The rest of the story (who gets the reference?)

Ok, so this post will go from about Halloween to when I went back to work in December. This is for my own purposes so I know where to start and stop!!

Halloween came and we were about 2 weeks into our new found happiness of a baby that sleeps thanks to Mamie. He followed her schedule and slept like a champ from about 4 weeks old to 8 weeks. This schedule has him going down about 630-7 at night. Most nights this works great for us because we aren't doing anything anyways, but I will say that on the weekends and holidays when we're up and going a bit more, it is a little restrictive... but we'll figure it out. JJ's Halloween costume was a last minute, I was bored, kind of thing. I love the pictures though! 

For the most part Edward pretends JJ doesn't exist, but sometimes he wants to be friends

 Early in November JJ's 2nd cousin? First cousin once removed? Who knows; anyways, what we call his cousin, Sophie arrived! Nathan and Erica moved down to Phoenix in August and it's been fun having someone with a newborn so close in age. It gives me someone to talk to and bounce things off, etc. Sophie was a few weeks early and it was a c-section so when Erica asked if I'd come visit one day I was excited to go see her! She was so tiny! It was amazing the difference being that they are only 7 weeks apart. Sophie was about a pound smaller than JJ when she was born.

About this same time I was trying to nail down the daycare situation. Since the daycare we wanted was full in September when I checked I'd been looking into other options but hadn't found any I was thrilled about. I was really starting to panic. I checked with Laura the end of October to see if she might have any openings come up and she did! So we booked his spot as quick as possible. We met with Laura back in March when we first found out I was pregnant and John and I both really liked her and the setup she has. I felt a lot better knowing that he was going to be going to a daycare I felt comfortable with.

 We had JJ blessed the same weekend as BrookLynn's baptism. This way my parents could be here for both. We were really glad that Nathan and Erica came and brought Sophie since she was still so little. Also, Stephanie and Bart came and John's parents. We grabbed a few photos out front afterwards and then went to lunch at Cheddar's!

My dad blessed JJ with Nick, Nathan, Brad Hall and Brad Fulton in the circle.

There were about 6 people just outside the frame ready to grab a falling baby if necessary

 JJ hit the 2 month mark while my parents were here so they helped with his 2 month picture really quick one afternoon.

 At JJ's 2 month appointment he weighed 10 lbs 15 oz and was 23 inches long. He was in the 13th percentile for weight, 40th for height, and 50th for his head.

 We took my dad to Ipic while he was here to see the new Dumb and Dumber movie. The movie was ok, but Ipic is always fun.

I decided that I wanted to fly home with JJ while I was off on maternity so he could meet some of his family. I went back and forth a lot on if I dared take him. I finally decided to do it. It's pretty daunting to fly alone with a baby. It didn't help that the flight was delayed about 2 hours, so what was supposed to be perfect planning on the flight and getting him settled for the night turned out awful. My mom picked me up in Ogden and we spent the night at Aunt Patty's.

Getting his winter gear on

Hanging out at the airport

 It was so fun to stay in Utah and see Mark and Patty, Chad and Corinne and their kids, Jena and Rudy and their kids. I almost wanted to stay there the whole time and bag the drive to Pocatello! We did head home Saturday afternoon and there was a pretty ugly storm coming through.

 We made it to mom's house and it was good to see Chris, Jaden, and AshLynn but also Grandma Connie and Len came over and we went to dinner. JJ did really pretty good for me while we were there. He slept really well. We struggled a little with getting him down but once he was down he did pretty good.

It was about this time that we started to struggle with his schedule. I don't know what the change was but he'd been a champ for about 4-6 weeks and suddenly we weren't doing so well. This lasted for about 2 weeks and he got back on track right before I went back to work.

JJ and Linden. The two cutest kids ever!

I so love this picture.

Aberdeen was in the state championship (I think) so JJ got to go to the mini dome for a game while were there. It was fun to see grandparents, Aunt Misty and Dwight, Morgan and Nick, etc.

