vacation?

so i'm not going to do a "march" review because most of it would be a lot of "noel goes to the doctor again for a progress check" and "chris wants a vacation from work still" and "noel walked around a lot," and none of that stuff is very interesting. since we all know when the baby was born, i'm just going to sum up the last week of march, because that's when the interesting stuff happened.

so the couple days following nora's birthday, both of us were in the hospital. i wanted to go home THE DAY after she was born, but instead i was detained for 2 days, because my little girl couldn't figure out how to eat (you'd think that was innate, right? apparently NOT, and that's why lactation consultants have jobs). my doctor wanted to make sure that my baby wasn't going to starve to death when she got home, and so i stayed the extra day even though i SO did not want to. i didn't sleep very much at the hospital- maybe a grand total of 2 hours the whole time i was there- and by the time i was discharged i was so sleep-deprived i was delerious. chris was ok though, because he went home at night. as jealous as i was of his nightly reprieve, it made no sense to have both of us strung out to our wit's end when that was only requisite of one of us. and so, when i got home i passed out for a few hours while chris took care of the baby.

the following few days were a blur for me because i was still so low on sleep. i was so so happy to have chris with me at home- he did a good job of dealing with his wreck of a wife for that time. it was a week of learning for all of us: nora was still learning how to feed, chris was learning how to change diapers, and i was learning how to relax with an infant in the house, which is apparently something that i generally fail at (it's a lot harder to do than one would think, for reals).

chris's goal for his vacation was for us to successfully watch all of the lord of the ring's trilogy, from start to finish. he'd been planning on that for months. therefore, every night from around 9 to 11 we sat in front of the TV while nora slept right next to us. funny thing about those movies- the ring wraiths sound just like nora. once she woke up during a scene with screeching nazgul, and i didn't recognize that my own daughter was screeching along with them until after the scene changed (yes, our daughter is a loud screamer. the nurses at the hospital said she had "personality"). in any case, chris's goal was met, and we now have that epic series freshly emblazoned into the forefront of our memories.

by the end of chris's 9 day vacation he was ready to return to work. chris's coworkers had prompted him to take a full 2 to 3 weeks of vacation with the baby, but i know my husband better than to think that he would remain sane without working for that long. therefore, i urged him to take a shorter amount of time off, although i would have loved to have him at home longer. i suppose taking off from work to take care of a newborn isn't really a vacation at all. chris jokingly said: "man, i'm going to have to go back to work in order to get a vacation from this baby!" and so we affectionately refer to nora as our "new boss". which is actually pretty accurate, all things considered.

boss lady. 6 days into it.

also: this was taken in the middle of the night, because what better of a time to be completely wide awake?

birth story!

Nora Eve Staples arrived on march 19th, 2011 at exactly 1:30pm- all whopping 8lbs 6 oz and 20 inches of her (i thought it started to feel overcrowded in there). for those of you who are interested, here is her birthday post!

----

the week of my due date was the first week i had off from work. although we expected the baby to be pretty late (said my practitioner of first-time moms), i walked myself all around the town of alpine with the hopes that doing so would initiate labor a little sooner than really late. chris was getting restless and was counting on me (and the baby) to give him a vacation from work. i was getting restless and wanted the pregnancy to be overwith already.

on march 19th, around 4:15ish am, my water broke (talk about a rather abrupt, bizarre thing to wake to). i wish i could say i woke chris up with some witty aphorism about childbirth, but instead i just ended up nudging him awake and saying "hey my water just broke," to which he was like "what??? whoa! well lets go!" i told him that he should probably eat breakfast while i hopped in the shower, because i had this ridiculous idea that i was going to get all prettied up for the hospital. by the time i got out of the shower i had changed my mind.

labor is a weird event. i suppose in retrospect i hardly knew what to expect, although i had asked a million people about it. chris felt like he was somewhat prepared for the event, since he had some specialized EMT training on the subject- from which he felt "confident that he would be able to remain rational and emotionally stable throughout the entire process"- but still, he had never actually been present as a witness to a live birth. my personal goal was to be able to have as drugless a labor as possible. i figured if women throughout the centuries could have unmedicated births, then so could i. i wanted to tough it out as much as possible. i wanted to experience labor and childbirth in all of it's infamous, respected glory.

