Tag: mom blog

A different kind of paradise

Three years ago you could find me newly married, likely in a white swimsuit, on a beach in Bora Bora. If you had asked me right then & there I’d say I was in literal paradise. Flash forward to now, I’m sitting in a glider chair, rocking my 3 week old son, trying to get him to take his first nap of the day while my coffee sits in the microwave already heated for the second time this morning. But if you asked me today my answer would be the same, this is paradise. This paradise today is so much bigger & deeper than the crystal clear water of three years ago. I remember being on our honeymoon & feeling so in love I thought nothing could compare. And today I love my husband more than I ever knew was possible. We are living in our same San Francisco flat, but our home is so much more full today. Our guest room/ office is now a plant themed nursery for our sweet baby boy. On our wood floors you’ll find tufts of fur from our black lab & the walls are lined with framed moments of paradises past. Sure, I’m more sleep deprived than ever before (although nursing school is a very close second), & we’ll most likely spend our summer in the foggy abyss that is San Francisco June / July, not in an over water bungalow, sipping tropical cocktails; but I wouldn’t trade this moment in time for anything else. For these fleeting moments in time right now, when my baby will never be this small again, I know will be one of the sweetest paradises I’ll ever visit. (However this won’t stop me from posting some photos of the French Polynesian paradise we were at three years ago!)

Happy Friday, hope everyone has a great weekend! Shockingly we have very few plans for the weekend, aside from my brother visiting us & taking the dog for some walks. Also, this blog post is brought to you courtesy of the Time Hop feature on Facebook that reminded me where I was three years ago!

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NICU part 2. A Dad’s Thank You.

A guest post from my incredibly well spoken husband.

On Friday April 27th at 6:34AM William Hayes Dorsey came barreling into the world after 36 long hours of labor that stressed him far more than any of us knew at the time.

This experience, more than any other in my life, has so pointedly laid bare the misconception that we’re capable of going it alone. Natasha and I had to lean on so many people – friends, family, and strangers to get through the last few weeks. We had a plan, we had an idealistic picture in our heads of how we wanted birth and the first few weeks of our child’s life to go. That all went out the window when we got the results of our non-stress test, which showed William had 20% less amniotic fluid around him than the minimum required level. As the nurses later put it, the placenta was past due on it’s 40 week warranty.

“Good news. I have your induction date… it’s today.” – Dr. Kim aka Superwoman

The labor we wanted – starting on it’s own, progressing naturally… well, that might be for baby #2. Our only goal was to get William out healthy as soon as possible. He arrived 5 days past due after a difficult labor with the cord around his neck. Who knows if any/all of that contributed to his shockingly low blood sugar and a week-long stay in the NICU, but that’s how things go. You think you’re in control and you’re really just along for the ride.

To be sure, we were so much more fortunate than other families in the NICU with babies much more sick than Will. I think about those families every day and hope with everything I have that they get to go home soon with happy, healthy babies. Until then, I hope they keep fighting. Through the ups and downs, I hope they know that there are people out there – strangers, passersby – thinking of them and wishing them strength and love through this terrible ordeal.

What follows is a set of thank you’s that are inherently inadequate in return for the amount of love, kindness, and support we’ve been shown by friends, family, professionals, and strangers throughout this process.

To Doctor Kim:

You made us so comfortable from the first time we met you. You exude confidence in every interaction and give your patients the confidence that you have everything under control, have thought through all the potential scenarios, and are supporting their goals as far as the medicine will allow. We could not be more grateful that you were our OB and that you were there for the full labor and delivery experience. It was not an easy one, with decelerations and multiple layers of treatment, but when everyone else got worked up, you were the calming force in the room, you were there to guide the way. You made us laugh, you made us feel safe. You were honest with us, you were supportive. At so many different points, it felt like things were getting away from us and there you were to get things back on track. What could have been a very bad experience was a great one – all because of you. Thank you. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.

To the well baby nurse who unwrapped Will and offered to change his diaper:

Thank you so much for being thorough and watchful in the execution of your job. You noticed his jittery little legs and ran a quick test that caught his incredibly low blood sugar. Without you, Will may never have received the care he needed.

