"DAH!" and other tales

***PHEW*** Am I ever behind?  I blame it on an active toddler, a move (yes, that's right!), but mostly on continued internet connectivity problems.  But, things are good today so I'm getting back on the horse and giving some updates. :-)

Cam is officially toddling, as of this week.   He has been inching toward it and has been CAPABLE of walking for a few weeks now, but it is only this week, the past two days really, when he's actually chosen walking over crawling on a regular basis.  And let me ask you, is there anything cuter than a newly-minted walker?  First of all, the uncoordinated drunken stagger is cute in and of itself.  The look on his face, however, is something to behold. He is SO excited and PLEASED with himself.  It's like the glow of a kid the first time they ice skate without holding on or ride a bike on their own times, like, A BILLION!  He also occasional shrieks with glee as he staggers toward one of us.  It. Is. Adorable.

He also found his words about a month ago. I was feeling a tad pessimistic as he hadn't even shown any signs of moving in that direction. He didn't mimic sounds, he didn't use any of the signs we'd taught him (although the clearly knew what they meant), and he didn't show that he knew what the words WE said meant.  I was beginning to get concerned, to be perfectly honest, because you'd think a few of those things would have emerged by 13 months.  All of a sudden one day, BAM!  I think he gained one or two new words a day for several weeks.  Book, dog, kitty, bath, more, ball, bird, car, truck, rock, monkey- they were coming fast a furious.  The diction isn't stellar, everything is one syllable and you can forget about ending consonants, (Book is "booh" and kitty is "kee") but they are most definitely words, they are most definitely getting used, and it is most definitely adorable.

One of his favorite words is "Dah," his word for Daddy. He doesn't have a word for Mommy, only Daddy.  And he loves his Dah.  Dah has taken on near-celebrity status around here.   His face lights up and he shouts "DAH!" whenever Jeff gets home or enters a room.  When he sees a pic of Jeff, he points and shouts "DAH!"  This notably occurred one time when Cam and I stopped by to visit Grandma at her office.  Jeff's mom has a wall which prominently features pictures of her boys.  She was standing there holding Cam and all of a sudden, he saw Jeff's picture on the wall. His face lit up, he pointed emphatically, declared "DAH! DAH!" and giggled with glee.  GIGGLED!!! We were sitting at my parents house this week  looking at a Shutterfly book I made them for Christmas of pics from his first year and it turned into a "Where's Waldo" with Daddy. "DAH! DAH!"

And seriously, I don't blame him.  Jeff adores Cameron and it shows.  He is never hesitant to stop and play, he does bath time every night, takes night duty and rock-to-sleep duty when it's needed without a grumble and is totally competent in caring for Cam in my absence. Like, I can pretty much just take off and Daddy knows where everything is, knows what to do, and even LOOKS FORWARD to "man time" when it's just Cam and Daddy.  How blessed are we?

Another fun thing that has developed lately is Cam's love of basketball.  He loves, loves, LOVES to play with his toddler hoop, his first steps were taken in an effort to get the ball into the hoop. We took him to the court in our new neighborhood the other evening so that he could see Daddy shoot hoops with a REAL basketball to make the connection between what he does at home and the "real world." Well, Cam was IN LOVE and Jeff never did get a chance to shoot around because Cam wanted to be right in the middle of it. I had planned on my role being to take him over to the play structure once he got bored of basketball with Daddy, but he never got bored so I just followed them around with the camera. Here are some pics.

OK, off to make my grocery list!  Hugs and LURVE!!!

Tori

Baby Bangs

Our Internet continues to be a drag and so my blogging has continued to be limited. However, my phone surfing has NOT and last night I came across something that made me gasp out loud in glee and understanding. You may already be familiar with Beth Moore, the author of about a gajillion Bible studies for women. Well, she has two daughters, Amanda and Melissa, who are right about my age (give or take...they're both a smidge younger) Last night, I checked in on Beth's blog for the first time in quite awhile (the renewed interest is due to the fact that I'm doing her study of James right now at church) and discovered a link to Amanda's family blog entitled "Baby Bangs."

