Reminiscing...

You know, I've been planning Makayla's birthday party for the past couple months... But I don't know... I don't think it's really started to sink in till just now. Makayla got a birthday card from GreatGrandma yesterday and it had a big "2" on the front of it... And wow, it just hit me like that. I'm just about to become a mother to a 2 year old! I know it's startin to hit Mike too... He was gettin all sappy and nostalgic about Kenny Chesney's "Don't Blink"... "Don't blink, Just like that you're six years old and you take a nap and you, Wake up and you're twenty-five and your high school sweetheart becomes your wife. Don't blink, You just might miss your babies growing like mine did, Turning into moms and dads next thing you know your "better half," Of fifty years is there in bed. And you're praying God takes you instead. Trust me friend a hundred years goes faster than you think. So don't blink." Now I understand why my mom told me mom's start to get "Baby Fever" about this time... I'm fightin it though. HaHa. We're not wantin another rug rat for another 2 or 3 years... Well I say that now. HaHa.

So anywayz, in the sprite of reminiscing, I started goin through Makayla's baby books and was just so amazed by how much she's learned and grown in the past 2 years!

First lifted head: 2 days old
First grasped an object: 1 1/2m
Rolled from stomach to back: 2m
First grabbed at an object: 2 1/2m
Rolled from back to stomach: 4m
Worm crawled: 5m
First sat up unassisted: 5 1/2m old
Started being fed rice cereal: 6m
Raised up to the crawling position: 6m
Pulled up to stand: 6m, 1w
Started getting fed babyfood: 6m,3w
Started crawling: 7m (kinda) she did a weird pimp crawl on her feet
First said "Dada": 8m birthday
FINALLY got her 1st tooth: 8m birthday (same day she said Dada)
First grasped with finger and thumb: 8 1/2m
Walked unassisted: 9m, 6 days old
First said Mama: 9 1/2m (the day after daddy deployed)
FINALLY slept through the night: 11 months old!
Went potty in the big girl pot: 22m
Was potty trained: 14 days later
Started sleeping in a twin bed: 22 1/2

Also, I came across this old blog that I wrote May 3nd, 2006. Three days after Makayla was born:

Just FYI for those who didn't know me 2 years ago, Mike deployed when I was 7 months pregnant and didn't return till Makayla was 3 months old... Also so you'll understand the blog, my mom had come up from Cali (we were stationed in AZ at the time) since I was a week past my due date and scheduled to be induced the following Tuesday, Makayla was born on a Sunday.

I awoke at 4 am from a dream that I was in labor. As I laid in bed just praying I was imagining the cramps, I knew "it was time." I laid there till 6 am when I finally decided that I should go downstairs and wake up my mom. I gently taped her arm and told her my stomach hurt, and her half agile reply was "go eat something." I said, "No, my stomach really hurts, like cramps," well my mom jumped strait up and said "You get a stopwatch, I'll make the coffee!" and she ran off to the kitchen.

I went upstairs and sent an email to Mike letting him know I thought I was in labor. I brought a stopwatch downstairs where my mom and I timed the contractions. They were only 4 and a half minutes apart, so we decided I would wait out the majority of the labor at home.

I went online again and emailed Mike again telling him I was defiantly in labor but would probably be home for a while. I showered and shaved my legs and threw my hair up in a pony tail. Just as I got downstairs and relaxed on the couch Mike called! I think it was about 8am at this point (7pm in Iraq, he worked nights).

The whole morning I had been up on the internet, packing my bag and cleaning the house and on and off the phone with Mike... Oh yeah, and sneaking food since my mom wouldn't let me eat... So around 10:30 am, I finally laid down to relax since the contractions were gettin pretty bad and my mom wanted me to time them... Well my contractions had just gone from being 3-4 minutes apart just a couple hours ago to being 2 minutes apart. So my mom decided it was probably time to get ready to leave for the hospital... Well I kept procrastinating cuz I didn't wanna leave since Mike was supposed to be calling at any minute and I needed to tell him we were leaving. I waited and waited and waited... FINALLY he called. We exchanged a few words and I finally told my mom we could go.

So we ended up leaving here [the house] about 11:30am... Sorry if this is too graphic but my mom told me to pee before I left and she'd be waiting in the car... So I pee then come out to the car... We just get off base and the silence was killing me... So I try to make small talk by telling her I probably shouldn't have eaten that big steak last night... She asked why... I told her I had to go to the bathroom... She got kinda mad and was all "Steph, you told me you went!" I said "No, that THAT no. 2." She immediately stepped on the gas and says "You don't have to shit, that's the baby, just don't push!" ...Well no kidding.

