Category: love

Joanna Elizabeth’s Swift Arrival!!

Published on by Sarah E. CooleyLeave a comment

It’s never too late to post the birth story of your child… So what if she’s almost nine months old?! 😉

I had planned on doing this immediately after she was born, but life with two kids has been a lot more chaotic than I had ever anticipated. Honestly, we didn’t get her sleep down until she was 6 months old mostly because 6 months went so quick that it felt like a week…

Anyways, to the story…

I was 39 weeks and some odd days pregnant and eagerly awaiting Joanna’s arrival.

Just as a precursor, I never let my midwife check me so I had no clue how dilated or effaced or any of that I was… Seriously, it’s pointless. You can go from 0cm to 8cm within minutes. When baby is ready, your body gets ready… Google it. That’s how God designed it. It’s true 😉 Save yourself the stress and someone peeking up your privates… Sorry prob TMI, but it’s a birth story, sooooo… #sorrynotsorry

Ok, seriously, back to the story, I’ll get off my soapbox now…

We had moved into our new home a month and a half earlier. We were getting projects done left and right. Our first big project was the outdoor area. We (and when I say we, I mean that I sat on my butt while Eric and friends worked hard hahaha good planning on my park, eh?) dug out the rectangle plot that was to be laid with concrete and put the rebar in. Saturday came and the cement truck came bright and early to pour concrete while some friends helped to smooth it all out and make it perfect for our patio cover to sit on.

I remember waking up that morning thinking, Joanna was coming soon and boy howdy, I felt like I got hit by a bus. I think i got a total of 4 hours of sleep that night and I was feeling big big BIG. I told my friend that I was SO ready to have this baby… she laughed I think hoping that baby girl didn’t keep me waiting.

Saturday came and went with no baby. Wah wahhh….

Sunday morning around 2am, I remember waking up to go to the bathroom and having a sizable contraction. I went back to sleep, but was woken to contractions around 6am about every 15 minutes. Then they got closer and closer. 12 minutes. 10 minutes. Then they leveled out. I texted my mom that today might be the day…get ready!

Once my husband woke up, I told him what was going on. We decided to head to church and go through our day like normal. During the pastors sermon, I was trying my best to pay attention, but I was honestly just timing contractions. I can’t remember anything from that mornings message. Haaa!

After church, we went to Target to pick up some things… witch hazel, I think. (I should have written this months ago… I can’t even remember why we went to Target that morning hahaha).

We then went to Panera to get some lunch. I DO remember indulging in some tasty Mac n Cheese and a huge cookie… and maybe I remember that now because I’m on Whole30… haha Dreaming of a bowl of mac n cheese and a cookie someday in the distant future…………..

I texted my mom that we were heading home and she left Riverside and met us at our house.

Seriously, this is our day. It was totally normal. She came and helped me finish folding laundry and putting it away. My friends Krystn and Cassidy came over to help finish off my desk/hutch, and I swept the front driveway of all the dust from the sanding they were doing. The neighbors came by and were playing with Jackson and asked when I was due.

I said…. Well, maybe today!!! Haha!

We went back inside and I think sometime during that day I took a bath and a shower (MY Faves during labor). Seriously, so relaxing… those of you who will be in labor soon, stay at home as long as possible AND eat lots of food while home AND SHOWER AND BATHE!!! These are things I missed out on with Jackson being in the hospital early, but got to enjoy with Joanna and they made all the difference!

Around 4ish, I started really feeling the contractions, though still not as bad as labor with Jackson… I remember feeling super nauseous and my lovely mom got me the peppermint oil to smell. I think this is the only way I didn’t puke at home. For whatever reason, my body responds to pain with puke…I don’t get it! So nastyyyy!

Contractions were 3-5 minutes apart for a minute each.

We called our birthing coach because we were so confused on when to come in. I was walking and talking while having contractions, but they were so close together, we were so confused. With Jackson, we went in days early, so we didn’t want to repeat that again.

