my starbucks

i have found my favourite barista! there is a new starbucks in willowbrook mall and after stopping in there a few times over the last month+ i found the barista for me. it's a guy (and i know i know him from somewhere....he may even had been a student at LCS when i worked at the high school in 2006) and he is great at his job! he now knows that i will either order a decaf mocha frap without whip or a passion tea lemonade with light ice. i love that! what i love even more is what happened last time i was in that bucks. i decided to get a little treat because i was beyond starving and steve was spending his sweet time in the source while i attempted to entertain jacob in the stroller. i was going to ask for one of their mini chocolate peanut butter cupcakes then i saw the salted caramel sweet bar and thought that it looked rather yummy. i asked my fav barista which one is better. he said "i HATE the salted caramel bar".....shoot i thought. i replied with "i guess i will get the cupcake then". then the best words came out of his mouth "why don't i just charge you for one and give you both and you can decide for yourself?" ummmm.....can't say no to that! super excellent deal. steve and i enjoyed sharing the treats and it's a good thing i got both because i FOR SURE like the salted caramel sweet bar better. ;)

oh and treat receipt is back. if you don't know what that is....shame on you! buy your morning drink before 2pm and come back after 2pm for a cold summer drink for only $2! :)

one of "those" posts

another, possibly dreaded, post about being a mom....hopefully you don't all hate it when i write this kind of post.

i have been torn up about this stuff lately. the only person i have REALLY talked to about all of this is steve. i feel guilty feeling the way i feel and yet i think i only feel guilty because no on else says this kind of thing. either people either aren't being very honest because they too feel guilty or don't want to dump their feelings on others, or...i guess i am not the best mom. the mom who lives in every moment and isn't phased by the hard parts of each day.

being a mom is tough. i always knew it would be. i thought that because i had nannied young girls for a couple years i would be more prepared than i am. this newborn thing is harder than i ever imagained! my son cries or is fussy A LOT. more compared to other babies? i don't know. should i be complaining? probably not. this is where the guilt comes in. i don't want to be home with him all day/everyday at this point. i love him so much but he is draining me physically and mentally. i feel like all i do is feed him, change him and rock him. rocking for him means i am up walking back and forth across my main floor holding him. if i sit, he screams, if i stop walking he usually cries then too. once he is finally asleep i try and put him down, either in his crib, on the couch or in his swing and 3/4 of the time he wakes up and cries and wants to be rocked again. if he doesn't wake up i usually only get a 15-20 min break (during the day. evenings he often sleeps a lot longer). i look forward to the times in the day when he is content so that i can lie him on his playmat and let him look at his toys or have him sit on my lap and talk to him and admire those adorable smiles he gives. those times are my FAVOURITE!! i love the content jacob. sadly he isn't content very much in the day. we have had days where he hasn't been content at all. i feel like i am always going back and forth in my head telling myself that when he is content i should be sitting down with him and enjoying him in those moments. i need to be connecting with him and getting refueled for the next round of screams. BUT i am also telling myself that it's important that i eat, get dressed and do my hair so that i feel somewhat normal. i feel guilty if i don't sit with him and yet i feel anxious wondering when i will have time for myself.

my baby doesn't enjoy being held for long when he is awake unless he is being rocked. he doesn't enjoy lying on his playmat for long. he doesn't like to be in his swing. he doesn't like to be in his bouncer. he doesn't like to be in a sling or a carrier. he doesn't like his car seat and he is only happy in the stroller if he is content when y0u put him in there (and even then he won't last longer than 20 mins if he is awake). he wakes up screaming, none of this slowly waking up and stretching and looking around stuff. nope. it's screams from the moment he is out of dreamland.

lately in the night he has been waking up crying every hour or so. he isn't hungry but he is uncomfortable. gassy. he will calm down then start screaming a few seconds later. we rock and bounce him until the pain passes then put him back to sleep. the ovol drops are helping. he doesn't scream all day like he was before. he is much more content, but still not as content as i feel like he should be. i know i don't have another baby to compare him to but shouldn't he be happier? i hate hearing him cry so much. i feel bad for him because i know he is uncomfy. i want to do everything i can to make him feel better (the only thing i can do is rock and bounce him). is this normal? do all moms go through times with their babies when they need this level of attention? do all babies cry like this? we don't like going places with him because we will have to stand and pace and rock him most of the time. going to a restaurant with family or friends or just the two of us isn't an option because we wouldn't be able to sit and eat. right now usually one of us holds and rocks him while the other one eats dinner and then we switch. ugh. it's exhausting.

