Joshua's Birth Day Story

My due date with Joshua was March 4th. I did several prenatal appointments in the States before we came back to East Asia last October. The doctor in the States told me that since I would be redoing a repeat c-section, I shouldn't go past 39 weeks. My local doctor here also confirmed this, so we scheduled the c-section for Tuesday, the 24th.

Here in EA, things are very different. I had to check into the hospital the night before so they could do a blood test. I had to fast for 6 hours before coming in-so at 10 am I stuffed myself with food and drank about a gallon of water. My mom and I went to the hospital at 4pm for the bloodwork. However, they lost my chart and my room wasn't ready, so things took much longer than I had planned.

Eventually they took my blood, I had an ultrasound, and they prepped me for surgery the next day. There are some more details to that, but it's tmi and more of a girls-only convo. But let's just say I deserved a pat on the back after some of my experiences.

I finally checked into my room, then we left to go meet my dad, Daniel, and Paige for dinner. I had a huge cheeseburger and a chocolate mint milkshake. After dinner, Daniel and I went back to the hospital to get ready for the next day. My doctor came by that night to talk about the surgery and let me having a sleeping pill too. I never really felt the pill take effect, so it wasn't too strong. But I did sleep pretty good, so I was thankful for that! They also came in about 8pm or so and did fetal monitoring for about 30 minutes. Then the nurse said she would come in at 1 and 5 am to check the baby again. You can imagine how thrilled I was at being woken up.

One thing that was funny/annoying, is as soon as we checked into my room I tried to figure out how to lower and raise the bed. I knew I wouldn't be able really move after surgery so I wanted to be prepared. However, my hospital bed had a crank at the end of it to raise or lower the bed manually. So EVERY time I needed to lay down or raise my bed, someone had to turn the crank at the end of the bed to move me.

Please notice the crank at the very end of the bed.

Anyways......here is my last belly pic!

They told me my surgery would be at 8:10, and they would come get me at 7. After the nurse came in at 5 to check me, I got up and showered and got ready. My mom came to the hospital a little after 7. So I was dressed in my comfy clothes because I assumed they would have me change into a gown. But they came in and told me to get into the hospital issued pajamas. Ya'll-I totally made fun of them at first. But they were SO comfy and I brought home 2 pairs to wear, ha!

I changed, then I walked into the operating room and sat on the table. They started my IV of antibiotics-which I don't remember having with Paige. It instantly made me sick. I thought I was going to throw up and faint immediately. I asked them if it was supposed to do that (cos I was worried they were putting me out!), and they said no. But after about 7 minutes it settled down and I felt okay.

The hospital provided me a translator for all of my prenatal appointments and for my labor and delivery. (even though my doctor did speak english), However, I was in the operating room for about 30 minutes operating in my second language by myself. Language and miscommunication was a barrier during my hospital stay. More on that later. They also don't allow anyone in the operating room, so Daniel and my mom waited outside.

Anyways.....on with my long story getting even longer. They put my epidural in and I felt that bad boy kick in! My doctor came in and they started the surgery about 8. Just to compare birth experiences-with Paige they tied my arms down and I was shaking the whole time. They didn't tie me down this time and I didn't shake very much at all.

At 8:16, I heard Joshua's little cry!!! I started crying-it was the best sound to hear!!!! And my favorite part-the table where they cleaned him up was just to my right, so I was able to see him the whole time! After they cleaned him they swaddled him and left him on the table, so the whole time they were stitching me up, I was able to just stare at him. It was the biggest blessing that I'm SO thankful for!

Joshua weighed 6 pounds 6 ounces and was almost 19 inches long. Paige was 8 pounds when she was born, so I was shocked at how tiny Joshua was!!! He doesn't fit into any of his newborn clothes, they completely drown him. We all think Joshua looks exactly like Paige did when she was born. Sometimes I accidentally call him Paige because of how much he looks like her. I'm interested to see if he favors her as he gets bigger.

Anyways, right after we got back to our room they let me do skin to skin. Honestly I don't really remember much right after the surgery. I think they took him in for tests and stuff.

I was hooked up to several iv's. One huge cultural difference is that they wanted me to lay down and rest in bed for several days here. With Paige, I was pretty much forced to get out of bed that day and walk around and shower as soon as I was up for it. Here, I was hooked up to fluids for 3 days and was told not to shower for 2 weeks. But as soon as that last iv came out, I was in the shower and walking around (doctor approved of course!).

Tuesday afternoon my parents brought Paige to meet Joshua. It was SO sweet and funny! She sat next to me and held him for about 2 seconds, then said "All done!"

But Paige has been super sweet with Joshua. Every time she came to visit us she would come in and look for Baby Joshie and make sure he was okay. If he cried she would go to him, pat him, and say "he okay, he okay." 

I'm not sure if having a previous c-section helped or hurt me. I had certain expectations based on how my c-section went with Paige. But I was in America. Having a c-section in East Asia was just so different. I think if I didn't have anything to compare it to I would've just accepted the differences and not known any different.

