Celebrating!!!

Today is a good day.  I decided to try on a pair of my pre-pregnancy jeans to torture myself with how many inches I have to lose (I know Paxton is only 2 weeks old so this was a long shot), but I was actually able to get them on and done up!  They weren't 100% comfortable so I know I do have to lose some before I can actually wear them, but it was an awesome feeling!!!

And, since I was feeling so great, I decided to try on my wedding ring again.  I haven't been able to wear it since July 1st due to a combination of swelling and weight gain which is sad because I really, really love my ring.  I got my ring on with a little elbow grease, but I figured I should take it off while I still could.  However, again this is a step in the right direction since I couldn't even get it past my knuckle a month ago!

Yay me!

Likes & Dislikes

First off, I would like to say that after experiencing pregnancy and childbirth I have a new appreciation for just how amazing the human body is (especially the female body).  It's mindboggling that such a perfect little person can be created without any conscious direction and that the body knows how to deliver that baby even if you don't have a doctor or midwife there to tell you what to do!

But I digress.  Since Paxton arrived 2 weeks ago, I've been thinking a lot about what I miss about being pregnant and what I like about not being pregnant anymore.  So here is my list.

Fist off let's do what I miss (because me whining is always more fun!):

1. Being "just pregnant."  I'll explain this one.  Before I got pregnant, I was overweight.  However, as soon as I got pregnant, I went from being overweight to being "just pregnant."  I pretty much got to eat whatever I wanted for the whole thing without worrying about what it was since I was fairly lucky and only gained about 45 lbs through my entire pregnancy (apparently Paxton has the metabolism of a teenage boy already).   But now I'm not pregnant anymore so I'm back to being overweight which really is no fun especially since it's Christmas and all of my favorite fattening foods are everywhere!  This brings us to my next point.

2. My pregnant belly.  Don't get me wrong, I love being able to see my feet again without bending over and being able to shave my legs on a regular basis, however I'm not a huge fan of what has been left behind.  I enjoyed having my big belly and "rock hard abs" that I could rest a bowl of whatever snack I'd found on.  But now I have to deal with every woman's nightmare ... the pooch.  Or as I call it, the "Dun-lop," because it dun-lops over my pants!  I did think it was pretty neat how small all of my stretch marks were the morning after Paxton was delivered, but once I moved from my super fashionable hospital gown into pajama pants, I discovered this new fabulous tummy of mine.  I would like to return it and am even willing to take back my pre-pregnancy one (which was not so fabulous but was better)!  Oh well.  I suppose I'll just have to exercise and watch what I eat like everyone else I know since I can't afford to have a plastic surgeon fix me.  Boo-urns.  But on the bright side, I can procrastinate a little using the "I just had a baby" excuse and getting rid of the dun-lop can be my New Year's goal!

3. People listening to me.  While I was pregnant it was all about me and people paid attention to pretty much everything I did which included what I was saying.  But, I have discovered that when Paxton is around, people now tend to tune me out even when I am answering a question that they asked!  I was expecting that once Paxton was born that it would be all about him, however it is definitely worse than I had imagined.  I find myself not finishing sentences a lot now because I realize halfway through that no one is listening to me because they are cooing at my baby instead.  This is not necessarily a bad thing because I know his cuteness is pretty distracting, but why would you ask the question if you don't care what the answer is?  Maybe they're just trying to distract me by asking questions so I don't feel left out now that it's all about Paxton ... (DISCLAIMER: This is not applicable to all people, but it is applicable to quite a few.)

4. Feeling Paxton move.  This was one of my favorite things about being pregnant.  Towards the end it was sometimes a little uncomfortable since things were getting so crowded in there, but I miss feeling him rolling, stretching, and jabbing me from the inside.  It was kind of our thing to do together. 

