Latest Chloe Jabberings

*"Mom! Open wis up fo me. Cause I have small claws."

* She was dressed as a fairy and had a wand and so I asked her if she wanted me to put wings on her. So I took the wand and said "Ding!" while touching her back with the wand.
She took her hand and felt on her back and said, "Hey! There no wings there?!"

* When I was at the hospital having Macie she stayed with my sister-in-law. She said she overheard the conversation between Chloe and her 4 year old Charlie.
After they had cleaned up some toys my sister-in-law told them thanks, and Chloe said, "My Mom gives me a hug."
And then she said, "Wait? Where her at again?"
And then Charlie said, "You know...she's at the hospital where the doctor is going to squeeeeeeeeze your sister out of your Mommy's tummy."

*She was afraid to sleep in her bed and she told me it was because there are monsters in her room. I told her monsters are not real. And she told me, "Yes they aw...they wiv on Sesame Stweet."
Then I tried to explain they were just puppets which didn't get very far. Next up I plan on telling her the truth behind Santa and the Easter Bunny. Because I want to ruin her childhood.


Macie has been saying a lot too...
"waaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!! cough cough...waaaaaaaaahhh...cough cough...."

Wow. I mean...Wow.
I think that thing is a choking hazard.
PS this is NOT my child.

Bliss.

The Proper way to swaddle.

Today I came home to find Macie in her crib swaddled. If a ninja swaddled babies, this is how I think he would do it.
That ninja is Don.
I laughed for a good 5 minutes.
If you can't tell, her blanket is taped to make it impossible for her to get her arms out.
And she is very happy about it as you can see.

And this illustrates the difference between Don and me.
When Don does something, he likes to make sure it is done right the first time.
When I do something...it is usually fast...and I usually have to redo it or put on a band aid.

Examples:
When I put up a picture I get out a shoe and a nail.
And I usually make about ten holes in the wall before I get it in the right place.

When Don puts up a picture, he gets out the measuring tape, his leveler and a pad of paper and a pencil.
And I am the scribe while he measures walls.
Then he gets a single nail and the hammer.
Perfect.

Or when I vaccuum I push the vacuum back in the closet and throw in the cord and shut the door.
When Don vacuums he rolls the cord up nicely and gently places it back in the closet.

Or when I put shoes on Chloe, I throw her the flip flops.
Don gets out the socks and shoes.

And I am grateful for these differences.
Cause some (okay most) of the time, his way produces better results.

BUT if he had to put the shoes on chloe day after day after day...I think he would switch to flip flops too.

Can you tell I'm obsessed? Just in case you missed the other post....

Today out of the blue Chloe started asking me questions about God.
And then she started asking me questions about my Mom.
She asked me, "Mom, why your Mom die? Did someone put a spell on her?"
(this I owe to Disney movies like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty)

And then she said, "But I really wanna see your Mom. I wanna see my Grandma."

Ugh. These questions are kind of hard to answer in 3 year old language.

The Story.

Macie is 10 days old today. I have been meaning to tell the story of her grand entrance, but somehow I am a little swamped. What, with naps and nursing and nursing and eating and nursing and all.

I am a little exhausted. I am trying something new tonight and putting her in a different room. I need some sleep and her constant "eh eh eh" noises keep me awake. And then Chloe ends up in our bed too. So by 6 AM I am ready to kill the rest of the Mortensen clan. I DO NOT want a communal bed.

That being said, now I can continue on. Oh wait. Macie is crying.

Sigh.

I'll be back.

Well I took a long break.

So the different room thing didn't work. I tried, but exhaustion won and she ended up in my bed again.

Dangit.

Okay. Well NOW here is the story.

February 4th (Friday) was just an ordinary day. I watched my friend's daughter in the morning and then my friend Robyn came and paid me a visit. I was excited to see Robyn, she lives in Flagstaff and I hardly ever to get to see her. She brought me some headbands for the baby, just like she did last time for Chloe.

So Robyn and I were chatting, and in the midst of it, I sat down and suddenly felt like I had peed my pants.

My first thought was, dang. Now I have no bladder control.

Well it kept happening. And I became more and more confused.

