A Pretty Song

It’s Friday, time to slow down a bit for the weekend and mellow out.  I hope you enjoy this song, it’s so pretty and sad.

 

"Catch The Wind"

In the chilly hours and minutes
Of uncertainty, I want to be
In the warm hold of your loving mind

To feel you all around me
And to take your hand along the sand
Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind

When sundown pales the sky
I want to hide a while behind your smile
And everywhere I'd look your eyes I'd find

For me to love you now
Would be the sweetest thing 'twould make me sing
Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind

Di di di di, di di di di
Di di di di, di di di di
Di di di

When rain has hung the leaves with tears
I want you near to kill my fears
To help me to leave all my blues behind

For standin' in your heart
Is where I want to be and long to be
Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind

Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind

 

Hope you have a fabulous weekend!

Erin

Getting Back To Being Me

It’s been 2 weeks since I had Tate and I am LOVING being me again!

As much as I loved being pregnant I can’t even begin to tell you how much I love being ‘me’ again!  The swelling in my legs and feet is all gone, and boy does that feel good!  So does being able to jump up off the couch without needing Andy’s help to push or pull me off.  Being able to put on and tie my shoes without getting out breath is pretty dang amazing, too.

There are so many things that you forget you can or should be able to do when pregnant.  Getting comfortable when laying in bed? Absolute heaven!

One of the best things of not being pregnant, though, is wearing my regular clothes again!  When Tate was 8 days old I tried on a pair of my regular jeans and they zipped and buttoned right up!  My regular shirts looked pretty okay on, I somehow don’t have much of a flabby tummy this time around .  And when I hopped on to the scale last week I was at my pre-pregnancy weight already!  Woot woot!  YES I am bragging and NO I don’t care! Ha ha!  I just feel so dang good about it!  It has been a long 18 months of being pregnant and not being myself, I think I have earned this!  Now if I can keep this good trend going I might actually finally lose some weight.  I do think Mr. Tate is helping me in this area, he’s a good little eater so all of this breastfeeding is helping quite a bit!

Emotionally I am getting so close to being all the way back to me.  With the older boys I had the baby blues pretty bad, I cried all the time for the first 2 weeks, and off and on the weeks following that.  But with Tate I barely cried these first 2 weeks. The first week I did cry some, the 2nd week, though, I cried maybe 3 times all week.  Totally unheard of for me!  I don’t know why the great change but I’m not going to question it, just going to enjoy being a happy mommy!  (Sleep does help, though!)

Today is my birthday, although it doesn’t feel like my birthday.  Last year I cancelled my birthday because it was within 2 weeks of losing the baby and I couldn’t even imagine celebrating.  This year, although things are going so great with Tate and with my dad being home, I don’t feel like celebrating my birthday again.  I can’t figure this out because I am the type to celebrate my birthday month, birthday week, birthday weekend and birthday day, I always love my birthday!  Maybe it’s because it’s just been such a busy month, plus Brennan’s birthday is next week and I am trying to get that figured out and planned (bad mommy here – I haven’t bought him his gifts yet!!!).  IDK.  Whatever it is I am hoping next year to be back on track with the celebrating.  Luckily my amazing husband won’t hear of me not celebrating so he is making me feel extra special today!

Have a great Tuesday, friends!

Erin

Sweet Baby Tate is 2 Weeks Old!

Wow, two weeks old already!  Is it only 2 weeks?  Part of me feels like it’s been longer than 2 weeks since we’ve gone to the hospital to be induced and have our little Tate. 

It’s amazing how much babies change in such short amounts of time.  In 2 weeks time:

• Tate has really packed on the pounds, you can see him filling out even more than he was when he was born. 
• His face is stretching out now, not nearly as round as when he entered the world
• He stays awake for about an hour at a time after 3 or 4 of his daytime feedings
• He can hold his head up very well when he lays chest to chest with you
• He is very alert when awake, taking in all the different sights and sounds
• He nurses for about 15 minutes total now, usually 10 minutes on one side and 5 on the other
• He is awake every 4 hours at night, which equals being up only 2 times a night
• He is still a very content little baby
• He ‘recognizes’ me when I pick him up when he’s crying, he settles right down as soon as I put him up to my neck – “his spot”
• He makes all kinds of cute little noises when he’s awake and asleep.  My favorite is when he “ah ha’s”, sounds like a laugh to me
• He sleeps either swaddled up with his arms tucked in and hands out by his face at night, or during the day with his arms out to the sides up by his head

Tate has brought so much joy to our family already, and he’s only 2 weeks old!  I love listening to Brennan ‘baby talk’ with him, it totally melts my heart.  “Oh hi there Tate, you little Monkey Pie!”  Swoon!  Aiden is such a good helper, and he loves holding Tate and just gazing at him.  These boys, they are so great!  I am a lucky Mommy!

Erin

The Birth Of Tate Part 2

At 5:30 it was time to start pushing.  It’s funny how you just know how to do it.  I could feel a contraction was happening but without the pain or discomfort, more like just a feeling something was happening.  That helped to know when to push.

I pushed for just under an hour when sweet Tate was born.  He had shoulder dysplasia, meaning his shoulders were stuck, so my dr. had to twist and turn and tug and pull to get him out.  Poor little guy.  Andy said he was super blue, it freaked him out.  But they got him out, rubbed him down and he finally started to cry!  They took him to the warmer and worked on him some more to make sure his shoulders weren’t hurt or his nerves in his shoulders.  It seemed to take forever for them to be comfortable that he was okay. 

Then they weighed him.  None of us were prepared for what the scale said!  Andy thought it was broken because the nurse had been messing with the buttons on it. But sure enough, 10lbs 6.6oz (rounded up to 7) is how much our little guy weighed. (His face is a bit purple because it was swollen and bruised. That went away by the next morning.)