We came back to Arizona a few days before Thanksgiving. JJ was good for both of the flights. We flew back from Idaho Falls and it was pretty smooth except that he pooped before take off and I didn't get him changed the whole flight. I felt so bad for him having that poop on him so long and I was afraid it was smelling around us!

We had Thanksgiving at John's parents. It was all of us, Stephanie and Bart, Nick and his family, and Nathan and Erica with Annette and Russell! It was a pretty good crowd and a lot of fun.

This is how I grocery shop now

I love this picture too. That face!

 I decided that I wanted a glider so after Thanksgiving John and I went and found one. It was our Christmas present to each other.

I knew come Thanksgiving that time was going to fly because we had a trip to CA planned and it did! I made time one afternoon to take JJ to work to visit. 

 Originally the plan was to take JJ with us to Disneyland. As we got planning it just didn't make sense logistically. So we ended up leaving him with John's parents while we went. Since Stephanie was seated on a jury and didn't think she would be able to drive down when we originally planned it turned into everyone flying. This would have been great except that it was the one day that Phoenix got a heavy rain. So our flight was delayed. When we finally got there we had to take a shuttle to the hotel and we decided we don't like that a whole lot. We had Thursday evening until Sunday afternoon at the parks.

Even though it was December we decided to do the water rides. We tried to be proactive and protect ourselves. Everyone turned out ok for the most part except for me. There was a drain under my seat that the water came spraying out of and made it look like I peed myself. So I ended buying new pants to wear that day.

 We don't usually catch parades or shows, etc. but we wandered into the fireworks at the castle and since we were right up front we decided to stay. I'd heard a lot about the candlelight processional and we tried to figure out the best way to see that. We know better for next time to just plan for the 2nd show. We saw the processional and hung out in some of the stores and listened a little but we had dinner reservations to get to. We got to watch one of the parades while we were hanging out though.

 We even waited in the huge line for It's a Small World. It was really pretty with all the Christmas decorations.

 We came back from CA on Sunday night and I had to turn around and go to work on Monday. I thought I had about 2 more days off but turned out I didn't. That was a bit hectic. It made it tough also that I'd been away from my baby since Thursday and had to go to work all day before I could see him. We had two holiday parties that weekend. It was the mini-bike and flag football and then Kirk's party that night. It was a lot to fit in and we were pretty tired by the end of it. It was so weird almost immediately when I started work he started sleeping through the night.... mostly. He would go from 630-7 till 5-6. Then the weekend would come and he would be up 2-3 times. I can't explain why he was doing that and I was just grateful that it was on the nights I didn't have to go to work the next morning.

Being back at work is almost like a break. It's much easier sitting at a desk for 8 hours than keeping up with a 3 month old. It's such a double edge sword. I enjoy the break but I miss him like crazy. I do enjoy the free hot chocolate at work though.

Trying to get his 3 month pictures right

 I had a hard time that first week back at work because I would pick him up from daycare and he'd be so tired he'd fall asleep on the way home and then I would get just a few minutes when he was awake between trying to feed him, get him down, and get dinner ready for us, etc. and then he would be asleep. So I was having a really hard time. Then one night John had a dentist appointment so I didn't worry about dinner and he was awake when we got home and I just played with him until he got tired and then put him to bed. The picture below was from that night and this smile made my life.

 Now that I'm back at work JJ and Sophie don't get to see each other a lot but I took a Friday off and ran some errands and stopped by to see her and Erica. I think this picture is so cute. Sophie with her tongue out and JJ's face...... so cute. I think this is their first partner in crime picture and hopefully there will be many more as they grow up.

