The Inevitable Question

August 2011

There are some questions in life that you just have to expect from people at some point.  When Lance and I started dating, everyone wanted to know when we were going to get married.  When we got married, everyone wanted to know when we were going to have kids.  Now that we have a kid, everyone wants to know when or if we're going to have another one.  I have had a large number of people ask me that last question lately.  It's probably because Logan is 2 years old now and that's when a lot of people seem to think about trying for another child.  I thought that this would be the best place to answer this question since my blog (and Facebook) seem to attract the most people who are interested in what is going on in our lives.

So, are you ready for my answer?  The answer is...we don't know.

Truthfully, that is our honest answer.  Totally anticlimactic, huh?  Sorry if I disappointed  you.  

Lance and I talk about this all the time and we are totally on the same page.  Bringing Logan into the world was the most fantastic, life-changing, beautiful experience of our lives.  He is an amazing little boy and we will forever be grateful and honored to be his parents.  He has also spoiled us rotten by being such a great kid.  He was sleeping through the night at 2 weeks old.  He was not a fussy baby.  He is very well connected to the people around him.  He is a very happy little boy.

There are many factors that will come with our decision...whatever that will be and whenever we decide to make it.  I can assure you, though, that it is not a decision that we will be making for quite a few years.  We will have to see where we stand financially, since that is the biggest factor in all of this.  I've had some people tell me that "you always find a way to work it out."  That may be true, but I am already working more than one job to make sure that my family is being taken care of.  I know people mean well and that their intentions are good, but we must not assume that we know the position of the other person.  Finding a way to "work it out" is often easier said than done.  We know this...we want to be able to provide Logan with a great life filled with great experiences.  That is our number one priority.  

There would also be a housing issue.  We LOVE where we are living right now.  It is absolutely perfect for the 3 of us, but if we added another child to our family, we would most definitely have to find another place to live, as this place only has 2 bedrooms.  I have said many, many times that I love our place so much that I hope to never leave it.  This is the first place (outside of the home that I grew up in as a child) that I have felt at home.  That is a big deal.

People have also asked me if we'll try to adopt again.  My answer is the same as above.  We don't know.  We are looking at the same factors as with trying for a biological child.  I don't regret one moment of going through that long process, but I do confess that it was an emotionally draining 3 year time period that I'm not sure I'm willing to go through again.  It's not that it's not worth it.  We just know what it would entail and we're not ready to commit to that again just yet.  But, maybe one day.

Let me just say, though, that we have not ruled out the possibility of having another child.  It is just not something that is on the agenda for the near future.  I have always said that I would love for Logan to have a brother or sister, but we also know a lot of couples who have only one child and they are doing just fine.  I know that people have their opinions about this, as I've often been informed of them, but Lance and I need to do what is best for us and Logan.  I'm sorry if that sounds really harsh.  I don't mean for it to be.  But, nobody walks in our shoes except for us.  

I hope that this answered some questions.  I realize that some people might be disappointed that we haven't decided yet, but give us a few years.  Right now, we are enjoying our time with our little man and taking everything in life one day at a time.

Friends and Reality

It's always interesting when you realize something that should have been obvious for years.  (And in my case...years and YEARS).  Sometimes these realizations hit me when I'm in the shower.  Sometimes they hit me when I'm driving in the car.  Yesterday I had a bunch of them while talking to a close friend of mine.

I had a good amount of friends growing up.  I don't mean acquaintances.   I mean really, really great friends.  But, life happens and everyone goes their own way and somewhere along the line you lose touch.  Thanks to social media (looking at you, Facebook!), I've been able to reconnect somewhat with old friends, but it definitely isn't like it used to be.  I've met some really great people over the last 15 years that I've become close to, but I've recently come to the realization that not everything is how I had imagined it in my head.

Talking with my friend yesterday, I realized that she knows pretty much everything about me.  She knows my favorite restaurants.  She knows where I stand politically and on social issues.  She knows my family.  She knows what my aspirations are and what my frustrations are.  She knows the most intimate details about me and I know them about her.  We talk about EVERYTHING.  She might be the only person I can say that about other than my husband, child and immediate family.  I am so grateful for her and her friendship.

The other thing I realized while talking to her is that another person in my life (who I had always mistakenly assumed knew me better than almost anyone) barely knows me at all...and I can say the same for her.  Thinking back on it, most of our conversations have been on the surface.  There are topics that are off limits and have never been discussed.  I've always been a very open person, so not being able to discuss certain things has always been hard for me, but I never really thought about it until now.  It's disappointing to realize that you're not really as close to someone as you thought.  This one might take a while to actually sink in.  I have no idea what took me so long to figure this out.  But, maybe this is okay.  Maybe I don't HAVE to have super deep friendships with everyone. I just thought I had it with her.  I love her very much and we will continue to be friends for a very long time.

