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.