before I called the doctor. I had my pen and paper in the kitchen. I would lay down on the couch in the den in between contractions. When I would feel one, I'd get up, walk to the kitchen and write down the start time and then by the time I moseyed back to the den, it'd be over. They only lasted about 30 seconds at this point. By early, early morning I was very tired because I hadn't slept, but little did I know I had only BEGUN to feel tired! Dad woke up around 5am like usual. When he came downstairs I filled him in on what was going on. I didn't wake him or mom up because there was no reason to yet. So I continued to pace around and lay down for the next few hours. At some point in the evening I did have reddish/brownish mucousy discharge. Maybe the mucous plug? I dunno. I remember thinking "Eewww."

I had my weekly OB appointment at 11am Thursday morning. I knew we'd get some more information then. Eventually I paused from my pacing to take a shower and get ready for my appointment. The shower felt good! Mom drove me to my appointment. We left about 45 minutes early for the doctor's office because we were so eager to see what they had to say! We anxiously awaited the doctor's report. The car ride was very uncomfortable because of the pressure in my pelvis at that point and the regular contractions. Dr. Henderson said I was still only 1 cm dilated, 80% effaced and -2 station. I was so disappointed! Such consistent contractions for so long and so little progress! They hooked me up to the fetal monitor/contraction monitor thing for about 30 minutes to get an idea of what kinds of contractions I was was having, how often and how baby Chloe was handling them. She was doing fine throughout. They wanted to see me back at 3pm for a recheck. So...disappointed, we left. Mom wanted to get me to eat something, but I wasn't really hungry. I don't recall if I had a bowl of cereal then or later in the day. But cereal was about the only thing I'd consider eating. After a few more hours of pacing, timing and trying to lay down and rest (unsuccessfully), we headed back to the doctor. Again, Henderson told me I hadn't really progressed. :-/ Both appointments, by the way, were very very painful when he checked my cervix. Ow...I tell ya what...ow! He said we needed to wait until I had "rounded the next corner" before we called the doctor. Translation: the contractions needed to step up in intensity pretty significantly before we thought about going to the hospital. Either that or my water needed to break. Something needed to change. Again, our spirits deflated, we left the doctor's office. I wanted to sleep so badly, but couldn't. This, of course, made me emotional. So mostly I just wanted to cry. Mom and I went to the mall after we left the office. We figured maybe walking around would help. I should've known better than to go the mall! I hate the mall on a normal day! Much less when I'm in pain and over tired! We weren't there too long. We walked very slowly around half the mall before I'd had enough. Perhaps if we had kept going things would've moved along quicker, but I was hurting and didn't want to be there any more. So...we went back home. I resumed my pacing/trying to rest/lying down routine. I didn't time the contractions so much at this point. I was waiting for them to pick up in intensity or something before I started keeping track again. Still hadn't really eaten anything. Food was definitely not a priority. I felt nauseous intermittently and was not interested in eating. I tried to keep drinking water, but that was about it. By 10pm, mom, dad and I were getting ready for bed. I was hoping (again) to be able to rest. I went up to my room and just sat on the edge of my bed and cried. I was so very tired, knew I wouldn't be able to sleep and had no end in sight because things weren't progressing enough to call the doctor yet. Dad and mom came into my room. Dad just stood beside me and hugged me. Mom rubbed my back and we all prayed. Mom prayed that God would allow me to rest. Dad carried in a rocking chair for mom to sit in at my bedside. Dad headed off to bed, mom took up station in her rocking chair, and I paced around my room during a contraction and rested on my bed in between. I couldn't tell if the contractions were getting stronger or if I was just more tired of them. Regardless, my attitude continued to decline as the contractions progressed.

From 11pm - 12 am, the contractions were longer than they had been. 45-0 seconds. They seemed more intense, although it might have been me wishing them that way. I also started to leak small amounts of fluid here and there. Not with every contraction, but sometimes. So we decided it was time to call the doctor. Henderson called me back pretty quickly and said come on it and let them check me out. So YAY! We were on our way to the hospital. Mom and I both fully expected to be sent back home, so we didn't wake up dad. We did take my hospital bag, just in case. We got checked in and the nurse, Dawn, took us into one of the delivery rooms. She had me take everything off and put on a hospital gown. Dr. Henderson came in to check my cervix. STILL 1 CM. He said at this rate we'd be here til next week. I didn't appreciate his humor. Nor did I appreciate the cervix check. It hurt! THey told mom and I to go walking around the hospital for an hour. They would recheck me after that hour. I put on another hospital gown (wearing 1 forward and 1 backward) and mom and I went walking all over the hospital. I kept wanting to sit down or lay down (where?!), but mom wouldn't let me. She knew we needed to make some progress during this hour! During a contraction, I would lean facing the wall and mom would rub my lower back. The hospital halls were pretty empty at that time of the night (about 1 am) Some doctor stopped to talk to us on his way down the hall. He wanted to know if this was my 1st baby. I wanted to know if he could mind his own damn business because I was in no mood to be social. :) Anyway... after that seemingly endless hour, we were back in my delivery room. Henderson checked me again (ow!) and I was up to 2 cm. Yay! I had progressed! It was at that point they decided to keep me. Henderson asked me how we were going to do this: natural, unnatural, or supernatural. Mom and I answered at the same time. She said "supernatural" and I said "unnatural." I told him I was up for an epidural as soon as he'd let me have one. He told Dawn to get my labs running, IV started and then we could do the epidural. Woo-hoo! That was music to my ears. PAIN RELIEF. I was almost excited about getting blood drawn/IV started because it meant being one step closer! Dawn did an excellent job placing my IV. She said it wouldn't take long to get lab results. They got me all hooked up to ons of machines and things.

I had a blood pressure cuff on my right arm, pulse ox on my left pointer finger, IV catheter and fluid set attached to my left arm, fetal monitor and contraction monitor around my belly. I was so wired up I couldn't hardly move! (even if I wanted to) About 2:30am they started the epidural. I remember thinking right before Dr. Henderson started, "Oh man, is this gonna hurt really badly? I don't know! I haven't heard people say?!" But they talked me through the whole thing. "This is going to sting." "Lots of pressure." "Be real still." I jumped a little at the numbing shots, but then it was just pressure and weird feelings, not so much pain. Within 10 minutes or so, I was mostly numb. I was sooooo relieved to not feel anything. There was a small section on my left side of my belly that still had feeling, so they rolled me to the left to see if that would work. It didn't. They dosed my epidural again with me laying on my left side. Still had feeling. So Dawn untaped my back, withdrew the epidural catheter just a teeny bit, taped it back up, dosed me again on my left side and it worked! No more feeling! I was so much happier then. They left me be for a while, so I dozed off for ~2-3 hours according to mom. I was so thankful to be able to sleep. It was just great.

