March to May photo-biography

I took a small hiatus from the blogging world...a couple months is small right?? We have been very busy. So what's been happening since my last post...

We went to Temecula.

Some of Temecula came to us.

We celebrated Easter.

Jason's dad  (Grandpa Steve) visited.

Jaden started rolling over.

 Jaden started smiling

We celebrated my first Mother's Day.

We went to Temecula again.

I started hiking again :)

We celebrated Memorial Day.

Grandpa Steve leaves tomorrow.

No Junk June starts in 1.5 days! More on that to come.

A Labor of Love: Jaden Rose

March 8, 2012 marks the most physically painful and emotionally fulfilling day of my life. At 6:08 a.m. my husband and I welcomed our baby girl Jaden Rose Graebner into the world. Or rather he did and I was asleep, but we will get to all of that soon enough! She weighed 8lbs. 5oz and was 19.5 inches long.

Tuesday, March 6th, Jason and I stayed up late and watched a movie- Anonymous- good, long movie. We went to bed at 1:15 a.m. Wednesday. Jason quickly fell asleep and was abruptly woken just 30 minutes later by me shaking him. My water had broken! I was in complete shock because I had just read earlier day that this only happens to abut 15% of women in pregnancy. I ran to the bathroom and Jason frantically packed his hospital bag (the one I had been telling him to pack for days now.) I stood in the bathroom laughing like a crazy woman because I was so excited. Baby was coming! 

At this point in time I am having very light contractions. We finished picking up a couple things around the house and headed to the hospital. Upon arriving my contractions were now 2-3 minutes apart- still very little pain. They did an initial workup on me and hooked me up to a bunch of machines that monitor the baby's heart and my contractions. After receiving the results from my bloodwork I was admitted due to preeclampsia. Preeclampsia is somewhat of a diagnosis before the diagnosis. It's a condition that occurs before eclampsia (duh) and is characterized by high blood pressure, swelling, and protein in the urine. I had been having major swelling and slight protein in my urine for some time now but my blood pressure had remained good and the previous lab results were negative. My blood pressure as this point...150/114. Not so good at all. Eclampsia is a risk because your body sees your pregnancy as a tumor and literally attacks it, therefore causing seizures. You can see now why I'm not allowed to leave.

After hours and hours of 'non-active' labor our midwife suggested we use medical intervention. As many of you know we wanted a 100% natural birth so this was a difficult decision to make. After your water breaks baby needs to be delivered within a timely manner- typically within 24 hours to ensure health. We were offered both cervidil and pitocin. We opted with the lesser of the two evils, cervidil.

The cervidil made my contractions extremely painful! For this I am so very very grateful for such an amazing labor coach. Jason stuck with me through the absolute worst pain of my life, rubbed my back, helped me move around, stroked my hair, all of it! After hours of this our midwife returned with some unfortunate news. I still had not progressed. How after such pain this is even possible I do not know. Our next step then was pitocin. After laboring for 22 hours and having no sleep since Monday night- it is now Thursday morning- I opted for the epidural.

Pitocin only made my contraction much worse, but no progress. I was still 60% effaced and 3 cm dilated :/ Oh did I mention my epi only took on one side? YIKES.

After doing this for a couple hours, how many I am completely unsure because I am in so much pain and quite unhappy, our midwife returned again. This time very serious and not looking very positive. She told us that because of my blood pressure and the fact that I was now developing a fever, we have one more hour to progress before we need to go into surgery, and wants to talk about a c-section.

Jason and I had already had that talk. I was beyond exhausted and completely surprised her with my immediate lets do the c-section!

I was prepped and ready for surgery within minutes. Both Jason and my mother were allowed in the room. Typically they only let you have one viewer for the big show but by this point the staff all felt like we were bffs and made an exception. They tested me to make sure I had taken to the epi and had no response and so surgery began. However, I COULD FEEL. As soon as they began to cauterize me I moaned in extreme pain. At this point I literally thought I could tough it out. I had endured 27 hours of labor...I got this! The anesthesiologist asked if I wanted to be put under to which i stubbornly responded no. I WAS NOT ABOUT TO BE THE LAST PERSON TO FIND OUT IF THIS BABY WAS A BOY OR GIRL!!! The team continued to work on me burning and tugging and pulling. Finally one of the nurses looked over the curtain at me and asked what exactly could i feel. Sharp pains.

At this point going under was no longer an option. Jason and my mother were kicked out of the room and they explained the procedure was going to take a few more minutes and I reluctantly went under. But believe me, I went down fighting.

I fought very hard to wake, but kept coming in and out. As they wheeled me to my new room I heard one of the nurses say "what a goddess." BABY GIRL. I had a baby girl. I finally came too and found the most beautiful baby girl on my chest and husband by my side.

