If I Could Save Time in a Bottle....

Today is my last day before I return to work. I hope this doesn't sound ungrateful - I realize I've had way more time off than many families are blessed to be able to afford. I also recognize that Sadie is getting bored of me and her three toys these days, and that day care will ultimately help keep her stimulated, give her new learning opportunities, and generally help her grow intellectually. And, I recognize the value of a job, of getting paid. Ultimately I want Sadie to recognize this too; I just wish it didn't mean having to be apart.

It's just so difficult to think of someone else being responsible for her all day. Even Jason can attest that when I leave the house, I tell him not to forget to feed her. And I trust him, above anyone in the world. So you can only imagine the panic I feel when I think of leaving her with people I barely know. I guess I need to let go a bit.

But I can't.

There is just so much they don't know. Like that she likes to fall asleep with her head in my right arm, not my left. Or that she always sneezes at least twice. Or the difference between a whine and a cry. And when to come running because it's now a growl-howl, no longer a cry. Or what to do when she chokes on her own saliva (an unfortunate malady she inherited from mommy). Exactly how long to let her whine before going to help her fall asleep. (That's my biggest fear - I have these graven images of her screaming alone in a pac n play for even just 30 seconds longer than when I would have been there for her, and it makes me insane. It doesn't matter that it was only 30 seconds, only that I won't be there to make sure it doesn't happen.) How to lightly stroke her face so that you trick her into closing her eyes, and then she figures out she is tired. The right cadence at which to rock her. Making sure to get her clean while still being ever so gentle during diaper changes. Remembering the A and D ointment. Remembering .... everything.

To play with her, laugh with her.

Love her. They won't love her. Not the way I do.

I want to tell them to call me when she rolls over for the first time. And when she heartily laughs also. And when she smiles, every time, so that I know why, please. And also when she does tummy time because it is not her favorite time and I want her to know I am close by. And also when she sucks her fingers, because I like to see her achieve little things like that. Oh and don't forget to please also call when she has dirty diapers because I want to know if anything changes. And also... actually, just stay on the line with me all day please. And send me a live video stream all day also please.

Actually, just bring her to me. She can just see patients with me. Is there a problem with that?





I wish I could bottle up the time I've had here at home with her and save it for my break times and my lunch times and my all the times during the work day.

I have never been known as a slacker or a pass-the-buck-er or a "no, not I" type of person. But as it pertains to my impending work day, there is now a much greater priority. I just can't see myself slaving through an extra voluntary second of work when my little girl is waiting for me to pick her up. And my inner soul is waiting to go to her, longing for her. I will have to be careful with that - residency is not the appropriate time to ask favors of others, and my coworkers have already granted me eight months of them. And Jason has already been back to work for three months. Again, I am reminded to be grateful.

I cannot help but feel that mommies and babies are supposed to stay together, though.I don't know for how long, but it's probably longer than three months. It's probably forever. The mommy in me says forever. Probably Sadie will disagree when she is 7 and 14 and 23 years old, but then I will tell her "she will see" when she has her own babies. In the meanwhile, I am spending all day today spoiling her, making time go more slowly, making lots of space in my imaginary bottle for every second.

Explosions

So there you have it, Sadie's birth story and the way her first month went. After the rough edges were finally smoothed over and we all started sleeping a bit better (emphasis on bit), Sadie started really taking off. She started out so tiny! But she grew fast. The end of the first month brought with it a weight of around 7 pounds; by July 22 at her 2 month appointment, she weighed close to 10! AND she grew 4 inches in length.

Today, Sadie weighs in at a healthy 12 pounds and is now 23.5 inches long. She is an average 3 month old! So happy, growing like crazy, pooping like there's no tomorrow, and smiling her glowing face at her ever expanding world. She spends half of her awake time investigating new things, like the plant or the mirror or Bosley. She is so inquisitive.

The joy of my heart, though, is her waking disposition. I have never met a happier morning baby. She starts stirring around 830am, and when I peek in her room, she is dancing around with her legs all over the place, staring up at the origami crane mobile that Jason and I made.

She talks to it quietly, cooing and wooing it with her little sounds. (No longer gurgles!) And when Jason and I creep up to her crib quietly, at first it takes her a moment to notice us and draw her gaze toward our faces. And then, lightning strikes, angels sing, bright lights dance around her beautiful face as she explodes with the biggest smiles you can imagine. They are heart melting. And she does it over and over, every time she wakes up.