“We know we’re no one’s first choice…” – Badass NICU nurse #792

To the NICU nurses:

What an exceptional group of human beings you are. You see people – parents and children – at their most fragile point in life. No one wants to be in the NICU, but I’ll be damned if there is a better group of people than NICU nurses. You all are brave, smart, compassionate, funny, and so much more. You carry families on your back through their darkest days. You care for the most innocent and fragile of lives like they are your own children. You care for new parents – parents who never thought of anything except a happy, healthy baby. You celebrate progress, you support set backs. You are optimistic, you are realistic. To say we couldn’t have done it without you is obvious, but it must be said. You might not be anyone’s first choice, but we wouldn’t want anyone else to help us through those late night feedings, the low readings, the critical labs, the slow progress, and eventually, finally, leaving. I’m sure there are terribly hard days, days I can’t stand to imagine, but you are the best of what we can be as humans. You show up shift after shift stronger than anyone knows. Thank you so much for everything you do.

To Molly:

Nothing we write here, say, or do, will ever repay what you have given our family or fully express the gratitude we feel for your love, compassion, and friendship to Natasha, myself, and William. I can’t start to catalog everything you’ve done for us, so hopefully it will suffice to say – thank you for the crackers 😉 We love you and look forward to every chance we get to see you.

To our parents:

Both sets of parents came to our rescue over and over again. To my parents – thank you for waiting tirelessly in waiting rooms during labor, delivery, and the NICU stay, for running out to get food repeatedly, for propping me up so I could be there for Natasha, and for coming back to lend a helping hand. To Nastasha’s parents – thank you so much for taking care of our home, for grocery shopping, and for being willing to drop everything and move into our apartment indefinitely while we were there with William.

To Kathryn and Drac:

Thank you for taking Juno in at a moment’s notice and continuing to extend her stay as conditions changed. Knowing she was in good hands meant the world to us and took so much stress out of the picture so we could be 100% present with William. We know she had a blast too.

To all the other friends we called and leaned on:

You brought food, you listed to us cry, you supported us, you offered us words of encouragement. Thank you – we can’t wait to see you soon.

To Natasha:

You are the strongest woman I’ve ever met; poised and graceful, able to weather any storm. You’re my light and my best friend. Our William is so lucky to have you as his mom, as I am to have you as my wife. Motherhood looks so natural on you. You are comfortable and confident, all the more the woman I fell in love with those year ago.

Lessons from the NICU

When I went in to be induced at 40 weeks & 3 days I was just so excited to meet my baby. Not a single ounce of me thought we wouldn’t take our full term son home for seven days. Instead of leaving the hospital two nights after my delivery, my husband & I would spend the next week sharing a 10×10 hospital room. We would wake every 2.5 hours to walk the 400 steps to the NICU to see our baby boy. After a difficult labor, lasting over 36 hours, our little boy had trouble maintaining his blood sugar levels & would spend the following week in the NICU trying to manage his sugar. This was not the plan. I had spent the previous 40 weeks with an otherwise seamless pregnancy, each scan & blood test giving us reassurance that everything was on track.

Our time spent in the NICU taught me more than I ever realized. During that week, we lived in 3 hour blocks. Just waiting for the next blood sugar check, verifying how his dextrose infusion was being titrated, waiting on critical labs to return. The first few days I was somewhat in denial that this was my reality. The ER nurse in me kept thinking “they’ll stabilize his sugar & he’ll be back in our post partum room & we’ll be right on track to go home”. It soon became clear he was going to be there longer than we had imagined & that we were going to have a NICU baby. We were joining an exclusive club no parent wants to be a member of, a club that puts you on a crash course of endless love & fierce protection for this little life you created. Below is some of what I learned from that week.

Look for silver linings anywhere and everywhere: This was huge for us, it kept us floating. Our silver linings were anything from a solid blood sugar reading this hour, to taking advantage of the fact that our little boy was being put on a regimented schedule & was learning to self soothe in the middle of the night since the nurses couldn’t immediately run to him or that he was learning to simultaneously breastfeed & bottle feed. All of these silver linings would be things we’d be thankful later!