this is the way he has been for 4 weeks.

i keep looking forward to the next stage. the stage where he can go in a jolly jumper or jumperoo and be happy and bounce around while i get stuff done. the stage where he will sit on our laps and play with a toy at the table while we eat. the stage where he is awake longer and not wanting to sleep so much (ie: be rocked to sleep so much).

you might be wondering how i had time to write this post. well. this morning jacob and i went for a walk and he fell asleep in the stroller. i wheeled the stroller into our basement hallway and left him sleeping in there. i wrote some of this post in 15 mins while he slept. then he woke up and i went and got him. while changing his diaper he settled down and started smiling so i knew he was content enough to lie him on his playmat. he was fine there for 10 mins. then he started fussing so i picked him up and put him in my lap and tried to distract him with his sophie giraffe and his soother while i attempted to proof read. he is now lying on his tummy for tummy time on his playmat (which is about to come to an end since he is getting fussy again).

i feel as though i should always start these kinds of posts with "i love my son. i love being a mom. i wouldn't give it up for anything." etc etc so that no one thinks the opposite. but really, you will judge me if you want to and there isn't much i can do about that i don't have the energy to even care. all those things in the quotation marks are true, of course, but it doesn't make all of this easy.

P.S. i am posting this almost 3 hours after i started writing it...he has been fed again and is asleep, hopefully long enough for me to eat some lunch.

wanna bet

steve and i make bets on lots of things. we bet on how much the grocery bill will be. how long it will take a hellium balloon to deflate. how much we paid for something months or years ago (good thing steve keeps lots of receipts). lately we have been betting more (probably because life isn't very diverse at the moment) and i have been winning most of the bets. right now he owes me a massage at a spa (one of the best things i have ever won in a bet....he was VERY certain that he was right). usually i win things like going to marble slab for ice cream. the words "wanna bet" come up a lot in this household. :D

feeding frustrations

people often ask me if jacob is a "good baby". i have always responded by saying "yes, he is" but honestly, he's not. i love him SO much and i am having lots of fun with him but he isn't an easy baby. when he eats he does a lot of crying. he cries before he eats. he cries while he eats and he sometimes cries after he eats. he arches his back and his face goes bright red and just cries and cries. originally i thought it was just that he needed to burp, but burping doesn't always help. then i thought he was just TOO hungry so i would feed him before he got overly eager to eat...didn't change anything. we tried the bottle, he still cries. he doesn't cry like this at every feeding but probably 5 of the 7 feedings each day are like this. i am worn out. by the end of the day i am crying during the feedings too. he is 7 weeks and he just doesn't seem to get falling into a rhythm yet. in fact the crying is just getting worse. i had no idea this part would be so hard. since each feeding takes close to an hour that means that he is crying/fussy for 5-7 hrs a day! that's a lot. i have talked to a few people about this (doctor, public health nurse, friends) and i am still lost as to why he is being like this. i am hoping that the last couple things we are trying will solve the problem and jacob will be more at peace. if it wasn't for this i think he would be a "good" baby. some of the things that makes this bearable are the adorable smiles we get from him in between feedings. watching him lie on his play mat looking at his toys and being so excited to watch them and hear the noises they make. having him fall asleep on us. reading books to him and seeing him stare at the pictures all bug-eyed. we love him and just want him to be calm and enjoy eating.

oh how life changes

life is so different now but the adjustment to the change happened much more smoothly than i expected.

when i was pregnant i would think about how much everything was going to change and how much of a shock it would be to go from being really free to do whatever we wanted to being way more tied down. i was nervous for the change. i was nervous that i would feel trapped. surprisingly i don't feel that way now that he is here. once he arrived we just immediately sank into this new way of life and didn't come up for air for a few weeks. once we did we realized that everything had pretty much changed but it was a smooth transition. at first it felt like we had the craziest babysitting job ever and we were doing what we could to get through the days and nights. now we don't really even think about it. it feels like second nature. yes it is hard to go out for long periods of time and we have to plan and pack up for leaving the house but it's not the end of the world. i miss my friends and my social life but i love being home with jacob and i know that soon enough i will have more freedom to go out with friends again and leave jacob with steve or even with a family member or friend.

last night we gave jacob his first bottle and he took to it easily! this is going to make life way easier. we can now feed him when we have company over and i don't have to hide up in his room (since i hate nursing around people). we can feed him out in public easily AND i can go out and someone else can feed him. WAHOO!!! steve loved giving jacob his bottle (i am sure this excitement will wear off soon) and he is looking forward to doing more feedings in the future.

