my mother in law

Last week, on Easter Sunday, my mother in law passed away suddenly. TJ's mom Betty had MS for 7 years, and it was really getting worse and worse right before she passed. Because of her disease, we knew that she only had a few years to live yet, but we really thought she had a few years. We were crushed at the news, but at the same time, we have a lot of peace. We are certain that she was in a lot of pain, even though she never let us know how much. She just always said that she was blessed. This is a huge challenge to the rest of us who remain! If my mother in law, who in her last days was confined to a hospital bed, could recognize and appreciate how she was blessed, the rest of us have no excuse to complain! I think of this often, since I do like to complain about little things.

We got the news that Betty was having trouble breathing and was likely having a heart attack while we were at my Grandma's house. We rushed home and started packing to go, even though we didn't really know what was going on. While we were packing, TJ got the phone call that she had passed. It was a mix of emotions. It was one of those moments that sort of feels like slow motion. You sort of go outside of your body as if you're watching yourself in a movie and say, "Is this really happening?"

Packing took a long time since we had never traveled with Blake overnight before. I was heartbroken at the news, overwhelmed at the task of packing, and anxious about how Blake would handle the change in environment. I managed to pack well for Blake, decent for TJ, and poorly for me.

The week was really meaningful for all of us kids because we got to spend time all together as a family. TJ's sister got to meet Blake for the first time. But Blake was all out of sorts. He wasn't eating regularly, and he wasn't sleeping as well. And to top it all off, by the end of the week, we all caught a cold. When it rains, it pours, I suppose. I don't even know how to begin to grieve the loss of Mom Rieger, and even if I did, I feel like I don't have the time to because all my time and energy goes to Blake. I wanted to spend last week supporting TJ, but, again, I had to take care of Blake. Taking care of Blake felt like a nuisance sometimes last week, but I was comforted in hearing Mom Rieger's voice telling me that taking care of him was the most important thing.

Mom Rieger was an incredible woman full of faith. I will miss her so much. She will not be here to see Blake grow up. She won't be here when I need to call someone for advice or encouragement. It is a huge loss for our family. In all the busyness of last week, I didn't get a moment to sit back and let it sink in, but now that I'm at home and can relax a little more, I'm really starting to feel the loss. I feel it more for Blake than for me because he will not know his Grandma. It's funny how God works. With her MS, she would have lost her sight soon and would not have been able to see Blake, but now that she has passed, she can watch over us and see him any time she wants to.

daughter of the king

It has been way too long since I've updated. Sorry to have left on such a depressing note, but I'm pleased to say that I am much more well adjusted these days to motherhood. I'm able to actually get sleep instead of being anxious all the time (and it doesn't hurt that Blake is sleeping longer stretches these days!) And I'm actually happy. I feel so much joy holding my little babe, that, in the times when he's screaming his head off at midnight, I can cope. Praise God! I know it's the power of prayer that got me through this adjustment period.

My prayers for myself have all been desperate pleas lately. "Please, God, just let me get two hours of sleep!" And when I asked for two, I was surprised to find that He gave me three. And when I've been staying up late with Blake this week when he is super fussy and inconsolable, Blake eventually goes to sleep and stays down for 5-6 hours! God has been blessing me abundantly, and by giving me what I need and more, He reminds me that I am still His daughter, even though I am a parent now. It's easy for me to feel like I don't matter anymore, but God wants me to know that I still have value, and He is still my father. This reminder is huge for me, but I don't know if I would have seen it quite so easily if it weren't for family and friends offering support to me. They have offered to stay over and take care of Blake so that I can sleep, and they have offered up wonderful meals so that I don't go hungry. They, also, remind me that I still matter and that, as I take care of Blake, I will be taken care of, too.

This reminder is so uplifting for me as a new parent because I need God's love over me now, more than ever, as I hold a precious child's life in my hands. And yet, as God is taking care of me, His precious child, I can trust that He is the one who holds Blake's life, not me. And that's a good thing.

the bar has been set high

i type this entry on my laptop one letter at a time with one hand. this is how i type most of the time now as i multi-task with nursing. it drives me nuts to type so slowly and sloppily, but it's either this or nothing! anyway, today i want to sing my husband's praises. i knew thar tj would be an amazing farther. but i guess i didn't consider how he would, simultaneously, continue to be a great husband to me.