"What on earth are 'Baby Bangs?'" wondered me. Well, Amanda was good enough to anticipate my question and issue an explanation on her blog and her answer made me cackle out loud. Baby Bangs are those little hairs you get at your hairline after the postpartum mass exodus of hair has concluded and the regrowth of new hair is in full swing. The reason I laughed was that my jaunt onto Amanda's blog was a little side trip from my main focus which was scouring Pinterest for pictures of hair-dos in anticipation of today's hair appointment, the EXPRESS PURPOSE of which is to deal with the very issue of these 11 month postpartum baby bangs. Well, that and roots. Oh, the roots...

So, this morning I took a picture of my baby bangs in the hope of sharing it with Amanda. I searched her blog and couldn't find a way to send her a private message, so I'm writing this blog post and linking it. :-) Now, I am either the BEST or WORST candidate to share a pic of my Baby Bangs because I kind of always had them anyway. My hair is mercilessly baby fine and I've always had obnoxious baby hairs at the edges of my bangs which I despise. That either makes my Baby Bangs BETTER because they are more epic or WORSE because they are less authentic since they would have been there to some degree anyway. Knowing the good Lord, I doubt the timing of all of this was random. I'm sure He has a purpose for this timely encounter, if only to being a smile to my face and perhaps hers. So, without further ado, I present REAL LIFE BABY BANGS!!!

Crawling, Cruising, and Sleep Regression...

        I’ve not been good about updating our blog, the internet issues have continued and are the worst in the evening when I would have time to blog.  I promise to go back and do some updating, but I think it’s most prudent to begin with where we are now and move forward, and then update retroactively as time allows. It’s all pretty much documented on Facebook, so I could just go back and copy and paste my statues. J

           Cam is 9 ½ months old now.  He’s crawling (fast!), pulling himself up onto everything and cruising along furniture. Little Dude can get to where he needs to go, whether we like it or not. He doesn’t have any interest in attempting to stand or walk and that I attribute to his practical approach to life.  Cam hasn’t yet shown any interest in doing anything just for the sake of just doing it.  He doesn’t pursue a skill unless he sees its purpose and that the new skill accomplishes that purpose more effectively than a skill he already have. The milestones that serve his purposes have happened early, and those which he doesn’t see the use for have come along at a slower pace.  Take, for example, sitting.  It took Little Dude MONTHS to sit up on his own. He didn’t see the point in sitting, he didn’t see anything he could do in a sitting position that he couldn’t do equally well or better on his tummy, and tummy time had the added bonus of being the position in which he could work on crawling.  Pulling to stand, however, happened early (by comparison) and quickly.  He went from zero to cruising over the course of about ten days because THAT served his purpose. He could get places and grab stuff that way.  In terms of walking and standing, I honestly believe that he is physically stable enough to begin to stand on his own and can walk with one of us holding his hands, he has done so quite well on the very few occasions where it has served his purpose. Byenlarge, however, he has no interest. I will offer my hand to help him off of the furniture onto which he’s holding to help him walk to his new destination and he just uses my hand to get down to crawl. It’s quicker, you see.  He doesn’t see the use of walking when crawling is quicker.   He doesn’t care to focus on skills for the sake of the skills themselves, unless he sees their usefulness in fulfilling whatever he deems to be his purposes (which right now involves exploring areas and obtaining objects).  Lord, please help this child as he is his Mama’s boy in this regard.  It’s why I can’t keep my room clean (TO THIS DAY!) or work out regularly for any length of tim. Unless I see the point or immediate results, I have a hard time staying interested. Sigh…I hope some bits of tenacity and fastidiousness can creep in from his Daddy to counteract some of it.

                Also, we are in the throes of sleep regression, among other things. We’ve been dealing with it on and off since probably mid-October, when Jeff left for Asia and our routine changed.  While Jeff was in Asia, Cam cut his first teeth (I felt those bottom ones for the first time on Halloween) and just before his return he learned to pull to standing which launched us into three weeks of compulsive Big Boy Standies which totally stripped him of his ability to put himself to sleep in his crib or to get back to sleep after waking up.  If he was awake, he wanted to be standing. It was epic.  We got a week or two off after that, then Thanksgiving hit with the stimulation of family and disruption of routine, then a few nights off, and now for the past three weeks we’ve not had a night with no wake-ups.  Our trip to Colorado in late December was ridiculous in terms of sleep, he had to sleep right next to me every night and nurse every few hours to get back to sleep. The Pack N Play they borrowed for us to use pretty much gathered dust.