I have another close friend that I admire and feel so lucky to have in my life.  I created an expectation in my own head of what I wanted our friendship to be.  It didn't quite pan out that way.  I find myself being envious of the super close relationships she has with others, wishing that it was me.  I have no idea why I do this to myself.  It's like I'm back in Junior High and I just want to hang with the cool people and feel accepted.  Envy is not a trait that I'm proud of by any means and I'm sure (hopeful?) that eventually that will fade.  I am not resentful of her and I only wish her well.  I would never want to do anything to jeopardize the friendship we do have.  I also think that we will be friends for a very long time and I'm so grateful for that, too.

I am very lucky to have the friends that I do.  I couldn't imagine any of them NOT being in my life.  They each bring something very special and unique to my life.  My friendships are not complicated.  I think the last fight I had with a friend was in high school.  But, that doesn't mean that they are without the occasional hiccup.  Or, maybe the hiccups are all in my own head.  I'm starting to learn that it's not good to set up expectations of others when they have no idea that they are being held liable and accountable for them.  It's unrealistic and unfair on my part.  Thank you for reminding me of that, Tim Gunn!

I'm learning...I'm learning...

Finding Myself

I'm not really sure how many times I have started and stopped writing a blog post over the last year and a half.  I'm also not totally sure why I stopped writing.  Maybe it was fear...fear that I would expose more of myself than I wanted.  Maybe it was confidence...which is something I have definitely been lacking over the last few years.  Or, maybe it was just that I felt that I had nothing to say...nothing to contribute.

So many things have happened in the last year and a half.  We had to say goodbye to a couple of our furry family members.  We sold our house and moved in with my parents for 6 weeks.  We then moved into a great condo about a mile from where my sister and I grew up.  Lance and I celebrated 10 years of marriage.  Logan turned 2 years old and started preschool.  I took on more job responsibilities.  I have lost friends and I have gained friends.  And, somewhere along the way, I seem to have lost myself.

I'm still at a loss for how it happened, but I know it did.  My anxiety has grown exponentially and my confidence has shrunk.  I get mad at myself for not being organized, forgetting things and feeling unproductive.  I used to be able to let the little things go much more easily.  Now, I have a hard time telling my brain to shut off and usually find myself tossing and turning at night without getting much sleep.  This is not the *me* that I used to know.

I didn't have postpartum depression after having my son, but I definitely developed some sort of postpartum anxiety disorder.  With a huge sigh of relief, I can say that a lot of that is over now.  I do still deal with it occasionally, but the severity of anxiety that I had experienced is something that I can't quite explain or, more honestly, don't want to even think about much.  I'm just so glad that I seem to be on the way out of that experience.  It wasn't pleasant...for any of us.

One thing that I do know is that I LOVE being a mother...and a wife...and a daughter...and a sister...and a friend.  I love nothing more than picking up my little guy from school and bringing him home to play until he has to go to bed.  I love watching my son discover things, say new words and have genuine emotions and reactions to the world around him.  I love hanging out with my hubby, my family and friends.  I have a really great life and I'm so grateful for it.  But, I have to figure out a way to be happy with ME.

I'm really striving to live in the moment and to know that in this moment, I am okay.  I worry too much.  I make myself sick with worry and I know it's not good for me.  All of my issues...my insecurities, my worry, my doubts...are mainly internal.  On the outside, most people think nothing is wrong.  I have a student who asks me at LEAST once a week, "Kirsti, why are you laughing so much?"  I am a genuinely happy person.  I just need to learn to let things go and relax.  My mission is to find out how to do that.

There are a lot of people who have stuck by me and have been better friends than I ever could have imagined.  To those who have offered hugs, words of encouragement and have really been there, I thank you sincerely.

My "A-ha!" Moment

For Valentine's Day this year, Lance bought me my very own Nook. I have to admit, although very shamefully, that I have never been much of a reader. It has really been years since I have picked up a book to read. Sure, I read newspapers and magazines, but hardly ever a book. I absolutely love my new gift. I think I have read more in the last two weeks than I have in the last 5 years. Again...I am not proud of this fact.

I have found over the years that I am definitely more interested in non-fiction than anything else. I love reading people's stories...accomplishments, falls, failures and triumphs. The first book I purchased with my new e-reader was Gunn's Golden Rules: Life's Little Lessons For Making It Work by Tim Gunn. I am blowing through it faster than I could have ever imagined. I love it. I have been a fan of his for some time and I really love him on Project Runway.

