New Mommy Moments

In October 2013, I paid my dues and joined the New Mommy club. Early membership wasn’t so easy-peasy, though it did come with perks. Some words that come to mind in describing it are zombie, tiny tot, poop, advice, and blessings.

My First Weeks as a Zombie
Actually, zombies are probably more mobile than I was those first few weeks. At least I assume so; otherwise there's no point fearing a zombie apocalypse. But I felt drained and lifeless like a zombie, simply going through the motions to keep myself in decent shape. I had little desire to eat, and even getting up and using the restroom was an ordeal that took energy. I spent all my time on the couch with Ari. I hardly said a word to her those first few weeks, and wondered if I was a bad mother.

The part of New Mommyhood that I’d heard the most about was sleep deprivation. Though I tried to be ready for it, that’s what took the greatest toll on me. At first it was waking up several times a night. Then it was Ari waking at 3:00am and staying awake for THREE hours. I made it worse by staying with Ari in the nursery the whole time trying to get her to sleep. Wasn’t until later that I realized, Eureka! I can take her into the living room with me and watch TV shows on Netflix to pass the time. Netflix saved my sanity more than once.

Sleep deprivation isn’t the only energy-stealer. Devoting complete attention every minute of the day to a little being that is totally dependent on me creates a level of fatigue that I never experienced before becoming a mom. When Clayton watches Ariana and frees my attention to go elsewhere, I feel a huge wall lift off my shoulders. It’s the reason why new moms can do nothing but watch their babies all day and still be exhausted when night comes. We’re always holding up the wall so it doesn’t fall down on our little ones.

My Own Tiny Tot
One of the greatest perks of New Mommyhood was having my own baby. I could probably count the times on one hand that I’d held a baby for longer than three minutes prior to having Ari. I was always shy about asking if I could hold a baby, and didn’t like to compete against other family members of the baby who also wanted the opportunity. I longed for a baby I could hold whenever I wanted.

I wanted to have that awesome mommy sense of knowing how to calm my baby and take care of her needs. (Not that I always know how to do that, but definitely more than before!) I also wanted to not be afraid of changing a baby’s outfit or giving her a bath. Seriously, before Ari, I had this fear of changing her outfit and getting her head or limbs stuck in the clothes or something. I overcame that fear in about two days, during which I changed her onesie at least six times.

Another perk was her newborn size. Only during those first few months was Ari small enough to cuddle and sleep on my chest. Those moments were priceless.

Poop and Baby Bodily Fluids
The first time Ari squirted poop at us, Clayton and I were changing her diaper together as adorable new parents. We freaked and grabbed the diaper but it came so fast, there was nothing we could do! So we just laughed. That’s really all you can do. Another time, I was changing Ari on the ottoman. The poop exploded out of her like a missile, hitting the ottoman, my shirt, my pants, the couch, a blanket on the couch, and my phone. Tired and not very mobile, I spent a grumpy 45 minutes cleaning it all up. Then I cuddled my baby who looked as cute and innocent as ever, and I couldn’t stay grumpy. But I never stopped wondering how such a tiny person could shoot poop so far from her bum.

We got pooped on plenty of times, but most of the time when her diaper was off, pee was the problem. I knew you had to watch out when changing baby boys. No one told me about girls. The fluid would flow from her like a fountain, and it happened over and over and over. Soon it was a game trying to get her diaper changed before she peed, or opening her diaper to let the cold air in and trick her into peeing before the diaper came off.

Like most normal people, I’m pretty averse to bodily fluids. I’d see a mom wipe the snot away from her kid’s nose and just think, “Oh eww. Is that what I want for my future?” The idea of being covered in spit-up or baby drool made me squirm. Now I’m hardly fazed by baby bodily fluids and I’m an expert at removing poop stains from clothes--a couple more perks of being in the New Mommy club.

