Molly May

[Insert excuse for not blogging for over a year here]

We were blessed this last October with a beautiful baby girl.  Our life has been crazy and hectic ever since, but here is an update about Miss Molly May. Sorry that this is an incredibly long post.

On October 26, I was supposed to work the first of four nights in a row. I wasn't too pleased about it, but had four days off in a row after, which I was planning to get ready for our baby.  I had a horrible migraine all day and finally called off work due to it. I spent the night on the couch, nursing my migraine.  It finally went away around two.  At around four am, I started  having some contractions.  I didn't pay any attention to them, because I wouldn't be 37 weeks until Sunday (this was Saturday morning).  Finally, at 6 am, I told Carl that I was going to bed (he had been sleeping on the couch).  At this point, I was wondering if I was in labor, but decided that if I couldn't sleep, I wasn't in labor.  I slept until about one, when Carl got up (he was working the 2-midnight shift). I told him that I was still having Braxton-Hicks contractions. We joked about how I might be in labor and then he went to work.  I dozed until about 3, still having contractions and finally decided to get up and drink a bunch of water to make my contractions go away.  I made it to the bathroom when my water broke. I paged Carl and then called my mom and told her I thought my water broke.  Carl finally called me back (he had been stitching somebody up when he got the page). I still wasn't timing my contractions (stupid, I know).  We talked for a few minutes about what to do next.  He asked me about my contractions and how far apart they were.  I told him I wasn't timing them, but I had had three in the time we were talking.  He said "Um...we've only been talking for five minutes. I'm coming home now."

While I waited for Carl, I threw some stuff in a bag and called my mom again to let her know I got a hold of Carl. Carl finally came home and, being the doctor that he is, had brought home a pair of sterile gloves and checked me.  I was dilated to a 3. We drove to the hospital and I continued to have contractions about every two minutes. 

We got to the hospital and checked in.  They had me get into a hospital gown in triage and the attending came in. It just so happened that it was the OB I had started my pregnancy with before she went on maternity leave. She checked me and declared that I was at a 4 and that my water really had broken. She also told me that I would need to get the antibiotic for strep because my test hadn't come back yet. They moved me to another room and hooked me up to the monitors.  They told me that because my water had broken, I couldn't get up and walk around. I was disappointed because I had hoped to walk around to help get things moving. 

About a hour later (around 5 or  6), I got an epidural.  The contractions weren't unbearable, by any means, but were starting to get uncomfortable.  When they offered, I took it. Surprisingly, they wouldn't let Carl stay in the room.  They said they had too many dad's pass out. They kicked Carl out the whole time I was getting the epidural.

After they placed the epidural, they waited about an hour before coming in and checking me.  I was at a 5. They said my contractions weren't as consistent so they wanted to start some pitocin on me. They started with the lowest dose.  A while later, they came back in and said they might have to turn the pitocin down because my contractions were coming right on top of each other. The contractions settled down a bit and they ended up not turning down the pitocin.

At around 11, the resident came in to check me before she went to bed.  I was at a 9 1/2!  The nurse ran around trying to get things ready.  Within a half hour, I was ready to push. 

After one push, the monitor quit picking up contractions.  I wasn't quite sure what the contractions should feel like, so I ignored a lot of contractions.  They fiddled with the monitor, but ended up relying on Carl and the nurse to feel my belly contract.  They missed a lot and it took a while for me to figure out when I needed to push. I wasn't trusting my body because the nurse wasn't feeling contractions!

The resident left to go deliver a more complicated delivery and let the nurse keep pushing with me. After a while, the nurse finally decided that the baby would be delivered in the next couple of pushes and told me not to push while she called for a doctor.  That was probably the hardest thing I have ever done. 

When the doctor came in, Molly was delivered in two pushes at 2:43 am on October 28.

She weighed 6 lbs 3 oz and was 17 1/2 inches long.  She was breathing too fast at first, so they wouldn't let me hold her for a little bit.  They finally gave her to me to see if I could calm her breathing down, but told me I couldn't feed her.  That didn't work, so they took her back to keep an eye on her and called the pediatrician. Once the pediatrician checked her out and gave the okay, they gave her to me for keeps.

Getting checked out by the nurses

 

First looks

In the hospital, we struggled with breast feeding. Molly lost too much weight, getting down to 5 lbs 7 oz and we had to supplement with formula.  Her bilirubin levels were too high, so they ended up keeping her for a few days under lights.  It was nice; they let me stay in a room free of charge so I could stay with her. 

Feeding her a bottle

Under the bililights

Carl drew eyes for her Halloween costume

This was a blessing, as our help (my MIL) had just landed in Denver when we told her we were going to the hospital.  Tropical Storm Sandy also hit Cleveland while we were in the hospital. We lost power, but we didn't know for how long and had to throw all our food out.