            Now that we’ve gotten home, he has progressed to not needing to always  nurse to sleep, but needing to be rocked.  He goes about half the night in his crib, then refuses to sleep there again and keeps ending up with us. He’s gone from needing to nurse to get back to sleep when he stirs in our bed to just needing to snuggle up to one or the other of us, which is precious.  I had tears last night, realizing that.  A small part of that was knowing that it’s a teensy step toward weaning, the lost dependence on nursing for comfort in that regard, but mostly I was so proud of him for moving himself along at his own pace (it’s nothing I trained out of him, certainly, he did it on his own) and felt grateful at the outward show of how just being near to Jeff and me is soothing for him.  Removing the biological needs of sucking and eating, which nursing serves in addition to comfort, and only being left with the need for comforting presence…it makes me feel loved.  It also makes snuggles with Daddy fit the bill as well, which is nice for both Jeff AND me. The other night, he scooted away from me and crammed himself up against Daddy in his sleep. It was ADORABLE. 

               I have to admit, though, this is a draining season.  This is NOT my favorite phase of Cameron’s life so far, I’m getting worn down by the combination of things going on right now.  I almost hate to write about it because it sounds like whining and “Poor, pitiful me” as my mother calls it, but I want to be honest so that I don’t forget one day what it was REALLY like.   It is important to note, however, that we’re not the only ones suffering mightily at the hands of sleep regression.  A quick Google search for “sleep regression” will yield myriad blog entries by exhausted parents verbally banging their heads against walls across the country and even the world.  One will discover with a little reading that nine month sleep regression is notoriously the worst and is its own special brand of torture because of the active days which accompany it.  We’re trying to be patient and just focus on meeting his needs until he gets through whatever is going on, but it’s dragging on for what feels like FOREVER and it’s taking its toll, particularly on me.  He is so busy and active during the day that I’m even LESS able to get done what I need to do (let alone WANT, maybe 10% of that happens). He’s also become more opinionated and isn’t as content to be put places such as his exersaucer or high chair which would contain him enough for me to get things done.  I can count on even LESS than I could before. At night, what he wants keeps changing and so every time we think we have a system figured out that might allow us (especially me) to get more sleep, he changes on us.  Last night was an example of that.  I thought I knew for sure that when he woke, if I went in and nursed him to sleep and then brought him into bed with us, I could avoid the two-hours of wakefulness and maybe get both of us back to sleep within 30 minutes-an hour. Not so much, he kept waking up on the way into our room and then not wanting to lie still.  When I FINALLY got him back to sleep, he was awake again two hours later and this time, he saw Daddy lying there and crawled over me to get to him for play time.  He wouldn’t settle down in our bed or in the chair with me, so I had to put him in his crib and wait for him to get good and upset so he forgot about playing and THEN attempt to get him back to sleep again.   I’m managing to piece together sleep that is sufficient to keep me going, but having NOTHING I can count on and constantly be doing guesswork 24 hours a day really is wearing me down.  I think this must be what it’s like to be a defensive coordinator on a football team. You develop plays and build your defense around what you think will happen and have a menu to pull from, you study game film and learn your opponent, but the reality is that you never REALLY know what to expect and just have to hope you’ve picked the right play to head off the opponent.

               I know God has my back, though. I know He’s getting ready to come through for us in this as well as in other areas of our life where we are enduring what feels like an interminable and exhausting wait, we just need to be patient and God is providing that patience for us.  When sleep regression ends, as I understand it, it often happens just as suddenly as it starts. All of a sudden, they’re just fine again one night. I’m trying to remember that as I get frustrated at the absence of signs of progress. I also am trying to remember that God will provide for us as much as we need to get through this.  The scripture I’m praying for Cameron at the moment is Isaiah 41:10 “So, do not fear for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”  (excuse me if that’s not punctuated properly, I typed it out from memory). I’ve whispered it over and over to him as I’ve rocked him, committed it to memory so I can whisper it as he gets frustrated throughout the day.  I pray that he can relax with his new learning and rest, confident that he will be strengthened in mind and body as he grows into his new skills. And also, that I can sleep. And Daddy can sleep. And we all can sleep…