as i discussed in my previous entry, i have really been struggling with baby blues. this scares tj because we are not sure how much "blues" is normal. there have been nights that i just can't stop crying, in the midst of blake having a crying fit. tj held blake in one arm and me on the other. tj has been so patient with me and has picked up some of my slack, like washing dishes, in addition to keeping up with his 50 hour work week.

when we brought blake home, we started formula feeding from bottles since nursing wasn't going well, so tj and i took turns feeding him. i got used to having a chance to sleep through a feeding at night, so when i went back to breastfeeding, it was difficult for me to imagine being the only feeder. now, if timing works out, tj gives blake a bottle around 11 or so, while i go to bed and get a head start on sleep. it makes a huge difference. he sacrifices his own sleep so i can sleep.

i know tj is exhausted from carrying the responsibility of making sure i'm okay, making sure blake is cared for, and trying to take care of himself. he has proven himself  to be a true hero to our family, and i'm confident he will continue to be our hero. tj has set the bar has set high for fathers and husbands everywhere, and i am so thankful. other family and friends have been very supportive and helpful, but there is nothing like my husband's mere presence to calm me and make me feel safe.

tonight, we are going on our first date night since blake's birth. i kind of thought it might be too soon, but the doctor recommended it because of my baby blues. i hope it will be a nice chance to get rejuvenated and reconnect with tj. i miss being just us, and i'm so jealous for uninterrupted time with him.

baby blues

So I have a few images floating around in my head that I saw on facebook. One of them is of a friend who had a baby a few months ago, and she took her one or two week old baby to a New Year's gathering. And the other isn't specific but a general hodgepodge of pictures I've seen of happy mommas with happy  newborns. It is these images that haunt me and make me feel like I must be a horrible mother who will never adjust to motherhood. These images make me feel like these other first-time mothers must have some quality that I don't have. It wasn't until a day or two ago that I realized that this was poison to me. Who knows how much these mothers struggled with their newborns crying for long periods of time for no understandable reason? Who knows how much they struggled with sleep deprivation and arguing with their husbands about nothing due to the stress? They aren't posting on facebook about those things because it's very personal, and random facebook friends may not necessarily be sensitive to these struggles.

Well, it definitely is personal, but I'm choosing to write about it anyway. I'm assuming that only people who care about me are reading this, anyway. The people who are reading this are probably the people who, if they asked, would hear my honest struggles.

I know that baby blues is a normal thing for a few weeks. And I don't know how much blues is normal and when it's a red flag, but I just know that I'm struggling a lot. I feel like an inept mother--that I wasn't cut out for this. I feel like this will never get any better or easier. I feel hopeless, like I'm just drowning. And I feel like I'm not myself, like I don't even know what being myself means anymore. People keep saying they would babysit for an hour or so while I go off and have some time for myself. But I don't even know what I would want to do with my time anymore (other than sleep). What would I enjoy doing? Where would I enjoy going? I don't know.

When TJ leaves for work, I watch the clock, just waiting for him to get home again. And he isn't even starting full time work until tomorrow.

Every night, I can't fall asleep because I'm so anxious about when I will be awoken next. When it's evening time, I start to dread the upcoming night. And in the morning, I dread the long day ahead.

And it's not because I don't love Blake. I love him so much, but this newborn phase makes me feel like I can't ever have another child because it's just too hard.

I don't necessarily have any happy conclusion to add to this because I'm still in the midst of this and haven't come out on the other side. I suppose I will come out on the other side, and this will all be a blip in time, and in a few years, I'll be wanting to do it again with another child.

I know that people say that this is just a hard phase, and it will get better. But it's hard to believe that during the times that Blake cries for three hours straight. Or when I've spent two hours lying in my bed and haven't been able to fall asleep yet, but he starts crying that he's hungry again.

This whole thing is so incredibly difficult, and it's not like I didn't know that it would be. But this is how I feel right now, and I've just decided to be brutally honest about it. Why? So that you will pray for me and understand how deeply I need the prayers. I won't sugarcoat it and make it seem like it's just something to pray about if you happen to have the time. No, I need you to pray for me immediately after you finish reading this, and if you can remember to, pray for me every single day for the next few weeks. I'm confident these feelings won't last a long time, but they may last the next few weeks, and it doesn't make this transition any easier.

In case anyone was looking at my happy baby photos or posts on facebook, you now know that that is not the whole story. I don't expect others to be so honest because I know facebook isn't the place for that, but it would definitely be helpful for me to hear that others have struggled, and when things got better, and in what ways things got better.

breast is best?

