Parenthood

Olivia Grace turned 3 months old last Friday. She is no longer considered a "newborn". Something that sounds so trivial but feels so big. All pregnancy long, I only thought of having this tiny baby at the end. I guess I missed the part about her growing and learning and doing something new and exciting each day. I thought she would never outgrow her newborn clothes and that she'd sleep on our chests forever. And that I could just keep her in this protected little bubble until she was about 70, 75. As it turns out, that's not really practical (but I am still working on it...)

I have so many emotions over her being a quarter of a year old, you cannot even believe.

First and foremost, I am totally in awe of how fast the time has passed. And whatever, everyone tells you it will. Just like your wedding day. "Soak it all in!" The most over-used phrase of all time, am I right?! But it's the flat-out truth. You blink and she is holding her head up and laughing and trying with all her might to crawl and stand and be big girl in every sense of the word. And all of it BLOWS YOUR MIND. When did it happen?? Is she just an over-achieveing genius? (Probably.) Either way, it feels like we were driving home from the hospital yesterday. And this week she found her toes and is cutting her first teeth. Okay, brb, I need to go start planning her first birthday now.

Secondly, I feel incredibly proud. And I think that's okay to say. I am proud of Jason and me as parents. No one has been majorly injured so far (okay, I dropped my phone on her once) and we're all eating, sleeping, and showering on a somewhat regular basis. We still have no idea what we're doing, but we are figuring it out together. Purely by trial and error. Liv is getting to know us, and we are getting to know her, more each day.

A little bit of sadness comes along with it, too. How did time pass so quickly? "Starting our family" phase of life is officially over. We will never again be just two Stews. Liv will never again be a tiny little person that needs us 24/7 for every single thing. She will never fit into those itty, bitty clothes again. She will never use her newborn inserts or take a measly 5 oz. bottle and be full. I will never be up with her all hours of the night, both of us crying (okay, maybe we will) but finally falling asleep together. It's bittersweet. Liv is growing and thriving. But she's not my tiny babe anymore. She's somehow becoming a little girl already.

Lastly, I feel like I want a thousand more babies. Because as hard as it's been, I never want to stop doing this part of life. Watching the tiny human you MADE smile at you because you genuinely made her happy is the single best thing I've experienced in life. It still gets me choked up every day.

But as much as I love this little girl and being a mommy, there are some hard truths that come along with parenthood. Being a mommy is hard. Period. The end. Nothing besides loving their little guts out is easy.

Liv's first 6 weeks of life, we basically had every breastfeeding/digestive issue you can think of. At 2 weeks old, I got double mastitis that started a downhill slide at something I totally took for granted. Oh, you want to breastfeed? No problem. But baby to boob, suck, the end. NOPE. No one really tells you how challenging and emotional breastfeeding is and how many things can go wrong. Liv started off with a shallow latch. Then we both battled thrush for 8+ weeks. I developed oversupply and a forceful letdown about a month in, which made her continually gag/choke, destroyed her tummy, and turned all her poops neon green. Ah! The joys of motherhood. Two months in, we also found out she had reflux and a dairy intolerance. Once we got it all figured out, however, she was a whole new baby. Seven weeks was a MAJOR turning point for all of us. She started eating better, which meant she napped better, which meant she was happier, which meant we were happier. I think it just takes patience and perserverance and knowing that God created this tiny miracle and is going to give you the ability to provide for her. Even when it seems impossible and you are frustrated beyond belief.

And so things gradually improved from 2 months on. I started showering more, which I'm sure improved Jason's quality of life. Jason stopped being gone for work around the clock. (p.s. single moms are seriously my heroes. I barely survived without him.) We started venturing out more with confidence. We got back into a somewhat "normal" routine. Despite the progress though, it wasn't all rainbows and butterflies...

Here are a few of the tougher lessons I've learned since becoming a mommy:

1. You will not sleep enough under any circumstance. And naps probably won't happen no matter how often you tell yourself, "I'll nap when she naps".
2. You will freak out about and self-diagnose every medical condition under the sun to you or her or both. Trust me. EVERY condition. In the history of medicine. (I have a folder in my photos titled "Liv's Poops" for anyone interested.)
3. Every cry - no matter how big, how small - will break your heart. And the first real tear? Game over. You'll be bawling, too.
4. You will want to quit breastfeeding at some point (or for me, 5 times a week the first 3 weeks).
5. Comparison will ruin your day faster than realizing it's 4pm and you still haven't brushed your teeth (I'll let you decide if that's a hypothetical or real problem for me) if you let it. It is so easy to fall into, is my baby as {fill in the blank} as this baby on FB, instagram, whatever else the kids are using these days?
6. You will feel like a bad mom at some point. (You aren't.)
7. The first night she sleeps in her crib all night will be the best and worst night of your life. "I've never slept better! Wait, she doesn't need me? Why is her room so far away? We should probably buy a new house with closer rooms."
8. One day you will accidentally touch her soft spot and immediately be convinced you've caused permanent brain damage.
9. You will fall short of your own expectations. Hey remember how you thought she'd sleep in her crib from night one and you wouldn't pick her up every time she cried? Well Liv slept on Jason's or my chest for her first 2 months of life exclusively, and her average length of cry before being in my arms to this day is probably somewhere around 3.6 seconds.
And most of all...
10. You will have NO IDEA what you are doing. Read every book you want. You still won't have a clue.