Oh...I forgot to mention...after they decided to keep me, mom called Dad to let him know the situation. Dad called Nikki and Melissa and Alvin, the adoptive parents. Nikki was there by ~2:30 am, right in time for the epidural. Dad told Melissa and Alvin to wait several hours before coming because nothing was going to happen for a while. Dad got some more rest, too. I don't know what time he got there. Maybe 7:30 am or so. I was napping on and off throughout the early morning, so I don't remember a whole lot. My sister-in-law Laura came at some point in the morning too. Mom, Laura, Nikki and Dad all rotated through the delivery room during the "down" time. Whoever wasn't in the room with me was downstairs juggling my 3 month old niece, Raegan. When Melissa and Alvin got there, they came up to see me. That was neat to say hey to them. :) Especially because I wasn't in pain, I was quite social. They had to come up one person at a time because only three visitors could be in my room at once. Usually mom and Nikki and one other person. After spending the evening with us, Dawn got off at 7am, so she traded off with Crystal. Crystal was awesome, too. I remember at some point in the morning we started (and finished!) watching What's Up Doc. That was good comedic relief. In my 2-3 hour nap I had gone from 2 cm to 6 cm. Woohoo! More progress. Mom and others would point out really big contractions on the screen beside me. I would just respond "don't care!" since I couldn't feel them. Crystal kept saying we were waiting on Henderson to come break my water. But time kept passing and he wasn't there. He had to do some surgery from 8:30-9 am, so they didn't want to break my water and speed things up in case he was in surgery. Finally, around 10 am they decided it was time to push. Crystal thought I was only 9.5cm instead of 10, but Henderson said push so she said okay! From 10-10:30 I pushed with each contraction. By 10:15 I was completely spent! I didn't want to push! It was too too hard. I hadn't eaten in forever (unless you count the 2 popsicles during the night that turned my mouth blue). I hadn't slept much in a while either. I was on empty from the beginning! Not a good way to enter the most intensive part of labor. After 30 minutes of pushing, they had me chill for 30 minutes to let my cervix go from 9.5 cm to 10 cm. So I zonked out for 30 more minutes. About 11 am they said it's GO time. Time to push again. I was not excited about this. Crystal was explaining to me how to push, but because of the epidural, I couldn't really feel what I was doing. It's hard to push like you're having a bowel movement when you can't feel anything! That was the only time the epidural worked against me. The top portion of my abs were so sore and we had just begun to push! They said they would give me an hour of pushing before they intervened with forceps or vacuum. I wasn't really motivated to push before they mentioned "intervening". I knew I didn't want them to have to use any of those measures. I became a little more motivated. They wheeled over the mirror so I could see as I pushed, hoping it would help me tell what was a "good push" and what wasn't. It was a little bit helpful to be able to see her hair and that she was so close! Laura was my primary pushing coach. She was the one holding my shoulders and talking me through it all. Nikki would play with my hair some during the down time between contractions, helping me to relax. I was discouraged because even though I was pushing with all my might, Chloe wasn't moving so much. After the initial hour, they even let me go 30 more minutes on my own because I told them I didn't want them to use the vacuum. But after little to no progress, Chloe's heartrate was dropping, so they needed to help me out. After less than 10 minutes with the vacuum, at 12:28pm on Friday, July 30th, 2004, Chloe was BORN!

During the final pushes, mom, Laura, and Nikki were all cheering me on. They really made all the difference in the world. I felt so defeated from the beginning of the pushing process. I didn't think I could do it. But they all seemed to think I could! At the end I was relying on them and what they thought I could do as opposed to my own perceptions of me. For future reference, it was very helpful and encouraging to have Laura telling me I was doing a good job, b/c I really didn't think I was. Nikki paying with my hair or just the sense of touch overall was very soothing as well. I remember Laura hugging me so tightly and kissing me on my cheek and forehead saying "You did it Betty Anne, you did it. She's beautiful and you did it!" That was really special and I appreciated that a whole lot.

Anyway, back to Chloe! She weighed 8 lbs. 4 oz.

When she was born, I was in total AMAZEMENT. My tears were tears of relief. I was so glad I didn't have to push any more! I was absolutely stunned looking at her as Henderson clamped off her umbilical cord and handed her to me. I couldn't believe how BIG she was! No way that just came out of me! I was overwhelmed with how beautiful she was too. She was perfect! I couldn't believe I had any part in incubating something so incredible. I was in awe. I was also so very over-exhausted. While they did some initial stuff w/ Chloe, I just layed there. Completely zapped of any inkling of energy. As soon as Chloe was wrapped up, she quieted down and just looked around at everyone.

She was so sweet from the very beginning. Henderson sewed me up from the small tear I received during her birth. I didn't care, though, because I was numb. And it was all finally OVER. I couldn't believe it! Whew! 37 hours later, it was over. I had a daughter! That still sounds so weird to me! "My daughter", but it's true! I'm a mom! These things will take a little while to sink in, I'm sure.

During the labor process I kept thinking "Why would anyone do this more than once?? I can't even imagine!" But then, as soon as she was born, I realized THAT'S why. Because the end result is SO worth it. The pain was worth it. The pregnancy was worth it. She is an amazing, beautiful, incredible girl and she made it all worth it.
---------------------
Here's a few more pictures from our time in the hospital.

Such tiny hands!

Those lips are too cute!

Daddy Alvin feeding his baby girl.

Meeting big brother Shiloh for the first time.

Momma Melissa, Big Brother Shiloh, and Baby Chloe.

This family is so precious to me.

Birth Story

2011-06-19T13:50:00.001-04:00

If you want the short version:

James Benton Davidson

6/8/11 at 5:23am

7 lb 15 oz

21.5 inches long

36.5 cm head

The slightly longer ~~winded~~ version:

Since I was 37 weeks pregnant, I would routinely have contractions, typically on a night before I worked the next day. Scott and I would time them on his iPod touch contraction app. They would be anywhere from 4-10 minutes apart. Not really painful, but noticeable. Sometimes they would last all night, sometimes just a few hours. All this would do is confuse me! How am I going to know when the REAL DEAL is happening when we have all these false starts all the time??

Fast forward to Tuesday, June 7th. I went to my weekly appointment at my OB. Side note: At 36 weeks, I was a fingertip-1cm dilated and 70-80% effaced. At this appointment, I'm 2 cm dilated. Hooray! At that rate of dilation, my baby would be born sometime in August... I was having contractions on this particular Tuesday, but again, who knew if they would lead anywhere or not. When I was checking out of the OB office, they made me an appointment for the next week, in case I was still pregnant. I made it abundantly clear that I would NOT be coming to that appointment. I had zero intentions of making it to 41 weeks.

That afternoon, I met up with my sister Nikki to take some pregnancy pictures. 39 weeks, 6 days pregnant. I figured that was a good time to document my hugeness. :) We went to the Rose Garden near NC State. It was 5:30pm and a million degrees outside. If I have a "glow" about me in the pictures, I assure you it's sweat.

I was having some more contractions all during the photo shoot. Sometimes we would have to wait a second to take a picture because I was having a hard time SMILING during the contraction. Deep down I was hoping this was the real deal, but I'd gotten my hopes up before and it didn't lead to labor. Soooo....I tried to ignore the contractions and not think about it! Scott met up with us at the Rose Garden and we went to dinner at Cantina 18, my new favorite restaurant. During dinner I asked him to bust out the iPod and time some of these contractions. They were about 4-7 minutes apart during dinner. I had a hard time eating dinner. This was hugely disappointing, since I was so excited about eating there. We boxed up the rest of my dinner to go and headed home. I just wanted to be home. Scott and I had driven separately. I was very sad about that as I drove home. During that 15 minute drive home, at least twice I got white-knuckled on the steering wheel during a contraction. I have a stick-shift car, by the way. YOU try shifting gears and negotiating a clutch, gas and brake while contracting. Fun times. Despite the increasing intensity of the contractions, I was still in denial. I figured this would fizzle out, as it had before, and I would be at work the next morning.

When we got home, I asked Scott to take a walk with me. We'd walked miles and miles around the neighborhood and surrounding area in the past few weeks. This walk was a bit slower than usual. We would stop during contractions. We really focused on timing the contractions during the walk. If this WAS leading somewhere, I wanted facts to be able to tell the doctor when I called. After our walk, I continued timing things until about 9pm-ish. I knew I needed to go to bed if I was going to work in the morning. Problem: I couldn't sleep through these contractions. Scott said I should call the doctor. I wasn't sure if I should, but I did. I called and left a voicemail for the on-call doctor. The person that returned my call was one of my coworkers that works in the Birth Center Operating Room.

