Chocolatepop's Urban Garden Blog

I can’t even believe this time 3 years ago I was sitting at a basketball game debating on whether or not I was in labor.

I thought I would repost my experience from 3 years ago!

I slept like CRAP on Thursday night, so Dust slept in the future baby’s room because I was tossing and turning. I didn’t feel bad, just slept bad. So I FINALLY went to sleep after watching “Where the Heart Is” (I think that is the name) at

about 6 AM. I woke up at like 11:30ish, ate a little, fed the cats and then laid back down because I was still really tired. I woke back up at 1pm checked email watched Discovery Health and started to get a little cramping, nothing bad, it just felt like I had eaten some bad Taco Bell. So I took some Tums and started to get ready for work. At about 2:30, the cramping really started to suck so I called the OB and left a messege with her nurse. So I went to work. I got there about 3:30, started getting w

ater, first aid kits, and taping done for the basketball game that night and got the phone call from the OB nurse and she said to grab some water, lay down, and rest. She said to start timing the contractions and if they got to 5 m

inutes apart, 1 minute in length for two hours then either call the office or go straight to the hospital. Well, by about 4:30 I called Dustin and asked him what he thought as I read the numbers off. He said that ultimately I only knew where I was and how bad things were. So I just kept walking around because they weren’t HORRIBLE, just bad menstrual cramps. But by about 4:45, I called Dustin back and said he needed to come to the high school because they were coming really close together and were strong. I didn’t tell him HOW strong, they were strong enough that I was gripping the taping tables and pacing back and forth and scaring the shit out of my high school students (they called me the “Abstinence” example for the day). The HS kids were really g

ood, getting me water and ice, walking with me, rubbing my back, timing my contractions with my stop watch from football, etc. By the time Dustin got here at 5:40-5:45, my contractions were just under 5 minutes apart and last just over 1 minute. DH drove a zillion miles per hour and got to the hospital/LD at 6:20. I was in a room and being checked (pretty much screaming) at 6:30 and was at 4 cm, I was trying to breath, but we had barely touched on it at the last Birth class and hadn’t even done the tour yet! So everything after this was a whirl wind, things were being thrown everywhere, I was lucky because my OB was actually already here with another patient. I was panting and my DH told my nurse that I wanted to go “natural/unmedicated” and I was like, umm I don’t know anymore!!! I was shaking in pain and something I did (don’t know what) told the nurse to have the d

oc (actually a resident because my OB was still with the other patient) that she needed to check me again, it was now about 7cm (20 minutes later). 20 minutes later, she checked again I was 8 cm and -1 station. I was crying f

or an epidural pretty much but I later found out that I really couldn’t have one, nor did I have time anyway. So they FINALLY got the IV in me. I I tried to rest. About 20 minutes later I started panting again pain returned like CRAZY and I just knew I had to push, and I had to push NOW! They checked me again and I was 10 cm and +3 station. They kept telling me not to push, not to push because my OB was delivering another baby right down the hall and she really wanted to deliver me ( she calls the baby boy down the hall Zaley’s “boyfriend”), So I just held on ( ok I lye, I was secretly pushing to relieve the pain). So I finally got to push at about 7:40 and she was born at 8:04.   About 20 minutes later they were doing the normal post op stuff and checked blood pressure and the nurse FREAKED OUT, and grabbed another mechanical BP cuff, and then another, and then another, and finally manual. The reason being that my BP was 220/110 (it was 154/87 when I came in) and my urine protein was 4+ (super saturated, highest it can be). So the next hour was ANOTHER whirlwind of events happened, I was put on mag sufate (or “OMG there is lava going through my veins” that SHIT SUCKS!!), tons of saline, some BP meds, oxygen, and it got my BP down to 190/100. Over the next day it gradually decreased but stalled at 160/90 and I started to get sick, really sick. They thought maybe I had a pulmonary embolism because I just couldn’t breath no matter how hard I tried, it felt like a horse on my chest! So chest x-rays, EKG, nebulizer, they decided to take me off of the mag sufate, which made everything better, but my urine protein went back up. I somehow feel asleep, doctor said I actually passed out from exhaustion!   Azalea Raine was born at just under 36 weeks, tiny weighing only 4lbs 5oz, but remember they thought she was going to be small anyway from the previous US. She was 17.5 inches long but perfect. Her apgars were 8 and 9, lungs great, blood sugar great, temp was the only problem. She was able to stay with me the first ni

ght, and I kept her temp up by keeping her skin to skin. Which helped a ton. She fed “ok” taking in about 8 cc of formula before falling asleep. But in the morning the neonate doc wanted her in an isolette to regulate her temp better. That broke my heart and I was pissed because you can’t just give me my baby then take her away! So she is now across the hall in the isolette being fed 20 cc of high protein formula by bottle or if she can’t get it all by bottle, she takes it by tube. I got to hold her again for the first time today, which helps put me at ease. We are going to stay in the hospital even though we are discharged (some cool program called bed and breakfast allows you to stay at $50/day). We don’t know when she will get to come home, most of it depends on her weight, ability to maintain body temp, and ability to feed.

First family picture

Down to 4lbs And the diva now.Pointing to her brain

DIVA

I sware, from the day my child was born she was a boob baby. She spent the whole first night right on my chest. She was small that one of “my girls” seemed bigger than my new little girl! So, she nuzzled into my cleavage happy as a clam until they decided to wisk her away in the morning. Let me tell you, those nurses and doctors were lucky to make it out of that room with MY baby alive.

You complete me

Then, I still found her loving to sleep right in that same spot over and over again, just because it seems to be a spot of bliss, where everything become trivial and blissful.

she already ruled our world

So, ironically, last week Zaley got sick (EWWW with a potty training kiddo) and what did she do? Crawled right into her favorite spot.

No seriously she was flatulant!

My "baby" is growing up

So why is growing up so hard to do?

Well, who woulda thunk it? My daughter loves swimming, like LOVES water and swimming! We met up with some online friends and hit the beach. I thought she would be a little hesitant, but she jumped in like she did this every day!

My little helper, well most of the time she isn’t helping, but looks like she has the gardening bug also. She loves to pull weeds (and tomato plants) dig in the dirt, use the screw driver and drill to help mama build boxes, and water the garden. She is my little gardener and is infected badly. Now I just have to keep her from constantly picking and eating all the green beans!

But hopefully she will learn something from gardening. Like how everything in life, you have to work for. Some things require little work, while others require copious amounts of tedious work.

I hope she learns that, like a garden, the first step is one of the hardest. Putting your ideas and feelings out there, stategizing and implementing a plan to achieve a goal. All the hard work is especially in the beginning. The turning of the dirt, tilling in compost, turning a plan sod area into a productive and beautiful plot.

I hope gardening will teach her patience, because this unfortunately something that she certainly won’t learn from me!

I hope it will teach her tenacity. Because those pests will invade her garden and her life and I can only be there to support her and be a resource. I can share my previous experiences, but ulimately she will have to make a decision to build a fence to keep the pests out, treat her garden to destroy the pest, or just give up and let the pests devour her lettuce.

Lastly, I hope that gardening teaches her love. Unconditional love. Well not completely unconditional. Because I think a plant can probably grow anywhere, but the work and love you put into your garden will result in a bountiful harvest that can be used to feed the family and our souls.

I hope gardening creates a bond and memories that she can share with her children… if daddy allows her to ever date.

Thats all, she is too smart for her own good. I better start watching what I say around her…