You know, no matter how much people tell you about being a mom, no one really ever prepares you for the reality of it. The late nights, the incessant crying for no reason... the hair pulling, unbelievable rage you feel when your child simply will NOT stop crying and nothing you do will soothe him.

This is where I've been at for 3 days now. I'm exhausted. I'm frustrated. I want to cry. I want to hit something (NEVER EVER him, don't worry!). I hate letting him cry in his playpen, but what else can I do? He screams when I hold him, he screams if I don't. He screams before I feed him, he screams right after eating, he screams while I change him, and he seems to have his days and nights mixed up. He sleeps during the day and stays awake all hours of the night. Most of the time, while screaming.

My back aches. My head hurts. I walk around wearing puke half the time, and go through my limited wardrobe faster than you can imagine from him peeing on me, or the puking.

Everyone says it gets better. Well that sure doesn't help while you're going through it, lemme tell ya! I appreciate people's input and suggestions, but nothing works. Nothing helps. I'm just so tired. I love him to death when he's quiet, when he's sleeping, and I love him even when he screams his head off for hours. I'm just so frustrated and I wish this would hurry up and pass.

Every time we put him down to sleep, I pray to God that he'll stay asleep. I beg God to make him less cranky, to let us get sleep. But it really doesn't seem like he's listening or even cares. And people wonder why I have a hard time believing in religion. Sometimes I wonder if God's even there at all.

Marshall has reached the Purple period of crying. You know the one... where he goes all purple in the face because he's crying so hard, for NO REASON WHATSOEVER!? Yeah, that one. *headdesk*

He decided to show it to me last night in spades. We managed to get him to bed around 11:30pm (ish), and holy shit, he actually stayed asleep!

... till 1am, when he promptly woke me up out of a dead (and much needed!) sleep. So I got up and went to the bathroom (as my bladder was close to exploding) while he screamed in the bedroom. I then changed him, and fed him. By 1:30am, he'd fallen asleep on my chest while trying to burp him. So of course, I tip toe back into our bedroom and GENTLY lay him down in his bassinet, and turn on the vibration feature (I'm not even sure if it helps or not. Sometimes it seems to, other times, not even close!). I go to lay back down and all I hear is him start to make his whiny noises. It builds and builds and then he's starting to scream. I tried to give him a soother, but he wouldn't take it and it just made him more angry.

So I picked him up and cuddled him a while, till I thought he was asleep again. HE WASN'T. He wailed when I laid him down. So I picked him up again and came out to the living room. I laid him in the play pen and tried giving him a bit of gripe water to mellow him out. It didn't work. So I just let him cry, because I couldn't figure out anything else to do. I'd tried everything and I was ready to scream. It was about 2am now.

Around 2:15am I picked him up and gave him the last oz of formula in his bottle from his earlier feeding. And of course, he still wouldn't go to sleep. We had another repeat of the earlier bassinet incident when I tried to put him back to bed. Only this time, he also got the hiccups!

I brought him back out to the living room. Gave him more gripe water. IT DID NOTHING. He still hiccuped and cried and I JUST WANTED TO DIE. Tried the bassinet again. Same reaction (crying, whining, making noises, not taking soother, etc).

So back out to the living room again. It is now about 2:45am. So again, I just let him cry in the play pen while I laid on the couch and wondered when he'd stop. He was screaming himself hoarse for about half an hour. So I made another bottle and started to feed him around 3:30am. He spent nearly half an hour eating it, and only actually took 20-30ml of formula. He then, finally, fell asleep again in my arms around 4am. I put him to bed and he stayed asleep (much to my delight and surprise!).

It was around then that I wondered what the fuck I've gotten myself into. :P I hope to GOD this phase doesn't last long, or I'll seriously go mental.

And then of course, Jay brings him in this morning to put in bed with me while he takes the dog out, effectively killing any chance I may have had at catching up on my missing sleep. And, of course, Marshall just lays there staring at me with his big blue eyes making goo goo faces at me, occasionally smiling, and I melt all over again. Little bugger, has me wrapped around his finger. I just wish he had more than 2 modes tho, sleeping and FREAKING THE FUCK OUT! lol

Being a new mommy...

It's a little scary. There's this tiny little dude who depends on you for everything, and no matter what, you do whatever it takes to make them happy. Even at 2am when you're dead tired and he won't stop screaming.

Don't get me wrong, Marshall is usually really well behaved. He sleeps most of the day and even the night, usually going to bed around midnight and getting up between 4 and 5 am to eat and be changed. He'll then sleep till about 8-9am, depending on how tired he is.

But he seems to have a super cranky hour, which is anytime between 9pm and 1am. Last night was one of those nights. He just wouldn't stop fussing no matter what we did. We fed him, repeatedly. We changed him. We rocked him. We played with him. HE HATED US. It was awful, I just didn't know what to do and both Jay and I were so tired.

But I guess that's part of being a parent. Sometimes you just don't know what to do. I'm new to all of this! The first few days as a new mom were the most terrifying and surreal days of my life. The first time he cried in my arms, I almost wept and stared up at Tara, saying "I don't know what to do! What do I do?"