Throughout my entire pregnancy, there was no question that I was going to breastfeed. I think it is healthiest and most natural for babies, so I was really excited about it. Plus it doesn't hurt that it's free food for baby. I was prepared in knowing that getting a correct latch is key, and it isn't easy. In the hospital, two nurses helped me breastfeed for the first time right after my c-section. I didn't do anything, just laid in the bed while they did all the work. And throughout the next few days, breastfeeding wasn't so bad. I thought things were going pretty well. But even there, Blake would feed for at least 45 minutes, and he would still be fussy. He wouldn't sleep hardly at all. Even when we were holding him, and we thought he was sleeping, he would wake up and scream as soon as we tried to put him down.

When we got him home, it was worse. That first night at home was just the most horrible experience. I was basically up all night with him trying to get him to feed. I was so desperate to feed him that I didn't even care that the latch seemed wrong. I just needed him to eat and be done with it. When morning came, I was a mess. I told TJ I wasn't sure that breastfeeding was going to work out. Of course, it didn't help that my hormones were all out of whack. I couldn't physically breastfeed anymore because it was hurting me too much and was just too damaging emotionally for me, so we started using formula from then on. It only took a few hours to notice a difference in both Blake and me. Blake was actually sleeping, and when he fussed, he was fussing for a specific reason that we could solve. And I had a huge weight lifted from me.

We spent the weekend feeding Blake formula through a medicine dropper thing because I didn't want to give him a bottle before we made a final decision about whether to breastfeed. I felt so heavy with the decision, even though our decision was pretty much made for us because I just couldn't handle it. As a compromise, I was really hoping I could pump milk and bottle feed, even if it meant supplementing with formula. But I couldn't even get myself to express milk due to how much I was hurting.

Finally, this morning we went to the pediatrician and met with the lactation consultant there. She was really encouraging and did not try to force me to breastfeed. But she helped me with my breast pump, and right in that office, I pumped enough milk for two feedings for Blake. I was so overjoyed to know that my body could do it, and there was hope that I could still give Blake the nutrition from breast milk, at least for some of his meals.

I had come to terms with the reality that I just might not be able to give Blake breast milk. I think, in our case, it seemed that breast was not best. I am so thankful that there is hope that I can feed him some breast milk now, and I just praise God for this opportunity. Seeing milk flow from my breasts is such an incredible experience for me because it gives me that feeling of providing food for my son. Each time today that I have expressed milk, I thanked God, and I will continue to thank Him because He is so good! This is just one of the ways His goodness has shined in my life today.

blake makes his debut... reluctantly

Blake Samuel Rieger

Born 2/12/13 at 10:35 PM. 7 lbs 13 oz. 20 inches.

I must preface this story by saying that, at first, this story will not sound very uplifting at all. But as you can see from the above picture, there is a happy ending! It just goes to show you that even a story that starts with the word "induction" and has the word "c-section" in the middle is beautiful because it ends with the words "beautiful baby boy."

As previously mentioned, I was not too happy about being induced, but we were tired of waiting for Blake, so on Monday at noon, we went for my induction. The midwife suggested, since I was hoping for a more natural birth, that we start by inserting a balloon in my cervix to encourage it to dilate. She said that in 6-8 hours, I would be dilated 4 cm. By the end of 6 hours, I was so uncomfortable with these random tubes coming out of me down there. Then a nurse and the new midwife on duty came in and happened to mention the words "12 hours." Apparently this procedure actually takes 12 hours, not 6-8. Hmm... good to know. By 1 AM, exactly 12 hours after start time, I went to the bathroom thinking I had to poop, and instead, I pooped a balloon out of my vagina. What a weird feeling. The good news was that I was dilated 5-6 cm at that point! I was so excited.

The next step (starting at 1ish Tuesday morning) was the pitocin, which pretty much confined me to the bed, save a few bathroom trips in which wires had to be unplugged and IV units dragged to the bathroom with me. The contractions quickly became painful, and I hadn't intended on getting an epidural, but since I was already confined to the bed and thus wasn't able to do any natural coping methods, I opted for the epidural. I got kind of loopy as it took its effects and started talking about my tingly legs and ponies. Anyway, the epidural allowed me not to feel any pain at all, so I slept the day away.