Renee said: "Betty Anne, why are you calling up here asking if you should come in when you know you need to be here?!"

I told Renee: "I'm NOT sure I need to be there, that's why I'm calling to ask the doctor!"

Renee said Dr. Beatty wanted me to come in and be checked. Alright! I hung up with Renee and got in the shower. My thought: "If this is for real, I'm gonna be CLEAN!" Scott gathered a few last minute items left to pack in our "hospital bag". As we were walking out the door, I told him I forgot to eat! We both knew they wouldn't let me eat once I got to the hospital, and therefore I should eat right before I got there, but I had no appetite (just like at dinner). Foregoing the eating, we headed to the hospital. We were fully prepared to get checked and then sent back home. See how I was still having trouble believing this was happening?!

I called my friend, Sarah, an L&D nurse who happened to be working that evening. She said she would be available for me by the time I got there. Sarah and I went to school together at Wake Tech. I was VERY excited that she could potentially be my L&D nurse. We got to the hospital just before 11pm. When Sarah checked me, I was 3.5 cm!

Hooray!

My cervix was actually changing!

They weren't going to send us home!

And finally the false alarms were OVER!

I was NOT going to work in the morning!

So much to be excited about! Oh, and also, these contractions HURT. That is not exciting, but a reality of labor. Sarah got us moved into our L&D room, started my IV and fluids, and got me situated on the monitors for a bit. Dr. Beatty came in and checked me about 45 minutes after Sarah did. I was 5 cm. Things were MOVING! For some reason, I felt it was important to go for a short walk while I was in labor. Sarah said after I had been on the monitor for about 20 minutes and the baby looked good, I could go for a walk. Sarah and Dr. Beatty both mentioned that my bag of waters was bulging and might break at any moment. If it broke, my labor might speed up. My concern was that I would miss my opportunity for an epidural. I had NO DESIRE to go au naturel for this experience. So off we went to walk. Scott pushed the IV pole. I was solely responsible for putting one foot in front of the other. We stopped to talk to some of my coworkers in the hallways as we walked, my face contorting with each contraction. That must've been a pretty sight. :) We walked for less than 15 minutes before I was all done and ready for an epidural. We got back to the room (the very SAME room that I delivered my daughter in, how cool is that?!) and Sarah called for the anesthesiologist. He was in the OR and would be a few minutes. Oh joy. Sarah checked me again: I was 7 cm. Moving right along! <last time, I got an epidural at 2 cm. I felt accomplished that I made it much further this time!> I was sitting up on the side of the bed, ready and waiting to receive the glorious relief of the epidural. I was practically levitating off the bed during contractions. I was thinking "You so damn stupid. <said in best Dr. Bailey voice from Grey's Anatomy> Why did you go walking?? Now you're hurting more than ever and you have to wait for an epidural!!" It wasn't too long, in reality, before the blessed epidural-placing doctor arrived. I just happened to be measuring time in contractions. As in, "I hope he gets here before the next one..." I said that at least a handful of times. I offered for Scott to leave the room for the epidural. Our goal for this labor and delivery experience was for Scott NOT to pass out. I didn't mind at all if he skipped this part. He insisted on staying. Sarah had him sit in a chair in front of me, so he couldn't see anything happening to my back. Sarah was great and told me minute by minute what the doctor was doing and what to expect. I was a little nervous that the epidural would hurt a lot, but it wasn't bad at all. Some funny feelings at times, but nothing like the contractions I was feeling. I guess it's all about perspective. :) Within moments of having the epidural in place, I felt relief. AHHHHHHHHH. So. much. better.

Scott said he got a little swimmy-headed briefly from Sarah's descriptions of what was happening and what I should expect, but he hung in there. Good job Scott! After retrieving a recliner for Scott to nap in, and making sure my vital signs were stable and baby looked good on the monitor after the epidural, Sarah let Scott and I rest/sleep for about an hour and 15 minutes. I'll let you figure out which one of us rested and which one of us SLEPT. Sarah said Dr. Beatty was coming at 3:30am to break my water. At 3:29am, it broke on its own. Eewwwwww. Even with the epidural, I could tell I was sitting in a swimming pool of fluid. Yuck. Scott woke up to hear Sarah saying "Yep, your water definitely broke!" and watching her change out all the padding beneath me. Again, he didn't pass out. Yay! They checked me again: 9 cm. In a few minutes, it would be time to push. Scott got on the phone to Jacqui and Nikki, both of whom wanted to be there when the baby was born. We told them if they wanted to be here, they better hurry!

We waited to start pushing until both Jacqui and Nikki got there. (less than 30 minutes)

my doulas, Jacqui and Nikki

Just after 4am, we started pushing. Whereas before the epidural was providing me great pain coverage, during the pushing part, it hurt all the time. This was very unfortunate for me! On the up-side, I could feel a little better how to push. But on the down-side, it HURT! During this phase, I felt like my knowledge of how this process goes worked against me. What I mean by that: After the first few pushes, Dr. Beatty left the room. Because I work in this environment, I know that when the doctor leaves the room, it's because they anticipate pushing will take a little bit and they are not immediately needed. When Dr. Beatty left, my heart sank. This was not going to be 4 pushes and the baby is born. Bummer. Guided by my brilliant nurse Sarah and encouraged on by my "team" of Scott, Nikki and Jacqui, the pushing continued. Dr. Beatty was in and out of the room periodically. Sarah and Dr. Beatty assured me the baby was making progress and was moving (slowly) down. I accused them of lying to me. Note to self: it's ALWAYS a good idea to throw out wild accusations at your health care providers when you are in a most compromising situation <stirrups>. I asked, in an accusatory tone, if this baby was making progress, why is Dr. Beatty still in a sweatshirt instead of gowned up? And why is the L&D table still covered up? Again, my knowledge worked against me. I should've just listened to them and kept pushing. I did keep pushing, but it was with much skepticism. When you are at this point in the labor process, it's really important to keep in mind that 1) bazillions of women have done this before you. It HAS been done before. It CAN be done again. and 2) YOU. CAN. DO. THIS. I wasn't feeling so much like I could do this. I thought I needed help. More than once I requested Dr. Beatty use a vacuum extractor. Nobody in their right mind REQUESTS the doctor use a vacuum. There are risks to mom and baby with such a device. They are only used when necessary. But I requested one. That gives you an indication of how less-than-hopeful I was feeling about this situation. After an hour and 9 minutes of pushing (I know, that's really not that long...) Dr. Beatty agreed I was a good candidate for a vacuum. After 3 pushes through 1 contraction with the vacuum on his little noggin, James Benton Davidson entered the world at 5:23am. Scott, who had been so amazingly encouraging throughout the whole process, was even more so now. Whispering sweetly in my ear, he assured me I did a good job. For a multitude of reasons, I could not WAIT for my baby to be born. One of the reasons? I was anticipating MUCH relief of the pain I felt all through the pushing phase. This did not happen. As soon as he was born, my pain level shot through the roof. I started sobbing. Some thought it was tears of joy that my precious son had been born. But mostly, it was because I was hurting so badly! I'll have to ask Sarah and Dr. Beatty their thoughts on why my pain went UP after he was born. Fairly quickly they numbed me up with some lidocaine, which provided me almost instantaneous relief. My breathing slowed. I stopped sobbing. I could listen to the greatest sound, my baby boy testing out his lungs. Now I was crying tears of joy. He was finally here. Scott was in awe, I'd say. He did NOT pass out. He didn't watch the birth, but at least he didn't pass out. He held my shoulders during each push and would strategically place his head right behind mine. His voice was right by my ear during every push. Nikki was holding one leg, Sarah held the other. Jacqui was Nikki's pinch hitter when she needed a break. This was truly a team effort. Everybody was on camera duty when James was born. My coworkers from Special Care, Lori and John, were in the room for delivery since a vacuum was being used. Oh, and James pooped (meconium) right before he was born. The presence of meconium also earns you a Special Care Nursery team at delivery. Thankfully, James screamed the moment he was born and didn't let up for a little bit. His lungs were great. He hardly even had a red mark on his head from the vacuum, since it was only on his head for about a minute. Apgars (for those that care) were 8 and 9. Pretty standard. :)

As soon as he was deemed fine and dandy by the Special Care team, they handed him back to me. We tried breastfeeding first and then just spent some quality time skin to skin. I was completely head over heels in love with this boy. He just got here, but that didn't matter. All it took was a second. :)

I couldn't have asked for a better group of people to be present for James' birth. Both on the coworker side of things as well as the family/friends side of things. I was so grateful for each person there and the role that they played.

