back from the hospital

 

Last night was my first night away from Malakai, ever. It didn't happen intentionally, I had no time to prepare. I found myself wishing we had followed through with a trial overnighter like we had planned on. Even just him staying at home overnight with someone other than us. He's done well going to bed for others, which is basically the hardest part.

I'll back up. Yesterday morning I was walking out of the play room and stepped on a toy (typical) and I stumbled, hitting belly first on the open door. I didn't fall down, just sort of bounced off the wall. It wasn't really painful, just startling. I lay down to make sure baby was moving and all was well and then I called my doctor's office. When I finally heard back from the nurse she told me they'd probably just monitor me for a bit when I came in for my weekly appointment later that afternoon, but she needed to talk with my OB. Baby was still moving and I wasn't really worried at all. I wasn't in pain and nothing was out of the ordinary.

I get another call back letting me know that I was to head straight to the hospital for "extended monitoring". I still felt like I shouldn't worry but being told to go right away scared me a bit. Malakai was napping by this point so Ben's mom came to stay with him while we headed to the hospital. Once we got to triage in Labor + Delivery I asked the nurse how long we should expect to be there. She had to check with my doctor but let us know that extended monitoring usually meant 4 hours, but could be 12. Once she got clarification from Dr. M we were told to expect 4 hours on the monitors. I was grumpy about the whole thing, but knew that it was best to play it safe.

After 3 hours and a lot of back and forth between 3 different nurses and the on-call doc (who was stuck at the other hospital) we were told that because my uterus was overly active that they were going to keep me overnight for continued monitoring. News we were not expecting at all. They were watching for signs of placental abruption. While baby's heart rate and movement was tracking normal, my uterus wasn't. Protocol said that I needed to be monitored for roughly 24 hours to be sure that everything was ok.

To get medical/technical, I was told during monitoring when I was pregnant with Malakai that I have an active/irritable uterus. Basically it doesn't really show up as a flat line on the monitors as having no movement, which is what the nurses wanted to see in order to send me home. So while I was certain that everything was normal, they couldn't send me home.

I was pretty emotional considering I didn't get to prepare for my first night away from Malakai. By then Ben's mom had left and my mom had come over to watch Kai. It started to get late and the doctor had still not seen us so we decided Ben should go home to at least get Kai to bed and see whether or not he should stay with Kai or come back to be with me. Ultimately Malakai was having too rough a time getting to bed so Ben stayed home, it was our first night apart in 3 years, making my stay alone in the hospital even more rough.

The on-call doctor didn't even get to me until 10:30pm, I had been at the hospital at 1pm. It was a long and stressful wait just to hear that they definitely would not discharge me and that I was stuck.

I was hooked up to the uncomfortable and often painful monitors all night and only got about 3 hours of sleep, non-consecutively. I fought back a lot of tears, and tried my best to not get worked up as to not cause unnecessary stress to myself and little brother. By the time morning came I was really missing my boys and feeling pretty lonely. Not to mention feeling the aches and pains of being restricted to sleeping in a hospital bed with monitors and wires everywhere.

Ben + Kai came to get me around 8 this morning and I couldn't have been happier to see them. I had been away from Malakai for nearly 20 hours, which is the longest stretch ever. It may seem silly to some, but our lifestyle just doesn't afford overnight vacations away from our child and since I'm primarily a stay-at-home mom it's just our reality that I'm with him all the time. I knew this time would come but thought I'd be in labor so I'd have some time to mentally prepare myself, not to mention the distraction that laboring would bring.

After going back and forth with several nurses and 2 different on-call doctors I was finally discharged, after 18 hours of continuous monitoring. It's not 100% that everything is fine, but everything looks good. I just need to take extra care to notice baby's movements or lack thereof and some other symptoms of a placental abruption. I'm confident that I didn't really hit my tummy THAT hard and that overall God is watching over us.

So, needless to say, it was a rough night. I'm still recovering physically from being stuck in bed that long (the aches + pains!), not sleeping (I will be napping soon), and the emotional roller coaster it all ended up being.

I'd appreciate any and all prayers for myself and little brother as we await labor and delivery over the next couple weeks (or days!).

growing baby- 38 week photo

Here's a photo of me from last night, 38 weeks, 1 day and ready as can be to meet this little boy. This should have gone with Monday's post. 

 I've been so worn out lately I've been hanging out at home in my pj's with Malakai for the past couple of days. Excuse the no-makeup and ratty hair in the photo, but I still wanted to document the progress of growing this baby.