Here are some links to other parents’ thoughts on sleep regression:

http://violet-sleepbabysleep.blogspot.com/2012/08/sleep-regression.html

http://www.troublesometots.com/the-thing-about-sleep-regressions/

 http://www.hellobee.com/2012/11/12/surviving-a-sleep-regression/

(NOTE:  At press time, the day after his ten month birthday, we had our first night IN WEEKS in which Cameron slept through the night.  9-6:45.  This may be a fluke, or it may be the beginning of the end of sleep regression. Stay tuned)

 

Protein-Packed Pancakes

IT'S MY FIRST RECIPE POST, Y'ALL!  WOOT WOOT!!! :-) I love to cook, so I will likely be sharing a lot of food posts on this blog, fair warning. :-)

As part of my efforts to peel off these extra pounds that Cameron Lauren put on his mother (because I had NOTHING to do with it, of course- hee hee!) and develop better eating habits, I've been working on getting more protein into my breakfasts.  I find that when I do that, I eat better throughout the rest of the day because I'm not starting the day from a deficit in terms of hunger.  Eggs and turkey bacon are the order of just about every day, but that gets a little old.

So, yesterday morning, I decided to experiment with a few ideas to mess with our old stand-by pancake recipe to bring some more protein to the party.  These are NOT by any means a totally healthful option, using white flour instead of whole wheat is a dead give-away. But, they turned out yummy and I'm guessing would taste good to kiddos.

The original recipe comes from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book, which is kind of our cooking Bible.  Whenever we need a really good, basic recipe for something (pancakes, cornbread, chicken noodle soup, etc.), that's where we go. I am going to type the original recipe in black and next to it, I will type what I subbed or took out in red:

1 cup all-purpose flour 3/4 cup all-purpose flour and 1/4 cup vanilla protein powder
1 Tbsp Sugar Took out the sugar, the protein powder is sweet enough
2 Tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 beaten egg
1 cup milk
2 Tbsp cooking oil Substitute 2 Tbsp plain greek yogurt

OmnomnomnomnomnomGOOD!  Liked them better than the originals!  I did some research, and here is how the calorie and protein load traded out, FOR THE WHOLE BATCH.  You would, of course, divide this number by the number of pancakes you make to get the actual values per individual pancakes:

One cup of all-purpose white flour has about 455 calories and 12.9 grams of protein.  Divide by four (since we took out 1/4 of that) and we took out about 114 calories and 3.25 grams of protein.

According to the information on the container of Vanilla Whey Protein we used and the math I just did (that's right, I did math. Let that sink in for a moment...) we added back in about 130 calories and about 25 grams of protein.

So far, we are up 16 calories and 21.75 grams of protein.  Not a bad trade!

Now, subtract the 45 calories that are in one Tbsp of sugar (ONLY 45?  I thought there would be more!) and we are net negative on calories.

Two tablespoons of canola oil has about 250 calories and zero grams of protein.

Two tablespoons of Chobani plain Greek yogurt has 17 calories 3 grams of protein. Wow, calorie tradeout.

So...by doing those trades, we eliminated 262 calories from our batch of pancakes and added about 25 grams of protein.

Yaaaaaaaaaaay!!! :-)

I would be all bloggy and add artistic pictures of the mixing and cooking process... but first of all, the camera on my phone is broken and I'm too lazy to get out my "real" camera and second of all, THEY'RE PANCAKES!  Y'all have made them and seen them before, you DO NOT need pictures. Google pictures of pancake batter and of golden, fluffy pancakes if you really need a visual.  They will look better than ours did anyway.

Updates on Cam shortly, there are big things poppin' over here.  Sitting, standing (albeit wobbly and with help) and crawling (albeit backward and with great effort, not to mention rocking some 12 month pants.  He's TALL, man!

Hugs,
Tori

Officially a SAHM!

For those who aren't familiar with the alphabet soup that is online Mommyhood, SAHM= Stay-at-Home Mom.   I've been home with Cam since he was first born, of course, but the first 12 weeks were maternity leave, then came summer when I would have been off anyway, but this week was back-to-work for my teaching colleagues, so this is REALLY the first week when I would have been putting Cam in day care of some sort if I had to go back. Let me tell you, it's weighing on my heart.  I feel tugs this week, it's been a tough week.  I feel the pangs of not going back to work, doing something I am GOOD at, and watching the days and weeks and months stretch out ahead of me without much shape to them, that's tough.