 

She said, “you’ll know when it’s time….” She could hear me talking in the background and said it probably wasn’t time since I was still nice and talking in the background 😉

Well, after going back and forth for probably 10 minutes, we decided to go in. We made the drive with my mom following us in the car. We get to the ER checkin and the nurse asks how far apart my contractions are and we say about 3 minutes… As I am standing there talking to him, the whole room is staring at us because I’m having contraction after contraction, breathing and moaning through each of them. HA! I would have loved to see the horror on the young man’s face… I remember walking in and seeing him and thinking he is going to be horrified! haha

I initially insisted on walking instead of the wheel chair they offered me, but when I could barely walk 5 feet without having a contraction, they insisted I sit down…

We get to the checkin at L&D and my contractions are closer together. They put me in the triage room check me (EVEN THOUGH WE KNOW THAT IS SILLY…. I’M ABOUT TO HAVE A BABYYYY ANY MINUTE!!!). Once she checks me and I about die from the contraction she induced, they get a room ready for me quickly…Joanna is coming SO SOON. I get to the room and it’s a rush to get everything in order.

Nurses are running in and out. One is asking me tons of questions and I can barely answer them through the contractions that don’t stop. Another nurse is trying to insert the hep-lock and every time she gets close, I have a contraction and make her stop touching me. Then I tell her I’m denying the service and she finally backs off HA…those poor nurses probably hated me. I was not very nice…. woops!

A few minutes later, a poor girl comes and tries to take my blood. Geez…. That didn’t go over well either. I don’t even remember if she got blood, but I remember not too soon after, my water broke as I was doing squats to relieve the pressure from the contractions. I thought I peed myself….thank God no one can pee that much… so nasty! They were cleaning me up when TRANSITION hit… BOOM, I was ready to push… I remember trying to yell that I wanted the epidural in my head, but the sentence didn’t even come out in a complete sentence hahahaha Eric kinda looked at me like I was crazy. I was definitely crazy… ha!

I get on the bed and hug the back of the bed and had my butt in the air like a stink bug. That is literally how Joanna came into this world with only a few pushes. So funny to think about. It was NOTHING like the movies. Nothing like my first birth with Jackson. From the time I got to the hospital to the time I held her in my arms was somewhere around 45-50 minutes. So quick! I couldn’t imagine it any other way. It was perfect!

After I had her, we had a little scare with lots of blood. The midwife was nervous that I had hemorrhaged, but it turned out that my placenta had torn during labor or pushing or, who knows when.

I was just happy holding my sweet baby girl!

…Joanna Elizabeth… 7lb 14oz, 20.75inches, born at 7:53pm, November 13, 2016…

Ok people, here is the amazing thing…

With Jackson, I was kinda clueless. They told me I had to birth on my back because he was a big baby. Well, guess what? Pushing took an hour and a half, I had a serious urethral tear, and Jackson had a hematoma (big swollen bruise) on his head/skull and was DEFINITELY cone-headed…HA!

With Joanna, gravity did it’s thing and she came right out. I know, I know, second baby… BUT YOU GUYS, I firmly believe that because I had to lay down to birth Jackson, it caused so many problems. When you become pregnant, do your research! It will make it so much easier on yourself, on your recovery, your pain management, etc. (I have a great (and funky) birthing coach I’d love to recommend to you that helped us so much with both the births of Jackson and Joanna!)

Labor and Birth is so instinctual. You have urges and you follow them. When you are supposed to push, you know it because God created it that way. It was seriously AMAZING to me to see how God has created women… so intricately and so creatively.

I mean, who can imagine a better way to bring a baby into this world. Pretty stinkin’ awesome!

Ok, I’m done now… I’ve written a book. Enjoy!!

Mom-Colored Glasses

Published on by Sarah E. CooleyLeave a comment

Motherhood opens your eyes to a whole other world – a whole new dimension to this thing we call life. Everything you look at, touch, hear, sound, smell…everything is now seen through this new filter of motherhood.

Motherhood is a beautiful lens. It paints beauty onto things once monotonous.

For example, kids toys. When I was not a mom, I used to totally judge people for the amount of toys they had in their house. I would walk, more like wade, through their house with a floor filled with stuffed beings and plastic, noise making apparatuses…and I would judge. “Your kid is spoiled,” I thought, “Go outside and play with sticks and bugs and dirt.”