But even through the sleepless nights and the struggle of how to juggle this new lifestyle, there is ONE thing I have learned that outweighs all the "hard" things:

IT IS WORTH IT.

All of it. The green poops. The blistered nipples (TMI, don't care. It's real.) The fights with your husband. The public meltdowns. The worry. The stress. ALL of it. This tiny little baby is the most worth it thing ever created. And you would go through all of it one thousand times over to have her in your lives. (Or literally nineteen times, if you're Michelle Duggar.)

One thing that has particularly rocked me to my core almost every day is how God continues to provide for us. And I'm convinced it's the only way we've survived. Because face it, we are way under-qualified to be doing what we are doing... raising a HUMAN. I truly believe every day He will give you enough strength, grace, and patience (even if it's the bare minimum) to get through that day. And that's all you can ask for. Just get to the end of this day. Tomorrow will happen tomorrow. (Side note: if you're really lucky, He will also provide you with an amazing friend that you can text all day and night long who will also show their pediatrician a picture of your baby's poop when you're worried and your check-up isn't for 2 more days... Hi, Kati! Love you!)

So if I could tell all expecting mommies and daddies one thing about parenthood? It would be simple: enjoy it. Oh my stars, just enjoy it. ALL the emotions of becoming a parent... because it will fly by faster than you could ever imagine. And you only get to become a parent for the first time ONCE.

Happy quarter of a year, OG! We love you more than anything.

Welcome to the world, Olivia Grace

THE magical day, the day we'd been looking forward to for 9 months - December 27th - came and went, and we still had no baby.

Now I realize due dates are just estimates, and truly, the average length of pregnancy for a first time mommy is 41 weeks, 4 days. BUT I was over it. I'd been having regular contractions since somewhere around 16-18 weeks which had now turned into every 5-7 minutes every night... and p.s. they were not comfortable. My ankles were ENORMOUS. Like so big I literally could only wear crocs and uggs, and if you are a good friend of mine, you got pictures of them sent to you on a regular basis (sorry). I couldn't even look at a tomato without getting heartburn that felt like a blow torch in my chest. I had round ligament pain so bad in my left hip that getting in and out of bed to use the bathroom at night was nothing short of excruciating. Overall, I was just done being pregnant and ready to be a mommy. And since we hadn't had a view of Liv's face since 20 weeks, we were just SO ready to finally see and meet her. So at 40 weeks and 4 days, we scheduled an induction at my checkup. Something I said I would never do. "I'll let her come when she's ready," said second trimester Kate. "GET THIS KID OUT OF ME!!" said a bawling 41 weeks pregnant Kate. I'm pretty sure my OBGYN thought I was losing it. And I probably was.

I was scheduled to be induced on Friday the 2nd. (Sorry to disappoint the 20+ people who said "you better have her before the New Year to get that tax break!" Sidenote: we still get a tax break this year...) "We'll have you come in at 6am Friday and get started. Just call first to make sure there is a bed open." Okay, great. Well 6am became 8am, which became noon, which finally became 4pm. Since I was giving birth in an Army hospital, I'll let you guess the babies being born to beds available ratio. Especially in Fort Polk, LA. Where people make babies because there's literally nothing else to do. Needless to say, they were right in the middle of a record-breaking weekend. 14 babies had been born in 2 days. Liv ended up being the 15th of 2015.

So after being anxious ALL day and barely sleeping the night before, Jason, Mom and I headed to the hospital around 3:30 that afternoon. We swung by admissions, picked up some paperwork, and headed to my LDRP room. I was finally in that snazzy hospital gown and hooked up to approximately 100 monitors by 5:30, when they realized I had started labor on my own. (Cue my thoughts of, "Are you for real, Olivia Grace?!?) I also literally can't believe I had started LABORING THE BIRTH OF A CHILD and had no idea whatsoever... Guess I was just super used to all those contractions! So my doctor decided to see what my body did over the next 2 hours on its own before I started on Pitocin. The contractions were 3-5 minutes apart and getting stronger but not getting any closer than that, so I started a small dose of Pitocin around 7:30. 