Advice--Rule or Guideline?
I knew beans about babies. Knowledge is my friend in any situation, so I asked friends and family a zillion questions and Googled things like crazy. It rocked that I could research anything about babies even at 4:30 in the morning. In thirty seconds I’d know, “Oh, okay, hiccups that last for 20 minutes is normal. Cool.”

But there was, ahem, a hiccup in my hunt for knowledge. How could I know when advice was more of a rule...or a guideline?

For example:
1. A new baby should dirty/wet a certain number of diapers per day.
2. A new baby should eat 10-15 minutes per side (breast) each feeding session.

Number 1 is a rule: if the baby isn’t doing that, it’s time to call the pediatrician.

Number 2, apparently, is a guideline: Ariana never ate for more than 10-15 minutes total. In fact, we were lucky if we got her past 10 minutes. We tried everything to keep her awake and eating. Nothing worked, and the only reason we didn’t call the pediatrician was because she was satisfying the rule of Number 1, and had the right amount of dirty diapers a day. At her two-week appointment, Ari had grown from 5 pounds 15 ounces to 7 pounds 2 ounces. The pediatrician was a little amazed, and said I must be making a ton of milk or something. Since I wasn’t doing anything special to make that happen, I was just glad Ari was getting enough food.

There is no rhyme or reason why some things work for some babies, but not for others. There’s no rhyme or reason why something will work for a while for one baby, then stop working. The phrase every mother knows is “every baby is different.” When we mothers give advice, we’re usually offering the tips that worked for our babies. These tips are guidelines, not rules (most of the time), because though they worked for us, that doesn't mean they'll work for someone else’s baby. All I could do--and can do for probably, like, the rest of my life when it comes to my offspring--is try different advice and see what works. We mothers are pros with experimentation.

Luck and Blessings
I always feel bad saying something like, “I’m so blessed because my baby’s an awesome sleeper,” almost as if I’m implying that another mom is not blessed because her baby isn’t. When it comes to things like that, I feel more like it’s luck. You can take thirty moms who do the exact same strategy with their babies and probably get at least 20 or so different results. (This statistic came from my head, in case anyone wanted to cite it.) It’s a combination of genetics and luck, pretty much. Ariana takes a pacifier, and I didn’t hypnotize her or anything to get her to take it; she just did. Luck.

But undeniably, there have been--and continue to be--blessings from a loving Heavenly Father, and they come in many forms. Take Day 1 with Ariana. She stayed an extra night at the hospital because they had tested her for something and needed to make sure she didn’t have something bad, etc. etc. I decided to come home and enjoy my last baby-free night in a long time. So all that night, Ari was at the hospital eating formula. I guess it filled her more than I ever dreamed it would. I brought her home the next morning, my first day as a brand-spanking new mom, and was prepared to feed her. She slept, almost literally, the whole day. I couldn’t get her to eat for more than five minutes at a time. By that night, she hadn’t eaten more than 30 minutes’ worth of food all day long.

I panicked and about had a breakdown. Why wasn’t she eating? How could it be healthy to eat so little? Clayton and my mom tried to assure me that things were okay, but I didn’t listen. I made Clayton call the emergency pediatric peeps, who told me that as long as she had enough wet and dirty diapers, she was all right. We put her to sleep in her bassinet in the room across from ours. But I couldn’t calm down. Finally, Clayton gave her a Priesthood blessing, which was also a blessing for me. My anxiety and fear dissolved into an overwhelming peace. I went to sleep believing that things would be okay--and they were. Also, following that day, I never had reservations about Ari not sleeping in our bedroom. I didn’t realize until later that that was kind of unusual.

I must say, peace is one of God’s greatest blessings. Left on my own, there’s no way I could calm the natural fears that I experience from time to time. Blessings also come as an extra bit of energy here, an unexpected moment of understanding there, or even as a smile and laugh from Ari when I need her beautiful joy the most.

Taking the Bun out of the Oven

Before there was Active Labor, there was Almost Labor
Had I been a cavewoman living in the primitive and drugless past when I started my contractions, I probably would’ve been contracting for days. Since that’s not the case, I lasted for only 27 hours before I went to the hospital seeking morphine.