So we got to the hospital about noon, by the time I made it to the hospital my contractions had started to run together. Ok, so we get into the parking lot... And my moms takin her dear sweet time gettin out of the car... I just grab our bag and waddle to the front desk as fast as I can... Ok, so this totally irritated me. I'm standing there standing right in front of the damn receptionist who was on the phone. I say "excuse me" a couple times... She just put her finger up, motioning for me to wait. I started taping my nails and said "I'm in labor" now mind you, I'm totally hunched over the desk in pain and she could totally care less ...I kid you not, she rolls her eyes at me and says "Or so you think". So after gettin both my mom and my ID's she tells us to go through the doors and make the 3rd left then the 1st left... Seriously, I can barely walk, no wheel chair or nuthin. So we go down there, it was triage... But no one was there. This was ridiculous, my contractions had completely run together and I couldn't even stand up any more so I just plopped down in a chair in the middle of the stupid hall... My mom just ran down the halls screaming for someone... FINALLY some nurse popped her head out of a room and informed us everyone was "out to lunch"... I don't really know what happened, but my mom went and exchanged a few words with her and less then a minute later there was another nurse there taking my information... Again... For the 3rd time... I mean aren't they supposed to keep that crap on file? But seriously, no one was in a hurry. UGH! OK, so finally at like 12:40 I got checked in and assessed... Turns out I slept through the majority of my labor and by the point I got to the hospital I was already 9cm (you deliver at 10) well the L&D nurses thought it was too late to give me an epidural (like I requested in a birth plan) but LUCKILY the anesthesiologist said he could give me one... I was like so thrilled after that.

Well my midwife showed up to the hospital at 1pm and checked me again, I was at 10 and said that she could break my water and just deliver Makayla now If I wanted I said I could wait if they had other things to do, I wanted to watch TV for a little bit and get my money's worth outta this epidural. HaHa. So the nurses that were helping out with the delivery went and did some other stuff and I just kind of hung out there (not like I could go anywhere, I couldn't feel my legs)... So then like everyone came in at 2 and while they were getting everything set up the phone in the delivery room rang... It was Mike :-) So I was happy, I gotta be on the phone with him the whole time... Everyone kept making fun of me cuz we (me and Mike) were cracking jokes between pushes and I just kept telling Mike how much I love epidurals (he kept asking me what drugs I was on). But anyway, in the end it wasn't bad at all, labor went by pretty fast (I started pushing at 2:07 and Makayla was born at 2:33), it was actually pretty painless, we didn't have any complications and they discharged me 24 hrs later (Monday).

So far we're doing well at home... The first night was pretty hairy... I got maybe 30 mins of sleep in the hospital. Between my mom's snoring, and the stupid nurses coming in every hour the either check mine or Makayla's vitals... I finally broke down about 3am when I had a nurse come in for the 5th or 6th time to tell me she was going to FORCE Makayla to take formula because she didn't want to eat. Ya know, God forbid a baby want to sleep for 5 hrs after just being completely traumatized by birth. But at 3am, when a "nurse" came in to "inform" me that my daughter was going to "starve to death" if she didn't get food, and if I didn't wake her up within 30 mins she was coming back and would be forces to give her formula... I had it, I felt bad about waking my mom up at 3am because it clearly wasn't her problem... But something just didn't seem right, so I woke my mom up, who's been an RN for the past 15 or so years. She was PISSED! Stormed out of the room, we were right by the nurses desk... I just heard shouting and 15 mins later my mom came back with a syringe and a thing of formula and told me to just give her Makayla. She gave her half an oz and said that should get the nurse off our back for a few hours... NOPE! She was back in there within a hour complaining about the same damn thing! Seriously, this kinda crap is what makes women NOT want to breastfeed!

Well anywayz, Monday Paula, the NMCRD Visiting Nurse came to visit me and put me at ease in the hospital. She met me at the house too, just hours after I got discharged. Makayla's kinda having some issues nursing, but we're working on that. Don't want to get into too many details on here. HaHa.

Well anywayz after that awful night at the hospital I pretty much had a nervous breakdown at the house lastnight, a mix of lack of sleep, too much stress, and uninvited guests has just totally gotten to me, (since I had only gotten a total of 30 minutes of sleep while at the hospital). But LUCKILY by mom said we could try sleeping in shifts last night, she'd let me sleep for 4 hrs and then she'd wake me up and she'd get to sleep for 4 hrs... Well luckily the baby went to sleep and slept for quite a while and my mom ended up letting me sleep till 5:30... OMG, those were the best 5 and a half hrs of sleep in my whole life! I felt so much better after that, my mom got sleep and today went MUCH better then last night... Unfortunately, its 1am and of course I'm awake, I did get to sleep for about a hr a little while ago though... Hopefully I'll get to bed in about an hour or so, I'm pretty beat.

Wow... Ok... after reading all that... Especially the crap about the nights after I got home from the hospital... Umm, yeah... I no longer got the baby fevor. HaHa.