Stuck

Afton has always been such a huge blessing in my life. She is my bright spot. Her sweet spirit has gotten me through times of darkness and turmoil. I have already learned so much from being her mother. Everyday I learn more and more about how much my heavenly parent's love me just from feeling the love I have for her. I am constantly being taught lessons about life and who I am just by being her mother. The other day I was helping Afton take her clothes off so she could have a bath. I was pulling up her shirt and she slipped both of her arms out. The shirt was stuck over her face and she began to panic. She flailed her arms and whined. I tried to help her but she kept wiggling too much. I quietly reassured her that everything would be okay if she would just let me help. She calmed down and I was able to get her shirt off. In that moment it hit me. So many times in my life I have been stuck in darkness. I have panicked and not known what to do. I have forgotten that there is always someone there to help. I'm sure so many times I have been whispered to that it would all be okay if I just waited for help. Unfortunately many times I have not heard these quiet whispering a and have continued to flail in my darkness for quite some time before I was able to escape. I regret this. I'm sure in some ways I have made things harder for myself. This moment with Afton has stuck with me since it happened. I thought it over and over in my mind. The more I think about it the more I know that it is time for me to really start listening and being willing to receive help from those who love. I can no longer do it alone.

Another Round

Here I go again..... 

I have much more freedom than I have had in a long time. Too much freedom. Enough to drive me insane half of the time. Enough freedom that I have time to ramble to myself about various things that may or may not be of interest to anybody but me. Once in awhile I will get a genius thought and think, "Man that should really be in a blogpost." So here I am ready for another round. Pretending that this may last. We will see. 

I quit my job.

Thus 40+ hours of freedom to do this ^.

I loved my job. I loved my coworkers and the amazing teens I got to work with. I felt like I was making a difference and I knew I was where I was needed. As time went on I became restless. It was time to grow in different ways. It was/is still SCARY. I'm trying to trust that The Lord knows what he is doing. It is a RELIEF. I now have time to take care of my family and myself.  It is STRANGE. I haven't been this free since maybe never. I don't know what to do with all this time. The things I dream of doing are more like nightmares if you add a splash of toddler in the mix. Excercise? Ha yeah while Afton tries to climb up on the elliptical with me. (I am currently experimenting with various forms of distraction) Library? All I can see is Afton walking down the aisles ripping books off the shelves. Cooking? Tried it... Somehow Afton ended up with a mouthful of yeast when I wasn't looking. 

I haven't even been jobless a month. I still have time to perfect the "art" of entertaining a toddler while getting stuff done. 

It's been months.....

Time has flown. No use catching up at this point. I do not blog regularly because well I rarely have a free moment. Back in May I had the opportunity to apply for a full time position at my work. Me and Trevor debated back and forth about it. We knew that it would be hard if I decided to work full time but we also felt like it would be really good for me and our little family. I ended up getting the job and started in June. It was one of the best and hardest decisions I have made. In this culture you grow up being taught that staying at home with the kids is the ideal. I agree that it is the ideal but not for everyone. I am so much happier working full time and being mom. The first month was hard but after that things fell in to place and it's just normal now. People always ask how we do it. We just do. Trevor works graveyards. I work Saturday through Wednesday. I work all nights except for Tuesdays I work in the morning and go to school at night. When I am at work Afton is with Trevor. About once a week she ends up at grandmas. Trevor sleeps when I am home in the mornings and when Afton naps. She some how knows to have really long naps when Trevor is home with her. Our lives are a bit unconventional but we are happy and that's what matters. There are days when I miss my little family and is hard to leave for work. But I feel better knowing that my sweet girl is with a daddy who loves her and takes good care of her. Afton is 10 months and growing so fast. She does not seem like a baby anymore. She is constantly developing new skills and surprising us. She has been saying da da forever and all the time. Once in a grand while she would say ma. About two weeks ago she started saying ma ma and mom all the time and rarely says dad. When she is mad at Trevor she starts yelling for me. She is a little sassy pants. She loves baby dolls. She will pat, kiss (slobber), talk to, and lay her head on her babies. At nap time she loves to use her baby as a pillow. She can stand on her own but prefers not to and slowly lowers herself to the ground. She has four top teeth and three bottom teeth. She got 5 teethin a matter of one month. That was a long month. She loves to get into things. When you tell her no she will pause and smile at you and then gkeep doing what she was doing. If you say no again she will laugh and then hurry and crawl away like she knows she is in trouble. She loves to talk and will jabber to herself constantly. She eats everything she can get her hands on. She has known how to climb stairs for awhile. She just barely figured out that the staircase goes beyond two stairs. She is quite proud of herself and takes any opportunity she can to show off her skills. Afton loves riding in a shopping cart but always ends up turning around and standing up so she can see everything. So some big news... We are building a home in Salem. It should be done by the end of January. We are so excited! Bigger house and way bigger yard. Our lot is about a half of an acre. It sits on a little hill with a gorgeous view of the valley. We have this house listed and are writing patiently to sell it. So if anyone needs a house.... Now for some pictures.