5. Being able to just run out quickly.  I used to be able to shower, get dressed and do my hair and make-up all in a half hour.  But now I have to make sure that I'm ready as well as Paxton (we'd never get anywhere if I let him get ready by himself!).  And if we're going somewhere for dinner I have to make sure that Jay's ready as well.  This is due to the fact that when we first got together I quickly realized that Jay could not be trusted to pick out his own clothes (most of the time he was ok, but every so often he'd throw me a curveball.  Maybe he was testing me ... hmmm).  And then once we're all dressed and groomed, I have to make sure that I have everything that used to occupy my purse (or the "black hole" as Jay christened it) is in the diaper bag as well as making sure that the diaper bag is fully stocked!  Everyone tells me this will get easier so I'll keep you posted.

6. Not crying for no apparent reason.  I had the most uneventful pregnancy in the history of man (this could be true, but it's probably an exaggeration).  I didn't have morning sickness, mood swings, ridiculous cravings, or really any of the "classic" symptoms we all know and love thanks to tv and movies.  I only cried while watching tv once and that was because we were watching a "Dogtown" episode about the Michael Vick pitbulls.  It was really sad and I probably would have cried even if I hadn't been pregnant at the time!  Now that I'm not pregnant, however I cry a lot.  It's not "baby blues" or anything.  I just seem to tear up a lot more than normal when I think about stuff involving Paxton and how much we love him.  Maybe that's just a part of being a Mom that I'll have to get used to.

And now moving on to what I like about not being pregnant:

1. Not having to pee every half hour to hour!  I think this is self-explanatory.

2. Being able to sleep for more than 1 to 2 hours at a time at night.  Paxton currently sleeps for about 3 hours at a time during the night.  Sometimes he'll even go for 4 hours!  Everyone tells me that this will change as he gets older so I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

3. Not having to worry about going into labor while at my parents' house for Christmas.  My worst fear was that my water would break while we were opening presents out in Raymond so I'm glad that one is behind us.

4. Being able to see below my boobs.  My belly got so huge that not only could I not see my feet anymore, but I also couldn't see our dogs if they were right in front of me.  This was a problem since they like to be right beside us most of the time.  I'm also enjoying being able to maneuver more easily between things like chairs and tables since I'm a little skinnier.

5. People don't give me dirty looks when I get up on a chair or lift something over 10 lbs.  I am quite independent so it was hard for me to ask Jay and others for help while I was pregnant.  It was also really annoying for me when I did ask for help (usually from Jay since he lives with me) because when I ask for something to be done I usually want it done asap since that's when I would do it myself.  So when my wonderful husband says, "Yes I'll do it" and then proceeds to do something else (with intentions of getting around to whatever I asked about later on) I get really frustrated and just end up doing it myself.  (This will probably be an ongoing problem that isn't solved by the end of pregnancy.  But it makes it easier for me to attempt to do everything myself now that Paxton is here.)  So now I can climb on chairs to reach high cupboards, lift bags of dog food, etc without people getting mad at me!

And the best for last:

6. Cuddling with my little man!  I know I said before that I miss being able to feel Paxton moving on the inside, but it's so wonderful to be able to hold my little snuggler in my arms!  I'm enjoying the cuddly phase where he just curls up over my chest and sleeps.  I try not to hold him too much while he's sleeping since I want him to sleep in his crib at night, but I do indulge every so often!

I am so glad that Paxton arrived safely and that he is healthy.  When people asked me if I wanted a girl or boy, I replied "I don't really care as long as it's healthy and has all of its parts where they are supposed to be."  That really was all I cared about, and we are so blessed that Paxton is healthy and happy (at least I think he's happy.  He sleeps a lot so it's kind of hard to tell.).  I'm also extremely happy that Jay has taken to being a Dad so easily.  He is such a proud Daddy.  All he wants to do is show off his son and he just beams when he gets to.  It makes me melt whenever Jay holds Paxton whether he's feeding him or just hanging out with him.  Now we just have to work on the diaper changing ...

Life may not be perfect, but it's good!

Paxton and Jay

We had Christmas dinner at Grandpa Chicken and Grandma Roseanne's on the 12th.  Paxton got to meet more family!

Great Grandma Rose's first hold

Auntie Mandy's first hold (she gave in because he's so cute!)

4 generations of Christensens

Joyce's first hold

Paxton was actually awake for quite a while (during dinner of course!)

