Two month letter to Ryker B.

Dear Mr. little child of mine,

You are two months old now, and you are humungous. Meemaw says you are fat, but she is silly. You are just big! I feel like I'm holding a toddler when I nurse you... I am afraid by the time you are six months old its going to feel like I'm nursing a teenager! EW :) You have an appointment in a few days to find out how big you actually are now, I can't wait to see how much you've grown in the last month.

Anyways, you are SO super smiley now, whenever you hear my voice you search around till you find me and then our eyes lock and you giggle your little life away, it makes me tear up every time. You love when I sing lullabies to you, you like 'Hushabye Mountain', and 'Where is Love' from the movie Oliver.

Thankfully I have not banged your head on anything this month, and I haven't accidentally poured anything icky into your mouth. I did put some gripe water in your mouth on purpose and you cried and cried, but unfortunately you have tummy issues, and you spend from 5am - 8am fussing and squirming until you let out enough farts to inflate a hot air balloon! After that you are the HAPPIEST baby on the planet. I don't blame you for crying, WHERE COULD ALL THAT AIR COME FROM?! You had a 30 second long fart once, I had to turn around and stare, wondering what was wrong with you! The last couple of nights you've been better, I think the gripe water helps so even though you hate it, I'm just going to have to keep giving it to you.

You are a big fan of the T.V or what me and Papa call the 'magic picture box'. I hate that you stare at it so much, but I don't think it can do much damage until you are a little older, so I let you stare if you want.... for now. You are starting to try to use your hands more, you like to pull on my clothes while you're eating, and you are still in love with your bouncy chair, and the little forest animals that hang from it. You still have a ways to go before you will have mastered your hand control.. every now and then you still violently punch yourself in the face. Speaking of your hands, I'm pretty sure I could knit an entire sweater with the amount of lint I find in between your fingers and toes every day, its pretty gross!

We've taken you a few places this month, like the pumpkin patch, a sushi restaurant, Applebee's, Oktoberfest and the weenie dog races, Sam and Lydia's wedding (where you were kidnapped by some random lady for over an hour but you didn't mind), Nana and Papa's house, Auntie Devon's, and the usual grocery store and Ross outing. You are such a good baby to take places, loudness makes you sleepy and you like your stroller.

I have one more month home with you before I have to go back to work, and I'm so mixed up about it. I don't want to leave you with ANYONE except Papa, but I don't know if he's going to be able to stay with you. I just want you to know I'm only going back so I can get us out of debt and make us a more stable family. I won't leave you forever, my main goal is to work hard so I can come home to you for good. Everyday will be hard for me, hopefully not for you, but I will always come home and the end of the day and snuggle you. I promise.

I love you little baby.

Love, Mama

Mama's one month letter to Baby

Oh little guy, you've been with us a whole month now, and I can't believe there was a life before you. It's been a very surreal month, mostly because you think 5:30 am is the best time for everyone to get up, so I spend 5:30 to noon in and out of sleep and don't know what is real and what isn't. Then when you DO happen to sleep for a whole 4 hours in a row I am actually able to fall into a deep sleep, I wake up in a panic going, "WHERE IS MY BABYYYY!!??~?~~!!?!@" but PHEWF!!, there you are all cute and snuggly and thank god you are real. I didn't dream you.

You are quite a cute little boy. You look nothing like I imagined, but how could I know you would get my eyelids and your daddy's buttcrack? Everything else I'm not quite sure about, you're just a combo I guess. I never expected a little brunette though, in my head you were a GUARANTEED blonde, so that's taken some getting used to, but now I can't imagine you any other way. I love how it sticks straight up on top and it's so long in the back that it hangs over your shirts. little mullet.

You're getting so big, and you are very very strong already, you love to put all your weight on your feet, when you're on your stomach you like to do push ups and flip yourself over. You can easily hold your own head up and look around, and you try to scoot yourself around. I guess that is how it is when you are born the size of most one month olds.