Months 0,1,2,3

Since I'm obviously not awesome enough to do a monthly update I am just posting pictures of Afton showing how much she has grown and changed.

My only excuse for neglecting to post about my baby these past three months is the wiggly baby sitting in my lap.

Rewind 3 months and no amount of advice wanted or not could have prepared me for the adventure I was about to begin. The first couple days of parenthood were a breeze. A nurse at my beck and call 24/7. Being able to ask why my baby was making random gagging sounds and getting an educated response... she had swallowed some amniotic fluid. The best part was finally having Afton in my arms. It was most certainly love at first sight. We were in complete awe. The first night we decided not to send her to the nursery because by the time everything was all said and done it was pretty late. But really we didn't want to let her go. She slept right next to my bed. I didn't sleep much. It was like having Christmas morning a little early. Only I already knew what my present was. I also was extremely hot.Stupid hormones. Every time a nurse came in to take my blood pressure I asked her to turn down the temperature. Then I would get checked for a fever that I knew was nonexistent. In the morning my nurse asked me if I wanted to start to taking some pain killers. I told her I was fine with just some ibuprofen. I hadn't felt any pain yet. She thought I was crazy and brought me the strong stuff anyways.  The second night we sent Afton to the nursery. Yeah that lasted for about an hour. The nursery was just down the hall. I kept waking up thinking I could hear her screaming. I called the nurse's station and asked them to bring her to my room. Yeah she was sound asleep. but I was able to get some peace of mind and a little sleep. We had to stay an extra day at the hospital because I had tested positive for group B strep. They have to monitor the baby for 48 hours to make sure everything is okay. We weren't able to be discharged until 6 pm Friday night. By the time we finally got discharged I hadn't eaten anything since lunch and I needed pain killers badly. We said goodbye to the wonderful luxuries of the hospital and headed to Spanish Fork. Like I said I was starving at this point. So we went through the drive thru at Artic Circle. That's right my first meal after the hospital was a country chicken sandwich. When we got home I pretty much collapsed on the couch. I was crying and shaking from being in so much pain. I am pretty sure this freaked Trevor out. The next morning we had to take Afton to get a bilirubin test to confirm her jaundice. There is nothing like watching somebody milk blood out of your child's heel. It made my stomach churn. Later that day home health brought the bili lights. That was not fun at all. We had to leave her on the lights 24/7 except to feed and change her. It was so hard. She cried and cried. Being that my hormones were completely out of wack. I cried and cried along with her.

I'm not even going to try and up on the past fourish months so these are just some random things about miss Afton.

She started rolling from her tummy to her back at 6 weeks. We have to keep a close eye on her.

When she wakes up in the morning she growls like a baby bear and stretches for about ten minutes. After that she is all smiles and giggles.

She talks a lot. We regularly have long mother daughter chats.

She has a teddy bear that she absolutely loves. She loves to coo at him and eat his leg or pull at his fur.

She fake cries whenever she wants attention or to be picked up.

She only wakes up once a night to eat or sleeps through the night completely. It is awesome!

We love her so much. I tell Trevor all the time how I love her so much I want to squish her. Now for some pictures....

An education

Having a baby and going to school has been quite the challenge for me. I know people do it all the time but that doesn't make it any easier. Because my schedule is so different from traditional routes I am only allowed one absence per class. We were crossing our fingers that Afton would wait to born at a time when I could more easily miss a class and be fine. She of course didn't want to wait. I ended up being in labor on a Tuesday night and has to miss that night of school plus my groups presentation on top of that. I had talked to my counselor beforehand and found out that in certain cases such as mine the university will excuse a second absence. So I wasn't planning on going to school the next week after giving birth. Well my teacher emailed me and basically made it clear that she wanted me in class the next week. So off I went six days post partum. Afton was an angel and took a bottle like a champ for Trev. I on the other hand cried most of the way to school. While in class all I could think about was how weird I felt without my baby. I rushed home right after.
Since having Afton I have realized I can't procrastinate homework but..... I still do. It's just a lot more stressful now. Every Tuesday Afton goes to one of her grandmas houses while I go to school. We are so lucky to have our parents so close and so thankful for all the help they give.
And now some pictures of the different and creative ways I get homework done....