Take the help: This is as simple as it sounds. Take people up when they offer to bring you things from the store, clothes from home, keep your dog an extra night (or 5!). One night my best friend & Chris’ brother came over in between feedings & we ordered pizza to our room. People desperately want to help you. Let them. Everyone will feel better.

Sometimes Cuddles Are Enough – One night when we were in the NICU for a feeding & Will wasn’t doing the best at breastfeeding a nurse reminded us that sometimes just holding your baby & being in the moment is plenty. Even though we wanted each feeding to be a great success to help with his blood sugar it realistically wasn’t going to perfect every time. So she encouraged instead of putting pressure on every feeding, to relax & just let him lay with us & know that being on us was just as powerful as any IV infusion. He was gaining comfort & love & security all things he would need to get better.

Feel the warmth: Something that struck me right off the bat being in the NICU was how much warmth there was. As an ER nurse I’d say warmth can be hard to find in an emergency department, however there’s no shortage of it when it comes to the people who dedicate their lives to caring for tiny humans. My recommendation is to let yourself feel it. As someone who doesn’t readily accept hugs from strangers, I found myself gladly taking the hugs from nurses I had just met.

Prepare for setbacks: This lesson sucks. But inevitably you’ll take two steps forward and one step back & it’ll sting.  Honestly we weren’t prepared until we had our first major set back & it totally crushed us. A part of me felt guilty for feeling so crushed, when I looked around & saw babies on ventilators, or babies too sick to be held. I felt guilty for feeling so knocked down when our baby wasn’t close to being the sickest one there. Just know set backs will happen & it’s okay to cry, but know that it’ll get better. When we’d walk to the NICU for another feeding we’d talk about potential set backs & prepare ourselves for a low sugar & just talking about it being an option helped.

Think big: This became our motto before every blood sugar check. I’ve always believed in sending out good energy into the universe & as much as we mentally prepared for setbacks I think it’s equally important to be positive & to “think big thoughts”. Even though doctors & nurses are watching over, your baby needs you to believe in them & to be their cheerleader, now more than ever.

Do normal things. Walk outside. Listen to music. Shower. It’s amazing how a hot shower, or a walk around the block helped. It’s important to try to bring some normalcy to a very abnormal situation. There was a Starbucks one block from the hospital so we’d try to go for an afternoon walk & get a coffee. It felt so strange to walk outside & remember there is a whole world outside of the windowless walls of the NICU where our whole world lay in an isolet. I really believe those little pockets of normalcy kept us going, as did the afternoon coffees!

Support Each Other:  I would not have been able to make it through this experience without my husband. At various points we each had to be the person to pick the other one up. We knew our son needed us & he needed us to be in a good place. Who ever your support person is, let them support you. And return the favor when they need it. Celebrate the baby steps together, cry when you need to.

Lastly,

Know the NICU isn’t anyone’s first choice. No ones birth plan includes a week long stay in the NICU, ours certainly didn’t. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be & it’s okay to be upset about that. No one will truly understand unless they’ve been through it. The simultaneous urge to fiercely protect your baby paired with the total lack of control over the situation can make even the strongest people weak. For some reason I’ll never know, this was our journey. Having made it out on the other side I’m thankful for the lessons it taught me & how it forever shaped me as a mother. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the feeling of getting to dress our baby in his first outfit & walk out those double doors. The bitter-sweetness of being so incredibly thankful for the hearts that took such good care of him that week, but wishing all the babies got to go home.

If you stumbled onto this post because you’re going through a similar journey my heart aches for you. It aches for all the moms & dads that don’t get to walk out those doors with their babies like they planned.

^moments before we walked out of the NICU

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Will’s Newborns

What better way to spend an afternoon than with your best friend posing your newborn in various outfits & backgrounds! Will totally took it like a champ & let us get a lot of shots of him & I’m in LOVE with all of them. It was so hard to pair them down. They’re only this little once, so you have to capture it. Needless to say we are so thankful to be home than in the NICU & I must say everyone is adjusting nicely.

