Passionate Ramblings

I know it has been a while since I have posted about what has been going on in the Yantiss house.

I’m sitting here watching Reily take a nap, so I figured I’d take a couple minutes to write.

Reily is almost a month old, actually a month old tomorrow! I can’t believe that he is already a month old. Life sure does fly by. We have been doing very well here at home. Reily is a good baby. He is currently learning how to sleep during the day, ironically enough. He has the night sleeping down…at least 3-4 hours at a time. During the day though, he can get fussy and not want to nap for longer than an hour. But as he gets older, this will all sort itself out.

He is typically not big on crying either. He really only cries to eat, and when going down for a nap. I am blessed!

Currently, he has a diaper rash. Man, that sure makes you feel like you are a bad mom! Anyway, after going through several “home treatments,” I am using the bag balm which seems to be clearing it up nicely. Poor little bottom!

I have to go back to “work” on friday. By “work” I mean that I am starting back doing nursing clinical instructing. I love it! The students challenge me, and I love teaching. J will be taking Reily on Fridays while I am at the hospital. He is super excited to have “Daddy-Reily” days. I know this will be some great bonding time for them, and a good break for me.

Well, the little one is waking, and it is time for some food! Hope all of you are having an excellent week! Hope to get myself together enough to post more frequently.

Reily is now two weeks old and has met the grandparents! Both sides of the family (grandparents anyway) made their way out to snowy and cold VA over the last couple of weeks to say hello. It was such a special time to introduce them to the precious Reily. He has most certainly made our lives filed with joy and it was easy to see that same feeling in our parents as well. It is always nice to see the parents and spend time with them. Although they were not focused on J and I this trip (I can’t imagine why!) Here are a few pictures for you all

I have a few moments to share Reily’s birth story today. I thought I would take full advantage of it!

Our story starts on Feb.1st when I had my OB check up. My MD wanted to see me on the 1st since my blood pressure and urine protein had been up for a couple weeks. He was on call on Feb 3rd and felt if it was still up, he would want to induce me. Well, this is exactly what happened. I was fine with being induced, as by this time I was SO done being pregnant. I was having contractions off and on for days, just nothing consistent.

So J and I planned on going in on the 3rd. Our OB told me if I had head aches or starting seeing spots to just go in. On the 2nd, I started having a bad head ache in the evening and so I called the on call service to find out if the on call OB wanted me to come in or just wait until the morning. Well after almost 1 1/2 hour wait for the return call, I told J that we should just go in. We drove through the snow and semi-bad roads to the hospital. Praise the Lord that J is an excellent driver in snow (thanks CO for that!) We were in the exam room for almost 3 1/2 hours before the on call OB came in and said things “didn’t look too bad, and you can just go home.” Granted she did give us the option to stay, but I was thinking, “there is NO way I am dealing with her all night long!” So back in the snow we headed back home about midnight (note: we had to call at 6:30am to make sure they had room for us that morning!)

After the shortest sleep ever, I called the hospital to check in. They told us to be there between 7:30-8:00, so we started to get ready and head in. We arrived about 7:45 and got set up in our room. My MD came in, checked me (2cm, 70%, -1) and started the cervadil about 9am. Well, that started me into regular contractions, so for the next several hours we walked and tried to help the process along. About noon, they started me on Pitocin. Again, that continued to make my contractions regular, and while I was starting to have more intense contractions, I was doing well dealing with them. Finally about 7pm, my MD decided to go ahead and break my water. He checked me just prior to that and I was a 3cm, 90%, -1. I was extremely discouraged because I had been laboring all day and had not made much progress.