by the time i checked into triage i was in active labor and was making rapid progress. i knew that there was supposed to be pain associated with labor contractions; however, i had NO idea that active labor made women puke their guts out and convulse continuously. poor chris stood there for about five hours straight holding my puke bin (and my hair out of it) while i threw up; holding my hand while i breathed through contractions; and rubbing my back while i shook continuously between them. he'd say positive, reaffirming statements while i tried mightily to be as stoic as possible- which gets pretty challanging when whimpering, gasping and writhing around in pain seems FAR more appropriate for the situation (and we all know that doesn't help anybody). at some point, when the inner voice that was telling me to remain in control bailed out and started wanting me to cry for help, i decided to be honest.
"you're doing good honey," chris said to me.
"no," i finally broke down and cried softly, "no i'm not. this really doesn't feel very good... and i'm not handling it well. i'm sorry."
the labor nurse, who had overheard me, chuckled and said to "trust her" that i was "doing much better than most"... to which i told her that although she was very sweet, she was mistaken, and that i really wasn't doing well at all. i asked her if she honestly thought i could do it without medication- she said if i really wanted to do it, then she thought i had it in me. at that point i promptly turned to chris and asked him if he'd judge me if i got an epidural.

so fifteen minutes later my anesthesiologist walks in and starts prepping for the epidural. now, i tend to have an irrational fear of things going horribly wrong in conjunction with things being stuck into my spinal column, even though millions of people get epidurals all the time with no ill effects. it was definitely an exercise of "let the professional who knows what he's doing do his job and don't be a crazy paranoid about it" with the incentive that if i could at least do that, all the pain would go away and i could finally chill out for a bit. so i hunched over, squeezed my eyes shut, clenched chris's hand as hard as i could, and wiggled my toes furiously while the pro did his thing. while all this was happening, i overheard the nurse say "woah... woah! dad, are you ok?!" - and although he was still managing to hold my hand, chris had slumped down in a chair by my bed with his head between his knees. apparently the sight of the giant needle in my spine had made him slightly woozy.

a cup of orange juice for chris, and an epidural plus IV anti-nausea meds for me (i was STILL puking, even after the anesthesia), and the atmosphere of the delivery suite calmed way down. we felt MUCH better (hooray for medicine!). i had made it to 7cm prior to my epidural, and getting that far tired me out. all the stress of the morning had drained chris as well (chris: "if it was anybody else going through this i'd be fine watching it. but it's so so hard for me to watch someone i love and care about go through so much without being anxious"). it was so nice to have a couple hours of rest before having to push that baby out.

pushing the baby out = much better than labor without pain medication, even though my epidural wore off in the middle of it so i got to feel all the good stuff. was it strenuous? yes. was it an epic ordeal to go through? absolutely. i don't know if i'd have had the energy left to do it if i hadn't have gotten some reprieve from the epidural. pushing took us about an hour, and since the nurse taught chris how to coach my pushing, he ended up having something to do during the whole time instead of standing by and watching helplessly (those ladies are so smart!).

i will never forget the moment our daughter was born. it's so surreal, looking down and seeing a whole baby exiting your body. she began wailing immediately as they put her on my belly- the first thing i saw on her new little purple body were the dimples in her elbows (me: "holy cow you're a fat little baby!). the second thing i noticed was that i had just given birth to what looked like a clone of chris, except a girl. "she looks like you!" i panted to my tearful husband as he followed her over to the baby table. not long afterwards i had her in my arms- bundled up like a little burrito and howling like a champ.

all in all, we were in labor for about 8 hours. i have definitely gained a new respect for mothers everywhere, and an appreciation for appropriately administered pain medication*. the labor and delivery staff at grossmont hospital are amazing, and i am grateful for the companionship of my wonderful husband, who never left my side the whole time i was there. now we are no longer just a couple, but a family of three. this is the beginning of the rest of our lives!

-pictures courtesy of great-granddad's cell phone camera (who waited in the hall while his great-grandbaby was being born)... because during and after the whole ordeal i could have cared less to bring mine out.