Wednesday was a pretty emotional day. Some of the cultural differences got to me and there were tears. But Wednesday afternoon was better after we made some adjustments.

On Thursday, day 3, I finally was free of my iv's! It was so great to be able to get up and move around and to finally change clothes! I felt so much better after a shower and doing my hair and make up.

We tried taking a few family pictures, but Paige was not having it. This was the best one we could get, after we let her hold on to her babydoll.

I was a little concerned about the pain management, because I kept asking what was available, and was told that after 3 days I wouldn't need any pain medicine. Ha. Ha. Ha.

With Paige, I took hydrocodone and Motrin for 10 straight days afterward. After several hours of going back and forth between my translator and several doctors, I was able to have motrin. But here's the weird thing-I haven't really used it. I think the main reason is because with Paige I only wore the binder on my stomach for a few days. With Joshua, I wore it almost 2 weeks. I think wearing the binder longer gave me a lot of support and helped with the pain. Because I was shocked when I realized that I didn't really need it.

Now there have been a few days that I walked too far or too long and I can tell I overdid it. Those days I do need a little something to take the edge off. I am trying to be more careful though and take it easy when I can.

I can't believe Joshua is over 3 weeks old already!! I need to get ready to do his one month post. But life with 2 kiddos is much busier, so blogging has taken a back seat to naps :)

Look out world-she's 2!

Our little Paigers turned 2 this past Thursday. My mom has been in town almost two weeks helping me get ready for Baby Joshua, and my dad flew in on Thursday night. It was so special to have my parents here!

We had her party on Friday, so Thursday we mostly celebrated at home. We started with Mickey Mouse m&m pancakes on her new Mickey plate. I'm not really into character themes, but Paige loves Mickey Mouse, and I was able to buy all the supplies here in our city, so I figured why not.

Paige got to blow out candles several times-I believe in celebrating your birthday as much as possible, which includes blowing out candles for all your meals and dessert! 

Since we had her party the next day, we didn't have any cake for her to have on her actual birthday. But I refuse to not let her have some type of dessert to eat on her actual birthday with a candle-so we grabbed a piece of peanut butter fudge (my mom made and brought us a few pounds of it!!) and went with it. We accidentally put one candle on her peanut butter fudge and realized it halfway through singing, so we had to stop and start over!

Paige was pretty excited!!

Paige got a lot of presents this year from friends and family, so we tried to spread them out over Thursday and Friday. She loved everything!!!

We've been baking lots of cookies the past few days!

Friday we kept the celebration going with cinnamon rolls for breakfast. We played with lots of toys and got ready for our Mickey Mouse party that afternoon. My mom has almost every cake pan imaginable and is gifted at decorating cakes. So I was pretty excited she was here to make Paige's birthday cake!

We were in the States last year and had a big party, so this year we had a really simple party-just a few friends. But we had a lot of fun and Paige had a blast!

Paige wasn't too much into the cake, she was just all about the icing! 

After the party we went to KFC for dinner. It's a big holiday week here, so almost everything is closed-except KFC that is.

I almost can't believe I have a 2 year old. When she turned 1 last year I just couldn't believe it. That first year went SO fast. But this last year, so much has happened so even though I can't believe she's 2, this year didn't seem to pass nearly as fast as her first year did. 

If you stalk my blog, you might realize Paige is wearing almost the exact same outfit as her birthday last year. I love a good cupcake outfit, so when I found the same outfit in 2T last year, I couldn't resist.

Here she is last year!

And now!

Can I just say it is almost impossible to get a good picture of this girl. She is constantly moving!

I'll do a separate post to recap her stats and everything our little 2 year old has been getting into lately!

Happy Birthday Paige!!!!

January Life

Here's a post just to catch up on everything that's been going on here lately. I take a lot of pictures then hardly get around to posting them.

We celebrated my birthday in January...and really celebrated for several days...it was the best!! On my actual birthday we went out to breakfast at my favorite place to get french toast. My favorite thing is to go out for breakfast!

So I should've blogged sooner because now I don't really remember much of the day. I think we ate lunch at home??? That night we went out with some friends at a western restaurant in town, then I went to a ladies fellowship afterwards and stayed out way too late. 

When Daniel and I were brainstorming about how to celebrate my birthday this year, I had a GREAT idea.....I wanted a girls sleepover at our house! With life here things are busy and especially moms with little ones, so it's rare to get good quality time with girl friends. 

So I talked to my friends and they were all on board! Daniel made my favorite cake-White Almond Wedding Cake. We decided to make it a bundt cause I didn't have the round cake pans, and it was seriously the best looking and tasting cake ever!!

One of my friends also made me a cookie cake-so you can imagine I'm not having any trouble putting on a little extra baby weight! But since I only have 3 weeks left, I figure I need to seize the day!

My friends came over, we ordered pizza, got in our pj's, had some girl talk, watched the Miss USA pageant from last year (none of us had seen it), ate cake, played games and had the best time!!!! I'm thinking of making it an annual tradition. 