After Robyn left I called my Dad to get his advice. He told me that my water might have broke.

I asked, so if it did, what does that mean?

And he told me, well they would admit you to the hospital and induce labor.
I was shocked.

It hadn't occurred to me until then that I could be having my baby very soon. I became really excited, although I tried not to get too excited because I didn't want to get my hopes up, after all. I was not sure yet if my water had broke.

I called Don and told him I needed him to come home and that we might be having the baby soon. He was shocked as well. "But we aren't ready! We are supposed to have a couple weeks still!"

He came home and we packed our bags just in case. I had my Dad come and pick Chloe up and then we all headed over to the hospital which is literally 2 minutes away from my house.

By the time I got to the hospital there was no doubt my water broke and I knew I was having this baby.

But here was the catch. I had to have all my blood thinning medication out of my body before I could get an epidural. And that was not going to happen until 11:00 AM the next morning. I was admitted to the hospital at 6:00 PM, so I was very nervous that I would go into labor before 11:00 AM and I could not get an epidural.

Well I was put in a delivery room and hooked up to all the monitors and the plan was to just wait it out and see what happened. In the meantime they were pumping me full of fluids and giving me the strep B stuff (penicillin) through the IV. Oh news flash, that stuff burns! I felt like I broke my arm.

I had a hard time sleeping. I was excited and anxious, and I had to get up and pee every hour, which was like a 20 minute process.

I got through the night and no signs of impending labor. Maybe a tiny cramp here or there but that was it.

As the clock got closer and closer to 11:00 AM my anxiety level started to decrease.

At noon I was induced. And boy, that was fast acting. A half hour into it I was feeling it. The contractions were consistently 3 minutes apart, and they got heavier and heavier fast. I asked for my epidural before it got too bad because I knew it would take some time to actually get the epidural. By the time I got it, 2 PM, I was getting desperate. And then my Knight in shining armor came in and stuck my back with a needle and suddenly life had meaning again.

After that is was smooth sailing. I was happy as a clam and was able to actually get some rest. My right leg was a tree stump while my left leg had a little more feeling. My right leg fell off my bed once and after several failed attempts, I had to call in my nurse to put it back on my bed.

At about 5:30 PM my doctor came in and checked me and I got the news-I was ready to push! I thought, well this is all going way too smoothly!

And so, I started to push. I could tell by the looks of the 50 billion people in the room that I was not making too much progress. But they kept trying to encourage me.

After about an hour and a half, my Doctor said to me, "You know, I think you need a c-section. The baby's head is not straight and she is stuck she can't get out. You can keep pushing, but my honest opinion is that you need a c-section."

Well I was pretty upset. I had not gone through all this work to end up with a c-section. And the thought of having to recovery from both kinds of delivery made me really depressed.

I asked if everyone could leave for a few minutes so I could be alone with Don and decide what course of action I should take.

The first thing I did when we were alone was to tell Don to call his parents and tell them to start praying. Within minutes we had his parents and siblings praying for us.

My Dad came in the room and asked if I wanted a second opinion. He was already dressed in his scrubs because he had been at the hospital doing a c-section.

At first I said no. It sounded really awkward. But then Don convinced me to do it.

So my Dad looked and told me that he thought I could do it, and that I should keep pushing. By this time my epidural was wearing off and the feeling was coming back. I was not in pain, but I could feel that urge to push that I have never felt before. And so with my Dad and Don in the room, I pushed. It was a really cool experience to have my Dad being involved with the process, I would have never planned it that way, but just so happened that it worked out that way and it as an experience I will never forget.

My Dad left the room to go get my Doctor and the rest of the crew, and when they came in they were all surprised by the progress I had made.

My Doctor said, "We should leave the room more often. Guess your prayer worked."

So we resumed our positions and after about 5 sequences of pushing, little Macie entered the world at 7:44 PM, weighing 7 pounds 11 ounces.

I felt like the stars had aligned for me that day and that all had worked out in my favor, and I was blessed with an unforgettable experience. I was on cloud 9 for days.
And I still am...well more like cloud 5. I'm a little tired.

Thanks for reading.

