Aribella Brielle Friend

My oh my do I have a LOT of catching up to do!

  On Tuesday July 5th I went in at 12:00pm to get induced. They used a form of hormons to induce me. When they started I was barely 1 cm. I began getting very regular contractions, uncomfortable but nothing compared to actually labor.
  They continued all afternoon, and got to the point where I was having one every minute. The nurse came and and said that " They weren't comfortable with how close the contractions were."so they took out the hormons. The nurse told me that the contactions should stop within 15 min.
 Fast forward a couple hours. The contractions were still going on, and getting stronger. The Midwife came in to check me. I was now 2cm. ( hah, some progress right? ) To help get me dilated they put in something called a fully balloon, and told me to get some rest, and it should fall out in about 5-6 hours, at which point I would be 4cm.

   I got what little rest I could, and just an hour later the balloon fell out, and my water broke.
Quickly they moved me to the birthing room, and from then on the contractions got worse, and WORSE.
 All through the night I continued to have contractions, about every 2-3min lasting about 1min a piece.
I tried different techniques to manage the pain, massage, the birthing ball, and walking. Josh and my Mom were in the room with me, helping me when I needed it.
 At about 7:00am they told me that I could finally get into the tub. The bathtub wasn't big, but it did have jets. Ahhh..finally a tiny bit of relief. I was in the tub for about an hour when I started feeling the urge to push. That was a scary feeling.
  I got into the bed and pushed, pushed, and puuuushed! For 2 hours I worked as hard as I possibly could. For 1hr 30min her head was visible but she would not come. Finally they realized that she was tangled pretty tightly in the cord. Her heart rate started to drop as the cord pulled around her neck. The Midwife had to do and emergency episiotomy, and then, Aribella Brielle Friend was born! Weighing 6lb 15 ounces, and 19 and 3/4 inches long. :)
  After she was born i had a very difficult time delivering the placenta( it took about an hour and a half). Finally when everything was finished, exhausted beyond belief I got to hold my daughter and just relax.


 Sounds like that would be a good ending right? If only that were the case.

 The evening before we were going to be discharged a nurse took Aribella to get some routine tests done. She said they would be back shortly. A couple hours later they came back with a list of things that they found wrong with our daughter. She was dehydrated, a little jaundice, and anemic.
 After more tests they decided that she needed to be transfered over to ruby to have more in depth tests done. The next week was a blur. Doctors naming off issue after issue that she might have, yet still there was no diagnosis. After many more tests they found out that she had major problems with pulmonary hypertension, and that she had a very rare type of hemitruncus, so she would need to have open heart surgery. The next two months consisted of a LOT of waiting, praying. There were days where everything would be okay, and then days where things wouldn't be so great. At one point they thought she might need a stomach surgery as well, but that came back negative. Right when things were looking good, and it seemed like she'd be able to come home, they found out that she is going to need another heart surgery. They weren't sure when they were going to do the next surgery and Bella began to pick up her feeds, so they decided that they would send her home for an undecided amount of time to let her get stronger.

  So, she's been home for about three weeks and is thriving. She weighs 9lb 9ounces, and is growing at a wonderful rate, the doctors said that as long as she keeps it up they want to wait as long as possible before doing the next surgery.

   We are praying for a miracle, and that our little girl wont have to endure anymore surgeries. Whatever happens we know God is with us, and holding our precious baby is his hands.

Faith

Two weeks later, still no baby. :( I guess this is where faith comes into play. I have a check up today where they will monitor her progress. I don't know why she's taking so long, but I plan to wait at least though the weekend before thinking about forms of inducement, as long as everything still looks okay.

It's a crazy life.

 I've pretty much come to the conclusion that I am not a natural blogger. For some reason whenever I think about sitting down to write, something always distracts me, or I simply can't think of anything to write about. I think it's because I want my blog to be ammmazing and full of exciting stories. But who am I kidding? That's not real life, at least not all of the time.

 Annnyways, despite the lack of recent updates a lot has been going on. I finally finished the nursery, and I cleaned/organized most of the house.
   When I first quit working it was rather hard for me to stay home. I found myself looking for any and every excuse to go " do something fun"simply because I thought there was nothing to be done around the house. Recently I realized that though at the time, it seemed like a good idea, it was in fact a terrible one. I would come home to an empty refrigerator, and overflowing clothes hampers. Over the past few weeks i've noticed that when I stay home, (for at least a couple days a week) I feel so much better. Josh, is happier, I'm happier, and our house looks great! Now I simply laugh when people say "being a stay at home wife/mother is no work at all."