But, the BIGGEST thing that tugs at my heartstrings and brings tears to my eyes is when I think of what it would be like to leave Cam in daycare. To not be there to hold him if he fusses, to not be able to nurse him during the day, to sing to him and smile to him, to not be able to go to him if he misses me...I know babies do it all the time and that they learn to LOVE their daycares, the other babies there, and most importantly the wonderful adults who care for them in love all day. However,  I am pretty sure I am missing whatever gene it takes to be able to leave a baby all day, any woman who can is my hero.  I am pretty sure it would shatter me into a million little pieces and I would never recover.

I have wanted it MY WHOLE LIFE!  I remember in college, a guy I was in choir with found out I waned to stay home with my kids and was SO disappointed in me! He thought I was capable of so  much more and that I was more ambitious than that.  Really?  First of all, it was so incredibly much none of his business that it boggles the mind.  But, if we are GOING to dignify the inappropriateness of his having an opinion about this topic, let alone expressing it to me, with a response/explanation, anyone who REALLY knows me and knows how I am wired understands that I am fully aware of what I am capable of, what I am wired to contribute to the world, that I am chock full of ambition, and staying home with my children is a PART of that, not a conflict to it.  I am wired to want to care for others and to make their lives better.   I became a teacher because I wanted to be a part of helping as many kids grow up whole as possible.   So, wanting to be able to make my own kids my full-time job is a "duh!"  Now, I'm not saying that anyone who HAS to or CHOOSES to work is NOT devoting their lives to their children.  We all do the things in life that make the most sense in terms of who we are and the circumstances we have, and this just happens to be the thing that makes the most sense in terms of who I am and our circumstances.  I didn't step aside from my life's path to do this, I'm just moving into a new phase of it that makes perfect sense.

And let me tell you, I am blessed beyond measure to be able to do it and I know it.  I even feel a little guilty about it because I know so many other moms who would love to be in the position to be at home with their babies and kids, but their circumstances just don't allow for it.  There is nothing about me that makes me "deserve" this. I don't believe for a SECOND that I have "earned" this and others have not. Yes, I planned for it. I prayed for it, made financial decisions in my single days to allow for it, married a guy to whom it was important as well and we have worked our tails off as a couple and built our lives around it...but, really, how many other people can say the same and have had a different outcome?  How many others have planned and saved, and the something has come between them and being able to stay home with their kids?  A million things could have happened, ESPECIALLY considering the twists and turns our economy has been through lately.  It is through God's Grace, and Grace alone that I am home with Cam rather than working today. 

Pure, unearned Grace.  Blessings have flowed through our families, we have been protected and shielded, it is TOTALLY God's Grace.  I wish there were a way I could pay it forward...some way I could ease someone else's burden and heartache surrounding this issue the way mine has been eased.  I'm sending a message out to all my working mom friends: if you ever get in a pinch, if daycare is closed and you have to work, if your sitter is sick and you can't afford a day off, I'm your girl. Call me, drop your kids off and they can play with Cam and we'll bake some cookies, watch Disney movies, and go over to the playground nearby.  And now, here are some recent pics of Cam:

Well, we think Mister Cameron Lauren is teething.  We have thought he was teething before, he's been drooling and biting an chewing for the better part of two months now.  However, the past two nights, he hasn't been able to sleep peacefully antwhere but in bed with us, right next to Mommy. It started about 10:45 pm night before last, when he woke up crying.  Cam does not wake up crying.  He will wake up, fidget, kick, roll, grunt, and it my escalate to "COME GET MEEEE! I NEED SOMETHIIIIIIIIIIING!!!" whines, but he NEVER all-out "WAAAAH! WAAAAH!" cries.  And I really do mean NEVER, as in not at all ever, until that night.  When he's really worked up, it becomes a choppy, "Nyah, nyah, nyah" and that is when we know he's really lost it. 

Well, that night, he was doing that and Jeff got in there and picked him up only to learn that he was still sleeping, crying in his sleep. So, he brought him into Mama where he was instantaneously fine and nursed himself back to sleep in under two minutes.

Jeff cleaned out his bassinet in the corner of our room, we put him in there, and it lasted about ten minutes. Crying again, still fast asleep. Bless his heart. And this was not "I'M IN MY CRIB AND MAAAAAAAAAAD" crying, this was for reals, something was wrong, "I'm by myself and something is not right, I really need my Daddy and Mommy" crying. So, he spent the night with us.  He cried a few more times, but I could soothe him back to sleep very quickly.