William Hayes

At 40weeks & 3 days I was induced after a non stress test showed low amniotic fluid levels. After enduring 36 hours of labor our sweet boy, William Hayes Dorsey, made his debut last Friday 4/27 at 6:34am. We are so in love with our little guy. He was under stress throughout my labor & spent the last week in the NICU, but I am thrilled to report as of Friday we are home with a happy healthy boy!

10 Things to do in your 3rd Trimester

With my due date just a few days away I’ve been thinking a lot about ways I’ve spent the last couple of months & there are a few things that I think every soon to be mama should put on her list.

  1. Prenatal Yoga – the hospital I’m delivering at offered a 6 week prenatal yoga class & it was some of the best $100 I’ve spent this pregnancy. Each Monday I walked to the yoga room & for 90 minutes was able to focus on stretching, breathing & getting to be around other very pregnant soon to be mamas. Since the class ended I’ve been trying to stick with stretching because I know it can only help me with delivery day comes. If your hospital doesn’t offer a class or you don’t want to shell out money just head to YouTube and search for 3rd trimester yoga and see the results pour in. I promise you won’t be disappointed!!
  2. LadyMoon – As much as I talked about how great it is to go on a babymoon with your significant other, I think if you can swing it some kind of Ladymoon with your girlfriends can be just as important! It doesn’t have to be overnight, it doesn’t have to be fancy, it can be as simple as a dinner out somewhere that makes delicious mocktails. There’s nothing being surrounded by some of your favorite women & if you have the opportunity to get pampered why not go for it.IMG_8602img_8606.jpg
  3. REST! Whenever you want, how much you want & don’t feel guilty about it. In the third trimester I revisited the power of an afternoon nap. The last six weeks or so of this trimester my sleep at night really started to be impacted. I know a lot of women who have trouble sleeping much sooner than that, so I certainly count myself lucky, but once I stopped working & could really indulge in the afternoon nap I went for it. Chris typically calls me when he’s leaving work to say he’s on his way home, and more often than not these days that phone call finds me asleep on the couch!
  4. Shower – this might sound odd, but one of my goals this trimester was to shower whenever I felt like it for as long as I wanted, uninterrupted. I’m not always the biggest fan of showers, mostly because I hate washing my hair & having to blow dry it afterward. I’m typically a wash my hair every 3-4 days gal; but this trimester it dawned on me showers will be harder to come by & I know hearing a crying baby will definitely make a shower far less enjoyable. So I decided this is my last chance to be under hot water for as long as I please & not feel any guilt.
  5. Meal Prep – Come up with a handful of meals you can make ahead of time & freeze. A few friends of mine picked a random day & dedicated it to cooking these freeze ahead meals. If that sounds far to daunting then try to cook one meal a week that you can make a double batch of & freeze the second half. Some of the meals we made were: Lasagna, beef chili, chicken teriyaki, squash soup & a jumbalaya. All of these items reheat nicely & I know will be such a lifesaver in the weeks to come. Because we live in an apartment our freezer situation is pretty tight, so I went ahead and sent a couple meals with one of my friends who I know will come visit me in the first few weeks & told her when she comes just to bring one or two of the meals! Whether you’re cooking or your enlisting the help of friends or family, having some meals ready to go that just need to be heated up will take some of the pressure off in the first few weeks.
  6. Go out to dinner – Chris & I made a little list of some of our favorite restaurants in San Francisco & decided to make an effort to go to them one last time before the baby came. I personally tried to pick places that have yummy desserts, now that I’m not indulging in a fancy cocktail or a glass of wine I’ve become quite the dessert connoisseur. It’s been so nice to have a leisurely dinner at some of our favorite places & just relish in this moment of time right before our world gets turned upside down.