a few days ago i took a minute to think about how just a few weeks ago i was on mat leave waiting for jake to make his arrival and i would just sit on the couch and read or watch tv most of the day. the days went by SO slowly! now times FLIES! i am always shocked when steve arrives home and i realize that it's after 5pm already. today i looked at the calendar and saw that it is friday and couldn't believe that it's already the end of the week. it goes so, so quickly!

i was looking at my "what to expect the first year" book yesterday and read about what should/may/possibly be happening with jacob developmentally this month and he is already doing SO many of those things. i don't even notice the changes but now that i have read that list i am shocked to realize that he is changing a ton. :) he is starting to coo. sometimes he smiles when he first sees you. he can hold his head up a lot better. when he lies on his tummy he can push himself up on his arms and lift his head up 90 degrees. all of these things are things that i probably wouldn't have appreciated if i hadn't read about them.

i love this phase of life. there are times that are difficult but for the most part it's all just great! he is so special and we are totally in love with him.

here are some of my fav pics from the past few days:

newborn photo shoot with Vairdy Photography

vairdy does AMAZING work! we are super pleased with the shots we have ordered from her and can't wait to get the prints up on our wall. follow the link to vairdy's blog post about jacob's newborn photo shoot.

the birth story

jacob kazen was born on may 18th @ 7:35pm. 8lbs 13ozs. 22" long. :)

(jacob is named after his great grandpa jacob koop and kazen is my mom's maiden name)

TMI ALERT!!!!! be prepared that there may be things written that could offend or be too much information for some people. i won't go into what i consider to be way too much info but some of you may want to use discretion before reading. ;)

on tuesday the 17th i had a burst of energy. i did a bunch of laundry, purchased flowers and planted 4 planters for our patio and scrubbed our patio railings. that evening i had an "induction massage" (basically a pressure point massage that COULD get labour going). i left my appointment and had my first contraction 30 minutes later. i only had a few contractions between 830pm and 1am so i wasn't getting too excited yet (nor did i tell steve that i was having contractions....just in case it was a false alarm). then 1am came and there was no more sleeping. my contractions were coming about every 6-10 minutes. i woke steve at 4am then went to the bathroom and that's when my water broke. (thank goodness i was on the toilet. what luck!!) called the hospital and was told to come in and get checked. got to the hospital around 6am. they hooked me up to the monitor and confirmed that my water had broken. i was only 2-ish cms but jake's baseline heart rate was low so they had me on the monitor for over an hour so that they could get a good read on it. they decided to admit me then and not send me home. the doctor came and said that i was 3cm and she said that she wasn't worried about the heart rate because there weren't any big dips.

our doula came to the hospital and we went for an hour walk. my contractions were coming every 3 mins by this time (around 9am). it was a GORGEOUS day, so warm and sunny. it was great to be outside. when we got back inside i was starting to feel significantly more uncomfortable. by 12pm i was 5cm and asked for my epidural. by this point the pain was BAD. i feel pathetic complaining because i know that women do this all the time and claim that it's not "that bad" but it was rough for me. i was having horrible back pain. no amount of pressure on my low back was enough. i was sucking back the gas while i waited for someone to come and get my IV going. the gas didn't take away any pain for me it just made me feel like i had no energy to talk. i actually wish now that i hadn't used the gas.

the anesthesiologist arrived to give me my epidural but i still didn't have an IV in so he left. i was not very happy that he was leaving but i couldn't talk so there was nothing i could say about it. i started to notice that someone was sticking a needle in my hand and then saying something about not being able to get a vein. next i felt a needle in my other hand. still couldn't get a vein. my contractions were lasting about 90 seconds with 30 second breaks in between. not enough for me to recover between contractions. 45 minutes later they finally were able to get a vein. phew! then i was told that i couldn't get the epidural for another 30 minutes because the anesthesiologist wasn't available. NOOOOO!!!!! i was freaking out but again couldn't really talk so it was just internal panic. i managed to get out a few teary "no, no, no"s. doctor checked me again and i was 8cms. at least i was making progress. by this time it's just after 1pm.