She has done this since she was about a month old. She earned the nickname of "conartist" because when she is supposed to be taking a nap but instead she is whining, you will go over to her crib to stick the pacifier in her mouth and you will get this smile. It's like she knows that you will be helpless against it and you will just need to pick her up. I have read that "people" think smiling at such a young age is due to gas. Admittedly, she does do a lot of gas-induced rumbling. And her poops can be heard from across the room. But she also does them every time she's been playing for a while and then sees us, or when Jason comes home from work, or when she gets her diaper changed, or when you sing her the alphabet song. They are not due to gas, I think most mommies would agree. To me, they are a physical manifestation of God's grace.

Jaundice, Cows, and other Folley

So when a newborn baby gets dehydrated, it gets jaundice, which means it turns an orangy-yellow color and gets sluggish. Because breastmilk typically takes a few days to come in, babies are shielded from this by being born swollen. The extra fluid protects them from dehydration. But if they are particularly susceptible, or the milk takes longer, they can get it anyways. I didn't realize that she was orange, I just thought she inherited Jason's beautiful tanned skin tone. I guess when you look at these photos, it's hard to imagine that's all it is. What can I say? I was blinded by love... and cuteness.

So, to combat the jaundice, you give the baby all the fluids you can get from your breasts, and you pump like crazy to get the milk to come in. Unfortunately, the prematurity and the jaundice make the baby sluggish. Sadie wouldn't wake up on her own to eat, so we had to wake her ourselves. Her suckle was weak (also due to both prematurity and jaundice), so I had to work with her constantly to get her to open her mouth and move it once she got it wide enough to take in my nipple. Her mouth was small, so I also had to wear a nipple shield so that she could take in the nipple. Once she got started, I had to tickle her, move her body and mouth, massage her chin, rub her head, blow lightly on her face, walk my fingers up her back, and undress her down to her diaper to get her to stay awake enough to work with me. I would do that on one side for 15 minutes, have Jason change her diaper, then do it on the other side for 15 minutes. It was such a chore.

In addition, to ensure my milk supply, I had to pump for 15 minutes after each feeding. In the end, my milk supply came in on Wednesday, Sadie's fifth day of life. And I mean it came IN. Usually a size 34 B on a good day, I exploded to a double D. I wasn't prepared for it - it was so uncomfortable. Thankfully, I have gone down to a single D. I am still a milk cow. Even now, Sadie frequently chokes and sputters as my milk lets down as she just can't keep up with the speedy flow. Poor thing.

Anyway, so I would spend 30 minutes feeding and 15 minutes pumping. Add the diaper change and the clean up and you end up at about an hour. Every two hours. That means once you're done, you've got about one hour before you have to start again. We were so exhausted!

But that wasn't even the worst of it. In spite of all of our efforts, Sadie's jaundice worsened and she lost more weight. We came home from the hospital on a Monday and returned to the doctor for bilirubin checks on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. Each time we returned, we hoped we would hear that we could spread out the feedings to three hours or more. And each time we returned home with the same plan. By Thursday, we decided to see a lactation specialist. And given that I had milk in gads and it seemed it was all ending up in the freezer when it needed to be getting into my baby, we started giving Sadie back what I was pumping. Not all of it, because I was pumping two to three ounces a breast by Friday. All she needed was 25 mL (less than one ounce). So I would breastfeed and then Jason would bottle feed while I pumped. By Monday, her bilirubin was leveling off. But until she was back to her birth weight, we could not slow down feeds or stop waking her at night to feed. We returned to the doctor when she was one week, two weeks, and then three weeks. No changes. By the beginning of week three, I was over it. I couldn't take it, I was ready to throw in the towel. Jason had returned to work and was no longer able to help much at night, I was beyond exhausted, I was sick of pumping, and I was ready to throw in the towel and just start formula. I cried to him before he left for work that morning. I don't know how he made it out the door. He told me to adjust my attitude, that this was temporary but necessary for our little girl. And then, just when I thought I could go on no longer, finally, she passed her birth weight.

I nearly cried.

We were overjoyed, mostly for ourselves that we could let her start waking us up at night instead of vice versa. Nobody told me that ALL newborns need to feed every 2-3 hours. I shouldn't have been so dismayed when she continued waking us up at night every 2.5 to 3 hours. I didn't get more than two hours sleep in a row for weeks. However, I did get to stop pumping, and it's a good thing because our freezer is FULL. Bags come in 150 and 180 mL sizes. We overfilled them so as not to go through them so quickly. We still have over 100 bags of milk stored. I wasn't lying - I really am a milk COW.

