Declaration - No relatives week

So I have declared this week as a no relatives week. The step in-law pissed me off yesterday with a stupid comment so I think that if they are going to be pissy and mean about us not coming over when we already have plans, then they have to go a week without seeing Cameron. The other thing that makes me angry and sad is the fact that Rich and I have been married almost 8 yrs and all the in-laws have visited and/or called more in the past two weeks then they have in the past 8 yrs. It is almost like we aren't important until we have a child and then we are interesting enough to visit. Of course then all the attention is on Cam and all they want to do is hold him and annoy me. And when they come over no one offers to help with anything even if I am folding laundry or paying bills right in front of them. I feel weird asking them to help since I feel like we are being judged as it is on our parenting ability.

We had to spend last Tuesday cleaning the house and making it very presentable for the in-laws coming to visit. It made me sad that the last full day Rich had at home, we hoped Cam would sleep for a long time so we could get more cleaning done. Probably why at 1.5 wks post partum I started really having problems again. The nurse said to take it easy or I won't heal. Easier said then done.

So I am opening up the invitation to our friends to come and see Cameron. I am so excited to have you come see him and to see all of you. I feel like we have been cooped up from the outside world for long enough. Just give us a call or e-mail so we can set things up.

Also I was able to log into the Expectnet poll on the blog to post the winner of the game to guess the stats for Cameron. You can just click on the picture to see who won.

Thanks

Thank you so much everyone for all the supportive phone calls, e-mails and comments about the breastfeeding issues. You have no idea how much that meant to me. It was so hard and such a hard decision to make. I truly appreciate all the support.

Cameron is doing so awesome. He is back to birth weight plus a couple ounces. He is a pretty good baby. He is sleeping fairly well and when he is alert it is so fun to talk to him and interact with him. He does smile at us even though I know it is involuntary, I still enjoy it.

Rich is back to work part time and Cam and I are hanging out together while he is at work. Rich will be working full time next week. I am dreading that time next week. It is nice to have the help for part of the day.

Random Thoughts

Things are going as well as to be expected with a newborn at our house. Cameron is so cute and adorable. I am so in love with him. The first few days were rough but we are all learning more about each other and what works for us.

Breastfeeding is just not going to go for me. I had a feeling that this might happen, but it is still disappointing to me as it is something I really wanted to do for him. He will not latch on and my milk is just not coming in at all. My last two pumpings I got nothing on the left and only enough for the bottom of the bottle on the right. He is going to be a formula kid. I have come to except it now, so please don't flame me. I am my own worst critic and have beat myself up enough on this already.

I know a lot of you that read this blog are friends in real life as well. We really want you to see Cameron and come hang out with us for the adult interaction, but we are getting so bombarded with family that we are really getting tired of it today. So please know that we love you guys and want to see you and for you to see Cameron, but we need a break from visitors. Hopefully this week things will die down with the visitors as he won't be as new and the family visitors will be satisfied for a while.

Rough

Things are pretty rough right now in the Burns' household. Much to be expected with a newborn. Cameron is absolutely adorable and we are just trying to get things figured out. We are amazed at how exhausted we are and how tiring our little guy can make us. Breastfeeding is not going well, but I got some great help today that will hopefully fix things around again. Cameron got too dehydrated on Thursday so we had to break down and supplement him with formula. That was a hard blow to take for me, but my milk is starting to come in so hopefully we can fix the issues.

Sometime soon I need to post my birth story. It truly was an amazing experience. Just what I had hoped for and more. In case some of you didn't know I had a natural child birth which I never thought I would be able to accomplish, but I did it. Cameron was also born in the water in a big jacuzzi tub.

Mrs Spock, the water birth truly was the best experience for us. I hope you get to have yours too.

By the way, I have been Hep.arin shot free since Saturday night at 7:00. It was so thrilling to turn that alarm off on my phone.

Cletus is here!!!

Announcing the long awaited arrival of Cletus now known as:

Cameron David
Born April 14, 2008 at 12:42 pm
6 Lbs 6.5 ozs
19 in long

We are so in love with our little man already. We are all home and doing well. Billirubin is a little high so going to the peditrician tomorrow. Now here is what everyone is waiting for . . . pictures

Cletus time

Headed for the hospital now. Contractions are getting closer and more intense 4-5 min apart. Hopefully he will be here soon. No internet at the hospital so we will try and get updates when we can. I am an emotional mess, but so happy & excited. Send us some easy labor vibes. Thanks everyone!!

Last Day and Due Date

Today is Cletus' due date. He obviously didn't get the memo that he can come out today. Actually he can come out any day. We are so ready for this to be over. I am actually going to change our answering machine message for our family that keeps calling to say something snotty about the baby not being here yet and we will let them know when he is here. We are both tired of that.