i noticed that the nurse kept fiddling with the monitor that they had around my belly. i heard someone say something about the baby's heart rate being 60 (110 is low). then the chaos started. a lot of people showed up in the room. the doctor started commanding me to turn onto my other side, then back on my other side, onto my hands and knees, back on my back. they took the gas away and said that the baby needed oxygen. there was a lot of "lael! the baby needs you to move!!" being said in a stern/intense voice. the gas quickly wore off and i was fully aware that something was seriously wrong. steve counted 9 hospital staff in the room at one point. the anesthesiologist arrived again during this chaos and quickly left, seeing that now was not the time for an epidural. i was really freaked out. steve was holding my hand off and on and he was shaking. i could tell by looking at him that he was scared. i saw carts being wheeled in and trays of tools being set up. i was confused because i knew i wasn't 10cms yet and i thought that they did c-sections in the OR. (i found out later that they had brought in everything they needed to do a c-section right then and there...a zipper cut is apparently the term they use, meaning they would cut vertically, rather then horizontally. they had also brought in a crash cart for jacob because they thought his heart had stopped.) the doctor tried one last thing...screwing a little coil into jacob's scalp that had 2 cords attached to it. that gave them a true reading on jacob's heart rate and everything was fine. PHEW!!!! that was a big scare and highly stressful!! steve told me later that he thought we were going to be leaving the hospital without our son. :(

finally the epidural arrived. lots of questions and logistics that the doc had to go through with us before hooking me up to the magic potion. i could barely talk. the contractions were taking all of my focus and energy. i was actually falling asleep between contractions because i was so exhausted. the pain was unbearable! i could never have imagined that someone could go through that kind of pain and still be conscious. at this point i wanted to push SO badly! i feared that if i said that to the nurse or the doctor they would say that it was too late for the epidural. i kept my mouth shut and panted my way through the contractions. i didn't feel the needles/epidural. i only felt the contractions and nothing else. once the epidural was done and it had kicked in i started to feel WAY better. i can't even explain the difference. my doctor came in and checked me again and told me that i was 10cms and it was time to have the baby. i think my response was "seriously? but i just got my epidural. can we wait a while?" (you have to understand that up until this point i had barely spoken in 3 hours. the pain was so bad that all i could do was breathe. it had been 3+ hours since i had asked for an epidural...i was DONE.) i said that half jokingly, fully expecting her to say "ummm, no, it's time now" but she said that if the urge to push goes away with the epidural then i could wait. i think we waited somewhere between 1-2 hours. i hopped on facebook on my phone, brushed my hair, did my make-up...i was feeling good!

i started to be able to feel the pressure of the contractions so it was time to push. my doctor actually sat in for most of the 2 hours that i pushed for. she was very loud, yelling "push, push, push, push, push" very quickly. one of the nurses actually came in and told her that they could hear her at the nurse's station. the pushing wasn't painful just tiring and i got very warm after i had been pushing for an hour. eventually she decided to check and see if she could feel his ear and see if he was turned face up. she checked and he was. so she flipped him....not fun, very uncomfortable, lots of pressure. after that the pain in my back/hips got a lot better and things progressed much more quickly (turns out that my contractions were so painful because i was having back labour...so it's true when people tell you that back labour is brutal). the worst part of the pushing was when she told me to stop after his head was out (she had to unwind the cord that was loosely around his neck). then she told me to look and watch him be born....i think my exact words were "NO, i do NOT want to watch!!!! that's nasty!!!"....yah, i wasn't very into that idea. he was born and they laid him on my chest so i could see him. he wasn't crying yet but the nurse rubbed his little back until he started crying. what a great sound hearing him cry for the first time!! steve cried, i cried and laughed (because i was insanely happy, both that he was here and that the labour was O-V-E-R!!). it was crazy to actually experience that "high" that everyone talks about once you see your baby for the first time. i had only slept for 2 hours in the 36 hours prior to jacob being born and had just done the most physically exhausting thing i have ever done and yet i felt like i had SO much energy! i don't think i came down from that high until about 1am (jacob was born at 7:35pm)....and i probably was only knocked off my high because i passed out when i got out of bed at 1am for the first time. :P

when asked how my labour/delivery went i say "horrible" or i say "it was a little rough"....depending on who asks. i honestly don't know if i will ever have the guts to do it again but i am holding on tightly to the prospect of the second time being quicker and easier....and free of back labour. i think that if i hadn't had back labour i could have handled it much better than i did. thankfully i don't think i did any yelling or screaming. i didn't freak out at steve (in fact he got annoyed with me because i told him a few times to take a break, sit down and eat something) and i don't think i was rude to anyone. phew!

jacob is amazing and worth it all. could i do it again tomorrow? nope. but i survived. it was one day of BAD pain (actually less than one day. really it was only a few hours of bad pain). steve was the best support i could have had and it was really great to have our doula, michelle, there as well. the hospital staff were all phenomenal as was the doctor who did the delivery (not my doctor but one of the docs from the same clinic). i was WELL taken care of and i am so happy for the great care i had!