Today is one of those days where I just feel a little overwhelmed and a little weepy. I think it's the lack of sleep. Maybe hormones, too. And maybe it's also because we went shopping today and I'm still having a hard time finding clothes that both fit and are flattering. I know I've lost 30lbs already, but I'm still not totally back to my usual self. So my old clothes don't really fit, and my pregnancy clothes don't fit... so I'm kinda stuck. I got a new pair of jeans today, but trying on clothes while you're still not quite your old self yet is a little depressing.

Anyways, I'm gonna go sit in the living room and listen to Glee while Marshall rocks in his swing. He is the cutest thing, even when the devil horns come out. I love him to pieces and even when he drives me nuts, I wouldn't change it for the world. (Must keep repeating that when he's going crazy...)

My labour and delivery story...

Well, now that I can finally stand sitting on this computer chair for more than a minute or two, and Marshall is sleeping in his swing, I thought it was time I wrote out my experience before it gets too foggy on me. As it is, there's about a 6 hr gap in my memory where I don't really remember much except having to turn over so they could top up my epidural! Lol

Let's start from where I left off in my last post:

After I lost my mucus plug at Walmart, we went home and just hung out. We watched Edward Scissorhands and around 5:30pm, my contractions started coming at regular 8 minute intervals. So I kept writing down the time every time I had a contraction, and around 7:30pm I decided to go lay down and try to have a nap.

Yeah, that didn't work so well. I don't know what I was thinking, but I certainly wasn't about to get any sleep! With every contraction, I started moaning just a bit louder. By 8:30pm, Jay came in to check on me and rub my lower back. He said I sounded like I was in a lot more pain than before, and maybe we should go back to the hospital. You see, I tested positive for Strep B, and was told that if my water broke or I was in labour, I had to go to the hospital right away and get on antibiotics. Only problem is, when we went in that morning, they didn't act like it was a big deal and didn't give me any more info about it.

So I called the hospital and asked them what I should do; that my contractions had been every 8 minutes for 3 hrs, and that the pain was getting really intense. She said to come on in and get assessed, and the doc would decide when to put me on the antibiotics.

So Jay took the dog over to his parents' house, and while he was gone, I had a few more contractions that were 5 minutes apart. When he came back, I had another, and a couple more on the way to the hospital. They were still 5 minutes apart.

So we get to the hospital and I sat in a wheelchair and waited for Jay to park the car. He came in eventually and wheeled me upstairs to labour and delivery. When he phoned into the ward to be let in, I had tears streaming down my face. I never realized how painful it could be! And that wasn't even the worst of it yet!

Well, they put me in Triage and hooked me up to the monitors. As the contractions hit, I tried my best to be strong but they hurt so bad that I ended up moaning and crying through them. The nurse checked me at about 9:30pm and I was only dilated 2 cm. She had a really hard time getting to my cervix because I have a tilted uterus (the nurse that morning couldn't reach it at all). Turns out, my OB may never have actually felt my cervix because her fingers are even shorter than the nurse who managed to get to it! That makes me feel confident in my OB. :P

So after a couple of hours of increasingly painful contractions, the nurse brought me a shot of morphine to help with the pain. Lemme tell ya, it did NOTHING for me. Well, except make me really dopey and high! :P When she checked me again at midnight, I was between 2-3 cm. It was around then that she ordered my epidural (because despite my saying all this time that I didn't want one, at that point I was ready to die and would've taken anything to make the pain stop!). That was also around when I started saying things like, "I don't wanna do this anymore!", "I didn't know it was gonna be this bad, I wasn't prepared for this at all!!", and my personal favourite, "I wanna die. Please, just kill me now, oh God, I wanna die!!"

They took me to my own birthing room around 12:30am and I got my epidural at 1am. Then my water finally broke... all over the place! Man it was gross, but I was in so much pain I really didn't care. My personal nurse checked my cervix again and I was at 3cm. Oh yeah and at some point in there, they also hooked me up to an IV and started me on the antibiotics (which they had to give me every 4 hrs of my labour). They also set me up with a catheter... lemme tell ya, it was weird not to have to pee for so long! LOL

The next few hours are a bit of a blur; Jay managed to get some sleep, but I couldn't sleep for the life of me. The nurse kept telling me I should get some rest, but I just couldn't. Every time I closed my eyes, I could still hear everything going on around me; the beeping of the monitors, the heart rate of my son, the nurse doing... whatever she was doing, I don't know, my eyes were closed.

At 6:30am, the nurse checked my cervix again, and guess what? I'd only gone to 4cm (in 5 hrs!!!!!!). I was pretty upset about that! So they started me on the oxytocin to regulate my contractions. By 7:30am, I was between 7-8cm. So I messaged my sister and told her, and she said she was on her way to the hospital. Jay's mom was also on her way... with his dad and grandma. It was a bit of a zoo when everyone finally got there! I have a photo of Jay talking to me while I plug my ears, haha. My hearing seemed a bit wonky and everyone was so loud!

