Meet The Martinez Family

For some reason beyond my comprehension, I always get sick on Christmas. This year was no exception. As we gathered 'round the table at Grandpa's house on Christmas Eve I felt the impending doom of a cold closing in on me- starting with my throat. My illness did manage to put a bit of a damper on my holiday but did not entirely destroy my festivities.

Christmas morning began with opening presents at my house. Art surprised me with a gorgeous opal ring to match the opal necklace he bought me for our anniversary. I am sure he spent way more than I wanted him to, but somehow I couldn't bring myself to refuse his generous gift. As per my request, he bought me Microsoft Office for my computer since the bootleg version he previously installed on my computer was not registered and ran out of unregistered uses. He bought me System Mechanic for my computer too. I got an "IOU" for a book he ordered from Barnes and Noble that did not come in yet and a Christmas music CD. I gave him a T-shirt from the baby that says "This is what a really cool dad looks like." I also gave him a black Adidas hoodie just like he wanted, Season 1 of The History Channel- The Universe, and the 2009 Hubble Space Telescope calendar to coordinate with the space theme.

This is the ring Art gave me.

After we opened presents at our house, we headed over to my mom's house for breakfast burritos. My Uncle Mark came to spend Christmas with my family which was a pleasant surprise. We opened presents at my mom's house, then stopped by Art's parents' house to open presents there, then returned to my mom's house for a delicious dinner of homemade enchiladas and tostadas. It was heavenly. The baby was good all day, as usual, and I managed to make it through the day despite my party-crasher cold. Regretfully, I didn't get any pictures of us actually bathed and dressed because I didn't feel well enough to get off my butt and use the camera, but we do have some video footage as evidence that we weren't in our pajamas the entire day.

I can't let this Christmas pass without describing Art's lack of present-wrapping talent. I came home from grocery shopping a few days before Christmas and he was finishing up a couple presents for me. He was sitting on the floor carefully cutting a square of wrapping paper to cover each end and taping them to the package all the way around. He wraps every present differently but his most popular method of coverage is to wrap one sheet around the middle with the ends open then tape squares to the side. Despite the randomness of his wrapping style, the one thing all the gifts have in common is that they all look like they were wrapped by a kindergartener. He says it makes them "cute" but I think she should stick to bags and tissue paper.

On Saturday we went to a get together at Art's uncle's house. It was Keira's first time meeting The Martinez Family. She got to meet her Great Grandma Erminea Preciado, or "Nana" as the family calls her, who is said to have been born under a tree in Turlock. She is also estimated to be in her 90s and she is a live wire! It was a lot of fun visiting with her, Art's Aunts Angel, Nancy, Lucy, his Uncles Henry and Miguel, and a few cousins. They all LOVED the baby, of course. Keira now knows where her daddy gets his silliness and where she got her dark complexion.

I only have 2 more weeks before I go back to work so I am concentrating on getting Keira on a better schedule. She is already on a very regular schedule but it involves staying up much later at night than I can deal with if I have to get up and go to work in the morning. The earliest I can usually get her to sleep is 1 am- if I'm lucky, but it's usually closer to 3 am. THEN she sleeps for 6-8 hours, eats, and goes right back to sleep for several hours. She eats again at 6 pm, then between 10 and 11 pm she is wide awake and smiling, has her nighttime bottle, then wants to be awake for several hours. In order for me to be at work on time, she has to get up and eat at 6 am so I figured that's as good a place as any to start adjusting her routine. I am also waking her up during her 8 am to 3 pm nap and feeding her earlier. My goal is to get her down by 10 pm and up by 6 am so that I am not a brain dead zombie at work. I do expect to lose some degree of sleep, but would like to put forth every effort to avoid it.

Teach the Children

Christmas Eve is upon us and I will be spending it at Grandpa's house as is tradition. The only difference is we used to call it "Grandma's house" until she passed away this February. She would always read us the Christmas story every year and teach us the meanings of all the Christmas symbols. I came across this story that reminded me of her and thought I would share it in memory of Grandma Shirley Eslick this first Christmas without her.