Thank heaven for family - Jason was able to stay home to help for two weeks. Then his mother came over during week three and my parents arrived at the end of week 4. I would have gone crazy if not for these dear folks!

The Little Lady

Sadie met Jason's family the night she was born. They told me as they wheeled me from the LandD room to the post partum room that they were waiting, and in my brain I have a few scattered glimpses of memory of them being there but otherwise I was too exhausted to retain any information. That, and I was on pain medications.

Fortunately, my memory of those first two days improved after a few hours. There isn't much to say about these days, except for that they are filled with sheer bliss. After an isolated scare right after delivery when a nurse didn't like Sadie's color and thought maybe her breathing was not good, Sadie did very well. But because of that they kept her in the nursery the first night under surveillance. It was so nice to get several hours sleep that we had her stay in the nursery again the next night, even though she had been cleared to stay with us.

Here are a few pics from those first days in the hospital.

Jason had been growing out his hair since before our previous miscarriage. He had planned on donating it, but the primary goal, for some reason, was to get to the birth of our first child. We don't know why we set that goal, but we did. And you better believe that the moment he reached our home, it was getting shaved off!

Tiny feet, good for nibbling...

Ahh, the look of love. And jaundice. Believe it or not, I didn't notice that our baby was moderately carrot-colored at this point. We were in for a bit of a ride due to the jaundice. More on that later.

May 21, 2011

At 8:30pm on Friday evening, May 20th, my doctor walked into my room and nonchalantly announced that he would turn the mag off at midnight. Just like that. No slow taper to off, no step wise reduction. Just off. Given that I had had some bleeding earlier in the week, I figured it was coming, and I had waited for four weeks for this moment, and yet it somehow snuck up on me and caused me to palpitate. Maybe it was because my doctor had told me that the mag was the only thing keeping me from delivering. (The cerclage had been taken out at week 33, due to pulmonary edema, a long and uninteresting story I have condensed to this sentence.)

So off it went. A wonderful nurse helped me sneak in a shower at 1am. I tried to sleep but failed. Jason had planned to come in at 10am but was going to wake early and stay home to try and get some last minute unpacking done. Of course I was to call him if anything changed. He made it in by 10:30. I was having some cramping style contractions, but nothing I hadn't had before. Of course, about every five to eight minutes. Around 11:15 he laid down beside me on the bed, cuddling me in a spoon.

POP.

WET.

GET UP GET UP GET UP! Jason, my water just broke! HOLY S#(%#* !!!
Him: Holy crap.

He ran out of the room, I heard him yelling at the nurses. "Her water broke, her water broke!"
Lots of commotion. Two nurses ran into my room. There's a lot of water. I think I'm peeing, I ask the nurses and they say no, it's just a lot of water. They are happy for me, for us. I see the excitement in their face and it is squelches the anxious, fear driven panic that is rising inside of me. I am officially freaking out. They say to go sit on the toilet to let the water out. I am sitting there. And then they hit. The contractions have intensified times three.

And then I know the obvious: I am in labor. Sadie is coming.

The water keeps coming, every time I move or shift, but they don't care. They stuff a giant diaper pad where it needs to go and then we are off to a different room. There is a flurry of action as they and Jason pick up all of the stuff we acquired in the month I was in my tiny apartment. I say good riddance to the room and walk slowly to the L & D room. My nurse that day tells me that if I want to go for a walk, which I have not done in four weeks, I should go now. But by the time I reached the room, the contractions are already painful enough that I'm not convinced it's a good idea. I look at Jason with a kind of fear and panic and I don't know what I've gotten myself into kind of look.

He looks back at me like this.

He is purely excited. Figures, no contractions for him.
Anyways, so the nurse tells me that they will intensify but that I can't get an epidural until I'm at least 4 or 5 cm dilated. So try to stick it out as long as I can. So I am trying. And they hurt. Like really hurt. But it's only been 45 minutes! I am losing my grip on them, they are taking control of me and my mind. The nurse asks the doctor to check my dilation to see if I can get the epidural, but he's in a csection. He tells her HE will check me when he's done, implying that there's no way I'm ready yet and that I need to stick it out longer. So nobody checks me. This is how I feel about it.