And again, the next several hours are pretty blurry. They had to flip me from side to side every couple hours to top up my epidural and get me numb again. I don't remember what times they checked me, but I know that the next time they checked me after a couple hrs, I hadn't dilated at all. So they upped my oxytocin again. The next time they checked, I still hadn't dilated. So the doc came and stretched me up to 9cm. And this is how it went for the next few hrs again. Eventually he stretched me fully to 10cm.

(The whole time I was on the epidural, I was really itchy and thirsty. But every time I scratched, I couldn't feel it so it just stayed itchy which was torture! And occasionally I could feel the contractions because the epidural had started to wear off on the top side of me, so then they'd flip me and top me up again. And I was drinking a tonne of fluids... I think I was clearing 1-2L of fluid an hour! Seriously, I've never drank so much in my life! I also threw up 3 times by this point... once right before I had the morphine {from the pain} and twice since having the epidural).

By now, it was about 1:30pm. Doc Shannon and Nurse Tammy were shocked that I still hadn't felt the urge to push. I was so numb down below, I honestly didn't feel anything. And every time he'd come in to check on me, he'd ask if I felt the urge to push yet and I'd say "Nope!". He was baffled!

Tammy told me that if I still didn't have the urge to push by 2:30pm, they'd get me to start pushing anyways. At 2pm, I threw up about 3L of fluids, so she decided it was time. My God, pushing sucked!! Seriously, having to do that every minute to 2 minutes? It felt like my ribs were breaking, because everything was pushing up into them. Marshall was still moving even while I was pushing!! And I couldn't even tell if I was pushing right because I couldn't feel it.

After about half an hr of pushing, Tammy told me that Doc Shannon could help me out with the forceps if I wanted him to; that it would cut down on how long I had to push. I asked if it would mash my baby's head (because I'd heard of that happening back in the old days). He said, "No no, all 3 of my kids were delivered with forceps, and my 14 year old can even count to 10!" I laughed and said that was reassuring.

So he got set up and after another couple contractions, he started helping with the forceps. I couldn't see anything, I just felt like he was pulling something out of my butt. It was strange. I didn't even realize that he didn't pull that much of his head out, only a little bit... and then my next push got his whole head out! (14.5 inches around!). He told me to relax a bit and that he was going to deliver the baby. He helped the shoulders out and told me to give one more push, and out he came! I watched him pull Marshall from me and it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen! Even though he was purple and swollen, lol.

I remember not being able to see much the whole time I was on the epidural. I wasn't wearing my glasses, and my eyes kept crossing and not focusing; but while he pulled Marshall from me and I watched, I was like a hawk. I saw it clear as day, in slow motion even. I wanted to make sure he was breathing (he was) and that he was ok (he was).

I remember whining because they took him away and seemed to be taking forever with bringing him back. Doc Shannon stitched me up and they cleaned me up, and eventually they brought Marshall over. I looked at him and said to Jay, "Are you sure this is the right baby? He doesn't look like either of us!" :P (he does now)

After that, most of the rest of the day is a blur. I remember breast feeding him for the first time (yuck and ouch!). I remember Jay feeding him his first bottle (because his sugar test came back a little low). I remember Tara and Rebecca coming to visit. I remember eating dinner (not much of it tho because every bite made me want to vomit). And then I dozed in and out for hours.

I tried breast feeding him again around 5am, but it just felt so awful I wanted to cry. Our new nurse Mary (a Mennonite woman) told me I didn't have to breastfeed if I didn't want to. She brought me a bottle and I fed him, and it was beautiful. She said I looked so much happier, and I was. I love that Jay and I can both feed him. :)

Anyways, that's my story. Maybe there should've been more detail (maybe some of you are wishing there was less! lol). But it's such a long story that I just had to write it as I remembered it, rather than making it all fancy and stuff.

Hopefully it's starting now!!

So about 4am today, I got up to pee and felt a WHOOSH before I even let go of my muscles to pee. When I wiped, I didn't see anything, so I went back to bed.

At 5am, I woke up to intense period-pains, and after it passed, I got up again to go pee. While standing in the bathroom, I felt another WHOOOSH and had liquid running down my legs. When I went pee again and wiped, it was pink this time. So I woke up Jay and off to the hospital we went, thinking my water broke.

I was having some pretty painful contractions, that seemed fairly regular, while I was hooked up to the non stress test machine. After that, I peed again and had another WHOOSH in the toilet. This time it was slightly brown with flecks in it.

They finally used a speculum to check and see if it was my water, which they said it wasn't. It was watery, but it was mucus. So I was sent home.

I've still been having some pretty painful contractions, but they aren't regular. But they are constant... I've been having them all day.

We went to Walmart to walk around for a while, and after about an hour, I went to the bathroom again. When I was sitting there, during another contraction, I felt something come out of me. It's hard to describe! But I looked in the toilet, and there was this big glob of clear/whiteness with streaks of brown and red in it. And every time I wiped, there was brown jelly (ick). Turns out, that was my mucus plug! So things are definitely progressing (OUCH CONTRACTION!). I'm really hoping to go into full blown labour tonight, but some people say it can take a few days. :( Well, fingers crossed! Hopefully by this time tomorrow, we'll be holding little Marshall!!