Well, after my bag of water broke…everything broke loose! It was about the 2nd contraction after the break that I was in extreme pain (10/10 for my fellow nurses out there). I told my nurse I really felt like I needed the epidural at that point. She called right away and got me set up for the epidural. Well, anesthesia arrived about 2 min later and we discovered that I needed to have a more recent platelet level than what they had drawn! So, we had to wait for stat lab to draw and run the sample. Now let me tell you, from my experience, stat lab means 30min to draw, 1 hour to run…I was almost in tears at this point and J’s hand was nearly broken from me squeezing so hard. My nurse was amazing and had the lab draw done and resulted within 25 minutes! She gave me stadol in the mean time to help with the pain. That stuff just makes you sleepy with no pain relief in my opinion. She got anesthesia there in minutes after the result was back. All I have to say is PRAISE GOD FOR EPIDURALS!! The epidural gave me relief and I was feeling so much better. My nurse checked me about 10 min later and I was 7cm, 100%, and +1. She told me to rest and by 10pm I was ready to start pushing.

Ironically enough, the pitocin pretty much stopped working because my contractions spaced out to 15 min apart, so pushing was delayed because we had to dial up the pitocin to make the contractions closer together. Pushing was a slow process. I pushed from 11pm until about midnight with my contractions. J said I was really funny during this time because I was so tired and medicated that I was falling asleep between contractions! About 1am, my nurse told me we would just have to push between contractions to get things moving (because I was pushing well with my contractions, but since they were so far apart, Reily would not stay down.) We pushed like that for about another 45 min and called in my OB to deliver. 3 pushes after he was there, Reily was born!!

It was a long day, but totally worth it!

Jenny posted several of our pictures from our maternity session. Here is how to find them…

http://papernapkinphoto.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/announcing-baby-yantiss/

I have not had a chance to update the blog at all yet, and I will get the actual birth story on the blog soon, but in the mean time…here is several pictures of our baby boy:

Today, J and I took our maternity pictures! I have been looking forward to taking them for MONTHS. It was probably what I was looking forward to most about being pregnant. Weird, I know, but I loved looking at my friend’s and family’s maternity pictures over the years. Plus, it is just such a special time. Having those moments captured was high on my priority list.

I started looking around for photographers several months ago. I totally lucked out when one of my former students showed me here photography portfolio. Her style is exactly what we were looking for, and having someone you know take these intimate pictures is even better! Her name is Jenny Erdman. Jenny came to the house, and we it just felt like we played around for the afternoon. Oh, and she just happened to take a million and five pictures as well. She made us feel so comfortable and natural. I think that one of the major reasons was because we did them in our house. We had quite a few laughs along the way as well! She is also going to take BBY’s newborn pictures/family pictures too.

She will now be working on making us look good (poor thing). I can’t wait to see how they turned out! I will post some in the next few weeks!

Have to love technology! I don’t know why, but my computer as decided it does not want to load my 38 week pregnancy pictures. I will continue to try and get them loaded…sorry for the delay!

So I don’t know why my computer is being mean to me, but for some reason my 38 week pics won’t load. I will attempt to re-post them when the computer decides to cooperate! Sorry all!

On the picture front, J and I are taking maturity pictures this coming Monday (2/1)! I am excited to capture these special moments. It will be the last time J and I are alone in a “family” picture. We bought three picture frames that are going to hang in the living room. One for our favorite maturity pic, one for a newborn pic of BBY, and one of our family. One of my former students, Jenny, is going to be taking the maturity and newborn pics for us! I CAN’T WAIT…but hopefully BBY can, seeing as he will be only 3 days away from his due date.

Well all, I am still reluctantly pregnant. My last OB appointment was this past Wednesday and my stats are still the same…2cm, 80%, but BBY’s head is a little lower. I wouldn’t say I have “dropped” yet, but we are heading in the right direction. My MD thought I would be close to the due date (Feb. 4th) so I am hanging in there. We are down to 11 days before BBY is due. I am hoping I can hang in there until he gets here.

For all of you that have been pregnant, I have hit the “I’m done being pregnant” point. Insomnia has taken over and my hips are sore all the time.

I have to confess that I am scared of the life change that is coming. Like I said, I’m done being pregnant, but I’m not sure I’m ready for being a mom. I just hope that I can do it! Anxiety and fear is normal in this stage “they” say, but it is a little unnerving.

I need some encouragement from those that have been there and survived these feelings…