Wow

Well the past almost 8 weeks have gone by so quickly (and now it's not even 8 weeks; it's 13). I have/had so many things I was going to post and I probably won't remember half of them. To say that life has changed would be the understatement of the year. Let's just get this out there first. The first 4 weeks of JJ's life were very hard for me. I don't think I would want to do them over again ever. That being said, I realize that he is a very good baby. He always has been and I am just weak and probably not very good at adapting to change. However, I now believe there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Let's go back though.

As I said the first 4 weeks were awful. I think he averaged 60-90 minutes of sleep at a time all day and night. So that meant that is all the possible sleep I was getting but I probably wasn't even getting that most days. I find it very hard to sleep when people came over. I felt that I had to 'entertain' and visit. Adding to that is the fact that I put a lot of pressure on myself to 'maintain the home' when I am home. So I felt that I needed to clean, cook, do laundry, grocery shop, etc. So about 4 weeks in I cracked. I was not doing well at all. No one had ever told me how extremely hard it is having a newborn. Several things happened about the 4 week mark that helped improve things. First, we went to Juan and Kerry's wedding. Juan had told me before that they had hired a sleep specialist with LJ and I think I probably mocked him. But I was able to talk to Kerry for a few minutes that night and she assured me it was worth every penny. So we got the info for our sleep specialist Mamie (more on her later). John and I also had a trip to Dr. Alperin. He was very forward in saying that I needed sleep and I needed a break from JJ. I think it helped me to hear it from someone. That it's ok to have a break. Not only is it ok but I NEED it. Next, Nick and Shar kept JJ for the night. This was a hard decision but I was so exhausted. It was honestly the first time in over 4 weeks that I slept through the night because before he was born I wasn't sleeping all night then either.

Juan, Kerry, and LJ. It was a beautiful, personal wedding

Ryan holding JJ. Ryan is a friend from work and while we've butt heads before he was a huge support for me during my pregnancy and even after. He was so excited for me to be having a baby and helped reassure me when they kept JJ in the hospital for jaundice.

Yep, I cut my hair off. How cliche is that? I was tired of it always being in the way, always feeling ugly, always being in a ponytail. I threatened to shave it. Still thinking about it.

This was the morning Nick and Shar had JJ. He was so happy just hanging out.

So this all took up to about 4 weeks. We set up a consult with Mamie. She came over and honestly, she didn't share any groundbreaking information, but just like with Dr. Alperin, it helps to hear it from someone else sometimes. She gave us a plan and a schedule to work towards. This helped us feel proactive instead of reactive. She helped us set up his room and give us some tips on helping him shut down at night. I feel like almost immediately we went from getting up every 60-90 minutes to getting up maybe twice a night. And this was taking him from going to bed at 10-11 to going to bed at 7. We were now putting him down at 7; getting up about 11 and then again around 2, and for the morning between 6-7 am. That is so much more doable than what it had been. This also gave me structure during the day on how to get him down, how to watch for his sleep signs, swaddling him, etc. Like a champ he was on that schedule amazingly for the next 4 weeks.

Isn't this just exciting? Chris Mann as the Phantom?! I'm seeing it in June.

This is JJ sleeping in his crib. We'd had him with us for the most part during the dark days. I was afraid we'd create a monster so I was super excited when he was sleeping in his crib. He's in a miracle blanket and it is aptly named! For those of us who can't swaddle like Cynthia Robbins this is a life saver. This kid was breaking all of our swaddles but this blanket put that almost to an end.

At the 6 week mark I got the ok to start exercising. We got out a few times for a jog/walk but I find exercising is a hard thing to fit in; especially now that I'm back at work. Someday/some way I'll figure it out again. It's not a lack of desire as a shift in priorities. Most the rest of these are just random pictures. They've probably all been posted on facebook, but I just love them.

That's really all I can think through about mid-October at least. I'll do another post to try and catch up a little farther, but this is all the photos I had ready for the blog at this time. Hey, it's a start!

He's Here!!

Well he is here. Before I go over the whole delivery let's go back to my last post. I'm not really sure what all we did for the past few weeks but I have a few pictures to tell me we were still out and about some.