Last night, he couldn't even go down in his crib.  He was  just sooooo, sooooo not having it. Again, not mad, just sad and done.  So, he slept with us again.

We have been very blessed in that our nightime routine fell into place VERY easily and we generally have no tears at bedtime. I know we are really endangering that by allowing him to sleep with us right now and not continuing to try to stay in the routine as much as possible.

But, here's the thing.  He's five stinking months old and something is not right. We think he's teething and he hurts, this is a telltale sign apparently, but even if that' not it, something is not right.   I would much rather be there for him and meet whatever his little needs are and pay the consequences later (if there even are any) than keep him at arm's length in order to keep our routine established lest we regress too far. 

He CLEARLY needs us right now.  He lays next to me, flops over on his back, but still turns his head so his nose is buried next to Mama, and he inevitable ends up rolling on his side again and scooting himself and nestling into me in his sleep, just like he used to do when he was a newborn and would scoot across his bassinet up next to the bed where I was.   There have been times in the past few months where he has slept with me for one reason or another and has been much more independent, even times he's been happier when NOT up against me, having his space to stretch out.  This is not one of those times.  He needs Daddy and Mommy, so Daddy and Mommy he shall have.

His latest milestone is trying to sit up.  Well, I'm trying to get him to sit up, he doesn't really know he's supposed to do it. :-)  I know other babies his age who are sitting up on their own and I know he will just LOVE it when he can have that independence and sit up in the tub, sit up to play, sit up to eat... so, we practice every day.  This is as far as we've gotten:

This was last Friday and he couldn't stay in that position without toppling over for more than five or ten seconds, but now he can do it indefinitely! Now, he just needs to sit up straight so the fun can begin!

Our Birth Story, Part 3 (The Final Chapter)

I have forgotten to mention until now that our nurse told us that I was the most polite laboring mother she’d ever been around.  All of my requests were “Please” and their responses were met with, “Thank you.”

“Would you like some water, Tori?”

“Yes, please. And could I have some help rolling over please, I’m having a hard time with this big ol’ belly. Thanks!” ***smile***

Apparently, that’s not normal.  Who knew?

I should begin this part by letting y’all know that I have no pain memory from the waist down of Cameron being born. You will not be regaled with “And then I felt a RIP as I pushed a WATERMELON out of a KEYHOLE.” I don’t remember any of that, even though there was no epidural.  It was a combination of things contributing to this, not the least of which being the Lord’s hand GRACIOUSLY shielding me. I’m not complaining, however.  I'll take it.  Here’s how that part of the story unfolded. 

The Big Guns Nurse who had checked my cervix had told me I was done but Sarah, our regular L&D nurse who had checked me in the first place, needed to check me herself.  She told me I was actually only about 9, but it wouldn’t be long (and it wasn’t, minutes maybe) and so preparations should begin.  I had Jeff put on my playlist of my songs I wanted for labor, the songs were my favorites from church (I will share that list later) and, of course, “He Will Rejoice” by Trevor Morgan (please excuse the video for the song, it was made by someone else for their parents but I haven't found another one that works. If  you let it play in the background while you read this, it will be a good musical background for what it was like for me).  That song is an arrangement of Zephaniah3:17, the scripture that has been on my heart for Cam the moment I knew he was coming.   God taking delight in Cameron…rejoicing over him with singing… if there was one thing I would want him to know, it would be that. God delights in him, and so do his parents!  I sang along with that song and tears streamed down my face.  The contractions continued to come, but I just sang right along with the songs I had chosen, my cheeks soaked with tears (and now again as I write this).  

I felt so blessed... I was about to meet my baby boy!  I had waited my whole life for this, I felt God there in the room with us.  I couldn't believe it was HAPPENING!!!!

There was hustle and bustle as everyone got ready. My doctor was off at the coast for her anniversary weekend, but the doctor who was there to deliver Cam was someone we had seen before when our doctor had gotten called out on an emergency C-section right before one of our checkups.  They got me all appropriately arranged, and she checked me out. Baby was down, my cervix was all opened up, and we were ready to rock and roll!