There was a very particular paragraph in his book that made me stop dead in my tracks. I have mentioned before that I feel as though some of my personal relationships have gotten weaker in the last 6 months. I have tried talking to Lance about it but I never felt satisfied with my conclusions. Tim Gunn offered a new perspective that I think goes pretty perfectly with my situation:

"I find with complaints in general, you need to know the whole context, including what the expectation was. So frequently, I've found that the expectation has been totally false, a creation of the person's own imagination. They're disappointed not to get something they were never promised."

I have learned that I have put expectations on people that have no idea they are being held liable for anything. I created the expectation and found myself disappointed when there was no follow-through. I brought this on myself. The lightbulb finally came on...and I was actually relieved to have realized this.

Thank you, Tim Gunn! You may have saved me some very precious future time in therapy.

It's kind of like that episode of Sex and the City when Carrie's boyfriend tells Miranda that the guy she thinks is going to call her really ISN'T going to call because "he's just not that into you." Apparently, I find myself trying too hard to keep things alive that maybe should be put to rest.

So, then the question remains...how long do you try to save a relationship before it is too much? When you're friends with someone, shouldn't there automatically be some unspoken expectations? I'm not sure what the answers are, but I do know now that I have to learn to reset my expectations of people...including myself.

In The Last 4 Months...

Day one

2 weeks old

2 months old

3 months old

4 months old

The last 4 months have brought a whirlwind of change and emotions for me. I am ecstatic to finally be in the mommy club. It has been such a long and emotional road for me and Lance that I sometimes thought it wasn't going to happen. I enjoy every minute with my little man...playing with him, watching him discover new things, watching him sleep, seeing his personality develop. It is such an amazing thing to watch this little person that you created discover and grow and learn.

I was lucky enough to have been able to stay home with him during his first 10 1/2 weeks of life. It was such a great time to bond with him and get to know him. I was never the kind of person who wanted to be a full time stay-at-home Mom, but I enjoyed (and still do!) every second I spend with him. I went back to work on November 1 and had mixed emotions about that. As much as I miss seeing Logan all day everyday, I was really craving adult interaction. I wasn't confident enough to leave the house for very long with him on my own, so I didn't get out much. I think about him all day when I'm at work, though. I'm so very grateful for the jobs that Lance and I have. I am home by 3:30pm everyday, I never have to work a weekend or a holiday and we have a lot of time off during the year during the summer and other breaks. They are the perfect jobs for us to have!

Along with the joy of having Logan around, I faced a lot of other emotions that I wasn't ready for. I felt guilty for having to stop breastfeeding so early on in his life. My hormones, which were very much under control during my pregnancy, were completely out of whack after I gave birth. Then I dealt with a pretty heavy case of the baby blues. It didn't develop into postpartum depression, but it was definitely something that I wasn't prepared for or knew exactly how to get through. It would always strike me in the evening. Lance would ask me a simple question like, "does chicken sound good for dinner?" and I would find myself hiding in the bathroom to cry for the next 20 minutes...and wonder why in the heck was I crying?

I also struggled with a lot of personal relationships. There were a few people that I had felt really close to and then after Logan was born, it was as if they had disappeared. It was months before I got so much as a text from them to find out how I was doing. On the flip side, there were people who I didn't feel quite as close to or hadn't seen or talked to in YEARS that were contacting me to find out how I was doing. One of them even went out of her way to make and bring us dinner! It was so sweet of these people to think of me and I will forever be grateful to them.

The last 4 months have left me with a lot to think about. Of course, my main priorities have changed for us and my focus is now on Logan. However, I have learned that I can't lose myself in my new role or rely on other people to make me happy. I need to figure out how to do that myself. This next year, I will be devoting myself to change and a year of firsts...my first year as a Mom, different activities, hobbies and new adventures. I want to be a better person for myself, my husband and my son.

Here goes nothing!

Logan

Our first family picture!

It has taken me a really long time to update my blog and I'm so happy that I finally have a chance to do it! Here is a little bit of what happened when Logan entered the world:

At 11:28pm on August 18, Logan was born. I went into the hospital on Tuesday, August 17 at 6pm and they started inducing about an hour later. I was feeling really great until about 2am...when the contractions were starting to get intense and seemed like they wouldn't let up. The nurses kept telling me that I needed to try and rest as much as possible but I knew that I wouldn't be able to with those contractions, so I asked for an epidural. It was the best possible thing I could have asked for. The little prick in my back brought me instant relief...and the anesthesiologist instantly became my best friend. Lance and I were able to get some sleep after that. All was well.