And a few more cute ones for good measure

Sorry Paxton, but you're destined to snore like Mom!

So wrinkley!

Paxton is here!

It's been a while since I've blogged, but I definitely have some news to report.  Our bouncing baby boy decided to make an earlier than anticipated arrival into this world on Wednesday, December 2nd!  So here are the details of how it went down ...

It had been a pretty uneventful Tuesday as I'd been chillaxin' on the couch for most of the day reading up on labour and delivery in my "What to Expect When You're Expecting" book since our computer was still in the shop and I hadn't been getting my weekly emails from their site (holy run-on sentence Batman).  I unbeached my whale-like self to use the bathroom, grabbed a snack and then headed back to the couch around 3:30 pm.  However, upon my descent to the cushions I felt a sudden gush from you know where (fear not those who have sat on my couch since this happened, I didn't actually sit down so there was no contamination).  I quickly deduced that my water had broken since I had just returned from the bathroom.  So I calmly walked back to the kitchen and proceeded to phone my Mom.  I informed her that I was fairly certain the baby was going to be here earlier than expected and when she asked why I replied, "I'm pretty sure my water just broke."  Kudos to Mom for being calm, cool and collected at this point.  She advised me to phone my OB to see if I should go to the hospital and then phone her back.  So I did, and then phoned her back to report that the receptionist instructed me to go to the hospital to get assessed.  We then decided that Mom would drive in to Lethbridge to pick up all of the baby clothes and take them home to wash as we were planning to do this on Thursday but obviously this was not going to work out now.  I then went to pack my hospital bag all the while trying to remain calm myself as I attempted to wrap my head around the fact that I was most likely going to have a baby by this time tomorrow.  Once my bag was packed, I decided that I should probably phone Jay to let him know what was going on.  I could tell that he was slightly confused about the urgency of the situation because I told him that it was up to him whether he came home right then (about 4: 30 pm) or stayed for an extra 1/2 hour or so to finish his shift .  He decided to leave right away.  Shortly thereafter, Mom arrived and we made a list of stuff that I would need asap that hadn't been picked up (ie diapers, vaseline, pads, etc).  Once Jay got home, Mom headed to Wal-Mart for the aforementioned items.  Jay's confusion was then compounded by the fact that I was still very calm as I told him he should probably have something to eat since I didn't know how long this was going to take.  When Mom got back to our house she and Jay loaded the baby clothes into her truck and then Jay and I headed off to the hospital.