Here’s “Almost Labor” in a nutshell:

1. 11 days before Ari’s due date, I start contracting at 5:00am on a Friday morning. I dub these contractions “almost labor” because they hurt, the pain wraps around from my back to my front, and they won’t go away. The only reason it’s not active labor is because the contractions aren’t less than 15-20 minutes apart.

2. Can’t sleep. I try to defeat the contractions with Tylenol, milk, and Harry Potter. Nothing works. I can still sorta function, so I go about my day, contracting at least three or more times every hour.

3. Sunrise the following morning on Saturday: still sleep deprived and now doubling over from the pain. We go to the hospital.

4. I wasn’t expecting to stay and get the party going--and I don’t. They deem me not in active labor. Doc gives the green light for morphine. I rejoice.

5. Nurse says morphine lasts 6 hours unless it relaxes the muscles and speeds up the contractions. Doc says he wouldn’t be surprised if I came back later that day in active labor. I’m like, for reals? Are you kidding me?

6. Morphine is crazy. I feel light and heavy at the same time. But I can finally take a painless nap after 30 straight hours of contracting.

Now it’s Active Labor
7. Two hours later, I wake up to one really bad contraction, and my water, like, half-breaks. I take care of that. Then I throw up. The contractions come back worse than before. I throw up again.

8. Contractions are less than 5 minutes apart! Party time. I throw up outside the car. We hit every single red light on State Street. I squirm and squeal in the seat and try not to wish an evil curse to befall every driver in our way.

9. We arrive!

The Magical Epidural
I don’t know how I could have survived labor contractions without the epidural. By the time the anesthesiologist came I was moaning, curling into a ball, and violently shivering with every contraction. They told me the shivering was normal and happens to a lot of women. That’s when I started getting the idea that there’s a lot more to this whole labor/childbirth thing than people tell you. Although, movies do make it look pretty painful--I guess that’s all I needed to know.

I asked if they could give me the epidural while I was shivering. At first they said yes. But ‘twas not meant to be. I’m a petite little lady, and he only had a teeny tiny space to work with in my back. I found out later that he actually stabbed me three times with the needle trying to make it work. I didn’t even notice because it felt like a mere pinprick compared to the agony of contractions. In the end, he said I had to be perfectly still. He’d work on my back, then when I started shaking, everyone would sit back and wait for the contraction to be over.

At last the epidural took effect, feeling like a cold liquid metal filling my back and lower half, followed by a wonderful numbness. It was amazing to look at the monitor, see the line spike to indicate a contraction, and not feel a thing. Such a thing of beauty.

The Waiting Game
Not much happened for hours after that. I slept and Clayton hung out with my parents. The rest of my water broke. I got a fever, which they quickly subdued with antibiotics. I never lost 100% control of my limbs; I could still help the nurse a tiny bit when she moved my legs from side to side.

I was really proud of having some control over my limbs, until I realized later that my body burns through painkillers pretty fast. They have a button you can press to keep the numbness going if feeling starts to come back. It didn’t work for me. Twice the anesthesiologist himself had to come in and inject more painkiller stuff into me because I was starting to feel the contractions again.

I dilated like a pro for most of the labor. Everyone started to get excited as we approached 7. My mom said that usually the last few inches are dilated the fastest. I reached 8. Then 9. Then...still 9.

My contractions slowed to more than 5 minutes apart. It took hours to dilate from 9 to 10. I laid there and tried to send mental messages to my body: whoa, you’re not done yet! Keep a'going! Then I wondered, well geez, did my baby get cold feet, and change her mind about coming out? They gave me Pitocin to see if it would help, but that affected baby’s heartbeat, so they stopped. It was a very anti-climatic ending to hours of labor.

Taking the Bun out of the Oven
Active labor lasted from about 4:00pm on Saturday to 2:00am on Sunday, when I finally dilated to a 10 and the time came to push. It was just me, Clayton, and an awesome nurse in the Operating Room because they wanted to check Ari’s breathing and her lung immediately after birth. (She’d had a cyst in there for a big chunk of the pregnancy.)