Another agonizing 15 minutes go by. I am writhing by this point. The nurse checks in with the doctor, is told the same thing. She can't continue to ask him or he will get upset, she tells me. So I must somehow hold on.

Somehow I make it through another 20 minutes or so. I've been in active labor for an hour and a half, and I am losing my grip on consciousness. I am diaphoretic with every contraction and I think I'm going to pass out. I don't think I will live through another hour of this. People say "oh, you forget how much pain it is." But it's not that. It's that you cannot conjure, you cannot imagine how much pain it is. Even hours after the labor, you know it was more pain than you could ever imagine, and you cannot get your brain to understand what you've just been through. I saw a comedic movie once where a woman was in labor. She yelled "It feels like I'm shitting glass!" That's the best description I have heard so far, and yet it cannot come close.

Jason cannot touch me. He goes to get the nurse as he is starting to get worried. She comes in, says she is going to just check me because he is still in a csection. I am worried because it hurts whenever anything comes near the area in question, but compared to everything else the checking is not so bad. I am so worried she is going to tell me I'm only 2cm. Please don't be 2cm.

9cm. I am 9cm. Thank you Jesus, I am 9cm. I love you 9cm. 9cm, I will be your slave forever. 9cm, you are my hero.

Another flurry of activity. The nurse runs out of the room, runs quickly back in dragging the anesthesiologist by the arm. Jason is kicked out. They tell me I could just give birth without it right now and start pushing. I can barely see them or hear them or understand what they are saying because I am in so much agony. Of course I still want the epidural. So I am rolled over, the epidural is placed within six minutes (and 3 contractions) and I think everything is good. Except that now the IV line in my hand is kinked and hasn't been operative for who knows how long and I need an emergent IV. But because I've had multiple IVs in my hands and lab draws every six hours from any vein that looked juicy, I've got nothing left. There are no good veins in my arms. They start looking at my feet. The Epidural is starting to take effect, but I can feel it - they ram an IV line into my right foot and start pushing in fluids like it's going out of style. Finally they are happy.

And then, bliss. I cannot feel anything below my waist. Anesthesiologist, I love you more than 9cm. And that's a really lot.

I take a nap. Yep. Active labor. Took a nap for an hour and a half.

The nurse eventually comes back into the room and tells me it's time to push. I gear up for all that chaos you see in the movies when someone starts pushing a baby out. But it never comes. The nurse and Jason calmly grip my legs and pull them to my chest. The nurse helps me figure out where to push, because I can't feel anything at this point. I hold my breath and give it a try, she counts to 10, I exhale and do it again twice. Then I rest. We repeat this for about another hour. I gradually become winded and it begins to be work for me, and then I get my reward - she says she can see the head. Jason concurs, and suddenly he is filled with excitement and enough energy for both of us to get through this. A few more pushes, and the nurse tells me to wait, she needs to go get the doctor for the rest of the delivery.

It finally hits me - Sadie is minutes away from being in my arms.

Dr. Tabsh comes in and quietly surveys the situation. I push twice more. I get an episiotomy. I push once more and there she is. Sadie has arrived.

She is not placed serenely on my chest like on the Bravo documentaries like "A Baby Story". She is whisked away to the warming table where the respiratory therapist and the neonatologist start working. She is not crying. She is making no sounds. They are rubbing her chest. Jason and I wait for what seems like an eternity. And then there it is, the weakest, feeblest cry you've ever heard, coming from a tiny little throat that's full of fluid. Actually it's a gurgle. But it's a sound. She is making her first sounds. And it's beautiful.

They suction her throat and get a bunch of goop out. I am delivering the placenta, and Jason is hovering over the baby. She is going to be ok they finally decide. I am getting sewn up. I can feel a tiny bit now, not fun but not bad. And at long last the two words I have longed to hear since the contractions started 20 weeks ago, those two words that helped me hang on when I just wanted her out already.

No NICU.

I cry now just writing them. Jason cuts the cord while a nurse takes a photo.

Dr. Tabsh is done sewing me up. He takes a long look at Sadie before quietly leaving the room. And then he leaves. After 26 weeks of ultrasounds, four trips to the hospital, a cerclage placed and then removed, reading lab work every six hours, getting phone calls nightly from nurses caring for me that my contractions are now every 5 minutes and reassuring them repeatedly that for me, this is normal, four weeks of daily check ins while hospitalized, false alarms about water breaking and bleeding and pains, and my constant nagging to please read the future for me, his work is finally done here.