I made it to my 37 and 38 week appointments. At 37 weeks he didn't even check me because I wasn't really contracting, etc. He said we'd check at 38 weeks. I wanted to kill the doctor. I was so ready to be done. Besides being really uncomfortable I developed insomnia and really bad heartburn. So I was spending a lot of nights on the couch trying to sleep. That makes for a miserable Alissa at work; having a hard time being nice to people.

That weekend after the 36 week appointment we went to a comedy show. We saw Mary Lynn Rajskub; AKA Chloe on the TV show 24. We went with Stephanie and Bart, Teri, Trudi, Scott, Dave and Jane, Jimmy and Lori, and another couple I can't remember their names. It was a lot of fun and something we don't do very often.

We didn't do much more the holiday weekend. John's parents got here from Idaho and I know we probably spent some time either going to see them or them coming to the house, etc.

The following weekend I had a prenatal massage. I splurged and got the 90 minute massage. It was so worth it. I think it was this weekend that we went and watched Guardians of the Galaxy. That was pretty good but not at all what I expected. We also went to dinner (still not sure on my dates) and as we were driving to Cheddars we were driving into this Haboob. 

I know it was Monday the 8th that we had our crazy rain storm down here. This happened

It was a crazy day at work because we had about 16 of 23 people call out. I almost called out but not because of the rain because I had been up all night with heartburn and was exhausted. I was even woken up at about 4 am to the frogs in the neighbors backyard.

Friday was my 38 week appointment. Dr. Alperin checked and said I was dilated to 4 cm and he stripped my membranes. He was hoping I'd go into labor that night because he was on call. He then sent me on my way. Let me tell you, having a 20-30 minute commute after having that done wasn't fun. I was cramping/contracting and very uncomfortable trying to get home in afternoon traffic. This was my proof that I was driving home (apparently with my giant swollen hands)

I've been meaning to put a picture of Dr. Alperin on here for a while. I was referred to him by a friend when I found out I was pregnant and I've really loved having him as my doctor. John and I both felt really comfortable the first time we met with him and I did throughout my pregnancy. As with any service provider I read some great and some not so great reviews but personally he was a great fit for me. He wasn't pushy about things and let me pretty much set the pace for how things were going to go. As I think is normal about 34 or 35 weeks I started to stress about having him be the one to deliver me. I'd really started to like my appointments and used them as milestones of time progressing and I'm sort of going to miss going to those appointments.

Back to Friday and after my doctor's appointment. The doctor said he wanted me to go for a walk and particularly I should try and find stairs. So we went and had some dinner and headed to the mall since it's air conditioned and we thought had stairs (note to self, there are NO stairs in the Chandler mall). So I found my own stairs in Sears. As you can tell by this point I didn't give a crap about my appearance. And now onto my long winded version of the delivery. Stop now if you don't want to read a novel......

I was contracting but not consistently or anything and after about 2 hours I was tired and wanted to go home. By about 10 pm my contractions were about 15 minutes apart consistently. I was up most of the night because it's sort of hard to sleep when you're having contractions like that and I was timing them. By 2 am they were about 5-7 minutes apart. I text Stephanie and my mom and told them I was getting John up to head to the hospital. We got to the hospital about 4 am would be my guess. I went into the triage area where they got me all set up and checked......and I was still at only 4 cm. So they sent us walking for an hour to see if we could progress at all. After an hour still nothing so.....they sent us home. It was a little depressing to have to go home and I was sure it was going to be another 2 weeks before I'd deliver. Now what confused me is they said, if your contractions are 5 min apart come in; so we did. They'd been 5 minutes apart for about an hour when we left the house. Well when they discharged us they said, come in when they are 2 minutes apart for 1-2 hours. Are you kidding me?!