I've already made a bunch of mistakes, which you'll probably be mad at me about when you're older. But I'm not perfect, and unfortunately part of growing up is realizing that your parents are just people. When you were two weeks old I walked your little head right into the refrigerator. You cried so hard I thought I might have killed you, I have never felt so bad in my life. That was until while giving you a bath I accidentally squeezed soapy water into your mouth and you sputtered and coughed but you love baths so much that you didn't even cry. Let me say that again, YOU LOVE BATHS more than life, I think you could have a broken arm and as long as you are in the bath it wouldn't matter at all. So from now on, whenever I hurt you inadvertently I am going to rush you into the bathtub as fast as I can! Baths make it better.

You are smiling now, and you laugh in your sleep, but you mostly like to give your Poppa all the smiles. I figure you must just be sick of looking at me all day, I'm just your milk machine apparently. Oh well, that's fine with me, I just want to be part of your life however you'll let me.

You mean everything to me little boy, I'm always here for you.

Love,

Mama

2 weeks old

Ryker is 2 weeks old now, and this whole mom thing has gone surprisingly better than I ever expected.

Now, I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but something along the lines of me running around not knowing what to do, getting stressed easily, and crying all the time. None of that has happened. I haven't gotten even a smidge of the "baby blues" and maybe I'm not out of the woods yet, but so far I'm just really super happy. I'm not too stressed at all... if the baby needs to eat in the parking lot of Grocery Outlet then I'm going to feed him there! It's just a go with the flow type responsibility, Motherhood. We've already gone on many outings, and that is something I never thought I'd do in the first two weeks. I really expected to be completely overwhelmed.

He had his second doctor appointment yesterday and he has gained a whole pound since his last one a week ago. He is now 9lbs 13oz, so he has far surpassed his birth weight and is doing great. They stabbed him in the heel and took what was I swear nine gallons of blood, he was bawling and it was the saddest thing ever. I hated it... It just made me think of all the times he is going to be sad and miserable throughout his life and how I won't be able to help him at all sometimes.

Ryker Banning Lee and his birth story

So baby was born 8/27/09 we named him Ryker Banning.

Here is how he was born:

So I'm not quite sure that I want to re-live this... Okay here goes:

Well it all started on Tuesday after I got back from the acupuncturist. I was feeling pretty crampy and then I lost my plug that evening, so I was really excited! I thought for sure labor was right around the corner. The next morning I took a shower, got all dressed and then all of a sudden had a bunch of watery stuff running down my leg. I made sure it wasn't pee and yelled to my mom "I think my water just broke!" she got all excited, but I was a little bummed because I was GBS positive which meant that if I didn't go into labor on my own within 24 hours I would have to be induced in order to keep the baby healthy.

I have been terrified of induction ever since the beginning of my pregnancy, I have always wanted the LEAST interventions possible in delivering my baby, and had planned to do it at The Birthing Inn in Tacoma where I desperately wanted to have a water birth.

anyways, I called my midwives and they said I had to come in right away to confirm the rupture and get my antibiotics started. They gave me 24 hours to go into labor on my own, and I had to return to the clinic every 4 hours during that time to get a dose of antibiotics. So I had a very long day of driving to tacoma over and over to get my medicine, and then we settled in for the night hoping I'd start having contractions. I tried to get them going by drinking MORE castor oil, walking, and bouncing on my ball. I woke up at 1:30 am with some very strong crampy feeling contractions and got really excited. I let everyone sleep and tried to rest but they were getting stronger. By about 3:30 am I had to go take a bath and was having to breathe through the contractions since they were much stronger. At this point I was sure I would be headed to the birth center within a matter of hours in labor and on the way to having my baby.

Then...

I fell asleep. And woke up at 6am with ZERO contractions. It was so disappointing. I cried and cried and couldn't understand why this was happening to me. Why wouldn't my body just GO INTO LABOR?! And of course it would have eventually, but with being GBS positive and having my water broken, I was under a serious time crunch.

We went to the clinic for my last dose of antibiotics at 9am and I was trying to come to terms with the fact that they were definitely going to induce me, but I was devastated... they confirmed that they would need to induce me immediately and that I was to go to the St. Joe's emergency room directly and check in.

With a feeling of defeat and disappointment we drove over to the hospital and got all situated in our room, they started the pitocin at about noon and the contractions started shortly after. They were painful, I had to focus through them, but I was not dying or in immense pain. I couldn't believe it had come to this, I was trying to be excited, but nothing was going how I wanted it to.

