My Mommy Story

As a new mom of a six week old baby, I have decided I need a place to share all my worries. As someone diagnosed with anxiety issues, I am a little high strung and highly prone to 3 a.m. panics. Here I will share all the fears, the tears, and the laughs that is my life as a new mom.

Before we can talk about now, we have to back track a little, to my life before Little Man. I am 33 years old, and married to a wonderful man who spoils me rotten. I'm ok with that. ;) We have been married four years. We tried to get pregnant for three years with no success. Finally last fall, I traveled to Phoenix, AZ where I felt awful. I came home ready to go to the doctor, but wanted to rule out pregnancy because I knew he would ask. Now you have to understand how many pee sticks I'd gone through, all negative to understand my mind set going in. When it came back positive was the first time in my life I have ever been speechless. Despite a blood test with my doctor, I still didn't believe I was really pregnant until my first OB appointment. Even then I was convinced it wouldn't go to term. It wasn't until I was five months pregnant I realized I really was going to have a baby.

In April, after a couple months of dealing with gestational diabetes, I started to have trouble with my blood pressure. Before we really had time to worry about that, I started bleeding. I went to my doctor who sent me to the hospital where I tested positive for leaking amniotic fluid. I spent a week in the hospital as my blood pressure slowly ratcheted up, trying to limp my son as close to his due date as possible. But by the end of the week, my blood pressure stole the show, sky rocketing up to 170/120 at times. I wasn't allowed to sit up, and I was only allowed to stand up when I had to use the bathroom. After three days of fighting with high pressures, my doctor decided to induce. I will share my labor story another day, as it is a little long winded. Little Man was born at 35 weeks gestation, and he was tiny. His ribs stood out and his spine poked out so much you could see every vertebrae.

He had issues, as all preemies will. He was a good eater from the start, but he struggled with his body temperature. After a few days, he also had issues digesting the food he so happily ate. And then he started having sleep apnea and bradycardia (not breathing and low heart rates) and had to go on caffeine. Finally, after 11 tortuous days in the hospital, he got to come home. It took me several hours before I could put him down. Little did I know the worst was yet to come. He wasn't home an entire week before yet another "preemie issue" emerged. He has gastric reflux issues because the muscle at the top of the stomach that keeps food down is weak. He also started getting diarrhea, so they had me stop eating dairy, peanut butter and caffeine.

He has steadily put on weight and is doing good. He came off the caffeine a couple weeks ago and I hope he will come off the monitor this week. We are struggling with sleeping and I am working on not jumping to his side at every noise. I have finally gotten to where I can ignore his grunts and sighs and sneezes, but now I'm struggling with jumping up the second he starts to fuss. I am trying to give him a minute to try to self soothe. We're having some feeding issues I will go into in another day. He is a good baby and my whole world. Even given everything we've been through, I wouldn't trade it for anything. He is everything I never knew was missing. :-D