DIY Delirium

I love DIY (Do It Yourself) projects.  I love them like a teenage girl loves Justin Beiber.  My house is full of them.  DIY projects, not teenage girls.  Many are complete, some are in the works, and most are a figment of my imagination.

I'm ambitious.  I think I can fix, recreate, beautify just about anything.  Especially with a can of spray-paint.  I rock spray-paint.  And every time I buy it, I get carded.  It's hilarious.

The problem is, I'm not motivated to get started on anything.

But I was thinking if I posted about what I want to do, it might make me do it!

Blogaccountability if you will.

Let's see how that goes.

The biggest project is my kitchen cabinets.  I want to paint them white and put new hardware on them.  They are the builders fugly cabinets.  They give me the willies.

I also need to recreate this bench and put something on the wall above it.  I think I'll keep the seat the same, maybe just stain it.  And then paint the rest.  I'm not sure. This is at my entryway.  It's an unwelcoming, plain and sad way to come home.

I read a lot of books.  Like a ridiculous amount of books.  I have overflowing bookshelves.  Several stacks of books overwhelm my bedroom (this is not a good representation of the books, but you get the idea).  I want to build a bookcase thing-a-ma-jig.  It must have silver leafing on it somewhere.  I've never built anything like this before.  Should be interesting.

Our backyard is embarrassing.  It's the red pimple on the face of our house. We have a huge deck that Nate refinished last summer, and that's the only nice thing back there.  I took this barrel planter from my parents when they weren't looking.  It needs some TLC, and flowers galore.

Goodwill!  How I love thee.  Two little chairs await my creativity.  Oh, and they didn't come with a table.  So I guess I need to make one of those too.  Dang it.

Wish me luck!

Month by Month

Babies change and grow so fast.  You already know that though don't you?  I love to see these changes documented monthly.  I'm excited to see her after a year.  For now, I'm sticking with month by month.  That's already moving too fast for me.

I'll look back at these photographs and remember her at each stage.

I'll remember her sleepy little self at one month.  Her angelic little face.  Her constantly poopy diaper.

I'll remember her first smile at two months.  Her baby acne.  Her move to 0-3 month clothes.

I'll remember her bight eyed at three months.  Sleeping though the night.  Her ability to melt my heart.

I can't wait to see her in April...

NICU Days

Andrey spent five days in the PSL NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit).  Three of those days in the level three NICU.  The level three unit is the real deal NICU.  It's where the sickest babies are.  Machines are constantly beeping and alarms are going off.  Nurses are checking and rechecking vitals.  It's cramped and chaotic.  We saw other parents come to visit their tiny and sick babies.  They had to put their hands though small holes on an isolette to touch their children.  They had been there weeks, some months.  It's wonderful that this place exists, but you never want to be there.  After three days she moved to the "graduated" NICU.  Here, babies go to grow and get ready to go home.

On her second day in the NICU she had a MRI to assess the cystic hygroma.  She needed to be sedated for this procedure, and that was really difficult to see.  We were not allowed to follow her to the MRI, but we waited by the elevators to see her being wheeled back.  I was a mess.  When she came out of the elevators the nurse saw us sitting there and told us to give her five minutes before we reentered the NICU to see her.  She assured us everything was fine, and it was.  It took Andrey about 12 hours to come out of the anesthesia and that was tough.  She had a feeding tube in, oxygen (just in case) and was hooked up to several machines.  The results came in the next day and the surgeon said there was no need to do anything about the hygroma right now.  We were so relieved that she wasn't going to have surgery yet.

Each day we went to visit her with a sad and heavy heart.   I felt sorry for myself that my little girl was not well enough to be home with me.  Upon entering the secure unit, my bad attitude changed from selfish demands to empathy for other families.  Our girl was by far the healthiest baby in there.  She was HUGE compared to other babies.  She was breathing on her own.  She was pink (most of the time, she did have two bouts of jaundice though). We were originally told by the Neonatologist that she would probably be in there until her due date.  Nate and I mentally prepared ourselves to make the 40 minute drive everyday- trying to wrap our minds around how we would do it for 5 or more weeks.  We got a call on December 23rd when we were about to walk out the door to the hospital.  It was one of the nurses saying we could take Andrey home that day.

We were so thrilled and terrified at the same time.  She was just 4lbs and 12oz at this point (but gaining really fast which is why they let us take her then).  I didn't know if I was capable of taking care of her.  I had never been with her without a staff of highly trained people around us.  About three hours later, we left for the hospital.  I needed to clean my ceiling fans, vacuum everything, wash baby clothes.  I needed to panic and pray.

I'm incredibly grateful for the NICU staff.  I'm grateful she only spent five days in the NICU.

I'm just, grateful.

Growin' and a Changin'

She has already changed so much.

I don't want to miss a moment.  