The pushing part was the part I was most nervous for because it seemed like the most important thing I had EVER done in my life, and yet I had no experience. There was no dress rehearsal, I didn’t know if I’d know how to do it right…and yet it was the most important thing EVER!  Everyone just says, “And then you push” as if you just know how to do it.  Well, I did, so that was good. In our birthing class, they told us that the baby would press down on a bundle of nerves that would give me the urge to push. I never felt that, at least not that I remember.  I just started pushing with each contraction once they told me I was ready and everything went fine, so I know they weren’t leading me wrong.

My mom was stroking my head, Jeff was holding my hand, and there was a team of the doctor, Sarah, and one other nurse down by my business getting ready to catch that little guy when he came out.

“PUUUUUUUUUUUUUSH!” They told me, so I did.

“Oh, Tori, you’re SUCH a good pusher!” the doctor and nurses told me. “Oh, you’re GOOD AT THIS!”  I was in immense pain and that sounded like the most generic $h*t I had ever heard in my life, so I tuned them right out so I didn’t get all annoyed and smack somebody and lose my status as Most Polite Laboring Mother Of All Time. 

“Tori, honey, this is only temporary.  This is a little bit of pain for what we’ve been waiting our whole lives for,” Jeff dutifully recited.  We had planned the things I wanted him to say, but now, in the moment, it sounded rehearsed and I wanted to smack him so I had to tune him out as well. Besides, that was what he was supposed to say to get me through contractions, not through pushing. I should have told him to sing “Eye of the Tiger” when I was pushing, THAT would have gotten the job done

The back labor continued throughout the pushing. They told me it would subside as the baby moved down, but that didn’t happen for quite awhile, I don’t even remember the point at which it stopped hurting…it might have hurt the whole darned time for all I know.

I yelled, just like they do in the movies. I couldn’t help it, the pain of the contractions kept overwhelming the pushingness!!! The doctor told me not to yell, it was keeping me from pushing as hard as I needed to and I needed to channel that energy into pushing. She was right, of course, butI couldn't help it because I was in enough pain from the back labor that there were times I wasn’t TRYING to push, I was just trying to get through the contraction.

I turned to Jeff one time, mid-push and declared, “WE’RE ADOPTING THE NEXT ONE!!!!”

They told me they could see his head and they asked me if I wanted a mirror.  Heck no, I hadn’t wanted a mirror when they’d talked about it in our birthing classes…but I also hadn’t wanted an epidural and had asked for that (even though it didn’t end up happening), I hadn’t wanted anyone in the room with me but Jeff and now I had 3 out of the 4 grandparents standing over my right shoulder.   So, I figured I was probly wrong about this one, too, so I told them to bring in the freaking mirror.

Best thing I ever did. I think that’s largely why I don’t remember any pain, because I was SEEING him moving down and coming out, and that was my primary source of input about what was happening, so I wasn’t focused on how it FELT.

I looked in the mirror to see if I could see his head…and it just looked like darkness to me. Well, turns out that was because Baby Boy had one heck of a head of hair.  “He’s got SO MUCH dark hair!” the doctor said. I couldn’t believe it. MY BABY HAD HAIR!!!! First of all that, was miraculous because I WAS SEEING MY BABY’S HAIR! AND HE HAD IT!!! “I’LL BET HE’S EVEN GOT FINGERS AND TOES, TOO!!!” I thought to myself. Second of all, I was bald as a cue ball from birth though the better part of my first year and I STILL have about half as much hair in terms of volume as do most other women. That my baby should have a good deal of hair at birth was thoroughly a shock, seemed like it had to be someone else's baby. 

They guided my hand so I could touch his head for the first time. Woah.  What a trip!!!

It got really hard to push through the contractions, probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done.  It seemed like I pushed forever, but in reality it was probably only about ten or fifteen minutes. 

But, seeing him helped.  I could see more and more of his head with every push.  It also helped because, like I said, I had tuned out the annoying doctors and nurses.

I finally heard the doctor say that his head was crowning, one more push would do it.  It was a really hard contraction and there is no way I could have pushed through it if I hadn’t been able to see him, but I could and I did! I could SEE that he was almost there and if I gave it just a little more, I’d be able to hold him AND WOULDN’T HAVE TO PUSH ANYMORE!!!