Dr. Beatty and Sarah

All in all, the process went much faster than last time. We got to the hospital around 11pm and he was born around 5:30am. Last time, I was in the hospital for 12 hours before my sweet little girl made an appearance.

We're doing well at home. Getting to know each other. Enjoying being a family. Feeling very, very blessed.

Pregnancy Pictures

2011-04-05T20:37:00.000-04:00

Here are some pictures of the pregnancy thus far... 31 weeks tomorrow!

14 weeks

18 weeks

22 weeks, 6 days

27 weeks

28 weeks, 5 days

30 weeks

Wheel, The End of the Story

2011-04-01T22:45:00.001-04:00

So it's been a few months...figured I would finish out the Wheel story before moving on to other posts...

Taping Day, July 17, 2010

Sleeping Beauty had to be at a certain desk at 8:00am sharp at the Venetian. Scott's parents were kind enough to drive him over from our hotel to the Venetian. I kissed him goodbye, wished him good luck, and went back to sleep after he left. :) That was the last time we would see him until after the whole day of taping. The contestants are sequestered, kind of like a jury. Only certain Wheel staff are allowed to talk to them during the day. They are monitored all the time. They are not allowed to talk to family/friends, etc.

Peter, Nikki and I slept in and then made our way down to the buffet breakfast in the hotel. YUM. After getting ready for the day....

We hopped in the car....

And Bruce and Gail drove us over to the Venetian/Palazzo. We didn't have to look particularly purdy to be in the audience, with one exception. In the event Scott made it to the bonus round, we would be on national television. No pressure THERE, trying to pick an outfit that you may or may not be seen on national tv wearing. Speaking of outfits, Scott had to show up at 8am wearing whatever he wanted to wear for the taping of his show. He also was required to bring an extra outfit in case a) they didn't like his 1st outfit of choice, b) the HD camera didn't like his outfit, or c) he spilled something on himself through the day. I guess they approved what he was wearing because when we finally saw him later in the day, he was wearing his 1st choice outfit. :)

If you've ever driven around in Las Vegas, you know that that where you have to park and where you actually want to GO are usually long, long distances away from each other. When we got to the Venetian, we knew we wouldn't have time to come back to the car to drop off or pick up anything. Because of that, we had to leave our cameras in the car. There were absolutely NO CAMERAS allowed in the taping of the show, so rather than risk them confiscating our cameras, we left them. That would be why we don't have very many pictures from taping day at all! We took one more picture before we left the car.

(parking garages make such pretty backdrops)

Since we had just eaten brunch not too long ago, we weren't quite ready for lunch. So the three of us stopped at a tequila bar instead! Bruce and Gail, who had eaten breakfast with Scott at the crack of dawn, were ready to eat lunch and therefore branched off from us to do so. Nikki and I had margaritas. You'd have to ask Peter what he had. These next two pictures are courtesy of Nikki's cell phone.

We moseyed around the Venetian for a little bit before reporting to the taping area. It is a BEAUTIFUL hotel! That is a ceiling, by the way, not the real sky. Looks like you're outside, but you're NOT. Which was awesome since it was eleventy billion degrees outside and we were trying not to sweat too much.

There were two "rounds" of taping that day. We were told to be there between 1 and 1:30pm for the doors to open at 2pm. Our tickets:

We thought we would be SPECIAL since we had contestant guest tickets. Well, we were special alright. Special like "security-threat-special". We went through airport-like security before being let into a HUUUUUGE room with tons of folding chairs set up. This ginormous room was a holding area for the audience. The actual studio/taping area was next door behind some ridiculously large curtains. As contestant guests, we were seated in a specially marked section of the waiting area. At this point, we still felt special. After we had been seated for a little bit, a Wheel worker came over to talk to us as a group. He gave us an obviously frequently-given speech. He told us as nicely as possibly that contestant guests were viewed as threats. No, he didn't say it like that, but that is what he meant. He said things like "communication between contestants and contestant guests is forbidden. It is up to the staff to determine what constitutes communication." In other words, look in the direction of your contestant and sneeze funny and they might deem that "communication" and throw you and your contestant out. We were given special bracelets to wear and a label with Scott's name on it that identified us as contestant guests. Mr. Friendly told us that we would have the worst seats in the house, no lie. They didn't want us to be able to make eye contact or signal our person in any way shape or form. We would be given opportunities to go to the bathroom, escorted. We were not to leave our seats unescorted. In between tapings, the rest of the audience would be given a chance to move closer to the front, as other audience members left. We were not to move from our assigned seats. If we were found in "unauthorized" seats, you guessed it... we'd be thrown out. And our contestant too. Basically they put the fear of God in you about doing anything wrong!! Before seeing all this first hand, I thought the show was somehow rigged. The wheel is rigged, contestants cheat, something like that. AFTER our experience I can honestly say, I have NO idea how someone would cheat at this game. They have so many preventative measures in place, it seems impossible to me! Back to Mr. Friendly, at the end of his speech he said something like "Enjoy the show!" I was thinking "Yeah right! I just wet my britches you scared me so bad and now I'm supposed to 'Enjoy the show'??" Good grief! Moving on...

They seated us ~~threats~~ contestant guests first. They walked us in a line to the far back, right hand side of the audience seating. Our section wasn't even lit. After the show aired, numerous people asked why they didn't see us in the audience. I told them, "Oh that's easy, because they didn't even light our section, much less scan over it with cameras!" Despite being scared to death of doing something wrong, we were pretty excited about being there and seeing the stage all set up with the wheel and the winnable car (orangey-reddish 2010 Chevy Camaro) and the puzzle board. As was their plan, it was hard for us to see the contestants on stage or see the whole puzzle board. For our viewing pleasure, there was a jumbo-tron-type screen where we could watch everything clearly. Another common question from people: How did Vanna and Pat look up close? Well I surely wouldn't know. "Up close" is not a phrase I'd use to describe our seats. :) I was watching Pat and Vanna on the jumbo-tron screen. It felt very much like watching it on tv. :) After lots and lots of waiting, they finally seated the last of the audience and closed the doors. Charlie O'Donnell came out and talked to the audience. Warmed up the crowd a bit, using his legendary Wheel of Fortune voice. Side note: Sadly, in November 2010, Charlie passed away. :( The executive producer also came out and entertained questions and told us some tidbits about the show. They encouraged us to clap enthusiastically and smile lots and we might get on tv! Our section was less than thrilled with that idea. We could have clapped until our hands fell off and they wouldn't show us on tv. Bummer.

Finally the taping was beginning! They escorted all 17 contestants in to be seated, except for the three that were on the first show. They were on stage. The other 14 contestants were seated SEVERAL ROWS AHEAD OF US, with NOBODY in between. Let me make sure you understand this: There we are, the rebels, the threatening contestant guests...according to the powers that be, we're just waiting for an opportunity to signal our contestant with answers. In front of us are several empty rows. In front of the empty rows, they seated all the contestants! How much sense did that make?? Wouldn't you think they'd put us on opposite sides of the room or something? Nobody asked me my opinion, though...