*the anesthesiologist came back in to see how i was doing about an hour after he gave me the epidural. "you sir," i said, "are my HERO." and i thanked him profusely.

gone with the wind.

chris and i were recently looking through old pictures. we came across these... (here, i'll just post one, and we'll call this picture #A)

which were taken about two months before we got married. chris's FIRST comment on them? "woahhhhh! look how skinny you used to be honey!! you've gotten so BIG now..." (me: *groan* & facepalm)

here we are now (we'll call this picture #B):

nine months pregnant and due any day. yes, i am BIG. i feel big. to illustrate exactly how this feels, it would be appropriate to have a tuba playing in the background while i walk waddle around, or at least a foghorn sounding. this sharply contrasts with the way i felt back in picture #A- insert flutes and/or chirping birds. shoot, let's also throw in some prancing deer for good measure.
 
how does chris feel in BOTH pictures #A and #B? heavy-metal music plus roaring tiger. he's a rockstar from mars. he's the same yesterday, today, and forever. yay for him. 
 
of course, after my non-verbal reaction to chris's commentary concerning the pictures from whence #A came  (remember the *groan* & facepalm?), he quickly assured me, "oh, honey. it's all right! you'll get back into shape in no time," which was sweet of him to say (his internal "mitigate potentially volatile situation" alert system must have been going off). however, the prospect of snapping right back into my old jeans again seems rather impossible at this precise moment. this brings to mind a scene from an old, classic movie:

 

scarlett: "twenty inches?!... you simply HAVE to make it eighteen and a half again mammy!"

mammy: "you done had a baby, miss scarlett, and you aint never gonna be no eighteen and a half inches again. never. and there ain't nothin' to do about it."

(Gone With The Wind, anybody?)

oh scarlett. i feel for you. at least mammy's being honest.



side note: i always wondered why all my older female relatives would laugh at this scene when we'd watch it at family get-togethers. perhaps, once you get over it, the irony is amusing? probably. i'll have to see.



true story. kinda sweet story. plus, a magazine review.

- which means if you've got an extremely low sap-tolerance threshold, you should probably click away from the post (although it's not too bad). we're not a sap-happy couple, generally speaking. i swear.

first of all, i am going to mention that being very heavy with child during the final month of pregnancy can leave a girl looking and feeling like she'll never look or feel normal again. this being said, one can also assume that it can leave a pregnant girl's husband wondering if his wife will ever stop moaning about how she'll never look or feel normal again- no matter how many times he kindly reassures her that she'll be fine and eventually get her groove back.

secondly, i am also going to mention that we do NOT have a subscription to sports illustrated at our house; however, i happened to pick up the swimsuit edition at work the other day just to see what all the hype was about* (some magazines that get sent to our office are not allowed out in the waiting room for propriety's sake. that particular issue is one of them).

so i get home after a long day, take a hot bath, wrap up in a giant towel, lay in bed, and proceed to peruse this magazine that i had just grabbed from the office. somewhere in the middle of the issue i must have fallen asleep, because i woke up to christopher entering the room, still in his uniform from work.
"hey honey!" he said to me. "whatchu doin? sleepin?"
passing by the bed towards the adjacent bathroom he glanced at the open magazine by my head and started to laugh. "whatchu readin there?"
"the sports illustrated swimsuit edition that i jacked from my work," i answered, suddenly realizing how silly my situation must look.
continuing to laugh he asked "and why would you be doing that?"
"oh, you know," i sighed, "to see what all the hype is about. seeing what 'hot women' are looking like these days so i'm not left out of the loop, being pregnant and all."
christopher smiled at me and said, "well if you wanted to see a hot woman all you had to do was look in the mirror."
i burst into laughter while he proceeded to the bathroom to wash his hands.
"oh please," i called after him, "i am a giant pregnant woman, lying here like a beached whale on the bed. even i know there is nothing 'hot' about that."
returning from the bathroom, chris bent down and kissed my forehead. "well i think you're pretty to look at," he said. "now come on. let's go get some dinner."