At about 8:45am the family started to arrive. My parents, sister and Lance's dad all arrived at the same time. I was talking to my Mom and sister when, at promptly 9:05am, my water broke. It was sudden and unexpected but very much welcome! We thought FOR SURE it wouldn't be long after that. Boy were we wrong!

The time passed and we waited...and waited...and waited. The doctor came in to check on me every once in a while but I was progressing so slowly that there wasn't much more to do than just wait. Luckily, I was feeling FANTASTIC from the epidural and wasn't in any pain whatsoever. My family kept staring at the monitor in amazement that I wasn't feeling the huge contractions that I was having. Lance kept me entertained by reading me all of the comments that people were leaving on Facebook.

Things started changing around 9pm. I was starting to feel A LOT of pressure *down there*. My epidural was also wearing off so I was starting to feel everything. It is quite a shock going from feeling absolutely nothing to feeling EVERYTHING at 8-9cm dilated. The anesthesiologist came in to see if he could adjust my epidural. It worked for a very short amount of time and then stopped working. He tried a different medication but that didn't work at all. After 18 hours of having the epidural, my body became tolerant of it and it stopped taking effect. I didn't have any other choice at that time but to just breathe and get through it.

After a while of squeezing the crap out of my sister's hand while breathing through contractions, I thought for sure that I was ready to push. My doctor came in and said that I had not progressed and that I was still only 8-9cm. I was absolutely miserable by this point. The contractions were seriously strong, I could feel him drop into the birth canal and I was shaking almost uncontrollably in my bed. I was also unbelievably hot. My family said the room was an ice box but it wasn't cool enough for me. My sister put wet washcloths all over me...on my head, arms, legs, feet...and it still wasn't enough. By this point I had also developed a fever. I saw the nurse consulting with the doctor and I knew what it was about. The came over to me with what they thought was going to be bad news to me...I was going to need a c-section. I was elated! I was ready to meet my new little man.

Everything went super smooth in delivery. It took about a half hour and then they rolled me into recovery. The nurse was really nice and let me talk her ear off...which is what I needed at that moment to get through the pain. After about an hour, my pain was under control and I was rolled into my postpartum room down the hall.

I will never forgot the moment I first saw my baby boy. In my eyes, he was perfect. I think my first words were, "he's so cute!" I was so happy to hear that he was here...safe...healthy. After years and years of trying to start a family with Lance, we had finally done it. I couldn't have been happier!

Except for one lactation consultant at the hospital, the care I received was absolutely top notch. All of my nurses in labor and delivery, surgery, recovery and postpartum were so unbelievably nice and supportive. My doctor and anesthesiologists were fantastic. The perinatologists and medical assistants were so friendly and nice. I couldn't have asked for a better team of doctors and professionals to have helped me in my journey. Maybe we will all meet again in a few more years.

Maybe...

Progress!

I was at my parent's house yesterday when my sister decided that she wanted to do a little photo shoot. I didn't really have any pictures of me and my growing belly so I was grateful that she wanted to do that. So, here I am at 37 weeks, 2 days along!

I have continued to have lots of doctor appointments. My non-stress tests have been great and have showed that my fluid levels are perfect and baby is doing fantastic. I saw my OBGYN on Thursday and I found out that I am now 50% effaced and 1cm dilated. I wasn't dilated at all at my last appointment, so we were really pleased about the progress! Hopefully everything will continue to develop naturally. At my appointment, my doctor went through my chart and pulled up the report with Logan's growth assessment. It's always reassuring when the doctor exclaims, "Wow! Your baby's head is off the charts!" We all had a little laugh about it, yet I have a feeling I'm not going to be the one laughing when I need to push that big noggin out when the time comes. Oh well!

Other than that, there really isn't much more to report on right now. I'm still having braxton hicks contractions, but none that would signal active labor. I'm having a little bit of back labor, as my lower back has been sore off and on for a few days now and I have a little bit of ligament pain when I stand to walk. I'm also feeling more pressure *down there*, but all of this is perfectly normal for where I am in the pregnancy right now. I've actually tried to take some video of him moving in my belly, but of course, whenever I hit the record button, he stops moving. He's either going to be shy or stubborn just like his daddy. Oops...did I just say that???

Speaking of Lance...I just want to take this opportunity to say how lucky I feel to have him as my partner. He has been absolutely wonderful taking care of me, the pets and the house. I don't think I tell him enough how grateful I am for him and all he does. I LOVE YOU, SWEETIE!!!!