The first show went by really quickly. We clapped, we cheered, we were excited. And then the 1st show was over. We had no idea which taping would be Scott's. At each break between tapings, Pat and Vanna would go change clothes and make it look like the next day. We were offered bathroom breaks at these 15 minute breaks. Before we knew it, the next show was beginning. Still no Scott on stage. We clapped and cheered some more. The taping for show #3 began and Scott wasn't in this show either. We enthusiastically enjoyed watching another episode taped. After this episode, however, there was a dinner break. We didn't have to be back in our "holding area seats"for another hour or so.

We walked a long way back to a food court-like area where each of us could pick whatever type of food we wanted. We ate a food and then began our long journey back to the taping area. Seriously, you can walk for MILES without ever stepping foot outside in Vegas. Upon returning to the taping area, we went through security again and returned to the contestant guest holding area seats. At this point we KNOW Scott's episode will either be the next one taped (4th), or the very last one of the day (5th). We were hoping he wasn't last! They seated us in the same area as before, several rows behind the contestants. When we were being seated, I was looking through all the contestants, looking for Scott, but I didn't see him. It took me a minute to realize he was ON STAGE! He was going on next! For the first three episodes, I was thinking "Okay, so this is what it will feel like when Scott is on stage." The excitement, the adrenaline, etc. Wow was I wrong. When we saw him on Stage and saw his name on the used-letter/score board, my heart started RACING. I couldn't stop shaking. I was so nervous FOR him!! Gail and I both were nervous wrecks!

Pat came out and got the game started. First pop-up puzzle: SCOTT WINS IT!! Woohoo!! $1,000 and a quick win! Great way to start the game. By winning the first pop up, he won the right to introduce himself first. He was pretty nervous for this part, which you can tell if you watched the episode. :) The other two contestants are introduced as well, Richard and Austin. Richard is a teacher like Scott (instant bond!). Austin is an actress and fitness model (NOT an instant bond...). Second pop up puzzle: SCOTT WINS AGAIN!! Woohoo!! $2,000! Grand total of $3,000 now. Nikki said she relaxed after this point because at least Scott had won more than enough money to pay for the trip. :) I, however, was still super-duper nervous. But she's right, at least the trip was covered! Winning the second pop up puzzle won him the right to go first. His first spin of the wheel was a Bankrupt. BUMMER. He didn't win that puzzle, but made a good effort. The next puzzle he did win! As it turns out, that would be the last puzzle he won for the rest of the show. His grand total winnings: $8,100 cash and prizes. $1,000 of it was a gift card to gourmetfoodstore.com. You should go check out that website. There's a LOT of caviar. YUM. :) Richard went on to bonus land and Austin and Scott went backstage to sign their final paperwork. And just like that it was all over. That was the fastest 20+ minutes ever! During the 15 minute break between the 4th and 5th taping, we headed out. Scott was done. We wanted to hear all about his day! We walked the "miles" back to where the car was parked. We took one more picture with our spray-tanned contestant, with his Wheel name tag.

Again, please note the beautiful parking garage backdrop.

We drove back to our hotel, had a drink while Scott told us his story and then called it a night! We had to leave for the airport at the crack-o-dawn, so some sleep was in order. We flew from Vegas to Atlanta to Charlotte the next day, Sunday. Scott had a work-related conference in Charlotte, starting at 8am Monday morning. Poor guy did NOT get a lot of sleep for a while...

Scott's description of his day, in non-sentence form as it was told to me: 17 contestants met at the desk at 8am that day. Taping 5 shows, 3 contestants per show, 2 alternates. Walked us to the stage. Got to spin the wheel. Took us to fill out paperwork (tax documentation, legal mumbo jumbo). Talked to a legal guy about the legal mumbo jumbo paperwork. All the rules were explained. Were supposed to let them know if we could see anybody in the audience that we knew. Point them out and they would move the person out of view. All the potential prizes and types of puzzles and game play and strategies were explained. For example: They wanted to limit the number of words you were saying. Less "please" and "I'd like to buy a vowel. More "I'd like to buy an A." 2 people at a time were getting their makeup done at a time while they talked to us about legal stuff. Fed us lunch. Spaghetti. Tempting us to spill stuff on our clothes. After lunch and make-up, split into groups of 3 which the Wheel people had decided on. Then randomly chosen which taping, which position at the wheel. I was the 4th taping. Then we were taken in groups of 3 to tape our commercial that would air locally and the interview that was posted online. Got to play some practice games on stage with the wheel, a practice Pat and practice Vanna. Someone got to practice winning a car and practice spinning the bonus wheel. We went backstage and talked more while the audience was seated. They lead us out to our seats and they taped the 1st three shows. Couldn't talk to anybody. Needed permission and an escort to go to the bathroom. After the 3rd show, went backstage again. Had dinner. More spaghetti. Waited until the next taping. Went backstage for my taping. Was miked-up and led on stage. Given a 5 minute boot camp on spinning the wheel. Adjusted our height platforms we were each standing on. Tested our buzzers to make sure they worked for the pop up puzzles. Familiarized us with the used-letter board, which also shows each contestants' name and money they have won thus far. Taping flew by. Doesn't take much longer than 30-40 minutes to tape. 3-5minute breaks where commercials are. During each break, contestant coordinators gave us pep talks and brought us water. Told us if we needed to be louder. Retouched our makeup. Before we started again they would tell us what type of puzzle was coming up next. Earlier during the rules-portion of the explanations, they told us if we thought there was a mistake in the puzzle, not to bring it up during the taping, but to wait until a commercial break. I, too, thought it was "swimming along with tropical fish"and thought they had made a mistake. Right before Austin tried to solve it, i realized it was "among", not "along". Costly mistake for her! After it was over, took us back stage, took our microphones, filled out paperwork re: whether we wanted to keep all our prizes or decline them. Went back to our seats with the other contestants and watched Richard in the bonus round. After the taping was totally done, met back up with the family. What a day!

It certainly was a whirlwind of a trip. We were on the ground in Vegas less than 48 hours. Scott was treated like a king all day as a contestant. He was surprised to hear how we were treated as threats. :) If I had a chance to watch another taping of Wheel of Fortune, I would do it in a heartbeat. I just wouldn't recommend it if you KNOW any contestants!!

Thus concludes this NOVEL. :)

wait one more thing: if you missed the episode that aired Dec. 30, 2010, catch it on youtube: Scott's Wheel Episode.

Wheel continued...

2011-01-24T20:44:00.000-05:00

Let's recap where we are in the story:

Peter enjoyed the check-in process!

More artisticness, thanks to Nikki and Peter.

Looks like our hotel room overlooks Heaven itself with that glow...

Lunch after we got checked in. YUM. Peter, look at the camera.

There ya are, Peter. Now look at the camera and SMILE. :)

Nikki got a little star struck. Smoochie smoochie!

View from our hotel room. Not exactly Heaven. Just Vegas.

Cool monorail that we never tried out.

Bruce and Gail treated us to a lovely Maggiano's dinner.

We had a lovely view from dinner.

Peter and Nikki, as you can tell, were a blast to be with. :)

Sisters, sisters...there were never such devoted sisters...

Also, it was 1.5 million degrees out.

If I ever go back to Vegas, I want to stay there.

The smoky haze in front of Treasure Island was from the pirate ship cannons.

This was super fun to see while we were out and about.

Attempt #1 at a picturesque scene...

Attempt #2. Stop talking, Betty Anne.

Attempt #3.

Ah...finally. A decent picture. :)

Inside the Wynn.

Outside the Wynn. Where I was tempted to buy a car...