awww, now is that not chicken soup for the giant preggo lady's soul or what? mostly because i know he was really just being super-nice at that particular moment, for my sake. his usual "oh don't worry honey, i'm sure you'll get back into shape in no time" doesn't quite have that same effect. :)

*my review of the magazine: while it was somewhat less tasteful than a victoria's secret catalogue (which was expected- i get that sports illustrated is a man's magazine, not a lady's catalogue), i was pleasantly surprised to see that the models in the SI swimsuit edition had far more realistic figures than the VS models (it's like they actually eat real food in addition to working out- woah!). i don't think i even saw one jutting hip-bone in the entire issue. kind of refreshing, actually. i think i might just change my post-partum figure-standards from victoria's secret model to the seemingly more-attainable silhouette of a sports illustrated model (though exactly how attainable after having a kid remains to be seen).

the month of ♥

our wedding anniversary AND valentine's day in 1 month?! according to chris that's almost (but not quite) as stressful as my birthday and christmas being in the same month. not to worry though- he made it through the celebrations unscathed and now has another year's reprieve before having to deal with the duo again.

"romance"... a word with such an ambiguous, subjective meaning. i looked it up on the internet and i swear the most common definition i came across was "a love affair". i was like- "well, jeez. that sounds fairly horrific to have go on during a marriage. let's try to find a different definition." and then of course, according to chris "romance" is an arbitrary term without any real definition- apparently people just pretend to know what it is and act accordingly. but, no matter what definition we're going for here, i'm just going to skip all pretenses and submit my opinion that it is a tad difficult to feel romantic in any sense of the word when one is very ripe with child. although i'm sure i could muster up enough energy to be coy and flirtacious if i really had to (and by that i mean really really had to), this year it felt much more appropriate to be straightforward and sincere. lucky for me, chris is all about straighforward sincerity (i love that man so much).

so on february 2nd we celebrated our first year wedding anniversary. chris was a darling and took me out to a trendy little restaurant that we frequented often back when we were first dating. not only was it SO nice to have a break from making & cleaning up after dinner (i had worked very long hours that day), it was also nice to reminisce about our first year together as marrieds in the place where we started out years ago. of course, all of this happened while i indulged in a giant bistro-burger and garlic fries... something i'd have NEVER done back when we were dating- you know, back when i had a dainty appetite and didn't feel like smelling of garlic the whole night (oh, how pregnancy changes things).
-oh yeah. and chris had a "bistro-pizza". because, you know, chris loses his super-powers if he doesn't eat pizza at least once a week.

for the celebration of our 3rd valentine's day together, we had an awesome date lined up at grossmont hospital's women's center for a new parent tour. we were the only ones in the group that evening (i guess people don't want to go to the hospital on valentine's day? how strange...), so it ended up being a more intimate experience than i anticipated, which was really nice. it was such a relief to be able to pre-register and take a dry-run of where we're supposed to go on the big day (preparing tends to calm a lot of my anxieties), and we were both impressed by the facility and the staff. as chris and i walked back out to our car he reached his arm around me and began planning our "for real" visit with tender excitement. it touched my heart to hear him. his presence with me at that moment was the sweetest valentine's gift i've ever been given.
-oh yeah. and afterwards we went to the souplantation. because i wanted to. ;)

so anyhow. back to "romance". i never found a conclusive definition. apparently, according to the internet, the general idea is that romance is some sort of ambient sensation that is relatively short-lived. meh. if that's the case, who needs romance anyways? i say a healthy base of good old-fashioned love is much more important. i promise that googling "love" renders much better results than googling "romance". love'll put up with essence of garlic-fries and voluntary hospital trips any old day. beat that romance!

taken 02/13/2011- the day before valentine's day.

january- 2011

time for new years resolutions... right? chris and i had a discussion new years day that went like this-

me: so, i think my new years resolution for this year will be... get back into shape. but procrastinate until march. i have a feeling like i might just spontaneously drop around seven or eight pounds in the middle of march for some reason. whaddaya think?

chris: what are you talking about? what the heck is a "new years resolution"?*

mmhm. real conversation. welcome 2011!