Now that I have these “mom-colored-glasses,” I see the wonder that are toys. Jackson LOVES his exersaucer – more specifically, he loves ‘Mandy Pandy’ (Panda) as Eric has named him/her. He laughs and ‘talks’ to this panda for more hours a day than I would like to admit. I do also play with my son, but that panda has a way with my son that I do not understand, but that I like. Mandy the Pandy allows me to do the dishes, to clean, even nap sometimes (don’t judge ;)). He also loves the countless other toys he has – Mr. Zebra, fabric book, whale, Mr. Elephant, teething bee, and many more. Yes, my kid has been spoiled by his grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles (blood and should have been blood), but the joy I see my baby boy have when he looks that panda in the eyes and giggles and giggles is one that I would pay a trillion and one dollars to see.

It makes me understand God’s love for me that much more.

Me, an imperfect (and even evil) parent gives my child good gifts. Imagine what gifts my perfect, good father gives me (Matthew 7:11). Plus, Mandy helped my baby boy roll over today…A task I was unable to do. Thank you, Mandy, and thank you Grandma Charlie for gifting Mandy. 🙂

Another thing that motherhood has done is shown me beauty in friendships. There is nothing quite like walking through life with people who are in the same stage of life as you or have gone before you. My friends are so beautiful. And, even more now than ever before, I realize what a beautiful bond having girl friends is. It is unlike any other bond. No man (sorry, honey) will ever realize what it is like to push out a 8lb 6oz baby out of your own body, or carrying it for 9 months. No man will ever understand what it is like to lose 40ml of blood each month and still carry on with life – I know TMI. Whatever. But really, more than child bearing or the time of the month, womanhood is a special thing, and I do not know what I would do without my friends.

Seeing friendship through mom-colored glasses also means that sometimes friendships that were once so close are no longer as close any longer. Time becomes very sacred, and in order to prioritize your new baby (and firstly your husband), some friendships become weaker and some leave altogether. The reality of that is sad. If friendships could last forever, I would be one happy girl. But at some point, you have to realize they don’t and move forward and focus on the present. To all my girls who have stuck around through the years or new friendships, thank you for sticking by my side even when I can be a real pain or when my sins get really ugly. Because of your presence in my life, I can face problems and face fears with the Lord by our side. Your grace in my life has changed me and made me a better person!

Motherhood has changed my view of my marriage – because becoming a mother has also made my husband a father. I cannot even remember what my husband was like before he became a father. It is not like it was 10 years ago – it has only been 4, almost 5, months, but seriously. Something in him changed. He grew into the man God has called him to be. Don’t get me wrong…he still leaves whiskers in the sink after shaving and wet towels draped over the door…he’s still human, and he is still growing and making mistakes. But, like me being a mother, he is fulfilling one of God’s calls on his life. And it is changing him dramatically. I love him. I cannot imagine another human being who would be better to walk through this life with me.

Having these new glasses has also made life somewhat more difficult. Having a child is like having a piece of my heart taken from inside of me and put into an unsafe, uncertain environment that is completely unpredictable that I have little to no control over. It can cause worry, pain, and hurt. It can be gruesome and uneasy. These mom-colored glasses have given me the biggest opportunity in my life so far to trust in God. Worry can completely overtake me – what if he stops breathing in his sleep, what if I drop him, what if he gets sick, what if we’re driving and crash…

What if, what if, what if.  As a mom, I could drown in the sea of ‘what ifs.’

It’s easy to end up there… And there are plenty of other moms that will be drowning right along with you. Because worry lies to you and tells you that you are caring when in reality you are chaining yourself to anxiety and, farther down the road, pain.

I am so grateful for this time in my life. A time of discomfort at times, but also a time of peace and trust in God. Life can be hard and people can hurt you and you can hurt people, but it is beautiful. It is beautiful because it is a time in life to trust Him and find peace in Him. Philippians 4 is one of my very favorite passages:

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me-practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”

Isn’t that so true – when we trust in the Lord, he is faithful to bring peace in our anxiety. When we practice the things He has given us in the Bible, our peaceful God is with us!

Thank you, Lord, for your peace and thank you for the mom-colored glasses that give me the opportunity to trust in you better!