I was an awesome pusher; the nurse told me so. She even wrote that down in the notes on the monitor. My parents were in the other room and could see the same stuff on the monitor as we could in the O.R. After 40 minutes we were ready for the doc to come in and do his thing.

But of course...the doc was attending to someone else. We had to wait. The nurse said if this wasn’t my first baby, the baby would have come out already. Her words brought some small comfort. For 25 or more minutes, I laid there with a baby head putting horrible pressure on my lower half. All I wanted, more than anything, was for her to come out and that pressure to be gone.

At last the doc came. Only a few pushes later, I felt my baby’s joints and limbs pass through my torn and aching body. I got a glimpse of her little red body before they took her away and the doc started fixing me up.

When the Magic of the Epidural Ran Out
In movies (which are, you know, totally like real life) you don’t see women still crying after the baby comes out. Plus I had the epidural, so I was totally unprepared for the pain that followed the birth. I should have known that feeling her come out of me was a bad sign. I should have realized the relief from that horrible pressure--that I wanted so badly--never really came. As the doc worked, I started to feel, and it hurt. So. Bad. At one point I said, “It’s hurting.” It began as a throbbing ache, then became a very sharp throbbing ache. I said again, “It hurts.” The tears started flowing.

The doctor must have thought I was a wuss or something, because his way of testing my lack of numbness was by sticking the needle through my torn skin as he sewed me up and asking, “Did you feel that?” I cried out “Yes! YES!” and he sat back, finally accepting it, and we all waited for the anesthesiologist to come. It took forever. I clutched Clayton’s hand and just cried, cried, cried. It was probably the worst physical pain I've felt. At last the anesthesiologist came and gave me my third injection of painkiller stuff. I tried to feel the painkiller go through my body, tried to make the pain stop. Gradually it lessened and I calmed down. But even that injection didn’t numb me completely--they had to give me a local anesthetic as well before the doc could take care of everything.

Then, before I knew what was happening, Clayton was helping me sit up and placing a living, beautiful, swaddled newborn girl into my arms. I started to cry all over again, but as I did I whispered to my baby girl, “These are happy tears. Such happy tears.” In that moment I felt a powerful warmth and love touching my spirit, like I was holding a piece of Heaven. I chose one of two names we were considering and named our angel Ariana.

Every experience is different and I believe that the Lord doesn’t give us trials we can’t handle. My trial was strong but brief, and even stronger was the love I felt from Heavenly Father, and the love I felt for the new little being who had entered my life.

Pregnancy and Ariana's CCAM

The Jolly Weirdness of Pregnancy

For sure, being pregnant is not a walk in the park; it’s more of a waddle. I threw up a few times, was nauseous and uber tired, had a superhuman sense of smell, and sometimes had swollen squishy feet just like most women do. My tummy distorted in ways that would’ve been soooo unnatural if I wasn’t pregnant, though seeing it move and feeling the baby move inside was da bomb. Not your average experiences at all, but pretty normal for a pregnancy. 

I did have a few uncommon moments:

Bleeding gums and sores. So yeah, pregnancy can screw up the gums, and I didn’t know that. I hadn’t seen a dentist in years because I don’t get cavities. Enter the second trimester of pregnancy and whammo! I couldn’t brush anywhere without making my gums bleed. Then I got sores in the tissue around my gums. We lived in south San Francisco at this time, and because I was pregnant the dentist there didn’t want to use anesthesia while they cleaned the plaque out of my inflamed bleeding gums. It was the most painful teeth cleaning ever. I could really sympathize with people who fear the dentist.

Contemplating my fate...