 

Then they measured him, 22” even.  

Meanwhile the dr. was working on helping me deliver the placenta and then stitching me up.  Yep, she gave me an episiotomy.  She had to cut me to get her fingers in there to twist and turn and pull Tate out.  That seemed to take forever.  And finally, FINALLY, I got to hold our sweet little baby boy!

And then we named him.  Tate Andrew.  Tate is a name I have liked for a few months, and Andrew, of course, is after his daddy.  Other names we had written down were John (Andy’s middle name), Marshall, and Nathan/Nate.  For a girl they were Avery Louise or Katherine (Kate) Louise.  Louise was my grandma’s name. 

Right away Tate stuck his sweet little thumb in his mouth and started sucking.  It was so adorable!  And he barely cried.

Some of his adorable features:

Chubby thighs…

Sweet little feet…

Cute little face…

We called my mom first so we could tell the boys (who were with her) about Tate’s arrival.  They came straight to the hospital and immediately fell in love with Tate, too.

Tate has been such a good baby since the moment he was born.  He sleeps good, eats good, lays awake contentedly, fills his diapers like a good baby should.  He is the most content baby of my 3.  At a week old he slept for a 5 hour stretch that night.  He nurses every 4 hours during the day and is usually awake 2 or 3 times a day for anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour. 

We left the hospital weighing 10lbs 1 oz., and on Wednesday the 19th, at 9 days old, he weighed 11lbs 8oz.  He is a growing boy!  We won’t be in size 1 diapers for very long, will we? And forget 0-3 month clothes, those days are numbered too. 

Some of the nicknames we have started using: Tater Tot, Tater Bug, Tate McGate, Monkey Pie (that’s from Brennan), and Tatie Pie. 

We couldn’t be any happier than we are with Mr. Tate.  We love him so very much!

This is Tate at 1 week old. 

Thanks for all of your well wishes and congratulations!

Erin

The Birth of Tate

Monday morning, February 10th, we went in to the hospital at 7 a.m. to be induced.  I was nervous, but strangely for me I didn’t have an upset stomach at all.  I did feel anxious, though. 

We walked in to the room that our little bundle would be delivered in, #2023, and the nurse handed me a gown and told me to change into it while she set up a few things.  When I came out of the bathroom I got into bed and started feeling hot.  Super hot.  I told Andy I wasn’t feeling too well.  At this point the nurse had done nothing to me but hand me the gown.  Then I started getting short of breath and asked Andy for a trash can.  The nurse handed him a bucket and told me to roll over onto my side.  I started dry heaving and almost fainted.  When I came back from the edge, sweating and flushed, I felt a ton better.  Andy said I was white as a ghost.  All of that freak out because I was panicked about the nurse putting in the IV and because of the unknown of the Pitocin.  Sheesh.

After that I got hot a couple more times but was able to stay with it. The cool wash cloth and fan on high helped. Because of my near fainting episode my veins wouldn’t come to the surface so the nurse, Sandi, grabbed a warm towel and wrapped my arm in it.  After she let that sit for a few minutes she was able to find my veins.  I closed my eyes and squeezed Andy’s hand and in the IV went, the easiest IV I’ve ever had put in.  Okay, that step was done.  Now the Pitocin.

They started my drip of Pitocin at about 8:30.  At that point I was dilated to 2 c.m.  My dr. came in and chatted with me. She told me once she was sure I was progressing with the Pitocin I could get an epidural.  I was still super worried about how hard and fast the contractions would come.  Sandi told me their goal was to get my contractions to be 2 minutes apart consistently and to see how I would progress with that.  About every 30 minutes she came in and increased the Pitocin flow for the next 1 1/2 hrs.  My contractions were consistent but definitely not painful yet. 

At noon my dr. came in and checked me.  I was at a strong 3 and she stripped my membranes – ouch!  She said she was happy with my progress, which I thought was next to none, so I could have my epidural at any time.  I kept thinking I’d be a weenie if I got an epidural at only 3 c.m. but she said she had one at 1 c.m. and Sandi told me since I was paying for it I might as well get the use out of it.  I decided to wait a bit since the pain wasn’t bad at all. 

At 1:00 I told Andy I was ready for the epidural.  In that hour’s time I was cramping from the membrane stripping and my contractions were strong enough that I couldn’t talk through them.  Being tied down to the bed made it harder to deal with the pain.  Sandi gave me a shot of Fentanyl to help take the edge off the pain while we waited for the anesthesiologist to get there at 1:15.  Holy smokes, so so glad I’ve never done drugs before! I do NOT like that loopy feeling.  But it did make me and Andy giggle watching me get all loopy.  Weird feeling.  At about 1:45 the A came in and got started with my epidural.  The vertebrae he usually goes between weren’t cooperating so I had to be stuck 2 times, luckily the second spot worked.  We were all done at 2:15 with that.  He did an amazing job, it was my best epidural yet!  At this point I was almost dilated to 4 c.m.  I tried to rest and get some sleep but between the Fentanyl, some drug they gave me while putting in the epidural and the epidural medicine I was too looped up to fall completely asleep.  But I did rest a little.

At 4:15 the second nurse of the day came in and checked my cervix.  I was dilated to a solid 6 c.m.  At 4:45 my dr. came in to check on me and I was at an 8, and when she checked me again 15 minutes later, at 5:00, I was fully dilated.  I went so fast in that last 45 minutes that they were scrambling to get everything brought in that was needed for the delivery.  My water still hadn’t broken but my dr. wanted to wait to break it until they had the room all set up so the baby wouldn’t just slide on out (yea right, little did we know how big he was!).

At 5:30 everything was set up and my dr. broke my water. Time to start pushing!

Erin