Scott at the Wheel of Fortune slots. Ironic?

Some tubular tunnely thing.

Bellagio fountain show. Very cool to watch!

In front of the Bellagio, after the fountain show.

up next... Taping Day!

Wheel of Fortune

2011-01-24T19:45:00.000-05:00

Ahhhh... Wheel. This show has been a feature story in our lives for the past 15 months. And will continue to be so for at least another 4 months. Lemme 'splain....

Oct '09: Wheelmobile comes to Raleigh, NC. We see it on the news during the week. Scott jokes about going to try out. That particular fateful Saturday, Scott joins a couple thousand other folks in downtown Raleigh to try out for the show. The line wraps around the city block. Everybody puts some basic contact information on a card and that card is tossed into a huge bin that they rotate to "mix". Throughout the day, they pull 5 cards at a time out of the bin. The 5 chosen people would play a fake game of Wheel. There was a fake Pat and fake Vanna. The point was to be peppy, clap a lot, smile a lot and look fun. They played round after round of fake games. Scott was about to leave in order to catch a football game he wanted to see. He decided he would kick himself later if he didn't stay and make SURE his name wasn't called. The last round, the 3rd name of 5 names called was SCOTT. Yay! He gets to play! He's really, really glad he didn't leave early. At the end of the time, they tell everyone that played "If you made it to the next round of auditions, we'll be in touch in 1 to 2 months. Or 3 or 4...." They also said a few names would also be randomly chosen from the bin of cards. So, the waiting begins....

Jan '10: Scott gets an email saying "Round 2 of auditions will be held in Raleigh on such-and-such a date in January. Let us know if you can make it." No question about it. Scott is going to attend. The crowd for Round 2 of auditions is much, much smaller than the first crowd. There were more fake games played. Lots of clapping. Lots of smiling. Also, a written test was administered. Scott describes it as a "bunch of partially filled in hangmans". He only is able to fill in a few before the time is up. He hopes it's enough. Side note: for a teacher like Scott, doing well on tests is a point of pride. At Round 2 of auditions, you actually meet the producers of Wheel. You have an opportunity to introduce yourself and say a little something as part of your audition. At the end of that day, the producers say "You'll get a letter in 2-3 weeks if we want you to be on the show." No letter, no show. Plain and simple. So....we wait. Starting about one week after Round 2, Scott checks the mail religiously. Up to this point, I didn't know he knew which box was ours in the mail room.

Two weeks pass. No letter.

Two more weeks pass. Still no letter.

Now it's been a month since they said "2-3 weeks". Scott is feeling disappointed. He knew it was a long shot to begin with, but still, the disappointment remains. We go from watching Wheel every. single. night. to NEVER watching it. We don't talk about it either. Wheel has become a bad word. :)

April '10: We're getting in the bed one night. Scott is setting his alarm (on his cell phone), per his nightly routine. He notices he has a missed call from an unrecognizable phone number. He grumbles. "Probably one of my students," he says. He was teaching an online class that frequently had students and parents from non-Raleigh area codes calling him. He checks the voicemail and promptly STARTS. FREAKING. OUT. I practically have to pull him down from the ceiling to find out what that voicemail was all about. It was Cassandra from Wheel of Fortune calling to let him know the letter they sent had been returned to them. They want him on the show, but need his correct address. OH. EM. GEE. This is BIG news. Wheel has returned to our good graces with one simple phone call. I'm pretty sure Scott didn't sleep a whole lot that night. Over the next couple days, Scott and Cassandra play phone tag. He leaves his address on her voicemail. The waiting begins again. He starts checking the mail again. Every day. Within a short time, the blessed letter arrives!!! Oh what a happy day!

In the letter, it says they want him to be on the show. They will call him 10-14 days prior to his taping date and let him know when and where to be. Oh, and this phone call will be sometime in the next 18 MONTHS. Wow. Showbiz is ROUGH. Lots and lots of waiting. So....we wait again.

June 30, 2010: Scott gets THE CALL. They want him in Las Vegas on July 17th for his taping of the show. Scott calls me at work to tell me the news. Scott rarely calls me at work, fyi. July 17th is sort of problematic, though. He is due in Charlotte, NC at 8am on July 19th for a week long conference. We discuss it briefly and then decide a) 10-14 days notice will never be convenient, b) can you really say no to Wheel of Fortune? and c) at least July isn't during the school year, which would be even harder to negotiate with Scott's teaching job. He calls them back and says "I'll be there!" We then spend the next few days in a frenzy trying to nail down plane tickets and hotel reservations. The good news is, because of the recession, Vegas is hurting for customers. Hotels had some great deals going. The bad news is booking flights less than 2 weeks out is almost always expensive when you have the time constraints we did. The day of the taping, Scott had to be there by 8am, which means we had to arrive the day before at the very latest. And preferably not late at night the night before. The taping would potentially last until 10pm or so, which meant we had to stay a second night. We needed to leave early on the Sunday after the taping to get him back to Charlotte in time for his 8am conference Monday morning. This makes travel arrangements tricky. We can't do some of the cheapest online flight scheduling options because you have to be able to be flexible with what time of day you fly. We didn't have that flexibility. So we spent a lot on plane tickets. But hey, we saved on hotels! During the few day travel planning frenzy, we also managed to coordinate with Scott's parents, Bruce and Gail, as well as friend Peter and my sister Nikki. All will be joining us in Vegas for the big event. FUN TIMES!! I had gracious coworkers that were willing to switch whatever days I needed to switch to enable me to go with Scott.

Thursday, July 15, 2010: Drove to Charlotte and stayed with Grandma the night before our flight to Vegas.

Friday, July 16, 2010: Alarm went off at an UNREASONABLE hour in order for us to make our equally unreasonable flight time.

Peter met us at the airport. The plan was to get checked in through security and then eat breakfast while we waited for our flight. Well, security took about 5x LONGER than expected. We had concerns about missing our flight altogether. Forget breakfast! We hustled and were able to make the flight. Phew!

Yay! We made it! Boo...we're hungry.

Our plane looked like this. :)

We did not fly direct. I've found that usually tends to be a poor choice. If it's possible to fly direct, pay the extra money and do it. So. worth. it. But, we did not. So we flew to Atlanta first, then to Vegas. In our case it worked out since we were starving. :) We had plenty of time to deplane, eat a food, and replane. When we got to Vegas, we met up with Nikki and Bruce and Gail at the airport. Found our way to the rental car place and off we went to the hotel. THANK YOU BRUCE AND GAIL FOR RENTING A BIG CAR that fit all of us and Bruce for driving us around a crazy city!

In case you weren't sure, Vegas in July is HOT. We are glowing in this picture.

Our hotel in the distance. Driver Bruce, Onward!

Attempting to be artsy...

Checking in. SO. VERY. EXCITED.

to be continued....

Christmas Aftermath

2011-01-13T15:45:00.000-05:00

Usually after Christmas feels like such a let down to me. I enjoy the holiday season. The decorations, the music, the PRESENTS, the family time. Oh, and let's not forget what the whole season represents in the first place: the birth of Jesus. In contrast, the end of the holiday season used to involve going back to school, homework, and waiting 12 months until the NEXT Christmas.

But this year is different.

I don't feel the post-holiday lull.

I feel hopeful.

Excited.

We just moved into a new place. We have a baby on the way. I feel like a kid. A kid that thinks the sky is the limit. The beginning of this year feels hopeful. Hopeful like this day felt in July '08:

It's a BOY!!!

2011-01-10T18:11:00.000-05:00

I'm guessing this color will be a dominant feature in our home before we know it!!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

2010-12-12T19:09:00.000-05:00

Or so I hope.