---

the recurrent theme for this month has been variations on "noel's brain doesn't work anymore"... never thought it would happen to me. but it has. and it has been rather pathetic. while i am getting worse and worse at what i am normally good at, chris is just functioning along just as well as he usually does. his new thing now is trying to see if HE can gain more weight. pah! gain weight. i got his weight gain right here:

(this was actually taken in february. i was a tad smaller back in january.)

 

while i am sporting a belly, HE is still flaunting these-

- which is SO fair, right? doesn't look like he's having a baby whatsoever.

related story:

so back last april while chris was gone to west virginia i attempted to aqcuire a tan via sun-bathing at our apartment pool area. to document progress, i took pictures of myself- or whatever i could get of myself with my cell phone camera, which ended up being the midsection between the top and bottom of my sparkly, sequined black bathingsuit. i had forgotten that i had taken these until i searched my phone earlier this month and found them. i was pretty overjoyed that they were still there- i've got a pre-pregnancy photo of my abs like they never will be, ever again!!! how priceless is that??
after finding this image on my phone, i handed it to chris and asked, "hey. whose body is that?" he raised his eyebrows, handed the phone back to me very cautiously and answered, "i don't know, but i don't recognize it."
awww. "you mean you don't remember? that's my body before i got all pregnant by you."
snatching the phone back from me he said "that's you? woah............ when did you take this?"
"last april"
"woahhhh..... it's like... your stomach doesn't even poke out it actually caves in.... yeah, you definitely don't look like that anymore. you'd better save this so our kids will know what you used to look like."

haaaaaa. i love my husband- he's so honest. i told him not to worry. i aint never gettin' rid of that photo ever. but i'm not going to post it either- my mother would die if i posted a picture of my scantily clad torso on the internet (she thinks this blog and facebook are bad enough).

anyhow, enough about stories. back to new year's resolutions.
after defining the term to chris, i was informed that he "doesn't believe in those."
"there are no 'new years resolutions' in this house," he declared, "only lifetime resolutions. we don't set ourselves up for failure. you want to make a change, then do it. no waiting around until next year to start."
"oh...." i said, taken slightly aback. chris generally isn't prone to saying such bossy statements (that's usually a noel thing), yet his words were very valid, and made quite a bit of sense to my mind, even in it's pregnancy-ravaged state.
"well... jeez.... then how about... waiting until after the baby is born to get back into shape?" i asked.
chris looked at me, an amused grin spreading across his face.
"i will allow that," he said, authoritatively.
i thanked him for his benevolent consideration.
and then he asked me to make him some cookies. which i readily did for him. hey, gotta figure out some way to fatten that boy up a bit... so i don't look so bad. ;) just assisting him in his "lifetime resolution" to gain more weight. gotta be supportive. :)

*chris maintains that he actually really knew what a new years resolution was. he said he just didn't understand the context in which i was using the term at that moment. so we're all clear here.

coming up shortly...

arright. so i realize that things are happening a little slowly on this blog. this may be attributed to the fact that the author of this blog has been reduced to moving along at a glacial pace while still attempting to keep up with a lightning-speed life and ridiculously agile husband. needless to say, i'm laggin. BUT, it's all good. january 2011 post should be poppin up any day now. i just need to take a couple pictures.

for those of you wondering, this squirmy little babe inside of me is due to enter the world sometime around the 17th of march (that's next month! oh man...). quarters are becoming quite cramped up here in the mama hotel- i've got surprisingly strong little feets jabbin at my ribs, and what i'm sure is a cute little noggin consistently head-butting my bladder. it is my hope that our little fetus decides to be punctual. although i have got to say, taking into account the "discomforts" of the 3rd trimester- the leg cramps, the not-sleeping at night, the acid refluxing (yes, more oblations to the porcelain throne from this one), the duck-waddling, the inability to bend at the waist or breathe while laying down, the fatigue- these things are NOTHING compared to the agonizing morning sickness that haunted me the entirety of my 1st trimester, and half of my 2nd. so i'm good with this trimester. and as far as i'm concerned, it's the best part of pregnancy.

so anyhow. stay tuned. next post will be up shortly.