Today is my last day of work for 10 full weeks!!! I am so excited. Everything is caught up and I am ready to go. Just have to tidy up a little bit and put everything on out of office. I am so excited. Now it would be just perfect for him to show up this weekend so I don't waste any of my time without him here.

It is just so unreal to me that today is the day. I never thought we would get here. Hopefully soon we will be holding Cletus in our arms and looking at his little face. This has been an amazing journey and I want to thank everyone for their support. I hope you will stay with us for the next part of the ride. I am sure it will be thrilling as well.

Dr Appt Today

Now according to the Dr I am 1 cm and 100% thinned out. This is the same Dr that checked me last week so I think I trust him more. Today was much more pleasant for checking me as well. I told Dr W about the horrible experience I had with the nurse in triage. He asked me her name and what she looked like. He made a comment that he didn’t know what she was feeling. Anyway, my contractions on the monitor were 2-5min apart. They were pretty intense as well. Dr W said he would be surprised to see me in the office next week. He is the same one who said he thought it would be last weekend and it wasn’t so I am not taking much stock in his opinion.

Dr W said if I was more dilated he would break my water this week to put me into labor, but he said if I was here next week he would definitely do it then. So there is an end in sight.

Bragging Rights

This is totally off topic, but who wants to hear me complain about Cletus still not being here? No one? That’s what I figured.

Rich & I did a fantasy hockey league for the second half of the season. I sucked big time at it. A friend of ours did a college basketball bracket online so I decided to take my chances there. Every year I have paid to have a bracket I loose big time. This one was free. Guess who won?!?!?! I did!!! I also have a world rank of 182 out of at least 45,000. I am very proud of myself since I have never won or come close any other year. My guesses were totally random and done at the last minute. I beat Rich by only one point, but I still beat him.

Yeah!!! Thank you Kansas!

Triage visit

I thought my water was leaking after I soaked thru twice in 1.5 hrs. I also got really sick this morning after eating breakfast. So called the on-call Dr and he said to come in even though contractions were not consistent. We get our stuff together in the car and head out. We are in no hurry since I called and the birthing center is full and I will be going to L & D. We stopped to get some stuff we forgot and some lunch. So we get to the hospital and get checked in. The take us to triage. They are not happy to see me and say we will take her in a disgusted tone.

The nurse finally comes over and asks me what is going on. I tell her I think my water is leaking and she says everyone thinks their water is leaking today. Not off to a very good start. She hooks me up to the monitors and then the fun starts. Cletus is doing great and looks good. I am having contractions that are 3 min apart and going up to 75 on the chart. Rich is all about the monitors and the numbers. He keeps talking about how big they are getting and how long they are lasting. Eventually I have to tell him to stop because I obviously can tell they are getting more intense and don't need him to tell me.

At the time we are in triage the cleaning crew is there doing their thing. We have to wait until they are done before we can go in the exam room. Finally I get in there. I should have run away at this point. The nurse comes in and says she is going to swab for fluid and then check me. I have had so many exams at this point in the journey and have had many different people examine me. This nurse was the absolute worst in history. The speculum hurt going in to do the swab for fluid. Turns out it is not water just a bunch of end of pregnancy stuff. This was pretty uncomfortable, but the worst is yet to come. She says she is going to check me. I think she put her whole arm up there. I actually raised off the table and was breathing like I had a horrible contraction. About this time another nurse actually walked in to try and talk to the nurse with her arm up me. There was good news though. I am 2 cm now and 50% effaced. Needless to say I told Rich I refuse to go back to triage ever again. I was absolutely appaled and the way she checked me. Both of the Drs in the practice I go to have checked me and neither one of them were as rough and painful as she was today. Actually both of them were pretty normal compared to today.

So we are still here waiting at home for Cletus to decide it is time to come out. Now I know that my water is not leaking though. No more going to triage for me.

It's time!? Updated

Update: False Alarm :-(

Cletus must like power tools, Chainsaw to be specific. Nothing had happened last night or this morning. Thinking it was safe to go outside and start cutting up the 2 trees that fell and smashed our fence no sooner did I start the chainsaw up and start cutting there appears Jennifer telling me she thinks her water broke. Contractions are frequent and intense, definitely appears water is broken, shower, call doctor and off to the hospital seems to be in our future. Stay tuned.

No Cletus!

I have hit the brick wall today. I am ready to be done. Yesterday I was really excited because I really thought that was it. Today not so much. No contractions since 9:00 last night. I am so exhausted and I slept almost 10 hrs. What is going on here?

I am pretty sure he dropped last night so that is some progress. I was having pretty good contractions during and after our walk, but then they stopped. It did get us motivated to pack our bags though. Except for a few last minute things we are good to go.