Last belly picture just before we left for the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital about 6:30 pm and I checked in while Jay parked the car.  Once we arrived at the delivery suite, the nurses hooked me up to the fetal monitor and contraction monitor.  They determined that I was having contractions even though I couldn't feel them and after checking that I was only 1 cm dilated, so they sent us home at 7:45 pm with instructions to be back at the hospital by 6:45 am if my contractions didn't send us back earlier.  So we grabbed some Wendy's on the way home and started the waiting game.  However, by 9:45 I was pacing the upstairs hallway since I couldn't sit or lay down and my contractions were about 5 minutes apart.  I was also having back labor, so I got to feel each contractions twice: once across my lower back and then across my abdomen about 2 seconds later.  Not fun.  So we headed back to the hospital and when we arrived at about 10:30 pm my contractions were about 2 minutes apart.  One of the ER nurses pretty much ran me up the delivery suite in a wheelchair while Jay was left behind to re-admit me.  Once upstairs, I was hooked up to the monitors again while waiting to be checked again.  A word of advice to anyone planning to have children: DO NOT eat a hamburger during labor.  I ended up puking all over myself because of the contractions.  Not a pleasant experience normally, but I'm pretty sure being in labor made it worse.  After we got me cleaned up and into a new gown (which is definitely one of my least favorite things to wear by the way) the nurse checked me and informed me that it was time to move into a delivery room.  We are now entering the part of this adventure where I stopped caring what time it was and pretty much just concentrated on how much pain I was in.  But fear not, "Funny" Alisha that we all know and love still made an appearance by trying to crack jokes between contractions.  Jay thinks it was great but I think it's slightly embarassing.  Because of the back labor, the nurse suggested that I get in the shower so that hopefully the warm water would help with the pain.  It didn't, but I stayed in there for a while until the nurse then informed me that I should get out of the shower so they could check me again.  She also offered me morphine.  I had decided going into this thing that I would try to do it natrually, but that I would ask for drugs if I couldn't hack it, so I immediately agreed to her offer.  She then hooked me up to an IV, which of course took 2 tries since I have the worst veins on the planet I'm pretty sure, and then she checked my dilation again.  I had now progressed to 8 cm and she told me that I had been 7 cm when we had arrived for the second time (so no epidural for me).  We told Jay to go get the camera since delivery should be happening soon and while he was gone we tried the hands and knees position to see if that would help me finish dilating (Jay was very confused when he came back as to why I was doing this).  I'm going to guess about 5 minutes later I was starting to feel "pushy" as the nurse called it.  I think that this was almost as bad as the contractions since I knew that I couldn't push yet, but my body had other ideas.  The nurse kept telling me just to breath through the contractions and not push to which I replied "I'm not!  It's my body doing it!"  About this time the attending and resident doctors decided to check in with us and check me again.  Finally I'd made it to the magical land of 10 cm and was allowed to push.  However, in the land of 10 cm, I discovered that I can reach octaves that may shatter glass because I was screaming from the pain.  I don't think the morphine was working.  Jay was frightened, but "Funny" Alisha came back after a few screams and announced, "I'm the person that scares all the other women in labour.  I'm the one that they tell their family and friends about 'There was this woman screaming down the hallway ..."  Ya, embarassing.  But after pushing for about half an hour (I'm timing this from about 9 cm) the nurse announced that this little person had quite a bit of hair (yay for crowning!).  About 5 or 10 minutes later I felt the worst pain ever and decided that I wasn't going to be pushing anymore.  However, this coincided with when his head was coming out so they didn't really want me to push anyway so it all kind of worked out.  Then a couple of pushes later the baby was born which was the greatest feeling of relief I've ever had!  At least it was until he started crying and then I was even more relieved.  The nurses announced "It's a boy!" (which we already knew, but it was good to have it confirmed) and then took him to clean him up, weigh him, etc.  He was born at 12:51 am, weighed 7 lbs 11 oz and measured 21.6 inches long.  Once that was done, I got to hold our new little man for the first time.  It was so wonderful to finally meet the little person who'd been sharing my body for the last 9 months and so amazing how much I already loved him at that moment.  We'd already decided on Paxton John Scott Christensen for his name so Jay and I confirmed that he looked like a Paxton.  I was so proud of Jay as well since he was such a great coach during the whole event.  He had a huge smile on his face and scooped Paxton out of my arms like he'd held a million babies before (I'm pretty sure Paxton was the first one he's held) when the nurse announced they were going to deliver the placenta.  After that and some stitches, the nurse had me feed Paxton and then we headed across to the maternity ward.

Mom's First Hold

Paxton John Scott Christensen

Once we were settled in the room it was about 3 am so Jay headed home to be with the dogs and I tried to get some sleep.  However, this was nearly impossible since the nurses had tokeep coming in and out of the room.  First they had to give Paxton a bath.  Then they had to come in to check his vitals every hour for the first 6 hours and me every 2 hours.  Add to that the fact that I didn't have a private room, so they were doing the same thing for the woman and baby "next door" and that I was a little wound up from the past 9 1/2 hours and that equals almost no sleep.  So I started making phone calls to family and friends around 7 am to pass the time until Jay arrived to visit us around noon.  Poor Jay, he was soooo tired because he'd stopped at his Dad's house on the way home and didn't get back to our place until between 5 and 5:30 am.  He got a little sleep, but people started phoning him after a few hours.  However, he was the only visitor I was allowed to have because the Maternity Ward had been closed to everyone else due to the Swine Flu epidemic.  Boo-urns to that.  Hospitals are very boring when you are there all by yourself!  The rest of the day was pretty boring, consisting mostly of feeding and changing Paxton and watching him sleep.  The people next door got to go home that evening since this was their 3rd baby, but we had to stay overnight.  It's a good thing the other people left because Paxton was none too happy that night and cried for almost 2 hours straight!