Just before 6 PM, the midwife told me I was finally 10 cm and could start pushing. I was pushing pretty well and after a half an hour or so, the nurse said that they could see some of Blake's head. TJ told me that he saw it and that Blake had dark hair like mine. That was all the motivation I needed to push harder. So I pushed and pushed, but there didn't seem to be any progress. I kept telling them I needed to know if we were getting closer, and they kept giving me the same answer--that Blake's head needed to descend into the pelvis. Which didn't sound like anything had happened at all. So I pushed for three hours until I started crying that I couldn't do it anymore. Which leads us to the dreaded words... c-section.

They made my mom leave shortly after 9 PM as they got me ready for the c-section. She had to wait in the lobby. But it wasn't until almost 10 that they took me in the O.R. It was the scariest thing I have ever been through. They wheeled me into the brightest room I had ever seen, and there were so many nurses and doctors in there. I had been dealing with nausea all day, so the first thing I did was lean over the table and throw up medicine (that I had been given so I wouldn't have nausea). They set me all up and then put a tent around my head so I couldn't see, and then TJ was allowed in to be with me. I could feel a significant amount of pressure as they worked on me, so I was terrified that I would feel a knife cutting me. The doctor assured me that this wasn't the case, and that they had already started working. The procedure was very short, and then there it was... my baby's first cry. I couldn't see him, but I heard him, and that was enough to melt away the awful past two days. I instantly said to myself, none of that matters now.

I was pretty messed up after the procedure so they took me to a recovery room where they worked on me. I don't really remember any of it except that I kept trying to talk but couldn't get words out. Once I was a little better, the nurses brought Blake over to meet me. I couldn't hold him, but I got to kiss him and tried to breastfeed for the first time. And by breastfeed I mean, I laid there while the nurses got Blake to latch. If only it were that easy all the time... but more on that later.

We got to our hospital room at 1:30 AM Wednesday. I don't really recall the details of that first night with Blake except that I didn't get to hold him until the next day. But he was well worth the wait. He's the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

Anyway, to summarize a long story... nothing about my labor and delivery went according to what I would have hoped, but none of that matters now. All I know is that I now am the mother of the most beautiful and healthy boy in the entire world (other mothers, it's okay if you disagree). And out of all the things I asked God for during my pregnancy, that was the most important one. So thank you, God, for this miracle of life. May our family bring you glory!

almost 41 weeks: nonstress?

Well, here I am at almost 41 weeks (not the best pic of me, but it is what it is). I'm so tired all the time, and my body is even more uncomfortable, which I didn't think was possible a few weeks ago! It has been hard to keep waiting because we are so excited to meet him. I spent the last few weeks trying to induce labor through different means, and it has only gotten me more frustrated because it hasn't worked. It turned into a means to try to control the situation, and it's just not possible to control this. People keep saying things like, God is in control. And I know that. It isn't helpful to me to hear it from others. I just want to hear an, "I'm sorry. It must be tough to keep waiting."

That being said, I feel like I have really learned a lot over these past few weeks. It has been a big journey of faith and doubt. I really thought that God would give us the January birth we had been praying for the whole time. And when He didn't, I said, "God, do you not care about us? Don't you care about what is best for us?" I was really discouraged, but then it occurred to me that perhaps God has some kind of bigger picture. Perhaps He knows what's best for us in other ways other than financially.

Today I had a nonstress test and an ultrasound; both went really well, and baby is healthy. We are really thankful to hear that everything is alright. TJ is very impatient at this point and probably would have agreed to induce today, but I want to wait a few more days to give Blake a chance to come on his own. I really do not want to have to induce labor, but we had to schedule it. So if Blake does not come on his own by Monday at noon, I will be induced then. Which brings me to my next doubtful moment. "God, do you not care about our desire to give birth naturally? Why would you start this labor out with drugs and set us up to need more drugs?" That's how I'm feeling right now. I'm hopeful just to know that by Tuesday, we will be holding our baby, but inducing is not how I wanted it to happen.

The good news is there are still almost four whole days for him to come naturally! We still pray that he will come before Monday, however TJ is not so hopeful that it will actually happen. I still hope. I'm trying to process what my mindset should be, though. Is it healthier for me to just think that labor will come on Monday and just be surprised and happy if it comes before then? Or should I continue to be hopeful that he will come sooner and perhaps be disappointed? I just don't know. What I know for sure is that my God is a God of blessing. God may not give us exactly what we had in mind, BUT His promise is to always take care of us and that everything will be to His glory. Thus, my new prayer regarding Blake's birth is that it would be for God's glory. If this is my purpose for everything, I cannot be disappointed that things don't happen according to my terms.