Wow...I have been off the blog-grid for a little while now. Why is that? Well, I found out at the end of September that I'm pregnant. I felt great for 2 weeks after that and then it went downhill from there. I felt nauseous all the time. Vomited 1-2x/day for weeks. It was AWESOME. During this time, I did NOTHING. At all. Everyday. I lounged* in my bed or on the couch. I flexed** at least once a week, so I only worked 2 of my 3 scheduled shifts. I focused all my energy on those 2 days of work.

Side note: I work with babies. There are many sights/smells I encounter every work day that make me want to throw up. And that's when I'm NOT pregnant with a sensitive nose and even more sensitive stomach.

Around 10 weeks, much earlier than I expected this to happen, I started to have some better days mixed in with the bad. I could eat on those days. I felt hungry. I didn't throw up. This felt encouraging! Thankfully, my cousin Michelle's wedding day was one of those good days. I was so excited to eat wedding food and CAKE. :) This is an iphone picture from the wedding. (in not great lighting with no flash, sorry for the quality)

At the 13 week mark, I got dramatically worse all of the sudden. As it turns out, I had some sort of stomach/intestinal virus that has been going around. As my sister would say, THAT'S JUST RUDE. I just started to eat again and I get slammed with a vomit-bug. I gotta tell you, if vomiting were a game on the Wii fit, I would be not an amateur, not a professional, but a CHAMPION at it. If you've never played Wii fit, you have no idea what I'm talking about. That's okay.

Here's a picture of my belly (or lack thereof?) from 14 weeks.

I'm down 4 lbs since the beginning of the pregnancy. I'm 14+ weeks now. Feeling good. Loving eating. Not throwing up. I'm BOUND to gain some weight now!

On to Christmas! Illness aside, I have been enjoying the holiday season. Yesterday I made a lot of cookies. (please refer back to my "loving eating" comment) So far I've made Chocolate Crinkles, M&M cookies and sugar cookies.

My mom helped me decorate the house and make it look Christmas-y. Note the surprising lack of presents under the tree. 1) This is actually not surprising at all considering I haven't shopped for any yet. 2) Because once I wrap them, if I put them under the tree, the Grinch's little helper-cats like to UNwrap them. Or at least poke holes in the wrapping paper with their teeth. They also try to ingest all the ribbons.

I went to Pier 1 to pick up a couple missing items. Like a tree topper:

And 2 cute candle holders:

I am not a shopper. Every once in a while I'll get excited about going to look for a particular item. This was one of those times. Pier 1 had a million cute Christmas things I could want. I did well. I only bought 3 things. :) Seriously, how cute are the penguin and snowman??

So....life is getting back on track for me. I am so grateful. I know tons of people deal with much worse than "morning" sickness, and for much longer time frames. I'm thankful that this is the only illness I've faced in the recent past. I'm grateful for a husband who has cared for me well during this extended period of under-the-weatherness. Scott has been kind to call on his way home from work to ask if he needs to pick up anything for me. For example, for a few days, KFC's mashed potatoes and gravy was working for me. Every afternoon he'd bring me some. :)

Oh, forgot to mention this: WE MOVED!! Thanksgiving weekend. We had planned to stay put in our 1 bedroom place until the baby was 6 months old or so. All of the sudden, a 1 bedroom with a "den" (it has a door and a closet, that's a bedroom to me) came available for cheaper rent than we were paying. So, in a matter of 5 days, we moved. Found out about the available apartment on Tuesday. Moved on Saturday, thanks to some extremely gracious family and friends. We're in the same apartment complex, just around the corner from our old place. Now we have a place for baby stuff! I really felt like this was a God-type blessing. It's not a common thing to go up in square footage and go down in rent. Again, I am grateful.

I'm working on Christmas cards. If you receive one, make note of the new address. If you need our new address, email me at baacuff@mac.com. I'll send it to ya.

That's all for now, folks. Be blessed this Christmas season!

-BA

*I used the word 'lounged' here because I couldn't decide how to say "I layed on my bed." Is it "I lied on my bed?" Lyed? You see now why I opted for "lounged". Less controversy.

**'Flexed' means that there were more nurses scheduled to work on that particular day than were necessary for the number of patients (babies) in our nursery. Sometimes you can request to flex (ie--stay home) if they have too many people. Sometimes you are forced to flex because nobody has requested to do so. If they force people to flex, they go by dates, so it's more equitable. For example, if the last time you flexed was in October and everybody else on that work day has flexed in November or December, then it's your turn to flex by dates. Make sense? Good, now you can too can be a nurse. :)

Yesteryear

2010-11-20T09:58:00.000-05:00

When my mom was little, she wanted to be a ballerina. She took years of ballet and dance classes up until her family moved to the country in Williamsburg, Virginia. Because of that move, her access to classes ceased, right before she got her point shoes. Is that what you call them? Toe shoes? Something like that... Anyway, when she grew up and had kids, she decided to give Nikki and I the honor and privilege of attempting to be the ballerina she couldn't be. I don't believe Nikki and I were the most willing subjects.

I give you Ballerina Betty Anne:

Don't I look SOOO excited?! Yeah, I felt as excited as I looked.

These pictures are from 1983. I was 5.

What am I even doing in this picture?? Standing around? THAT'S talent...

Dave Ramsey

2010-11-10T11:38:00.000-05:00

If you've spent any amount of time with me, you know I'm a HUGE FAN of Dave Ramsey. Who is he? Why, I'm so glad you asked! According to wikipedia: David L. Ramsey III (born September 3, 1960) is an American financial author, radio host, television personality, and motivational speaker. I call him a financial guru.

How I found out about Dave:

When Scott and I got married, we knew we'd have to change how we handled our finances as individuals. Neither of us were big into keeping up with the checkbook. We would routinely check our balances online and that was about it. (Some of you are identifying with this methodology.) For our wedding present, our dear friend Peter gave us a Financial Peace University kit. It included everything we needed to get started with our "revamp the finances" project. Thanks Peter!! On our honeymoon, which included some lengthy plane rides, we listened to some of the cds. We were hooked from the beginning. Dave doesn't teach graduate level financial planning concepts. He uses basic common sense that not too many of us like to put into practice, such as SPEND LESS THAN YOU MAKE. Wow...there's a novel concept.

In July of 2008, Scott and I started on our path to financial peace. Combined, we had $75,000 in debt. Two car loans, two credit cards, and two huge student loans. The first baby step is to save $1,000 in a starter emergency fund. We did that. Then on to the debt. Baby step two is pay off all your debt except your house using the debt snowball. Scott is a teacher. I'm a nurse. We make decent livings, but we're not rollin' in it. I was sure it was going to take us 5 years to pay off all our debt. But it didn't. We put together a modest budget (or cash flow plan, for those of you that hate the word budget) and threw every extra dollar at our debt. It took us two years. Twenty-five months to be exact. Now we are DEBT FREEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! (I have a copy of our debt-free call to the Dave Ramsey Show, but I'm not smart enough to figure out how to upload it here. :-/)

In tiny print at the top of the picture is Scott and I's name in the queue waiting to scream 'We're Debt Free' on the Dave Ramsey Show.

It wasn't easy.

I like to take lots of trips. We didn't take exotic trips.

I want to decorate my house. We didn't.

Scott wants a big, flat screen tv. We didn't buy one.