Well so began my day of hell. My contractions never stopped. They slowed down to about 10-13 minutes and kept going ALL DAY LONG. I tried to sleep, tried to shower, tried anything to get them going or stopping because just having contractions every 10 minutes is not fun.

At around 3 pm John packed my stuff and took me to the pool. Hoping this would again make it stop or progress. We swam for about an hour and we were down to about 7 minutes between contractions. We went and had dinner at John's parents house and then headed home. I guess the good in all this is that my parents had headed down here that morning and they were able to make it about 6 pm Saturday night. So we came home, contractions about 7 minutes apart, going on almost 24 hours of consistent contractions. By 9 pm I was even more miserable than I knew I could be. I just wanted it to start or stop. I couldn't imagine trying to get through another full night of what the day had been. We called the triage line and their only suggestion was nipple stimulation. Seriously. Well, that wasn't happening. Even though it was hot outside we went for a walk about 9pm. I actually felt like the contractions were subsiding at that time so we headed to bed.

I never made it to sleep; the contractions started picking up and by about 11 pm they were averaging 2 minutes apart for about 45 minutes. I had one contraction so painful I jumped out of bed faster than I've moved this past 9 months. I am surprised I didn't scream bloody murder with that one. By this time John decided we were headed back to the hospital. So we got all into triage and they checked and I was dilated to 6 cm! So at 1 am Sunday morning they said they were keeping me and we were having this baby. They were really quick in getting me into labor and delivery from there so that they could give me the epidural; I don't know why the rush at this time but it seemed like they were hurrying for one reason or another.

As I'm sure most people are; I was really nervous about the epidural. However, the doctor came into to give it to me and he was very good about telling me exactly what to expect and how long it would last. Like, the lidocaine shot...burns for 5 seconds and it went exactly as he said it would. John said that you could tell almost immediately when that epidural was in and the instant relief it gave me because I started joking again. About this time all the parents showed up at the hospital. I'm not sure how long they hung out but around 3 am they checked me again and I was at a 7 I think and they kicked everyone out for 2 hours so I could try and sleep.

I might have slept a little but thanks to the amazing epidural I wasn't feeling the contractions anymore so I didn't care. The epidural is a funny thing because I felt like my feet were cold but really they were burning hot. My right leg was 100% dead but my left wasn't. Every 2 hours they would come in and roll me (which helps keep the epidural numbness even...we found this out when I started to feel labor pains on my left side) and do a catheter, etc. It seemed that I was going about 1 cm every 2 hours. They said the epidural didn't slow the labor down because I continued to progress but it sure seemed that it slowed it down some. They also kept telling me Dr. Alperin was coming in to deliver me and then he wasn't and then he was and then he wasn't. I didn't really care anymore because I had an epidural that took all the pain away. My honest thought is if I'd been ready to push around 8-10am he would have come in because it seems he is there about that time everyday anyways, but we weren't ready at that time so it was Dr. Damore who eventually delivered the baby.

The labor and delivery room. Notice the clock on the wall... more to come on that.

Every 2 hours when they would check me everyone would take a walk and apparently get themselves locked out of the hospital.

So at about 11:30 my delivery nurse, Tammy said that we were going to start pushing. At this point, they'd told me only 2-3 people in the room because there would be those people, plus Tammy, plus the doctor, plus the doctor's nurse and it just gets too crazy with all those people. So my plan had always been to have John and Stephanie in there thinking that my mom would never make it in time for the actual delivery, but since we were going on 36 hours at this point she was there so that made up my 3 people.

The actual delivery was very surreal to me. Remember in the picture above of the delivery room... well that clock was on the wall that I stared at through the whole delivery. Everyone else was facing the OTHER wall. So they had no idea of what time or how long things were taking while I had a front row seat to every stinking minute of the 2 1/2 hours of pushing. I don't know what constitutes 'the time of a person's labor' but from when my contractions started consistently to when JJ was born was 40 hours. It was a long damn time.