We ended up leaving the hospital on Thursday, Nov 1. It's been a tough time. Molly never nursed well and we ended up switching to formula.  She also has colic and tough time sleeping (which is why I haven't written this post before this!).  Even with all the trials, we still love our Molly!

Ready to go home!

Finally home!

The aides made an awesome bow out of two hats

Brynn and Mal

A couple weeks ago, we had a very fun weekend with Brynn and Mal. They were our first official guests in our new city an house and we had a blast!! It was a quick trip but we loved having them here!

They flew in on a Thursday and we kicked it off by going to an Indians game. They lost, but we got free t-shirts, expensive hot dogs that weren't that great, cotton candy, and peanuts (sorry Carl!).

On Friday, we got up early and headed up to Cedar Point. It's the roller coaster capitol of the world and is on a peninsula of Lake Erie. And it has some awesome roller coasters! We didn't stay all day, but we hit all the roller coasters, dipped our feet in the lake, ate some very unhealthy food, and had a blast! Here's some pictures of Cedar Point (we didn't take them).


This is the Top Thrill Dragster, a ride that goes 120 mph and 420 feet in the air.

This is a nice view of the park. You can see the Dragster and the Millennium Force, a 310 ft coaster. It's my favorite ride there.


This is the Wicked Twister. It's name always makes me think of Harry Potter and the rock group, the Twisted Sisters, I think. Anyway, this is right on the beach and is another awesome ride!

Saturday was our "theme day". We went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, followed by dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. We saw all sorts of rockin' things, like a Cadillac Elvis bought when he dropped $140,000 on Cadillac's in one day for his entourage, Elvis' famous jumpsuit, Michael Jackson's famous glove, Thriller jacket, and Lady Gaga's famous meat dress. Yes, you read that right. They preserved the meat dress and had it there.

The Hall of Fame is located right on Lake Erie. It was designed by the dude who designed the famous pyramids at the Louvre.
This was just a cool picture.
This was a cool picture too. It looks like it was taken from the Browns stadium, which is right next door.

On Sunday, we went to church and hung around the house. We watched movies, played games, and ate ice cream. On Monday, we had to wake up early to get to the airport for them to catch their flight home.

We loved having Brynn and Mallory here! It's so nice seeing family and we hope to see them here again soon!!

New Town, New House, New Job

This last month, things happened so fast. I'm already up in Cleveland-Carl is not.

After we found out where Carl would be doing his residency at, Carl emailed his residency coordinator (who is kind of like his mom in the program) and asked if she had any contacts for me. She came back with the email of a nursing recruiter.

On Tuesday night, I emailed the nursing recruiter my resume. By Wednesday afternoon, I had an interview set up for the next Monday (the 28th of March). By the next Thursday, I had been offered the job, which started on May 2nd.

I am extremely grateful to have gotten a job so quickly. Nursing in one of the jobs that you can count on there always being jobs available, but politics in the last little while have made jobs hard to find.

The only problem is that I was starting on May 2nd. Carl doesn't graduate medical school until May 22nd. If I waited, the next orientation for new nurses isn't until July. I took the job, knowing I would be up here by myself for a few weeks.

April was a blur. Carl and I went to Honduras (!) for two weeks on a medical mission with the med school (yes, I will do a post about that). We got home with two weeks to pack up and move up to Cleveland while I was still working and he was still in school.

Needless to say, it happened in quite a rush and we really didn't get to say goodbye to many people. Due to us being in Honduras and then being in Cleveland for the last few weeks, we basically showed up to church and said "sorry, we're moving in two weeks!". One of our good friends had a baby while we were in Honduras and I feel horrible that we never made it over to see how they were doing and to say good bye.

We did end up renting a house. It's a nice house, with 3 bedrooms and lots of space. I moved in on the 30th and started work on May 2nd. Carl is coming up on the weekends, but most of the time I'm here by myself trying to unpack, work, and find my way around everywhere!

I am loving where I work at. It is the same hospital as Carl, although not the same department. We will most likely never work together unless I switch floors. The hospital is a Magnet hospital, which is a big deal for nurses. It's one of Cleveland's big hospitals and is the only Trauma 1 center in Cleveland (which is why Carl is going there). It's not associated with the Cleveland Clinic. It's the public hospital in the area, so most of the patients without insurance end up there. This makes it difficult, because of budgeting, the nursing is more primary nursing-nurses doing all the bathing, putting in IV's, blood draws, etc. This is actually great for me to get my skills really down well.

For right now, I'm excited to be living in Cleveland. Of course, it's summer and not winter. :) Sometimes I get really lonely and I have watched way to much netflix the last week, but it hasn't been too bad. I hope some people get adventurous and come visit us!