Being disciplined isn't usually "fun", but the rewards are HUGE. What I really love about following a cash flow plan/budget is that it makes some decisions very easy. I don't walk into the grocery store and wonder if I'm about to spend our electric bill money. Everything has a category and a budgeted amount and I have peace of mind knowing groceries, eating out, rent and other necessities are covered. Even none-necessities like entertainment have their own category. We can go to a movie without spending our food money. :) We save all year for Christmas. I have a per-person amount that I can spend. There's freedom in that. Is it hard? Yes. I want to buy extravagant gifts for people. But we're not there yet. For now, those of you on my Christmas list will have to deal with your $30 gift. :)

What's the point of all this? To me, the point of being disciplined with your money is not to get rich, although that's a very real possibility. The point of being disciplined is to be able to help others and give, give, give. I don't know who said this, but I liked it: Nobody would know who the Good Samaritan was if he didn't have any money. In other words, he wouldn't have been able to help out if he was broke. My job as a Christ-follower is to point people to Jesus. One of the ways I hope to do that is by financially helping people in need. What if Christians were, on the whole, diligent with their money? What if that led to Christians funding programs that help those in need instead of the government? What if we led by example how to love and care for others? I don't mean to make this a political thing. It isn't. I just mean to say that if people we wiser with their money, there would be more available to pay rent for a single mom or fully staff an orphanage and supply the needs of those children. It could happen...

Dave says within a marriage, there is usually one nerd and one free spirit. Nerd = spread sheet keeper, keeper of the books. Free spirit = dreamer, big spender. Scott is a free spirited nerd and I'm a nerdy free spirit. He doesn't like to keep up with the check book or write out the budget each month, but he's not a big spender. I like the spread sheets and for my check book to match the bank to the penny, but I also love to spend money. :) Somehow we make it work.

Soooo...Scott and I are on our way. We're on baby step 3: fully funding our emergency fund. Appropriate, since we have a baby on the way. A fully funded emergency fund is supposed to have 3-6 months of expenses saved up. Not INCOME, expenses. To me, this is a tricky target number to come up with. Imagine if we both lost our jobs. What would it take to keep us afloat until we started working again? We kinda laugh at this (we shouldn't). If Scott the teacher AND Betty Anne the nurse can't find work anywhere, we've got bigger world problems. In that case, should a bomb shelter and supplies be included in our emergency fund? I digress...

One of the funny things Dave says is to "put the dog on craigslist, sell the cat on ebay". Scott was ALL ABOUT us selling the cats. I put my foot down. NO WAY. First of all, what are we going to do with $2 extra dollars that we would get from selling them? Second of all, NO. He said I wasn't being gazelle intense. I said......mean things. We're better now.

My cousin Jon works for Dave Ramsey now. He has a blog you should check out: Stuff Christians Like. Jon is my hero now because he works with Dave. I mean, he was cool before, but NOW... I already looked for nurse job openings at the Ramsey Headquarters. No such luck...

I know I'll have more to say in the future about Dave Ramsey, but for now.... I'll end this mini-novel.

"Live like no one else so later you can GIVE like no one else." -Dave Ramsey

In front of the Dave Ramsey Headquarters in Tennessee!
www.daveramsey.com

Nausea

2010-11-04T19:12:00.000-04:00

Tonight I went to get my nausea medication refilled. I thought this time I would give the brand name, Zofran, a try instead of the generic. I had hopes that the brand name version would work spectacularly better than the generic. We'll never know.

Generic: $20.

Brand name: $889.

Guess that decides THAT for me...

In other news, I have two cats. Cats are vomiters. Hair balls, ate something funny, or just having a bad day, cats throw up on a semi-regular basis. Or at least MINE do. With all this vomiting going on between the 3 of us, I feel we're really bonding on a whole new level. >^..^<

Here we go....

2010-11-03T10:33:00.000-04:00

Scott and I still aren't sure what we've gotten ourselves into, but it's too late to turn back now!! I give you our TEDDY GRAHAM:

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! We are really excited. Scared to death, but excited! We've got so many decisions to make before the baby even arrives. It's overwhelming. But exciting. Did I mention exciting?

I say it's a teddy graham because it looks like one! Don't you remember those lovely little snacks?

You've got to admit, there is a resemblance there (minus the ears). No, we will not be making a snack out of our baby. I'm just sayin.

For you numbers-people:

In the above picture, I was 8 weeks, 2 days. Today I'm 9 weeks pregnant.
Due June 8th, 2011.
I throw up 1-2 times a day. It's a BLAST.
This is my 2nd pregnancy. My first child I placed for adoption when she was born. We'll talk more about that in another post.
With my first pregnancy, I threw up 6+ times a day. This time is slightly better.
This will be my parents 5th grandchild. They are ecstatic.
Mom has made me 2 batches of chicken and dumplings (so far). One of the few things I can keep down.
This will be Scott's parents' 1st grandchild. Let the spoiling begin!
9-10 hours: the number of hours of sleep I require these days. EXHAUSTED.

We have another appointment in 2 weeks, so hopefully I'll get more teddy graham pictures then.

Nick names already being used on this baby: teddy graham, sprout, bean, lizard, harley (as in davidson). Others you'd like to add?

Watch out world, here comes Baby Davidson!

Diving In Too Soon

2010-10-28T14:48:00.000-04:00

Here I am, all excited about having started a blog. Except I'm not sure what to write about. I can think of lots of things, but it all seems "too deep" for this early in a blog-relationship. I feel like I need to go through routine pleasantries before I dive in to the meaning of life and all. So, allow me to introduce myself:

Hi. I'm Betty Anne. Please don't call me Betty. It drives me CRAZY. Although, as my grandfather used to say, it isn't a long drive. My grandmother's name is Betty. My mom's name is Anne. Calling me either name just isn't me. I'm a combo girl: Betty Anne. For the record, I would never name my child a double name. It just doesn't work. People will ALWAYS shorten your name to the first name only. It goes like this--

Me: "Hi, I'm Betty Anne."

Insensitive new person: "Nice to meet you, Betty."

If I'm never going to see this person again, I'll usually let it slide. If I will have regular interaction with someone now determined to call me Betty, creating a nails-on-a-chalkboard-type reaction in me, I'll say "It's Betty ANNE." There, I feel all better having cleared up this issue.

Moving on... I'm a nurse. I work with itty bitty babies in the NICU. I love what I do. I work with great people who teach me lots. I used to be a vet tech at an emergency clinic. Getting bit, scratched and peed on is a regular occurrence in that job. At least working with newborns I get bit and scratched less. Getting peed on is still a more-frequent-than-I'd-like kinda thing. People often ask me if it's hard working with sick babies. I don't think that it is. Not all of them are truly "sick". Some are just early and need time to grow and develop. Others really are sick, but usually for a brief period of time. In my particular nursery, we have predominantly positive outcomes. I like that. This picture is a random picture from the internet, not an actual baby from my nursery, fyi.

I'm married to Scott. He's a high school math teacher. God bless him. He moved from Columbia, SC to Raleigh to marry me, for which I am extremely grateful. :) Scott is a huge fan of dogs and all things football. I'm not a big fan of either, but I'm learning...at least about football... This past summer he was on Wheel of Fortune. This picture is of him after the show, complete with a spray tan and his Wheel name tag!

You can watch his episode of Wheel of Fortune on December 30, 2010. Don't miss it!

I have two cats. I LOVE THEM. If you continue to read this blog, you will hear more about them. Otto is 11 years old. He is orange, persnickety, meticulous and very dedicated to ME. He tolerates Nestle. Nestle is an 8 year old torti who is sloppy, easy going, forgetful, pudgy and ridiculously sweet. She LOVES Otto.

I'm guessing this is enough getting to know me information for now. Was this superficial enough? Was I too harsh about my double name issues???

Humble Beginnings

2010-10-27T10:20:00.000-04:00

So, I did it. I started a blog. Aren't you sooooo excited?? I am. :) I've been wanting to for a long time. What can you expect to read about here?

My life as a:

Christian.
Wife.
Birthmother.
Nurse.
Friend.
Military Kid.
Cat lover.

And probably other things I haven't thought of yet. Stay tuned!

Now for a random picture:

Scott and I in Vegas in 2008.