Love Letter to my Body

Dear Baby Making Machine, 

Congrats to you on getting through your fourth pregnancy and delivery of a baby! Look at THAT! You've made four spectacular human beings! 

Now that its all over, let's take a look at that collateral damage that you've acquired, shall we? 

Stretch Marks, Check. 

Crazy Stretched out Belly Button, Check.

Saggy, Deflated Boobs, Double Check.

Dark circles under the eyes, We've got those. 

Leaky, watery eyes from all the hormones still present. Yep, those, too. 

Now that we've tallied all of our fallen body parts from the journey of making a baby, let's look at those gorgeous triumphs that are our children. 

They are pretty amazing. And you, my baby making body, did that. I applaud you.

I embrace all that has happened to you, and each sign of having made a baby is always a reminder that we were able to DO that. It's something pretty incredible, and while some people try to hide their baby making flaws, I would like to thank you, my body, for them.

Because not everyone can. Not everyone comes out with pregnancy battle scars on their bodies. 

A shapely figure or womanly assets doesn't always give us a ticket to board the baby making train. 

Not all women in this world can have children. 

So, while I, and I am sure many others, applaud their baby making machines... I'd like to take a minute to applaud those women who have tried and realized that making babies is not in the cards for them. That is a journey that I can't even imagine taking you on. I'm sure the damage to you, my mind and my soul would be much greater if that was the case; and there wouldn't be anything to show for all the hardships that you went through to realize that. 

So, to the ladies who have loved and lost, or those of who learned that it was not in the cards for them  to carry children, I applaud them. 

. 

And apologize for any woman who complained about the damages done to their bodies from carrying their children, 

Because some people don't stop to realize that its a gift to be able to do so. It's a powerful, amazing gift that every person who has experienced it should treasure. 

I never take that for granted. 

Thank you, Baby Making, Machine. 

Because I am grateful to have four beautiful children and never take for granted the fact that you and I made them. 

Sterling's Birth

So, it's been too long since I wrote a blog journal. Far too long.
Time kind of got away from me this fall.
My photography dream took off and kept me busy this year.
I had two of my kids start preschool, and I spent most of 2013 pregnant.
But I am no longer pregnant!
I had a baby! A baby boy! His name is Sterling Ames and this is the story of the day he was born...

On December 23rd, 2013 I was scheduled to have an induction for Sterling to be born.
We had to arrive at the hospital at 3:30 in the morning for an induction at 4am.
Trying to sleep the night before you're scheduled to have a baby is pretty hard. Andy and I dropped the girls off with Grandma and Grandpa the night before for a sleep over. Then we went to dinner together, as this has been a tradition for us with all of the girls' births. They were all scheduled inductions as well.
We went and had a nice dinner together, just the two of us.
Then we went home and watched a couple of movies together. It was hard to make my mind shut off enough to sleep a deep enough sleep. Well, that and being 9 months pregnant and super uncomfortable also made it hard to get a good night's rest.
Around 2:15a we woke up and got all of our things ready to go.
At 3:00 in the morning there's no one on the roads. It's very dark and very quiet out. It was also a cold morning because, well, its December in Illinois. Of course its cold.
We arrived at the hospital and got all checked in, and then got a room in labor and delivery. I've done this before, I felt like I was a pro by now. I was ready to get this show on the road.
Well, I wasn't induced right at 4am. In fact, it was more like 5:30 before I was given my first dose of pitocin. So, after I was given the dose, it was upped a little bit every half hour until 8:00a, when my water broke. Andy was sitting in the chair next to my bed when he looked like someone was pointing a gun at him, wide eyed and bewildered.
"WHAT was THAT?" he asked. He had heard my water breaking on the monitor, and it sounded pretty awesome. I also felt it and knew exactly what had happened. I couldn't help by laugh at him. His face was pretty priceless. It scared him, as it did me. It's not like you can predict when your water is going to break.
And feeling like you're peeing your pants really doesn't even come as a welcome surprise.
After that I didn't need anymore pitocin dosages turned up. The nurse came back and checked me, and I was dilated to a 4-5. She also said that there was meconium in my water, so they needed a pediatrician to be present during delivery to make sure that the baby didn't breath any of it in. Also, they needed to make sure that the baby was breathing okay. This was a little scary. But she assured me that it happens all the time and they would make sure that everything was taken care of.
Everything started to happen pretty intensely after that. I said I didn't want any pain meds. I had done if before with none, and I was pretty set that I wasn't going to this time.

My OBGYN showed up shortly after that to talk to me and to check me and to see how labor was progressing. I heard my nurse tell her to stick around because she had a feeling that things would progress pretty quickly after that. It did. I went to being dilated from a 5 to a 10 in a matter of 45 minutes.
 ( Yes, This Hurts )
Things in this area are kind of blurry for me. I was in a LOT of pain and the only thing I wanted to do was breathe and curl into a ball and then just push the baby out so that the pain would go away.
Once I started pushing it wasn't long before he was born. I think in 2 contractions he was born. It was very fast.
In fact, Sterling was born so quickly that he had bruising and swelling and some broken blood vessels in his eyes. I also wasn't informed that during delivery, the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck.
I know that I wasn't told this during delivery because they didn't want to stress me. Andy told me after the baby was born. He said he would hear my OBGYN giving me just a little more encouragement to push. I vaguely remember the sound in everyone's voice being strongly more encouraging at one point. It makes sense in hindsight.
Sterling was born with a good set of lungs! He was breathing fine and he didn't ingest or inhale any of the meconium that they were worried about. The pediatrician said that he was a champ.

He was by far the biggest baby that I had birthed at 8lbs 9 oz.
Delilah was the biggest previously at 7lbs 6oz.
I KNEW that he was going to be a big baby. I felt it. He wasn't crazy large or anything, but just a bigger baby for me. I could feel him in my belly and knew that he was going to be a big boy. :)
He was healthy, and that's what mattered.
After they ran all of his tests to make sure he was breathing okay, and then cleaning him up, I was able to hold him.
It was the longest couple of minutes, waiting to hold the baby you've been making for the last 9 months. I just wanted to see his face and count his fingers and toes and see who he looked like.
Andy kept saying " He looks like Georgia!"
I actually saw a picture of him on Andy's phone before I got to see him in person.
He was worth the wait. He was perfect. His perfect little mouth and his perfect little chunky, swollen face.
It's amazing how much you can love something/someone immediately. But I knew him. He knew me. It's not like we were strangers.
 He is my son and I had known him for so long before he arrived.
And to say that "My Son" had arrived is pretty surreal.

I had three daughters until now, and changing it up and saying "son" is pretty different. In a good way.
I'm very excited about my family of six.