Today is our weekly appointment, so I'll actually get dressed and try to look like a human before leaving the house.

bleh

Today's not been the most fun. I woke up at 4:30am to Kai yelling. Thankfully Ben got him back to sleep pretty easily. Unfortunately I couldn't get back to sleep and I've been having mild contractions all day. Malakai got up at 6:30 and is having a very hard time listening to his mama. I just endured one of the most epic tantrums ever. I can't even get this kid to go outside and play...it's going to be a long day.

38 weeks

Here we are 2 weeks from the due date. We've made it to the "any day now" point of this pregnancy. It went by so quickly. Having our floors finished and being out of the month of September makes us feel even more ready for little brother to make his arrival. I have signs of labor about every evening, but nothing to call in about. I learned the hard way last time with two trips to the hospital for false labor before the real deal. I plan on not going in until the contractions stop me in my tracks, now that I'm familiar with active labor. I also hope to stay at home to labor for the first part depending on how things progress.

No picture for this post, maybe I'll share one later this week but I literally don't have a recent one.

How far along? 38 weeks 

Total weight gain/loss: 35 lbs.

Stretch marks? nothing new, just itchy.

Maternity Clothes: with the fall weather finally arriving in Oregon I have more options.

Sleep: tossing + turning but I'm used to it by now.

Best moment this week: snuggles with Malakai + little brother's kicks and nudges.

Movement: slow but regular.

Gender: little baby brother

Labor Signs: contractions every day. 3.5cm and 50% effaced at my last appointment.
Food Cravings: nothing in particular, just needing to eat small meals + snacks all day.
Belly Button in or out? out.
What I miss: being able to get out of bed without rolling.

What I am looking forward to: meeting our son. while our to-do list is still fairly long, I think we're ready!

Weekly Wisdom: enjoy the final moments of pregnancy, it's over so quickly.

Baby Brain Moment of the Week: mixing up schedules and confusing church volunteers yesterday morning. 

Milestones: labor "progress", although I learned last time (I was at 4cm for two weeks) that it means little to nothing.

tile to laminate: our first big house project

On Saturday we accomplished our first big makeover on our home. Everything else we've done, like peel wall paper and paint has been fairly low-key in comparison. On Saturday Ben and 3 other guys tore up our tile flooring in the dining room + kitchen to replace it with laminate wood flooring to match the rest of our house. We've been wanting to do this since we bought the place 18 months ago.

Reasons we hated the tile:

• First, it was just plain ugly. 
• It was super unforgiving when it came to dropping dishes or little ones falling.
• It was installed incorrectly (which made removal easier) so it had many cracks.
• Grout is disgusting and annoying to clean. 
• It broke up the main living space of our already small home, making it look smaller.
• It was cold and uninviting.
• I could think of a thousand other reasons...

Needless to say I was a bit jealous that I didn't get to take a crack at it with a hammer along with the guys. Ben said they all had a lot of fun with the demolition. Malakai and I went to my parents' place to hang out for the day to stay out of the way and to avoid inhaling tile + saw dust. 

Thankfully it was also easy to get up, it only took an hour. Apparently the tile was heavily glued to the previous linoleum floor so it all came up together to reveal the subfloor.

Then came work on the underlayment and laminate flooring. 

{my husband hard at work}

The biggest reason this project has taken so long to get to (besides time + money) was finding the right floor to match the existing laminate that we have in the rest of our house. We found something REALLY close right away but I was determined to exhaust all our options for a perfect match before settling. We went back to the original match and it turned out great. 

While finishing up the trim Ben's dad and brother also replaced the door from the dining room to the garage. This happened to be our Christmas present from his parents last year, but we had to redo the flooring before it could work. Neither of these pictures show that, but it looks great!

{the finished product!}

After being out of the house since 7:30 that morning and only a 45 minute nap for Malakai after driving him to sleep, I got to come home at about 6pm and see the finished product. It was like walking into someone else's home. Really it was such a funny feeling to leave with the house fairly in tact and come back with it looking completely different. What a blessing to not have to worry about any of the construction and mess and just come home to something new and beautiful!

Here's a direct comparison. The angles of the photos aren't a perfect match, but you get the idea.

Thank you so much to my father-in-law, brother-in-law David, and our friends Brad and Jacob (and their wives) for giving up a significant portion of your Saturday to work on our house and make it more of a home for us as we prepare to welcome little brother!