Afton Ruth's Grand Entrance

And so the birth story begins.... Being pregnant for the first time is stressful especially nearing the end. You have no clue what being in labor is like yet you are supposed to get out a stop watch and start timing things. The weekend before Afton was born Trevor worked a double from 3pm to 7am. I woke up at about 3am with some pretty bad back pain. I took a bath hoping it would help. Not so. At one point I was laying on the floor in my bathroom thinking how terrible it would be if I was in labor and Trevor wasn't even home. Eventually the pain went away and I went back to bed. The back pain came on and off throughout the weekend. Of course most of the time it was in the middle the night. Several episodes were so bad they sent me back to worshipping the white porcelain goddess. None of this was timeable, consistent, or getting stronger. It all ebbed and flowed. On Monday I decided after some discussion with my mother that this was becoming the real deal. On and off all day I had what we figured were contractions. This continued into Tuesday. By this point I was so fed up with it that I finally broke down and called the clinic hoping they would freak out that I had waited this long and tell me to go to the hospital immediately. I told the nurse what was going on and her response was that I was having Braxton Hicks. I wanted to punch her. These were so far from Braxton Hicks that I should have had my baby by then. At this point I was so worn down physically and emotionally. There was nothing we could do but wait. I did not have another noticeable contraction after the phone call with the lovely nurse. I had an appointment the next morning. We brought along my mom because Trev had a final later and in a just in case scenario I would end up at the hospital. At the appointment I found out I had lost five pounds since the week before from all my worshipping. They were concerned. Conclusions were jumped to that I had the flu. Not the case. Other things of concern: protein in my urine, slightly high blood pressure, dilated to a 3. I was sent to the hospital to have more labs run. We were glad we brought my mom. Because of the coolness of the date 12.12.12 every overly pregnant woman who could wanted to be induced. Because of this there was no room to put me so I ended up in the surgery recovery area. The nurse told me that had never happened before and how they also had never delivered a baby there before. Ummm thanks for giving me something to contemplate. I peed in another cup, my blood was taken, fetal monitoring was done. I didn't mention this before but I had had a nasty cold for over a week at this point. So between my cough and my over active child it was slightly difficult for the nurse to do the monitoring. I had been there for about an hour and everything was looking good. The nurse was basically saying they would probably send me home. My midwife did an OB consult and then came and told me that they were admitting me and I was going to have a baby soon. I was in shock and had to take a minute to process it all. Trev was way excited not only because he was finally getting his baby but frankly he was sick of me being pregnant and this made it so he would miss his final. My midwife explained that the OB she consulted with wanted me to be induced because I was starting to show very early signs of preeclampsia. They didn't want me to get any sicker at that point. My nurse went to work trying to find me a room. Someone was being discharged at that very moment. We gathered up our stuff and headed down the hall to room 112 where we would be spending the next couple of days. My midwife checked me again and I was at a 4. I was entering active labor on my own. While down there she also stripped my membranes OUCH! and then broke my water. About a half hour later pitocin was being pumped into my body along with penicillin for my group b strep and Iv fluids because I was dehydrated. I was told I could have the epi whenever I wanted. I wanted to wait till I really needed it. I started really feeling the contractions about a half hour after pit was started. They were very manageable. I really don't know what happened while we were waiting for me to progress. What I do remember is Trev and mom eating my hospital dinner since I wasn't allowed to eat, throwing up an orange Popsicle, eating pebble ice with a spoon, getting annoyed by the movie the Santa Claus on tv and watching the hills and valleys of my contractions on the monitor. When the contractions started getting worse I had to tell my mom and Trev to stop talking. Eventually I got out of the bed and had Trev stand in front of me. I held onto his biceps and put my head against his chest. I would hold onto him tightly as the contractions came. I have no clue how long this lasted due to the day being a complete time warp. Eventually I asked for the epi. This by far was the worst part of the experience. There is nothing like having a needle wiggling around in spine, trying to stay still and having some major contractions. Plus it seemed to take forever! I'm surprised I had the patience to let the guy finish what he was doing. Things become even more of a blur from this point on. I had some relief from the pain for a little bit and then it stopped working which brought on major amounts of lower back pain. I was redosed then a little bit later it stopped working again. They decided to check me and lo and behold I was complete. No wonder the drugs weren't doing the job . The nurse told me I would be pushing shortly. I freaked out a little because I didn't feel like I was ready to push yet. My mom had just barely left to watch my brother wrestle. So I called her and said, "Mom they checked me and I'm complete." She said, "Your an 8?" "No mom I'm going to start pushing soon I'm complete." She was way excited. The midwife was called and came a little bit later. She was on her way to a Christmas party and was dressed up really nice. She put a surgical gown over clothes and got down to business. Because the epi wasn't working very well I could pretty much feel everything. It didn't really hurt it was more in the realm of discomfort. I was also struggling to breathe because I kept coughing. I ended up using the oxygen mask. For the past several weeks I'd been joking with trev that I would cough our baby out. I kind of did. I pushed and pushed and pushed for about an hour and forty five minutes. Once her head was out I gave two final pushes and she was out. She was born @ 9:15 pm 12.12.12 in room 112. There were 8 other babies born at Orem hospital that day. She was the last of all of them.