Tired Daddy

Gassy smile

Thursday morning eventually arrived and I was informed by the nurse that they had discharge papers for me but were waiting for Paxton's.  This was at about 8:30 am so I phoned Jay to let him know.  We figured we'd be out of the hospital within a few hours so he hurried to run some errands and then came to the hospital.  And then we proceeded to wait and wait and wait and wait (you get the picture).  The reason for all this waiting was that I had procrastinated getting a new family doctor so we were waiting for the same woman I'd been seeing before she referred me to an OB for the last trimester (see my previous post in October called "Ranting" if you are unaware of how horrible this doctor is).  Once we knew which doctor we were waiting for we started to get upset because we were fairly certain we weren't going to ever get out of the hospital.  So around noon Jay schmoozed one of the nurses into calling the doctor's office after which she reported that she'd spoken with the doctor's secretary and was informed that she was on her lunch break.  However the nurse had left specific instructions to not let the doctor do anything else but call the hospital once she returned.  An hour later we still hadn't heard anything so we started discussing signing ourselves out of the hospital.  (You can actually do this.  You just have to sign a form stating that the doctor hasn't signed off on it and that you won't hold the hospital liable if anything happens.)  So we had one of the nurses go over all the "checking out" info with us (how to prevent SIDS, breast feeding info, etc) and check out our car seat.  Poor Jay had to then remove the car seat cover he'd previously spent 20 minutes installing because it goes between the baby and the car seat which can apparently cause the baby to fall out of the car seat if there's an accident because the straps aren't tight enough.  Really?  The thing is like 2 mm thick.  How loose can the straps actually be?  Whatever.  At this point the super helpful nurse who phoned the doctor returned to inform us that she had actually spoken with the doctor (see, miracles do happen).  Apparently the doctor had started into her about "How dare you tell me what to do?  I have patients to see, blah blah blah."  So the nurse gave it back to her something like, "These people have been waiting all morning and now into the afternoon for you to show up so that they can take their baby home!"  She informed us that the doctor had said she would come by after her appointments were finished for the day.  That was the final straw.  Jay and I informed the nurses that we would be signing ourselves out as we didn't want to wait for 4 or 5 or who knew how many more hours.  We then phoned my Mom and Dad to come meet us at the hospital since they had all the baby clothes with them.  Jay met them downstairs and returned with clothes, so we dressed him, bundled him into the car seat (it was about -10 outside so it was a good thing we had extra receiving blankets as we couldn't use the car seat cover!), signed the form and headed down to the atrium where Mom, Dad and Auntie Kinsey were all impatiently waiting to meet Paxton.  We all then headed to our house.  Mom, Dad and Kinsey stayed for about a half hour and then had to head home.  Jay's Mom came by a short while later for a small visit and then headed out as well.  And then we were alone with our new baby.  Mo and Maggie were very curious about the noisy new bundle we'd brought them but both were very gentle when they sniffed him.

We were both really tired so we hit the hay pretty early.  Mom and Dad came by the next day (Friday) to help us finish setting up the nursery.  We also made a trip over to Jay's Mom's house so Dave and Great Grandpa Ben could meet Paxton.  Then on Saturday, Jay's Dad and Roseanne stopped by to meet their grandson.  Jay's Dad was just slightly excited to meet Paxton.  I think he was actually vibrating. 

We are so blessed to have so much family and great friends here to help us out.  So far I think we're adapting fairly well to being parents.  I'll keep you posted.

Grandpa Dooley's first hold

Auntie Kizzy's first hold

Grammie S's first hold

 Grandma Daryl's first hold

Maggie and Mo checking out the new arrival

Safe in the playpen from the dogs

Chillin' with Mom

Great Grandpa Ben's first hold

Matching hospital bracelets

All tuckered out

Grandma Roseanne's first hold

Grandpa Chicken's first hold

Our little family