And then we are alone, and she is in my arms, on my chest, feeling my body and hearing my heart from the outside. And it is the most miraculous, beautiful, painfully happy moment imaginable. This, also, you cannot conjure in your mind. And my heart is breaking with thanksgiving and wonder and happiness and exhaustion and the purest form of joy. It is finally over. With six pounds, six ounces of living, breathing, crying, pink flesh in my arms, I can rest assured that this pregnancy is finally, undoubtedly, over.

How I Made it Through

I don't know. I don't know how I made it. How we made it. The Grace of God, lots of prayers, lots of tears, family, phone calls, friends who visited. Jason brought Bosley regularly. Yep, the dog. Amazing nurses. And I mean AMAZING. I loved my nurses.

My ode to nurses:

Thank you for emptying my pee and poo for a month out of my commode without ever batting an eye. Thank you for listening to my constant complaining without accusing me of being depressed. Thank you for sneaking in showers behind the doctor's back when he refused to write an order saying it was ok. Thank you for figuring out a way to let me lay outside on my gurney under the night sky even when the doctor wouldn't write an order to say that was ok. It's ok that you could only do it once. It's ok that it was only for 15 minutes. It was my heaven. Thank you for washing my

hair, even if it was while I lay in my gurney. Thank you for complimenting me on the job I was doing of keeping "up" when I know all I did was complain for a month. Thank you for comforting me when I was emotional, stressed over the baby's heartrate, sad about feeling alone. Thank you for letting me take my meds when I wanted so as to avoid nausea and heartburn. Thank you for letting me refuse my iron because I didn't want to be more constipated. Thank you for waking me up to turn over or try to go to the bathroom when I was having contractions two or three minutes apart. Thank you for always watching my monitors and doing your job so well. Thank you for rejoicing with me when my doc turned off the mag, when my water broke, when I finally moved out of my room to a labor and delivery room. Thank you for caring enough to come and visit me after I gave birth to meet my daughter, the little girl you helped and worked so many hours to help come into this world healthy. I love you. I love you. And it's as much due to your part in this as mine that I made it as long as I did with this baby inside of me.

I loved my nurses.

It was the hardest thing I've ever done. They sent in a Social Worker the first week I was there in a preemptive strike against depression, which was actually quite nice.

Amidst all the mag craziness we (Jason) also moved us from Encino to Sherman Oaks. He made it through that with the help of professional movers and my loving siblings. They had planned a trip in May before we even knew we were moving, and it all happened to coincide such that they could help Jason move. And my brother and his wife, Matt and Tera, informed all of us that they would be providing Sadie with another cousin, due in November!

And I got to meet Wayland, my new nephew born last November. I was supposed to meet him at Christmas, but I wasn't able to go home due to needing the cerclage. Very exciting times.




My siblings made it a point to execute the new nursery. They not only helped Jason move everything, but they also painted, set up, and designed the room. They decided on colors and artwork and pillows and lamps.

They set up the few items we already had. They made it look beautiful.

It sounds like a big deal, but it is actually an unimaginably immense deal! The paint shop near the new apartment didn't have a working shaker, so they ended up having to drive to a neighboring city - Burbank - to get the paint they needed. Because Jason was tied up with other stuff, this meant they had to brave the freeways on their own. Tenae used my car which has nav (tenae lovingly nicknamed her "Natalia") and she will tell you the story of how she drove in downtown LA. If you are from here, you will know that Burbank is not downtown LA. But if you are from Kansas and have never driven on a freeway with more than two lanes in both directions, it is all the same.

The Doc who Magged Me

On April 22, I reached week 32 and had to go off of my magic green pill, Indocin. I took my last dose at midnight Friday night and was in the hospital with lots of contractions by 7pm Saturday. When I got to the hospital, again I was put on the monitors to watch the baby's heartbeat and the contractions. Every five minutes. They tried some oral medications first, then they tried doubling the dose of the same medication. Several hours went by. Saturday turned into Sunday. By Sunday afternoon, my contractions had not stopped. They weren't progressing, but they were constantly every five minutes, no matter what was done. And some were strong. So, they walked into my room with an iv set up and several bags of medications, and announced that my contraction pattern was better than their current patients who were actually in labor, like real labor, like giving birth in a few hours labor. So I needed to be started on Mag.

Mag. I could write a book about mag. A largely miserable book, except for the ending, I suppose.