They checked me about an hour later and I hadn't really made any progress. They upped the pitocin and then she said she wanted to check to see if I had a "fore bag" of water that she could break. I did. She proceeded to break it and wow it was a really weird feeling!!!

After that everything changed:

the contractions came HARD and FAST almost IMMEDIATELY. I was miserable, I was having a pattern of one crazy intense contraction followed immediately by another less intense but still horrible one. I only got about a minute break between them and they got worse and worse. They moved us to the birthing room and that's when I was sure I would not be leaving the hospital alive. I was on the bed on my knees and bent over the back of the bed screaming and moaning and begging my mom to help me somehow. I am pretty sure I was thrust into the gnarliest part of labor called "transition" early into my labor due to the combination of pitocin and having my water broken all the way as I am not a total wuss, and the level of the pain I was feeling was enough to make me claw at my own belly and BEG for some kind of relief. At one point I screamed, "YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING MEEEEE!!" My mom thinks this is funny, but I was seriously not joking. Nothing could hurt this bad.

I fought through it for a period of time I'm not sure of and she checked me and I was at 5cm. Another period of time passed with barely a break between contractions. Even when they were over, the pressure I was feeling was enough to leave me in severe pain. I sat back on Michael between contractions and he rocked me back and forth. It kept me sane. When another one came he knew EXACTLY how to rub my back the perfect way to get me through it. I had my Mom and my sister Devon also telling me that I COULD do this, trying to keep me calm, but screaming was the ONLY way to get through them.

They checked me about an hour later and I was about 8 cm. I was progressing fast. Between the blurriness of the pain I saw them wheel in the little baby cart and weight scale. I started crying. I tried to focus on my baby, on getting him out, and on the fact it WOULD end soon. More yelling, screaming, crying and misery commenced... Was there no end? Would a dump truck please come run me over right now?! DOES ANYONE CARE THAT I AM ACTUALLY DYING RIGHT NOW?! I want to be cremated FYI!

at some point they all started eating gum, and I just yelled, "HOW CAN YOU BE EATING GUM RIGHT NOW?!" Like no one cares that I'm actually perishing, like this is the time you should all be eating GUM. haha its funny now, but I was not impressed with the smelly gum surrounding me at the time.

about another hour later and I was 9.5 cm. WHAT A TEASE! Can't I just push already?! By this time with the contractions I was having a urge to push and was to a certain extent. She had me labor a little longer to get rid of the last tiny part of my cervix.

FINALLY it was time to try some pushing. WHAT A FREAKING RELIEF!!!! Oh man, it felt so good to push during the contractions, it made them not hurt at all. I was so freaking determined, I've never worked so hard in my life, my eyeballs felt like they were exploding but I didn't care. It was time to get this done.

I pushed for about an hour and finally I look down and there is this HUMUNGOUS head staring back at me, THAT'S NOT A BABY, THAT'S A FREAKING PERSON. I was expecting a cute little baby head, but I got this enormous gorilla cone head that was so big I couldn't believe it. They laid him on my and I was SOOOBBBING. Michael was hugging my head and just bawling. Then it got fuzzy, apparently Michael cut the cord, but I don't remember.. I didn't see it, I must have been looking into my little baby's eyes cus I don't remember a lot after that.

Then I almost had to get surgery to get my placenta out because it was stuck. but then a little mean asian lady doctor came and smashed my belly so hard that it finally came out but man it hurt so bad, "why are they still torturing me!" I remember thinking.

so finally it was over.

I gave birth naturally on thursday 8/27 to a 9lb 4oz not so little boy at 6:57pm, not the way I wanted to, but I've never felt so accomplished and proud to have completed something. I was able to avoid pain meds, and that was probably the most important thing to me, as I am terrified of interventions leading to C-sections.. and I just didn't want to drug my baby, and I've had a spinal tap in the past and wasn't trying to have anything to do with that ever again. So I DID IT! I just kept saying that over and over again after it was done. Man, thank god it was over.

We've just been overjoyed with having him since he came, he's such a sweetie and so far a very good baby. Easy to breastfeed and just a cutie.

I AM GOING TO BE PREGNANT FOREVER

the end.