If you talked to me before labor, you knew I had planned on going medicine-free for as long as possible (and hopefully the entire time). In my prenatal classes, I learned there were a lot of benefits in doing so that I hadn't really considered before (mobility, ability to feel when to push, faster labor, etc.). But honestly, the number 1 reason I didn't want it was they told me I'd have to get a catheter. Look, I get it. I'm having a baby and a catheter is my biggest concern? Yea. I'm a weenie. Whatever. By 1am, however, I was starting to lose my mind in pain! I got a small dose of pain killer in my IV, which made me feel completely drunk. Mom AND Jason had to walk me to the bathroom because I was so dizzy and confused. So I lost a few hours in a haze, napped, got it out of my system, and swore never again. Then for the next 4 hours, I just dealt with the pain. Til 5am. When I actually and completely lost my mind. I politely begged to call the anesthesiologist (who they promised me could be there in 16 minutes) "umm... NOW"! Thankfully, she she made it in what seemed like 5 minutes and saved my life. Early on, my first shift doctor basically said, get the epidural. Don't be a martyr. You'll be smiling as you push your baby out (this was a total lie btw), but about everything else, he was freaking right. The nurses explained to me going medicine free is awesome... if your water breaks at home, you come in 5cm dilated and ready to have a baby. Not for someone who had been 1-2cm for weeks, had to be induced, and was in intense early labor pain for hours. I never thought twice about getting it afterwards, and I have ZERO regrets that I didn't make it epidural-free. I had only dilated to 4 cm the first 10 hours of labor (1.5cm from when I'd come in). After I got the epidural, I took an hour nap, and woke up over 9cm dilated. My heart was jumping out of my body. It's go time... FINALLY!!!

I started pushing shortly thereafter. And thank God I had the best nurse in the history of L&D, who was super patient with me and let me move around and complain and cry and even throw up. (Umm, how did I not know that was a thing during labor, btw?) Well anyways, I got sick 3 separate times. But by #2 and #3, Jay got REALLY good at grabbing the sick bag.

Since I had gotten the epidural, I had no feeling in my legs. Since Mom and Jay were already in the room with me, they held them while I pushed. (p.s. you should know "held" was a pretty loose term on Jason's side, who, halfway through my pushing, dropped my leg to the ground {which I could not see}, and so when I heard a crash and asked "what was that?", we all laughed and admitted he was not holding my legs for baby #2.) Having them RIGHT there was never part of the plan. Mom was there to take pictures (don't panic... from the hips up!) and for moral support, and Jason could barely even be in the room during my regular pelvic exams throughout pregnancy without almost passing out. But everything started happening so fast, we really had no other choice. And it was awesome. They were rockstars. And much braver than me. I could not have done it without them period. Then two hours of pushing later (and after me repeatedly telling the doctor, "I actually can't do this anymore - I guess she's just staying in forever" and being 100% serious about that), the most beautiful baby came into this world.

She was cute, oh my. But she was also blue-grey. Something you see on tv or read about and know is never good. Well my doctor flipped her over quickly, rubbed her back, and then... nothing. No response. We heard none of the first cries you imagine hearing at least 1000 times while you're pregnant. Liv was not breathing. She was actually completely lifeless. So ignoring our birth plan of having Jay cut the umbilical cord, Dr. Ferguson immediately clamped and cut her and got her to the nurses.

"Is she okay?" I asked twice. No response the first time. "You're okay," was my favorite nurses's response the second time. I was too scared to look at Jason, so I calmly turned to Mom and asked the scariest question I've ever asked in my life... "Is she alive?" I don't remember if Mom answered me or not, but I will tell you now that she wasn't sure of the answer. Neither was Jason. We just had to wait. The next 5 minutes were the LONGEST of all our lives. But by the GRACE of God, we had the best nurses on the planet who were able to resuscitate her with oxygen and some more rubbing. When we finally heard her voice for the first time, I can't remember ever having had a better feeling. And I don't care what happens the rest of my life - I never will. Our baby was alive. And crying so beautifully.

So after a mere 19 hours, we finally had our little miracle in our arms. And it's everything everyone tells you it will be. A love you've never known, a complete feeling of awe, a confusion about how we MADE her (well, I mean, I know how we made her...) But seriously, it's the most wonderful thing in the world, plain and simple. And we're trying our best to soak in all these early moments that seem to fly by.

The one question people seem to ask now is, "has your view on life changed?" And the answer is, honestly, yes. Without question. I have said it more times than I can count... life before her just doesn't really seem to matter.