That same week a friend of a friend brought back some avocados from when he traveled to a nearby country. Avocados are VERY hard to come by here and if you find them they can be almost $10 each, so they are a big treat! But I got several for about $1 a piece!!!!! Look how massive they are!!! 

One day Paige and I were in my room while I was putting things away and I couldn't find her. Then I see these little pj feet sticking out of my closet and her little voice saying "where's Paige? where's Paige?" Too cute that girl!!!

Last week we were buying fruit at the market and Paige decided to take a little rest on a stool next to the eggs. 

Paige does blanket time almost every morning for about 40 minutes. It's a great time for me to work on email, do dishes and get a few things done. She always does the cutest things during this time.

The last two days she's been playing with this box nonstop. 

We went to the doctor's this morning and scheduled the c-section for the 24th....just 3 weeks away!!! The way things are done are a little different so I have to check in at 4pm the day before....which I'm not a fan of....but I'm working on my attitude about it :)  But in good news, the baby isn't breeched anymore!

My mom gets here in one week.....I can't wait!!! I have a long list of things for us to do-prep some freezer meals and bread, get the nursery ready, clean up some mold (i know, but just being honest...it's a problem in our city), and try to make sure everything is ready before little Joshua comes. 

Pumpkins and Parties

This post is about our last week in the States before heading here to Asia. We drove back to my parents house on Friday night, and then my sister (who flew up the day before) and I gave my mom a surprise 60th birthday party that Saturday.

She actually had no idea and was genuinely surprised!! 

Sarah's little girl and Paige are close in age, so we got matching outfits and Daniel took some pictures of us girls before church.

It was hard to get the girls to look at the camera at the same time-but I still love how they turned out!

My parents picked out the girls' outfits-they are adorable!

Love my sister!

Daniel's parents came up our last weekend, and we went to a pumpkin patch where you could pick apples, pumpkins, ride rides, and feed animals. It was basically a mini heaven for Paige. 

I love my little apple picker! I die over those pigtails!

Paige has no fear of animals! Petting zoos are really the jackpot.

We were never really sure what this animal was.

Paige rode the pony and we rode the swings. I thought the swings would be nice and mild-I was shocked at how fast we went! We had so much fun picking apples, playing with the pumpkins, and spending time with family. I loved every minute at the pumpkin patch-I know it will be a while before we get to go to another one!

THE Party

I've been preparing for Paige's first birthday party since before she was even born. I early on declared Paige a lover of cupcakes and polka dots! Having a baby girl born after Valentine's day is perfect! Last year I stocked up on lots of great stuff and was able to do the same this year.

I love how everything turned out! You just can't have too much pink right?

We had cupcakes, candy, chocolate covered marshmallows, veggie tray, and punch!

I found this idea on Pinterest to serve the marshmallows, and i love it! I just filled glasses with valentine's m&m's then placed the spokes inside. Turned out very cute!

I had so much fun being in america and being able to buy all the party supplies I needed. It almost made me want to throw regular parties just because of how much easier it is here.

Paige's party hat! Which she wore longer than I thought she would!

Her special cupcake!! It was just chocolate cupcake mix and homemade buttercream vanilla icing. My parents came down for the party, and my mom frosted the cupcakes. 

Here are a  few other decorations!

I originally printed out her monthly pictures to display to show her growth, but at the last minute I decided to make it more of a game for the adults. I put the pictures in random order and had the adults try and guess the month of the picture. I tried it out on Daniel and our moms first, and no one was even close, ha! The winner of the game (by far) was Daniel's Aunt-she got 9 of them right. It was a lot of fun!

Paige was a little unsure of what to do with all the people and attention. Sidenote, i've had her first birthday outfit picked out since before she was born. My mom bought this outfit when we found out we were having a girl, and I instantly loved it!

But she was very excited to greet her guests.

I was so excited/grateful that my friend Jen drove up from Dallas with her little girl to help us celebrate. It meant so much to me to have her at Paige's first birthday!

I love this girl and am so thankful for her!!

First up on the party agenda, was to give Paigers her first taste of chocolate! We sang to her and I helped her blow out the candle. Then she just stared at the cupcake for a while. We had 15-20 people standing around taking pictures, so I think all the attention kept her from just diving right in.

Overall she didn't eat too much, I think there was just too much commotion. I gave her a taste of icing and she was not a fan. Maybe it was just too sweet?

Oh well, there's always next time!

After cupcakes, we opened presents. It's funny to see the big difference between Christmas when Paige really didn't have a clue, to now where she was semi-interested. 

What birthday isn't complete without a giant cupcake??

Her favorite thing of course was the Puffs she got, mainly because she can recognize them anywhere.

After presents, we all went outside and played for a while. It was a beautiful day!!! 

Grandma and Grandpa have had this little tractor for a while, but it was the first time we got it out to play.

We tried getting some family pics, but the sun just wasn't working with us. oh well!

I may just need to work on the editing. But I think we all look good together :)

We were so thankful to have friends and family all come together for Paige's birthday party. Being in the states for her first birthday was so special!

After the party we all went to dinner at Slim Chicken's. It is one of our fave places!

Happy Birthday Little Cupcake!

love

laura