38 weeks, Nachos, and butt touching Chiropractors

Well I am pretty much over this whole being pregnant thing, it was very easy up until this last week, my pelvis is FREAKING killing me and a bunch of other things that I won't bore you with complaining about because its just pointless and seems whiny since my mom did this 5 times, along with plenty of other people.. I'm not special, I suppose.

I went to the midwife today, and I'm making progress, but she still thinks I'll be going to full term. I hope she is wrong, but she is the one who predicted a boy, and the one who said my skin would stretch well (no stretchmarks yet! keeping fingers crossed...) She is also the one who says tall women have easier labors, and that I have a perfect pelvis for giving birth (? haha), and that she thinks I'll progress quickly through labor, so maybe I hope she is batting 1000 cause if her other predictions are correct then I'll be a satisfied customer.

sleeping is okay still, turning over in bed is almost impossible due to my pelvis pain, but it has gotten much better since I started going to the chiropractor consistently a few weeks ago. I don't totally like the guy.. he seems a little creepy and has WAY too much Jesus music playing in the office, along with the staff's GOD T-shirts. I have nothing against people loving God or whatever, but when its getting non-stop shoved into my face it's just plain annoying. I think most people would agree. Also, he patted my butt last time as if to say "turn over" and it was really awkward. To be fair it was kind of my hip.... KIND OF, I think it was about 70% butt. I can't honestly think anyone would mean to touch my big pregnant butt, so that is why I am not that upset about this. I am going back on Monday, but since I'm not working I will probably go see my uncle Jeff instead, cause he is badass at chiropracting and lets face it, one of the nicest guys ever! And I know for a fact that he will NOT touch my butt.

Anyways, I have lost my brain and its a good thing this is my last week of work because I catch myself staring at my boss while he's explaining some complex motion graphics term with numbers in it and I can feel my jaw going lax and my eyes glazing over and then hear myself muttering something that seems completely unrelated. And then I realize that I might as well be high on heroin or something because that is how useless I am right now. I am pretty sure they are going to retract their offer for me to return after the baby because I have probably managed to completely UNdo everything good about myself in their eyes in just the last few days.

I am horrified by my grammar and syntax after re-reading this post, but I do not currently own my own brain. OKAY. so lay off, yes I'm an idiot.

Please I will take any and ALL suggestions for inducing labor. But DO NOT suggest Volcano Nachos from Taco Bell, because I already tried those with dire consequences.

BING

I am pretty sure I am getting robbed right now. I am pretty sure Microsoft stole the term "bing" from me for their new search engine.

I work in the same building as Microsoft, and I use this term on occasion, I will do my best to explain what it means in a minute.... when my friends or I say it, we go "bbiiiinnngggg!" Just like the commercials they have out now.. we have been using this term for years, but I have just recently said it at work a few months ago.

If you ever hang out with me, or anybody Michael and I know (some questionable characters sometimes, I'll admit) you will know that we have a very extensive vocabulary of words that don't really mean anything, but definitely mean something to us... Someday I should write them all down, but it becomes somewhat of a detriment when I try to talk to someone outside of my group of friends, and find myself clambering for a "normal person" word, instead of a word that will leave them with a blank expression on their face.

Sooo, whenever we make fun of someone for smoking pot, or just if we need to say something about weed, the term is bing. I don't really know why, but it is. "haha look at that guy, he is so obiviously bbbiiiinnnnggg", "I smell bing", and so on and so forth.

Anyways, I was at work recently, and I went to get water in the little kitchen area. Its right by a window and I looked down and saw two guys "bing-ing" and I thought it was really funny because they were in an alley looking around all suspiciously and just toking up tough. I wondered why they never bothered to realize they were surrounded by windows.

But I was telling a girl about this later, and I used the term bing, to tell her about these guys I saw smoking weed behind our building, and like a few months later I see a bing commercial from Microsoft, and they even go "bbbiiiinnnnggg!" and it sounds just like the way I said it. I am fairly certain some Microsoft guy overheard me, and now he has a raise and a new car, and I don't get anything for it!!!!

haha Its my story and I'm pretty sure it's exactly what happened.

random stuff about things and such

I feel stupid, because I cannot think of anything really to write in this thing about... um... I almost burned my house down today, put a pan to warm up on the oven, and then just left it there for a long time..

the whole house filled up with smoke all around me, and I was for some reason completely oblivious to it.