  7. Acupuncture – I’ve talked about my love for acupuncture in previous posts & how much it helped in the first trimester with keeping morning sickness at bay & energy levels up. Now in the third trimester I’ve been going more & more frequently. Throughout this trimester I’ve started to experience more pregnancy symptoms, when I was still working my back began to hurt from standing all day. In the final six weeks or so of my pregnancy I began developing significant carpal tunnel & hand swelling & acupuncture really helped alleviate some of the discomfort that went along with it. And as of the past few weeks I’ve been going to try to prepare my body for birth. One of my biggest goals is to try my hardest to avoid induction, I really trust my body & although my doctor is okay with being going to 42 weeks, it honestly sounds a little terrifying to go that far overdue. My acupuncturist specializes in women’s health / fertility & is very confident in her ability to send the right signals to my body to promote labor. As someone who was going to acupuncture long before I was pregnant & saw the results I can’t help but recommend it for almost everyone! Stay tuned for what I think about the “induction” sessions & if they really work to bring about labor!
  8. Take a birth class – no matter what your ideal birth plan is it’s probably a good idea to take some kind of class just in case mother nature has other plans. Often times women can be sent home from the hospital if they are not far enough along in their labor, and having ways to cope with labor before you can be admitted and get an epidural is a smart idea. If you’re in the bay area I highly recommend Bay Area Birth Education. This class was awesome. It was a little daunting when we saw that it was an ALL day class, but we both felt so much more prepared for what is to come afterward. I anticipated a fairly granola approach, with lots of discussion about natural births however I must say I thought they did an amazing job of presenting all the options women are faced with in an incredibly non judgmental way.
  9. Get organized –  As someone who appreciates a good list this was definitely a must for me. Chris & I created a list of things that we had to get done before the baby got here. It included things like getting our cars oil changed & detailed before installing the bases to the carseat, specific tasks to finish up the nursery like hanging shelves, setting up our baby monitor etc. I’ll be sharing our list in case anyone is curious, but I highly recommend sitting down & thinking about the things that must get done & things you would love to have done before baby is here & setting aside a couple tasks each week. By breaking the list up it can make it seem much more manageable. Plus if you have family or friends who want to help you it’s a great way to know what tasks you can ask them to do for you. For instance my parents came to town for a few days & wanted to help me so I had them help me wash the cover for our sectional couch which was something that absolutely needed to be done & is a huge pain in the butt.
  10. Finalize your maternity leave plans – every state has different benefits & amount of time they give to new mothers. Navigating this process can feel very overwhelming so the sooner you start asking your colleagues, researching online & getting things in order the better. California is generous when it comes to time off for both pregnancy & in the weeks following the birth.  & Even though I had a few women at work who could help shed some light about how to navigate the system it was still very confusing & involved me having to calculate out how much vacation time, sick time, holiday time I would be using.
  11. Bonus ENJOY! – As hard as it can be, try your very hardest to enjoy your third trimester. As I sit here writing this post just a few days shy of my due date, I honestly can’t believe it’s already here. It feels both like yesterday & forever ago that we sat in the car in awe with our first ultrasound photos & had this nervous excited energy buzzing in us. Now with the birth upon us it’s so crazy to think that we’re on the brink of a completely new season of life. Chris & I often talk about seasons & we really made it a point to enjoy this season of being married but not having babies. Even though having a family is incredibly important to both of us & was something that we looked forward to & talked at length about even from our first date! We really made it a priority to relish in the season that led up to it because we won’t ever have that time again.  I know we are about to embark on an experience & feel love bigger than we can even imagine right now but I think anytime a season ends it inevitably feels bittersweet. So I’m really trying to just be present & enjoy this time right now.