 The past couple of weeks that I have been to yard sales I have found an abundance of items from my list, and all without paying anywhere close  to retail price. Last weekend Josh and I bought a brand new lawn mower, while only paying 1/3 of the orignal price.

  On Tuesday morning I started to have some uncomfortable pains in my stomach. They continued all throughout the day, slowly getting worse. However, they weren't painful enough to be real labor pains.
  I went to my Doctors apt. later that day to get a check up. The midwife checked me and said that I wasn't dilated, however the baby's head was very low, so it probably would be too much longer before she'd be born. So false alarm, no baby yet. My due date is tomorrow, but I don't feel like she'll be here by then. I think i'm to the point where it seems like she's no where close to being born, and she's just making herself comfortable in her warm home.
 

 Well, I'll hopefully be back soon with the exciting news of Aribella's arrival!

 

God is SO good.

Time has really been flying by the past couple weeks.

This week was my last week of work, it was quite bitter-sweet. 

  Next week Josh finishes up his finals and then will be working full time.

  I'm excited about the up and coming changes, our life is going to COMPLETELY change.

So this morning I sat down with a nice cup of tea, and decided to check my e-mail

before Mom came to get me in 30 min ( we were going to some yard sales ).

 Well, as i reached for my cup i managed to spill it ALL OVER my brand new macbook!

The screen turned black, I hurriedly set the computer on it's side to get off the tea.

OH my goodness, i was devastated! I hadn't even had my computer for a month,
 and I managed to ruin it in a matter of 2 seconds! Josh tried to console me, but I was just plain angry at myself for being so "dumb".

 Well, pretty soon Mom was at my front door. I didn't want to go anywhere, I was a complete emotional mess. I felt like I should go anyways so I climbed up the stairs and got ready. 

  On the way to the sale I was trying to relax and just forget about that morning. 

  We were going to the sale because Mom had read that they had nursery furniture,
 and she wanted to get me something. Once we were there I felt as if I had stumbled into a thrift store treasure chest!

 Here is a list of all the goodies we found today:

Vintage blue dresser with brass knobs: $10

Rocking chair with matching stool: $15 

White wooden crib: $40

Stroller car seat combo with two seat attachments : $25

Bumo style baby chair : $2

Blue porcelain vintage lamp: $2

White wooden bench/with open seat storage: $15

And yes, we bought it ALL! 

 My aunt bought me the rocking chair as a gift, I bought the wooden bench, and my

wonderful Mother bought me the rest. 

  I couldn't believe it we practically outfitted my whole nursery for under $110.00!

Once I got to work my manager also had a gift for me...It was an old wooden bassinet type bed with rockers that she wasn't using anymore. So now I have something to put Aribella when she first comes home!

Just when I thought my day couldn't get much better, I found out that my computer isn't broken and it works perfectly( other than the slightly sticky keys )! 

So yeah, God IS SO GOOD!!!! :D

A little something they call "Life"

 Last week Josh and I decided to look through all the old letters that we had written each other over the past six years. It seemed like an easy enough task. ( in my mind at least )

  I pulled out my nice leather box that i kept my letters in, all of which were neatly organized by date.
Then we got out his "box", an old cardboard box that had a pile of mix-matched letter in it.
 We spent the next 30 min or so trying to get all of his letters organized, It was a lot of fun.
   Over the past few days we have been taking turns reading. I'll read a letter that I wrote him, and he'll read the reply that he sent me. It's really neat to read the letters that we wrote for the other person, because we understand a lot about those letters that the other person might not have ever understood.

 On a more unpleasant note:
Last week I purchased a decorative light cover online for $10.00.
I paid through my pay pal account. Well, Paypal charged my old account
instead of the new one that I put in. My old account only had $6.00 in it.
Long story short, I payed the fee, the bank said they would then close my account.
I thought that my worries were over, hah, boy was I wrong. A couple days later
I recived a letter saying I now owe them $37.00 for another fee! It's all just one big
confusing mess.
  The lesson that I learned from all this : When you get married, and change bank accounts,
just close your other one right away, don't procrastinate or you'll end up paying $60.00 for something that was only $10.00.

A new Beginning

  Lately I've been really anxious to get to work on Bella's nursery.
I will be 32 weeks this Saturday, I can't believe how fast time has gone.
It seems like just yesterday that I was anxious to work on plans for my Wedding.
And now I've been married over 10 months!
  Bella's due date is June 21st, which is just a little over a week from Josh's and my 1 year anniversary.

 I'm looking forward to the many changes that are soon to come.