Let me start out by saying that Dr. Tabsh, my OB, has a reputation of caring about one thing - the baby and its well being. That sounds really great, right? and it is. Except for this - it comes at just about any cost to the mommy. And in those terms, MAG is one of the most expensive ways to lay in the hospital. THANK YOU Dr. Tabsh for giving me a baby at 36 weeks who was and remains healthy. But I have to hate you just a little bit for Magging me for 4 weeks.


If you read Tonya's blog back in April, you will have just scratched the surface of what being on mag is like. The fact that she had to write my blog for me is a hint at how miserable the stuff really is.

After three nurses tried four times to find a vein, they finally called the anesthesiologist to get an IV started (a process which repeated itself every 5 days while I was admitted, because that's how often you need a clean line). They warned me what was coming, they said it would feel like pressure and burning as the Mag started. They missed the mark slightly, as it actually felt like an elephant was standing on my chest which was made of fiery coals. I asked them several times if I was having a heart attack. I can't imagine one feeling much different. My entire body felt engulfed in flames. The AC was turned down to 50 degrees, I had cold packs and cold washcloths on my face and chest. The burning in my epigastrium was so severe that I vomited

bile. They tried to start a urinary catheter which I made them take out because it was more burning than I could take. My chest was so heavy that I had to remind myself to breath. And that was all in just the first three hours. They assured me it would get better. A few of the prolonged side effects that never really went away:
1. Vision blurring
2. constipation
3. hemorrhoids, due to the constipation
4. total body weakness
5. poor balance
6. worsening heartburn
7. nausea
8. fatigue, actually a blessing so that I could sleep through the worst of it.
9. off and on, I continued to feel chest heaviness, no fun
10. headache
11. low blood pressure.
12. pulmonary edema (oh yeah, you know that one was fun)
13. Lab draws every six hours, around the clock. This lasted for three weeks. I ran out of veins, so during labor they had to start one in my foot. More on that later.
14. constant monitoring of the heartbeat and the contractions.
15. Not so much due to mag, but rather due to preterm labor, they had my bed inverted so my head was lower than my feet as much of the time as possible. Made for fun after-dinner heartburn and food particle regurgitation.
16. I guess you could say generalized stress over how this was all affecting the baby.

I'm probably forgetting some, but that's the gist of it. Here's how you are limited because of the above issues:

1. you can't watch tv, crochet, read, facebook, email, or do anything on the computer for longer than about an hour a day because of the vision issues. My eyes would start burning and I couldn't see anything after that.
2. You can't have the lights on too bright because of the vision issues as well.
3. total body weakness means instability, so I was limited to a five square foot area to move about in. that included my sink and bedside commode. And no showers, unless the nurse taking care of you was nice and would sneak it by the doctor. Otherwise, bedbaths every day.

4. because of the gi issues, i lost my appetite for some time and didn't gain weight for the first two weeks in the hospital. Then they put me on Ensure dietary supplement.
5. constipation like you wouldn't believe. Everything I was able to put in my mouth centered around avoiding and alleviating constipation. I ate fruit with every meal I could put down, I had fiber in every single dish I could stomach, and I drank as much water as they would allow.
6. Breath. I started getting pulmonary edema around week 33, so they ended up altering some of my meds. That was fun.
7. Constant monitoring meant being effectively "tied" to the bed at all times. Beyond the IV, I had two lines for monitoring and two lines for the SCDs that kept the blood flowing to my feet. The monitors eventually started to erode away at my skin on my belly, which was constantly being stretched to new limits by my ever growing baby.
8. Anything you can think of. It was effected. That's how it seemed, anyways.

All this, and the contractions continued. Every five minutes. For four weeks.

I'm Back. But not for long. :)

So I know that it's been about three and half decades since I last made an entry. I have so much to catch you up on. Maybe it's best if I divide and conquer. Let me start by letting you in on the major updates. I went into the hospital on April 22 in preterm labor. Sadie Belle was born at week 36, on May 21, 2011 a happy and healthy 6 pound 6 oz -er! Although she was a month early, she came home with us two days later and has been growing like crazy ever since. She is now three months old!! My how time flies! And I am exactly one week away from restarting work. ACK! Scary. The past three months have been so filled with joy and love and miraculous stuff and exhaustion and joy and love and exhaustion. Oh wait I said that twice. Also forgetfulness. I will do my best to fill you in.