Did any other mommas feel this end of season bittersweetness I describe? I know that in a week or two I probably won’t even remember I felt this way!

Gender Neutral Nursery Reveal

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Our nursery is finally done!!! It feels so good to have everything wrapped up. Since we are saving the gender of our baby for delivery day we had to opt for a very neutral room. Neither of us were super into some of the generic themes you can find at superstores. When coming up with our plan for designing the nursery we first picked out a paint color & then we chose furniture. Next we decided that we should choose a bright rug & have that kind of lead us. We ended up doing a plant theme & I think it turned out SO cute, I couldn’t be happier. Some of my favorite pieces in the nursery are the sweet mobile that came from an Etsy shop called The Felting Dorcas, I also really love the accent wall above the dresser / changing station. I found some glass hexagon shelves on Etsy & filled them with small river rocks & some artificial greenery & I think it totally ties the room together!

The Final Countdown

This past Sunday I hit 37 weeks & it feels so surreal that this baby is going to make his or her appearance any day now. I’m officially off of work as of last week & am fully in preparation mode. As a nurse I’m used to having random week days off, so at first it just felt like I had a long stretch of days off but now it’s really setting in that I won’t be heading back to work until the fall! Throughout the entirety of Chris & my relationship I have either worked nightshift or for the past 3 years worked swing shifts which meant coming home around 2am. So this is the first time in five years that we’re seeing each other every night & eating dinner / going to bed together like most couples, it’s something we were both very excited about!

As for how I’m spending my final weeks pre baby? Well I’m certainly soaking in taking afternoon naps & just resting whenever I feel like. But I’ve also got a decent list of little projects that I’m trying to tackle, mostly random cleaning or organization tasks. Our baby room is done, our hospital bags are packed & my freezer is already stuffed to the brim with food for once baby is here. My parents are finally back in town, they spent the month of March away so I can breathe easy knowing they are just a few hour drive away if baby decides to come early now. My mom is planning to come next week to help me with some cleaning, which I’m pretty excited about. Aside from cleaning & resting I’m wrapping up some last minute self care items: getting new glasses, getting my hair cut etc. And of course I’m going to acupuncture especially as I get closer & closer. My major goal this week is to finish our 2017 photo book, I make one each year with all our pictures & I’m SO close to finishing last years & I know I absolutely NEED to get it done before this baby gets here otherwise it may never happen so that is a top item this week.

Below is a photo from the last shift I worked. My amazing coworkers threw my the sweetest send off, it was super hero themed on account of me being SUPER pregnant.

Baby Shower

This past weekend we celebrated our little baby. My best friend planned such an incredible shower. It was so much fun, Chris’ mom & some of her closest friend flew all the way from Austin, & my mom & two of my aunts made the trek to San Francisco also. Besides our families, a lot of my nursing school friends, coworkers, & my best childhood friend came. San Francisco really put on a show weather wise, It was high 70’s, I couldn’t believe it. Not only did our little baby get spoiled with so many thoughtful gifts, but I felt so spoiled with how much love was in one room & how many people can’t wait to meet our little baby! It’s so bizarre to think that in just about 10 weeks we’ll get to meet the little person we’ve created & I can’t wait. It feels like it’s seriously just around the corner!

Winter Babymooning

 

Here are some photos from our babymoon this weekend. We rented a little log cabin & stayed outside of Tahoe for two nights. I know most babymoons take place by a pool, with a mocktail in hand but given that we live so close to Tahoe & that my pregnancy is primarily taking place in winter this seemed like a very fun & romantic choice. It was so nice to unplug, be out of cell service & just enjoy each other’s company. I told Chris how happy I was to make once last trip up to the snow before the baby because I know each consequent trip from here on out is going to look a lot different.

The resort we stayed at, Sorenson’s has a little cafe that serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They deliver firewood to your porch daily & are dog friendly (pretty much checking all our boxes haha!) We packed some of our own food because our cabin came equipped with a full kitchen. I brought some homemade chili that just needed reheating & I brought some buttermilk pecan sticky buns. The sticky buns turned out SO good, here’s the recipe . Then we grabbed dinner at the cafe our second night.

 Each day we strapped on our snowshoes & went exploring. Even though snow shoeing may sound terribly bland it’s actually a lot of fun. It’s basically snow hiking so you can stay on a trail or off road & climb up the mountain. It’s the perfect, free, activity for people who aren’t into skiing or snowboarding but still want to enjoy the scenery. We had Juno with us so she was off exploring or chasing after her ball & we were able to keep up with her.

We are planning a little warmer of a babymoon next month, but we’ll still be driving there. Chris & I have always loved going on road trips & driving together in the car. We spent a lot of weekends early on in our relationship driving the Pacific Coast Highway, so it seemed appropriate to pick babymoons that we could drive to. Especially since car rides post baby I’m sure will be less leisurely haha.

Hope everyone had a great weekend ❤