Clevelanders

Well, we opened the envelope. And we're going to Cleveland! We're excited, although we don't really know a lot about the area. I know it has the Browns, the Cavaliers, the Indians, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, is right next to Lake Erie and an hour away from Cedar Point. And it's cold. That's about the extent of my knowledge. People in Cincinnati aren't big fans of Cleveland, so whenever I would mention that Cleveland was on the list and ranked high (it was third) they would say "You don't want to go to Cleveland!"

We went up this last weekend and looked for places to live. We're still kind of up in the air about what we want to do. The housing market hasn't been that great up there but everybody told us that it's stabilizing. We looked at a bunch of houses and did find a couple that we really liked, but we'll see.

Renting seems to be interesting as well. It's expensive to rent and all the places were kind of dumpy. And I don't really like the idea of somebody else having control over us (raising rent, controlling when and how things get fixed, etc.) I don't know what we'll do.

For now, we're still keeping our options open and are excited about moving up there!

Changes

I'm going to dispense with the excuses and just start blogging.

The last little while have been crazy. I feel like we're growing up all at once. I finally graduating in December with my bachelor degree in nursing from Northern Kentucky University. Just last week, I got my nursing license in the state of Ohio.

Next week, Carl finds out where he goes for residency. It's really nerve wracking. I'll try to explain how the process works.

Carl has decided that's he's going to be an Emergency Room doctor. He applied to about 40 programs across the nation. Most of them where located in the mid-west, with a couple in the west. Some of the programs wanted to interview him and others didn't. I think he went on about 15 interviews. I was able to go on a few on them once I was done with school. We went to NYC city together on an interview, Buffalo, NY, and to PA. Carl also interviewed in Chicago, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Louisville, and other smaller cities.

After interviews, Carl made what's called his Rank List. He put the programs in order, from 1-16, of where he wanted to go. He had a hard time trying to figure out his list. He had to turn in his list on Feb. 23. He had a whole bunch of things he was looking for in a program, from being able to fly on a helicopter, to doing ultrasounds, to how they do the teaching.

The schools also make a list. They rank the students in order of what who they want to come. I don't think they have one student per spot-more like 10 students per spot.

From there, some computer program sticks things together. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but they say it favors the students. It takes the students list and the programs lists and pops out a match. It's like a mission call-where they tell you you're going in where you're going, you can't turn it down.

Next week, on March 17th, it's Match Day across the nation. That's when we're able to find out where we're going. It's crazy to think how our lives can change because of one little thing. I haven't applied for any jobs because I have no idea where we're going to end up at. We're going to be someplace for 3 years and don't really have much of a say in where we're going.

I am happy to go where ever we end up at. It's crazy to find out where we're going. Stay tuned to find out where!

Spain

Some of you already know, but I am leaving for Segovia, Spain on Sunday. I will be there for an entire month, until June 30th. I was originally going to Mexico, but it got too violent. I ended up transferring to Spain instead and moving my trip up a month. I am now frantically trying to get ready for flight on Sunday. You can follow my travels here and also on another blog, A Summer in Segovia. I've added a link on my blog roll so you can find it easy. I had to start a blog to meet my scholarship qualifications, so I will blog frequently!

Oh Christmas Tree!

This semester I had to do my senior project. My partner and I focused on child abuse and for our project, raised awareness of child abuse on Northern Kentucky University campus. We worked with a great agency, The Family Nurturing Center on their activities for National Child Abuse Prevention Month, which is April. Part of our activities included making a Blue Tree, which was decorating a tree in blue (which is the color for child abuse).

So, I hauled my dear Christmas tree to campus. This Christmas tree is only 5 feet tall, but is covered in lights. No, it's not prelit. It's covered in light because our first year our here, I put lights on it for the first time. And I apparently went all out. It took me three days because I kept running out of lights. The 5 foot tree has 900 lights on it. Yes, you read that right. I crammed 9 strands of lights on it. Because it looked so awesome and took me forever to do, I refused to take it down. Instead, I shoved the tree in one of our closets. Definitely makes setting up easier!

Anywho, so I hauled my dear Christmas tree, still covered in lights, to campus. Luckily, the parking lot was close to the nursing building, but I still had a bit to carry the tree.

So, picture this. It's the end of March when I set it up. Beginning of May when I took it down. I'm carrying a Christmas tree across campus, in broad daylight. Yes, I'm sure I look like an idiot. Actually, I know I look like an idiot. That doesn't stop people from making snarky comments.

"Is it December already?" "I must have skipped a few months!" "Hey girl! You got your months wrong!"

Honestly people! Act like college students and pretend to be intelligent. Yes, I know what month it is. Do you think I'm carrying a Christmas tree on campus because I think it's Christmas? Did it ever cross your mind it was for something school related?

I do have to admit....I looked like a complete idiot.