I met some real live bloggers!

My first week as a SAHM was TOUGH!

We started off the week with Michael having a temperature of 102, so we took a trip to the pediatrician on Monday. Turns out he had a sinus infection. We started him on antibiotics, which I knew would clear up the problem, but I was so concerned that he would still be feeling sick at the end of the week. It was a big week because my baby brother was getting married!

Here's the happy couple...

Aren't they gorgeous? And check out that ring. Baby brother did good!

Anyway, we had family come from Puerto Rico and Ohio to participate in the festivities. One of my cousins arrived first, on Monday night. He stayed with my parents, but came over on Tuesday to visit and to meet Michael. I was a bit stressed that day because Michael was still very sick, and we just noticed that morning that one of his eyes was swollen. We thought maybe he'd hit himself with one of his toys, but weren't sure if it was something more serious that we needed to be concerned about.

But it was all good because you know what? My cousin is about to graduate from medical school and got here a few days before the wedding so that he could interview for a residency to specialize in pediatrics! Can you believe it? We got our very own house call! My cousin assured me that the swollen eye was most likely due to the infection and should be cleared up with the antibiotics. One of my sisters, who's a Physician Assistant, also called and instructed me to use the antibiotic drops that we'd been prescribed after Michael was born and had an issue with his eye.

I was so thankful that God had made so many arrangements so far in advance so that Michael could be healthy and happy by the day of the wedding. And I was also thankful that Michael didn't get sick until after my last day at work so that I could concentrate on him and not have outside distractions. Sometimes the kindness that God shows me and my family is almost too much to bear.

So the week began with some stressing and very little sleep, but I had an invitation for Tuesday night that was a nice reprieve. I'd been invited to a dinner for local bloggers, arranged by Missy and Amy. I was so excited to meet other bloggers, and I can't even tell you exactly why. After all, I'm a classic introvert and would usually prefer to stick needles in my eyes rather than meet a group of strangers. But maybe I was excited because I love the whole blogging thing and want to start taking it more seriously? Or because I was starved for some interaction with other moms? Or because I needed to escape from the house for a little bit? All valid reasons, for sure.

I almost didn't go so that I could take care of my little one. But my husband was so sweet to insist that I get out of the house for a while and let him take care of the baby. So I went to the dinner and enjoyed good conversation with some neat ladies. Here's a picture:

I'm the one in the front that looks like a sumo wrestler.

Kind of makes me look back fondly on these days:

This picture was taken about seven months ago. At least back then I looked pregnant for a reason.

The other ladies, on the other hand, all looked great. Here's a list of who's who in the group picture (stolen from Missy's blog).

Top row:
Julie/Elisharose News, Amy/Mom's Toolbox, Beth/Not a Bow in Sight, Ashley/Life Beyond the Pink, Lindsee/Lindsee Lou, Missy/Barefoot Family, Amanda/Baby Bangs, Kristin/Kiki's Crowd

Bottom row:
Missy/It's Almost Naptime, Callie/Smith Live, Heather/Step Inside, Debra/One Girl, Kristen/We Are THAT Family, Sumo Wrestler, Allison/ It Feels Like Chaos, Michelle/ Usr/bin/mom.

After the dinner I went home to relieve my husband from baby duty. By Wednesday, Michael's temperature was consistently normal, and by Thursday the swelling in his eye had pretty much disappeared. Just in time to party with the family!
 
We're about to start a new week...will this be a "normal" week? Is there such a thing?

I met some real live bloggers!

https://thelatebloomersblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/i-met-some-real-live-bloggers.html

And baby makes 3 (hours of sleep, that is)

This blog officially transformed from Newlywed Blog to Mommy Blog on the coolest birth date ever – 07/08/09. Michael Thomas entered the world at 5:27 pm, weighing 7.5 pounds and measuring 20.75 inches. I’m a mommy! Can you believe it?

All mothers think that they have the most beautiful and special child to have ever graced this planet with their presence. They brag about every accomplishment, both real and imagined. After boring you with every minor detail of their child’s life, they confide in you that they are certain that their spawn is destined for greatness.

And I’m no different.

So let’s just get that out of the way, shall we?