And Baby Makes Trois! (that's three in French people)

So like, I had a baby.  It hurt.

Sorry about my blogging absence.  After Andrey came, I didn't have access to a computer.  Nate and I just bought a new iMac.  It's freakin' awesome!  Now I don't have an excuse.

There is no way that I can update everything that has happened in one post.  So I'll start with December and go from there.  I find it interesting to reread what I posted on Dec 16th.  I posted a lot about my fears, and many of them came true.  Turns out, I was afraid for nothing. I went into labor on the 17th and had her on the 18th.  She was due January 24th.

Preterm labor is no joke.  I woke up on Friday morning, started to get ready for work and suddenly started bleeding.  Fortunately Nate was still home, so we rushed to Littleton Hospital.  The nurses there gave me a shot of Terbutaline to try to stop my contractions.  My appointment was that day to have my care transferred to the high risk practice, so I wasn't a patient with them yet.  The doctor that I was seeing (Dr. A), who authorized the transfer, was called by my regular OB.  Dr. A decided Littleton Hospital was not prepared to handle my delivery (what?  did she think I was having the baby or something??) so she ordered me to go to Pres/St. Lukes (PSL).  Now, it would make too much sense financially for us to drive ourselves there so I had to ride in an ambulance with high risk L&D nurses.  These two women, (Flight Team!) were called from home to come transport me to PSL.  They were wearing skydiving suits.  I swear.  When they arrived at Littleton they saw my contractions were still going so they started me on magnesium sulfate.  That stuff sucks.  It made me feel like I was having menopausal hot flashes.  It's the strongest drug available to stop contractions.  They assured me it would work.  I bumped my way along the road to PSL, with Nate riding in front of the ambulance.  I just kept thinking "I'm not ready to have a baby.  My ceiling fans are dusty."

We arrived at PSL and the "Flight Team" told the PSL nurses everything they knew.  They were saying things like "the patient isn't responding to the mag" and blah blah blah.  Huh...I'm not responding to the mag?  Crap.  The new nurse in charge gave me another round of mag, put a catheter in (it hurt so bad I almost judo chopped her, plus she was sassy and deserved a judo chop) and informed me I would be at the hospital until I had my baby.  I thought; "seriously, what am I going to do here for weeks."

My new enemy (ahem...the mag!) didn't work the second time around.  Sassy nurse then informed me she was going to let me go into labor.  NO!  There was a man delivering babies that day.  I don't want a man! (Well I do want a man...but I already have one.  Duh!)  All my fears dissolved when this man came in to check my progress, and he was totally pleasant.  Who would have thought?

Meanwhile my mom was in Illinois because my sister had a baby four days earlier.  I needed my mom.  She caught a flight and made it in time to brush my hair, hold my hand (and eventually a leg), pray fervently, and just be there for Nate and I.

Early Saturday morning, maybe around 3am, I got an epidural.  I didn't like it.  It made me numb.  Okay, I know you're thinking that's what it's supposed to do.  But it freaked me out.  I couldn't feel my legs and I like to feel my legs.  They are vital to me.  I annoyed the anesthesiologist to the point where he said "you're only allowed to ask 20 questions".  He was great and had a good sense of humor.  I needed a lot of reassurance I was going to walk again.  Poor guy.

After pushing for about two hours, and telling/yelling at my husband to hold my leg stronger and my mom to stop texting my dad (seriously mom, you're holding a leg and texting?!), Andrey Grace was born. It was 8:18am.  She was 5lbs 1oz and 18inches long.  Just a little squirt.  She cried immediately.  What a relief.  I had been given a steroid shot to develop her lungs, and I guess she didn't need it.  She was strong enough for me to hold her for about a minute before the NICU team took her away.  I was so grateful for that minute.  The doc who delivered me (ended up being a WOMAN! score!) had warned me she would probably be taken away immediately.  It was intense to have a room full of people.  The NICU team was very impressive and thorough.  Nate went with Andrey and my mom stayed with me.

I'll wrap this up here, as I can see you're starting to lost interest.  I went into labor because of a placental abruption.  AKA - My placenta tore away from the uterine wall.  AKA - Not a good thing.  About 30 seconds after Andrey came, so did my placenta.  This is not normal people.  I got ANOTHER epidural, and had a curettage procedure preformed (it's the C when referring to a D&C) to remove remaining tissue.  Because of the second epi, I couldn't walk for 5 more hours.  So I had to wait that whole time to go see Andrey.  I wet the bed.

It was a traumatic and amazing experience.  Every bit of pain, fear and worry was worth it.  I'm so in love with my little girl.  The Lord chose me to be her mother and I would do it all again, every day to have her.

Due to the fact we were not ready to have a baby, we didn't have a camera with us.  So here are a few pictures from when she was about two days old.

Here she is under the bilirubin lights for her jaundice.

More to come friends.

Did anyone read this?  Mom?