So, I did.  I gave it ONE! MORE! BIG! PUSH! And out he came… at least part way.

“OK, stop pushing,” the doctor told me calmly, and grabbed some scissors.  I couldn’t see it, but apparently our little gymnast had gotten the umbilical cord wrapped around him in a five-point safety harness.  Around his waist, an x across his chest, and around his neck.  He wasn’t in any distress, mind you, everything was fine. However, that bad boy (the cord, not the baby) was not getting unwrapped, it required doctorly intervention, so she snipped it.  She told us she snipped it low enough that Jeff could still cut again and officially "cut the cord" if he wanted, but he'd been on the fence about that anyway, so he was OK with having that be it.

I must have pushed a little more to get him the rest of the way out, but I don't remember because THERE! HE! WAS!  

The little life we had see on the monitor so many times... the legs that had kicked me...the elbows that had poked out (yes, the was throwin' them 'bows left and right in there)... the precious little perfection that had been knit in my womb from one little microscopic speck of Jeff and one little microscopic speck of me.  Mind = blown.  Heart = filled.

Not only did have hair and those fingers and toes I had marveled at the possibility of, but he had ARMS! AND LEGS! AND EARS! AND A TINY LITTLE BITY NOSE…which was pushed off to the side… BUT IT WAS STILL THERE.  They ripped back my hospital gown (as they were supposed to, I knew they would), put him on my chest, and wrapped us both in a blanket.  And there we were…our family of three…

Sometime during the first few moments after he was born, the grandparents made their exit.  This was undoubtedly my mom’s doing, she always knows exactly what to do in the right moment somehow.  So, it was just the three of us.

“What’s his name?” Sarah asked.

I looked at Jeff, questioningly. We had a name, we had picked Cameron very early on in the pregnancy and nothing else even came close.  But, we were both committed to not finalizing it until we saw him, especially Jeff who had played enough baseball games over the years to be a tad superstitious. 

“Is he Cameron?” I asked.

“Yes,”  Daddy said, beaming.  “He’s Cameron.  Cameron Lauren Rask. Lauren, after my Grandpa.”

And Sarah wrote this on the board.

They weren’t done with me yet, I still had to pass the placenta and I had a “small tear” and so she had to stitch me up.  That, I remember.  That was ouchy.  She also asked if I wanted to see the placenta. I wanted to know what this thing my body had produced to sustain my baby looked like.  It was veiny-looking,  that’s all I remember. 

I just wanted to be DONE with the  pain of contractions, but they needed to hook me up to a Pitocin drip to encourage my uterus to keep contracting, because of the quick birth I was bleeding more than usual.  That hurt, too.  All you women who are given the full dose of Pitocin to induce labor… hats off to you ladies, that is some mean stuff. 

But, we had our baby. Our sweet little man.  After awhile…30 or 40 minutes, maybe, they took him over and bathed him and cleaned him up, they were able to do everything they needed to do right there in the room. Jeff went with him while the nurse tended to me.  The grandparents and Jeff’s brother and his girlfriend came in and everyone got a chance to see and hold Cameron. Pics here:

Then, everyone headed out…and we were a family.

So ends our birth story.  The saga doesn’t end here, the hard part was actually just beginning.  Cam didn’t latch that night. Or the next day, or the next day. We went home with a non-latching baby and so began a long, tearful, and arduous journey to establish nursing, which I will get to writing about eventually.  It all turned out OK, but we had to fight for it. Long and hard we fought, I think Cam was 2 months old before the nagging fear that we wouldn’t be able to nurse finally slipped quietly away.  Lactation appointments, pediatrician appointments, weeks and weeks without a day with no tears for me… but Cam stuck with me, and Jeff was behind us 100% all the way… but that’s a story for another time. I have to be emotionally ready to revisit those scary, painful, and visceral moments and I’m not quite there yet.  

For now, I’ll just say another prayer of thanksgiving for all of this.   God is good. Even if this hadn't gone as wonderfully as it did, He would still have been good. Even in the dark, painful moments of the days and weeks that followed, He was still sovereign in our lives and was still good.

And we now have Mister Cameron Lauren Rask, he may be our baby, our little man to hold and raise and love, but he is God's child.  And, even in the years to come when we have scary moments (which are unavoidable when one chooses to raise a child), He will always be sovereign and good.  May we never lose sight of that!