My son is the most beautiful child to ever be born of woman. I know just from looking into his eyes that he is also the smartest. I feel certain that he’ll be walking by 3 months and speaking by 5 months. He will spend his first birthday putting the finishing touches on The Great American Novel, allowing him to focus on Broadway adaptations of various John Hughes movies. Sixteen Candles – The Musical will be his breakthrough endeavor. At 5 he will be the youngest member of the US Olympic team, competing in a minimum of three sports. By ten he will have been on the covers of every major magazine, but he won’t care because it would be too much of a distraction from his research into finding a cure for the common cold.

But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Let’s start at the beginning…

Like most birth stories, Michael’s birth day was nothing like I imagined it would be. I thought for sure that Michael would come a month early and weigh 20 pounds. But his due date came and went without a peep from him. My body did not take well to pregnancy (major understatement), so we decided to induce labor as soon as possible, which was two days after the due date.

By 7 am, I’d been strapped in, induced, and had my water broken. The whole breaking of the water thing scared me, but I totally didn’t feel a thing other than the trickle of fluid. As a matter of fact, the most painful part of the first couple of hours was the blood pressure cuff on my arm that was intent on breaking a bone, or at the very least driving me to have words with the medical staff about their faulty equipment (mission accomplished). I am now convinced that it was part of a vast right (hospital) wing conspiracy to take the focus off of my labor pain for as long as possible.

Speaking of pain, the word of the day was Epidural. The doctor informed me that the magic number for the magic juice was 4 cm. I came into the hospital at 2 cm, so I thought, “No problem!” Well, after a couple of hours of ever-increasing pain, the nurse suggested that I take something for the pain because I was nowhere near getting the epidural.

After that dire statement you better believe that I said yes to her offer. And I regretted it. Whatever she gave me made me hazy and loopy well into the next day. It knocked me out for a little bit, but once I woke up I felt every contraction with the added problem of having trouble communicating. So for the next couple of hours I lay in bed moaning, “Oh God, no no no NO NOOOO…” without much awareness of anything going on around me. I was in my own little world of Pain.

(Side note: Contractions felt totally different than what I thought they would feel like. I expected sharp stabbing pains, but instead contractions felt like a dull-yet-extremely-intense ache. Kind of like food poisoning with rhythm.)

Once I did reach the goal of 4 cm, the anesthesiologists were too busy to get to me right away. Of course. I expected no less. Ninety minutes passed before one of them got to me. The good thing about the delay was that I continued to dilate, so most of my dilation occurred without an epidural.

Having the epidural administered was one of the most difficult parts of the day. I was desperate for an end to the pain, but I had to be completely still or the doctor wouldn’t continue. I had at least two contractions during the administration of the epidural. Keeping my body still during those contractions took every bit of my will power.

It should have been smooth sailing after the epidural, right? Well, not so much. Before I go into that, let me first say that my husband and I did not romanticize labor. We didn’t care one bit about it being a “beautiful” experience. Labor is called “labor” for a reason: it hurts, it takes a lot of work, it hurts, it’s physically and emotionally draining, and oh yeah, IT HURTS! All we cared about was seeing our beautiful baby.

We were prepared for the unexpected, and we got it – THE EPIDURAL WAS TOO INTENSE! My lower body became completely numb. I felt absolutely nothing. As a matter of fact, my legs were so numb that it actually hurt. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but that’s the only way I know to describe it. I became completely paranoid that my legs would get into some sort of weird position and cut off the circulation, and I wouldn’t be able to feel it to do something about it. So instead of dealing with contractions, I was dealing with the beginnings of a panic attack.

Once it was time to push, my body started shaking like crazy. But I was completely useless. Since I couldn’t feel anything, I was not able to pinpoint how to push. From the reading I’d done about labor and epidurals, I knew this wasn’t right. Forty-five minutes of blood-vessel-popping pushing achieved nothing. They moved me into four different positions, but nothing worked. While the nurses whispered about a C-section, I somehow communicated to my family that THE EPIDURAL, IT NEEDED TO GO AWAY.

The anesthesiologist was called in to turn off the epidural. After about fifteen minutes, I was able to feel enough to properly push. My doctor arrived at around this time and determined that a C-section would not be necessary. So I started pushing.

One of the nurses offered to bring over a mirror so I could see the baby’s head. The mirror hadn’t interested me before, but I said sure, why not. It ended up being the turning point. Besides the awe of seeing my little boy’s head for the first time, I was able to see what pushes were productive. So twenty minutes after resuming pushing, my son was born!

My first thoughts after seeing Michael consisted of the following:

• “Oh my goodness, that’s a real little person!”
• “He’s so beautiful! I DIDN’T REALIZE HE’D BE SO BEAUTIFUL!!!”
• “I COULD TOTALLY DO THIS AGAIN!”