But back to the pushing. I don't know that I agree with them when they say that it gets too crazy with more than 2-3 people in the room because it never 'got crazy'. It was exactly perfect though I think because everyone served a purpose. It was very unlike the movies. I would stare at the clock (Tammy had said she figured the pushing would be 2 hours so I was using that as a measure of time a lot) and everyone else would stare at the monitor waiting for the next contraction so I could push. In between we would sometimes talk and sometimes not. Sometimes it was only 1-2 minutes in between and sometimes it was a little longer. For some reason I spiked a fever during all this. So I was laying there shaking so bad Stephanie was holding me down to make sure I wasn't bouncing off the bed. It's those little things that have stuck with me on the delivery. It was her holding me down and telling me to breath that helped me calm my breathing. It was Tammy's counting during the pushing that kept me focused. It was John ripping the blood pressure cuff off my arm when it was turning purple, and my mom's encouraging words that I was doing a good job that kept me grounded. I'll spare any gory details but eventually the doctor showed up and shortly after John James Risch was born; at 1:58 pm on September 14, 2014.

The hospital does an hour of bonding time after the birth for skin to skin with mom and baby. Well... I feel a little gypped on that. I barely held him and they took him away. He wasn't pinking up the way they wanted. I will give credit that apparently the cord was partially around his neck and I never knew it because they never let it show if there was any concern, etc. on the part of the staff. They took him over and did what they needed to do and I was pretty oblivious to the whole thing. Although, if I'd been thinking I would have remembered in the hospital tour that they said they call the 'nursery' if it's something that needs to be looked at and requires more than they have in the room and I knew they had called the nursery. When they finally gave him back to me, we'd kicked my mom and Stephanie out so we could have our quiet time; just John and I. Honestly I wanted that skin to skin time but I had been sitting there watching it all and John hadn't even had a chance to hold the baby and I really wanted him to make that connection as well. So by the time it was said and done John and I probably got only 20 minutes of alone time.

John James Risch 5 lbs 11 oz.

Then we just had to be moved to recovery. We actually ran into Dr. Alperin on our way up to recovery and he stopped to talk to us and see how things were going. From Sunday evening to Wednesday is really a blur. There is so much going on all the time from people checking you to checking the baby. They're taking him for a bath, they're checking his hearing, they're checking vitals, they're cleaning the room, they're restocking all my supplies, they're having me fill out paperwork, they're doing circumcision, they're lactation specialists to see how feeding is going, etc. Sometimes it was like an endless parade of people which got a little annoying when you're trying to rest.

Dr. Alperin would have let us go Monday but he highly recommended staying another day to get the benefit of the lactation specialists, etc. So we did and it was probably a good thing because they had so many of those people mentioned above constantly coming and going I don't know how they would have gotten them all in and still discharged us.

Then came the bad news. The last test they had to complete the pediatrician didn't like the results and they were going to keep him and discharge me. The hospital was very nice about moving us to a 'nesting' room. Basically we got to stay there and they would bring him to us every 3 hours but otherwise he was in the nursery under the UV lights. I knew he was going to be okay and everything but the last thing a mom wants to hear after having gone through all of that is that you can't take your baby home. So John and I prepared to spend another night at the hospital.

The next morning we went up to the nursery and the nurse said the new test results had come back a lot better and she thought the doctor would let us take him. So we were very happy when the doctor called us shortly after that and said exactly that; we were going home. We did have to follow up with the pediatrician the next day on the jaundice and there was concern on his weight. When we left the hospital he'd dropped to 5 lbs 4 oz.

So there we are. We're now trying to settle into our new normal. It's been really nice having my mom here to help and I'm not sure what I'm going to do when she leaves; both because she helps with the night feedings and also to keep me sane being home 'alone'. There's also been a lot of help from John's mom with dinners, and Shar, and some people from the ward which is much appreciated. We'll see how I'm faring in 4-6 weeks.