Eventually I noticed, but not before the pan was all black.

What is wrong with my brain.

Here is a new pic.. 32 weeks, 1 day. Getting close.. I got to feel his head today, my midwife showed me where to feel it at, it was really weird, and then I felt bad for poking him in the head. He didn't really seem to mind too much.

Even though I have nothing to compare to, this is a very active baby.. If I even just rest my hand on my belly he kicks it away and is rolling and wiggling all day pretty much. Its quite the feeling, nothing else like it.

I have nothing really cool going on otherwise, just working everyday still (yay) and finally figured out my insurance issue. Thank god for COBRA and now for the bill Obama signed to where we only have to pay 35% of the insurance premium since his job ended involuntarily, instead of having to pay the ENTIRE amount that his company used to pay. So, its working out.

We are just waiting for his new job to kick in insurance after 90 days.

I turned 26 last week, but I had thought I was 26 for like the past year anyways, so it really wasn't that cool.

well I'm gonna go cuddle with Hub Bub and watch a movay, so peace out!

Belly Update

So since I haven't put a pic up of my belly on here since 19 weeks, I thought I'd let everyone (aka the maybe three people that look at my blog) get a glimpse of my tummy that I think looks surprisingly like a very large egg of some kind. 

which I suppose it is in a way.

27 weeks

Are you serious? American Idol, and why its stupid.

It pretty much makes me want to vomit all over my walls when people vote for someone in a singing competition based on how 'moral' he is. This is why EVERY season of american idol, the winner has been a 'good ol' southern person. All the christian right-wing partisans have to specifically side with someone SOLELY based on the fact that they wear button up shirts, and are too stupid to read the instructions for hair dye. No, not everyone is like you, not everyone wants to be like you, and not everyone fills their days by seeing how many times they can find the word gay in the bible (and why its wrong), and folding their many pairs of khaki pants.

You don't like the way he sings. Totally cool.

You don't like his song choices. Awesome!

But to specifically not like a singer because you don't agree with his lifestyle choices, or because his eyeliner makes you uncomfortable, just shows how stunted you are. That dude can hit some notes that haven't been seen by the light of day in decades. It's pure talent, and maybe all your years of singing monotone uninspired church hymns have left you too tone-deaf to understand the significance. Which is fine, like I said. I don't care if you plain don't like his style of singing. BUT guaranteed there were plenty of people who probably NEVER watched the damn show, but found out that, god forbid, a gay dude might win a competition in AMERICA, and had to call to vote, just to make sure that didn't happen. Next thing you know he'll be using all that 'fame un forchoone' to gather support for that darn "Everything But Marriage" bill that won't just go away. 

Anyways, its pointless to rant I'm just so sick of hearing all the same crap from all the same types of people.. do any of them ever disagree with one another? EVER? How interesting the conversations in their lives must be... a bunch of bobble heads in an earthquake. Endless nodding.

Well American Idol is a joke anyways, but we'll see who's making the big bucks in no time. Adam Lambert will be raking in the dough, a household name, while Kris (isn't that how you spell the feminine version of that name? I think that's rather gay, myself) fades away into ambiguity, never to be heard from again. But yes, this is because mainstream America is evil, and turning to socialism and we should all be afraid, all the time. BLAH, blah. Frankly, I don't care that the other guy won, Its not about that, its about all the reasoning I've heard behind people's voting choices the last couple days.. its somewhat disgusting.

So basically one of two things is going to be happening here. Either a large majority of the people that voted for moral Kris are exactly what I said they were, and that is people who didn't watch the show, don't really care about the aftermath as long as that 'flamboyant' gay guy didn't win and that is why Kris will fade away into the distance. OR they all are moral hypocrites and will go pirate his music online somewhere. How else will you explain his sudden loss of popularity (which I am foreseeing... just like MOST of the AI winners)

So whatever, go to your sewing class and exchange recipes with your khaki pant wearing friends, maybe one of you will disagree with a type of stitching Debra is using and you can debate over i.....oh wait, that's right...you'll politely not say anything, and then go and tell Sally about Debra's questionable stitching tactic later and you'll both have quite the giggle.