Chloe-ism

If you are really bored and want to see some pictures of Macie, go to this website.
www.Our365.com

Then search by customer number
72202321054232

That same number is the password, and the first four letters of my last name are MORT.
This I mention for all of my anonymous friends and blog stalkers who have nothing else to do but look at a stranger's baby pictures.

My blog is very, very popular. Sometimes I get 2 whole comments.

P.S. Don really likes the picture of himself and the baby (cough cough) It is very Don like don't you think?
Now you are gonna go look...

Anyway, Macie is a week old today and she is an angel. I am enjoying this phase SOOOOOOOOOOO much more than last time. Not that I didn't absolutely adore Chloe, but I was rather traumatized by the whole experience, was in a lot more pain afterwards, and was totally shocked by the huge life adjustment.

Now I am a little more used to a child's needs coming before my own and I had mentally prepared myself for the recovery.

However, Macie hardly ever cries, unlike Chloe, who now I realize was extremely colicky. I have no idea how to spell that word.
And, my body is healing much faster. That's probably because I ran 10 miles up until the day of delivery.
Okay, no I didn't.

I am really enjoying my little Macie.

Oh did I mention she has jaundice and has to have a "billy blanket" wrapped around her all day. She has had it on for almost 3 days and I am pretty sick of it. Although she does make an excellent night light.

Chloe told me yesterday:
"Mommy. Baby sista not have any eyebrows.
We glue some on?"

So we did.
Just kidding.

Macie comes to earth.

Macie Leigh Mortensen arrived Saturday February 5th, 2011 at 7:44 PM. Weighing in at 7 pounds 11 ounces. 37 weeks and 2 days gestation and 2 weeks prior to my scheduled inducement.

My joy is immense and I just want to cuddle and stare at her all day. Unfortunately I have to take baths with an inflateable donut sometimes so I am not totally free to do that.

More details later...but it was an amazing experience and better than any Super Bowl in the history of super bowls. Although I wouldn't know much about that cause I don't really care about the Super Bowl. But seriously, it had all the makings of a historic game: surprise, waiting, pain, exhileration, drama, down and out, losing in sight, faith, team work, encouragement, screaming, cheering, and then pulling out the win in the end....

I can't wait to tell you all about it.

I am going to go stare at Macie now.

Yesterday Chloe was being less than delightful during my piano lessons.

So Don put her in her room.

Next thing I know I hear the most pathetic poetry reading of "Twinkle, Twinkle."

From the back room I hear Chloe giving her mournful speech:
"Twinkle Twinkle Wittle Staw.
How I wonda whad you awe..."

And so on....

I couldn't stop laughing.
I asked Don what in the world she was doing that for.
He told me he told her she could come out of her room when she was happy and that he wanted her to sing "Twinkle, Twinkle."

I guess she couldn't bring herself to sing it, so she just spoke it.

14 days...14 days...14 days...I can do it...I can do it...I can do it...I can...do...i.....

Melissa Get's In Trouble.

So yesterday I went to my Doctor.

And while I was waiting in my little room, I decided I would take my shot. Which by the way, was really late in the day to be taking my shot. Bad Melissa.
But if you had to give yourself shots twice a day you would procrastinate too wouldn't you? They are so tedious. In case you don't know why I take shots, it is because I had a blood clot in my leg a few years back so I have to take blood thinner while pregnant. But only while pregnant, thank goodness!

Anyway, so I was taking my shot, and I was almost done and the Medical Assistant knocked and I said come in. It wasn't on purpose, but I quickly put my shot stuff away, and it looked like a just threw it on the floor, when really I was landing it in my purse. I guess I looked suspicious. So she comes in and sort of flips out.

She thought I was shooting up.

I quickly explained, but she was still weird.

Then I heard her outside say, "Ya well I came in and she was dropping everything on the floor."

I thought, could we please not announce this to the entire back office staff?

So then my Doctor came in and said, "So I guess Jennifer thought you were shooting up." And he kind of laughed.

And then I had to explain why I was taking my shot so late in the day and how I have been a very bad girl in getting my blood checked.

And then I had the Strep B test.

And I said, well 3 uncomfortable awkward situations are about all I can handle in one day, and I went home.

I don't think I have ever been suspected of being a drug user.
And I hope it never happens again.

The end.