Michael’s arrival was met with much yelling, laughing, crying, and rejoicing. Seeing the joy and pride on Garrett’s face was one of the best things about the day. Seeing my baby boy’s face for the first time was the other best thing. I’ve always thought that babies look so much alike, but I could have picked Michael out of a baby line-up after looking at him for ten seconds. It seemed like I’d known his face forever. Maybe that’s because he looks so much like his daddy!

I just love this kid.

His Abuelita is pretty crazy about him, too.

What mother wouldn’t love this face?

Or this face?

Or especially this face?

Whether he’s sleeping…

…or wide awake…

…he’s my son, and I adore him.

I am truly blessed.

And baby makes 3 (hours of sleep, that is)

https://thelatebloomersblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/and-baby-makes-3-hours-of-sleep-that-is.html

“Pregnancy – 40 Weeks” or “I’m trying to distract myself from the pain and discomfort by writing this post”

Picture it: Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, 1974. A young peasant girl administrative assistant, cheeks still pale from the trauma of natural childbirth, leaves the sterility of a hospital and walks into the warm tropical air holding her firstborn…

Then again, there’s no need to “picture it” when there’s an actual picture available:

That young administrative assistant was my mother, and that firstborn was me!

A few things to note about this picture:

• My mother looks like she’s about 14. But she was actually 21. Really. Almost 35 years later, she looks like she’s about 30. Here’s proof:

• Notice my mother’s smooth straight hair.
• Notice my head full of hair – at birth.
• Notice I do not have my mother’s hair.
• Notice my cheeks.
• I still have those cheeks. Here’s proof:

• My appearance as a newborn saddled me with a nickname. I’ll let you guess the nickname, and why, with even more proof:

And look who else has chubby cheeks!

He comes by them honestly:

Back to the original picture – moments after my parents brought me home for the first time, my mother placed me in a bassinet, stared down into my face, and then listened as I exploded in my diaper. Then she cried.

I should meet my firstborn within the next 72 hours.

According to the ultrasound, Baby Michael has lots of hair and chubby cheeks. Just like his mama.

I’ll eventually leave the sterility of the hospital and walk into the warm air with my firstborn. Just like my mama.

Unlike my mama, I will be 34 and not 21.

Unlike my mama, I will do all I can to avoid a natural childbirth.

And unlike my mama, my hair will not be smooth and straight but curly and frizzy.

(It will explode in volume once I step out of the hospital and into the water-saturated Houston air.)

(I will attempt to combat the extreme volumizing by weighing it down with mousse and gel.)

(I will lose the battle with the humidity, but not for lack of trying.)

Picture it: Houston, 2009. A (not-so-)young peasant girl engineer, legs still weak from the effects of an epidural, leaves the sterility of a hospital and walks into the humid south Texas air holding her firstborn…

(…sob…darn pregnancy hormones…sob…)

“Pregnancy – 40 Weeks” or “I’m trying to distract myself from the pain and discomfort by writing this post”

https://thelatebloomersblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/pregnancy-40-weeks-or-im-trying-to.html

Viva Las Vegas!

So we visited Sin City this weekend. It was a whirlwind trip to attend my cousin's wedding. No, she didn't elope to Vegas. Her family happens to live there, hence the trip.

The trip didn't start off very well. We got to our hotel in Vegas in the middle of the night, only to find out that the hotel had no running water. Apparently management thought that a lack of toilets wouldn't be noticed.

But things got better. The next day we walked the strip with my parents, then got all gussied up to attend the wedding and reception. We went to bed late and got up in the morning to attend a Cuban brunch with my extended family. Lots. Of. Food. Then another flight, and home to bed we came.

Despite the looks of this picture, I don't have a lot of love for the slots. I donated a dollar to one, and that's as far as it went.

Feeling the love in the room at the wedding reception. The last wedding we attended was our own!

Having a CSI moment during a Cuban meal.

Garrett had a close encounter with a snake at the Vegas airport.

Viva Las Vegas!

https://thelatebloomersblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/viva-las-vegas.html

The Graduate!

This past weekend my baby sister Diana graduated with her Master's as a Physician Assistant! We are all very proud of her for her dedication and all of the hard work that she's done over the last two and a half years. I'm sure that she will have great success in the future.

The Graduate!

https://thelatebloomersblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/diana-graduate.html