I posted this verse earlier...but now it holds so much more meaning.

"A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world."
~ John 16:21

Jaden's birth was a painful and scary experience, but the joy that comes from this tiny little human is greater than anything I have ever known. Welcome to the world Jaden Rose. Mommy loves you.

What are you having?

At this point in pregnancy (33 weeks & 5 days) there are no means possible to hide such an engorged belly. Because of this I am frequently asked "When are you due?" or the not so nice variation of "You're gonna pop any day now." "You're huge." Finally my personal favorite "You look like you should have had your baby already." Ouch. Following this question is the ever popular question of "What are you having?" My sister in law, Emily, sent me a picture (posted below) addressing this ever pressing question.

hehe harhar

More often than not people are taken back by the fact that I could not know the sex of the human being growing inside of me. This only encourages their curiosity and is followed by "What do you want to have?" or "What do you think you are having?" Lets be perfectly honest here. I have no stinkin clue. If you ask me I will say boy. Why? I don't know.

Initially the idea of having a boy scared me to death. Being from a family of 3 girls, the sound of crashing cars and machine guns have never found my favor. However, somewhere in the last 33 weeks something switched.

How amazing it would be to have a mini Jason?! I started to imagine this little boy mimicking his father's movements ever so closely. Wanting to do everything his daddy does. Growing up to be the man that he is: passionate, loyal, affectionate, faithful, confident. He is pretty good looking too if you ask me ;) I fell in love with the idea of having a boy. Now while I do realize that this little Jason I have made up in my mind follows a simple rule that I know not to be true. A little boy does not mean he will be exactly like his dad and a little girl does not mean she will be exactly like her mother. But its fun to fill my mind with such ideas.

Bottom line. Regardless of if baby Graebner is destined to wear blue or pink I will love him/her just as much.

Baby watch: 32 weeks

I had an appointment with my midwife today. Good news is the baby has been kicking me so much that I know everything is ok :) HE or she...is already working his or her little self down. I have some little feets shoved up under my ribs and get kicks frequently to remind me.

Not so good news...I have pregnancy carpal tunnel syndrome and my glucose levels are too high. So what does this all mean? The carpal tunnel is in large part due to my fluid retention, I'm basically a giant water balloon. It causes me to have achy joints primarily in my fingers and hips and wakes me up at night. Throughout the day it doesn't bother me as much because I am moving around and the fluid doesn't build up as much. It will go away after birth, as for now there is nothing I can do about it except drink parsley tea to rid my body of excess fluids.

As for the high glucose levels. I took the one hour glucose tolerance test on Monday. That consisted of drinking a highly concentrated glucola drink (mine was lemon-lime) then waiting an hour and having my blood drawn. The test results tell how well or not well your body is metabolising glucose. Apparently I didn't do so well. I now have to take another glucose panel. This one will consist of fasting for 10 hours, I will then have my blood drawn, drink the ever so pleasant glucola and have my blood drawn every hour for the following 3 hours. Sounds fun huh?  Then we will know for sure if I do in fact have gestational diabetes. Luckily like the carpal tunnel it does go away. However, women who are affected by it are often a higher risk for diabetes later in life. Gestational diabetes occurs in only 4% of pregnancies. One of the biggest concerns for gestational diabetes is excess growth of the baby. Too big of a baby often results in a Cesarean. Since we are planning an all natural birth that makes me a little uneasy :/ However I do find comfort in knowing that God is in control and things go by His plans not my own.

"A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world."
~ John 16:21

uncharted waters.

Today is the day! The day I officially commit to being a blogger. I have been contemplating the idea for quite a while now and after many failed attempts I am taking the plunge. It's not too late for new year's resolutions right? Speaking of which how are all of yours going? Jason's resolution to get up before 7am every day has failed miserably (muahaha). Thank goodness that is over!

Moving on...you may be saying to yourself get to the point...do I even have one? Answer: YES. I've created this little space of mine to fulfill all of my wildest dreams. Don't you roll your eyes, I'm serious over here. Wishing/hoping/crossing all fingers and toes that writing will hold me accountable to a few things. One. Being more crafty. Two. Sharing the joys & not so of married life, pregnancy & life with baby- which will come eventually...right? Three. Venting (even if no one is really out there and I am simply writing to the black hole which is the Internet:). See I told you, all of my wildest dreams.

So who am I anyways? The basics: my name is Bethany. I have been married for 10 months to the love of my life Jason and together we are having a sweet baby BOY...or GIRL ;) due March 16th, 2012. That makes me 30wks and 5dys and may I just say I feel that pregnant! This glow that people speak of is a fat lie...very FAT. So in an effort to combat the fat I got my hair done today. 

That is all for now. I hope you enjoy the roller coaster that is my life.