Sleeping on an air mattress in high humidity. We slept on a raised air mattress for four months in California, and it really tested my sanity. First of all, it’s an air mattress--it’s not nice to anyone, especially pregnant ladies. I woke up constantly with aching joints and feeling like an old woman. (Even though I’ve never been an old woman…) Second of all, I grew up in Utah’s desert dryness, and we were living in one of the most humid places in the Bay area during the most humid time of the year. It was like crawling into a clammy sleeping bag on top of a lopsided rock with a warm basketball attached to my stomach. Then ten minutes later, my body heat turned the bag into a sweaty sauna. Returning to our real bed in the dry Utah air was one of the happiest days ever. I probably kissed the bed that day.

The CCAM: The Cyst in Ariana’s Lung

Early in my pregnancy, in Utah, the OBGYN told me that in a certain number of weeks it’d be time for the 20-week ultrasound. I got all excited. “We’ll learn the gender!”

She smiled and said, “Well, yes, and they’ll check to see that everything is anatomically sound.” Haha, like that’d be a problem, I thought.

Oh silly me.

We learned we were having a girl. Then my joy fell to pieces when they said the ultrasound was showing a bright spot in her lung. They didn’t know what it was, but it needed to be monitored, so I had to come back in another two weeks.

The possibility that something was wrong with my unborn baby weighed on me all that day. In one brief discouraging moment I thought, “Every pregnant woman I know seems to have a perfectly healthy baby. Of course I’d be the odd one out.” I got over the self-pity, but never once did I think, “At least it’s not a miscarriage.” It wasn’t until later that I realized how common miscarriages are, and heard stories of how heartbreaking they can be.

I find that bad situations are usually worse when I’m clueless about them, so I took to the Internet and Googled “bright spot on lung” etc. etc. I mostly found anecdotes from other mothers saying the bright spot was a cyst. The stories offered a huge comfort because pretty much all of them had a happy ending: the cyst grew bigger for a few weeks, then stopped growing and disappeared either before or shortly after birth. Also that day, someone from the ultrasound place called to talk with me about what was potentially wrong and how they would keep an eye on it. She gave me the same assurance that the problem usually went away on its own.

Thus followed a great medical journey. They confirmed it was a Congenital Cystic Adenomatoid Malformation (CCAM) in the lower lobe of the right lung. The ultrasound doc told me, “CCAMs aren’t rare, but they aren’t common.” It actually made sense to me. Indeed, when I returned to Utah, most of the ultrasound people there had never seen one before.

The nerve-wracking moments came during appointments when I was laying on the bed and the nurses were reading out the baby's measurements. They’d come to a spot and linger, or sound unsure, or say the doctor would need to take a look at something. I’d just stare at the ceiling and think, “What? What?!” There were two problems they were watching for. If the cyst--which was tissue taking up space in the lung that would not function like lung tissue--grew large enough to put pressure on her little heart while it was developing, her heart would be in trouble. The other problem could be a sequestration in which a blood vessel connected to the cyst. I asked the doc, “What can be done if either of those things happen?”

He said, “Fetal surgery.” They would do surgery on the baby while she was still in my womb.

Freaky weird.

There was literally nothing we could do except wait and pray. In between appointments I tried not to think about what we couldn’t control. Along the way we were blessed with tender mercies, like our baby being healthy in every way possible except for the silly cyst. I learned to be grateful that we live in a time where such medical intervention like fetal surgery is even possible. The doc was a charismatic and caring guy who made things fun with his obsession with taking ultrasound pics of baby feet. 

Feet!!!

The cyst did grow for several weeks, then just like in all those anecdotes, it slowly began to shrink as she grew bigger. A cardiologist took some ultrasounds of our baby’s heart and blood flow and everything looked great. The cyst was still there a week or so before she was born, so to take precautions, she was born in the Operating Room. Then we learned that the thing we were hoping for had happened: the cyst was gone. Good news like that calls for leaping into my husband’s arms and hugging him to death, but having just pushed a baby out of me, well, that didn’t happen. Plus the doctor told me the news at like five or something in the morning when I was half asleep and drugged up on painkillers. But we were so grateful that our CCAM story had a happy ending.