I tried really hard during this pregnancy not to complain or say anything bad about being pregnant. I know after so long of trying and waiting I wanted to enjoy the pregnancy. I didn’t want to be whiny or complain about the mundane stuff. Even the morning sickness I was ok with because that meant he was still growing nice and strong in the womb. I always hard a hard time with the women who constantly complained about something with their pregnancies and about being miserable and wanting to be done. It hurt to have to listen or read that and know that I would have given anything for that feeling. Now I understand though. The end of this miracle journey SUCKS!!!!! I am tired, my hips hurt, my feet are always swollen up to cankles, I can’t do anything that I want to, I want to be done working, I am tired of waiting for labor to start up for real, contractions are a bitch, I hate when he head butts my cervix and I want to see Cletus!!! I am just crabby today. Rant over.

Progress

I know this post will get everyone excited, but the read the one about the car seat that Rich wrote. It is really funny now. I am so glad he doesn't have a black eye. I told him that would figure though, me go into labor and he has a black eye in all the pics. They asked me if I was an abusive relationship already, but they may ask him the same question.

Anyway, I went to the Dr for my weekly appt this week. Had the NST done and started having regular contraction pattern of every 3-4 mins. They were getting pretty strong too. I could tell when they were coming and would watch them on the monitor. Dr. W checked me and I am 1 cm dilated and very thinned out. He said that should mean a shorter labor hopefully. He said he didn't want to say easy labor because labor is never easy. He said he hoped to see me before the end of the weekend if not tomorrow. Yeah!!!!!!!! I was so freaking excited leaving there. I called Rich to let him know we may be having a baby this week!!!

Unfortunately the contractions tapered off, but they are picking up again. We plan to go for a long walk in the neighborhood tonight to try and start things in a regular pattern. We are so ready to meet Cletus!!! Good thing we got the car seat in the car.

Car Seat!

I put the car seat in last night. Are you ready to laugh? First of all, you always hear these horror stories about people putting their car seat in. Well I thought, it can't be that bad, I am smart, I can read and follow directions.
Step 1: clean out the car. No problem I have a shop vac, that should do the trick. Grab the extension cord, plug it in, carry the other end out to the driveway, try to plug in the shop vac and it won't fit. I had an extension cord without a 2 prong receptacle and a shop vac cord with a grounding plug. Back to the garage, get the other extension cord, plug it in, head for the driveway, whoops, it isn't long enough to reach the car. Go inside, get the keys, pull the car forward, and finally I can vacuum.
Step 2: educate myself on installing the seat. So I sit down and read through the instruction booklet before ever going back outside. The car came with a plastic card in the owners manual telling and illustrating that child seat anchors are located at the base of the seat behind the seat cushions. So I go outside all prepared to use the anchors, get the strap laid out and start looking for the anchors. There aren't any! Go figure, just like everything else you buy these days, the manufacture is too lazy to figure out which specific model you bought and make a specific set of manuals for that model, so they just give you everything for all the models. Now I could understand the owners manual having a page that said "if your vehicle has these, this is where they would be", but to put a separate card specifically about the anchors in a model that doesn't have them is just lazy and stupid.
Step 3: Reeducate. So back inside I go, sit down and read the instructions for how to install it using the factory seat belt. Reeducated I go back outside and start over. First I have to extract the middle seatbelt from between and beneath the seats where it has been hiding through 6 years of non-use. Way short on patience by this point I start pulling and pulling until I get to the end and the buckle gets stuck. No problem, I'll just give it a tug and....WHACK! The buckle comes loose, flies at my face and hits me right in the eye. A couple of obscenities, some pacing around and already I can feel my face getting puffy. Not to be defeated, I return to the backseat, thread the belt through the seat base and fasten it snugly but not tightly. See, I read all the instructions before getting started, smart huh? The base is obviously not level and I know it needs to be so I fully extend the level adjustment and it looks a lot better. Snug the belt up some more and snap the seat in. Not quite level. But I know, roll up a towel and put it under the base. Why a towel? Why something soft and forgiving? Don't you want this sucker strapped in tight? But I follow the instructions, roll the towel as tightly as I can and place it under the base. Finally, we have a level seat.
Step 4: Make that sucker tight. These seats are not supposed to move so here's the deal, and I think it worked pretty well. Pull the belt as tight as you can while pressing your knee into the seat like the instructions say. After that I felt the seat was still too loose. So, I unlatched the belt, took about another 2 inches out of it while it was loose, then bounced and pressed on the base with all my weight until I finally got the buckle to latch. I WIN!! That seat isn't budging!
Step 5: Put ice on my face. Luckily today it doesn't look too bad and my eye is not black.