Late one Christmas Eve I sank into my easy chair. Admiring the tree with its decorations, I couldn't help but feel that something was missing... The kids were in bed, the gifts were all wrapped, the milk and cookies were in their place for Santa. It wasn't long before the tiny twinkling tree lights lulled me into a deep sleep.

I don't know how long I slept, but all of a sudden I opened my eyes and there stood Santa Claus himself next to my Christmas tree.

He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot just as the poem described him. But he was not the "jolly old elf" of Christmas legend. The man who stood before me looked sad and disappointed with tears in his eyes.

I had to ask, "Santa, what's wrong? Why are you crying?" "It's the children," Santa replied sadly. "But the children love you," I said. "Oh, I know they love me and the gifts I bring them," Santa said. "But the children of today seem to have somehow missed out on the true spirit of Christmas. It's not their fault. It's just that the adults, many of them not having been taught themselves, have forgotten to teach the children."

"Teach them what?" I asked. Santa's kind old face became soft, more gentle. His eyes began to shine with something more than tears. He spoke softly. "Teach the children the true meaning of Christmas. Teach them that the part of Christmas we can see, hear and touch is much more than meets the eye. Teach them the symbolism behind the customs and traditions of Christmas we now observe. Teach them what it is they truly represent."

Santa reached into his bag and pulled out a tiny Christmas tree and set it on the fireplace mantle. "Teach them about the Christmas tree. Green is the second color of Christmas. The stately evergreen with its unchanging color represents the hope of eternal life in Jesus. Its needles point heavenward as a reminder that man's thoughts should turn heavenward as well."

Santa reached into his bag again and pulled out a shiny star and placed it at the top of the small tree. "The star was the heavenly sign of promise. God promised a Savior for the world and the star was the sign of the fulfillment of that promise of the night that Jesus Christ was born. Teach the children that God always fulfills His promises and that the wise will still seek Him."

"Red," said Santa, "is the first color of Christmas." He pulled forth a red ornament for the tiny tree. "Red is deep, intense, vivid. It is the color of the life giving blood that flows through our veins. It is the symbol of God's greatest gift. Teach the children that Christ gave His life and shed his blood for them that they might have eternal life. When they see the color red it should remind them of that most wonderful gift."

Santa found a bell in his pack and placed it on the tree. "Just as lost sheep are guided to safety by the sound of the bell, it continues to ring today for all to be guided to the fold. Teach the children to follow the true Shepherd who gave His life for the sheep."

Santa placed a candle on the mantle and lit it. The soft glow from its one tiny flame brightened the room. "The glow of the candle represents how man can show his thanks for the gift of God's Son that Christmas Eve long ago. Teach the children to follow in Christ's footsteps... to go about doing good. Teach them to let their lights shine before men that all may see it and glorify God. This is what is symbolized when the twinkling lights shine on the tree like hundreds of bright, shining candles, each of them representing one of God's precious children, their light shining for all to see."

Again, Santa reached into his bag and this time he brought forth a tiny red and white striped candy cane. As he hung it on the tree, he spoke softly, "The candy cane is a stick of hard, white candy. White to symbolize the virgin birth and sinless nature of Jesus. The shape 'J' to represent the precious name of Jesus who came to earth as our Savior. It also represents the crook of the Good Shepherd which he uses to reach down into the ditches of the world to lift out the fallen lambs who, like sheep, have gone astray. The original candy cane had three small red stripes which are the stripes of the scourging Jesus received by which we are healed, and a large red stripe that represents the shed blood of Jesus so that we can have eternal life. Teach these things to the children."

Santa brought out a beautiful wreath made of fresh fragrant greenery and tied with a bright red bow. "The bow reminds us of the bond of perfection which is love. The wreath embodies all the good things about Christmas for those with eyes to see and hearts to understand. It contains the colors of red and green and the heaven turned needles of the evergreen. The bow tells the story of good will towards all and its color reminds us of Christ's sacrifice. Even the wreath's very shape is symbolic, representing eternity and the eternal nature of Christ's love. It is a circle without beginning and without end. These are the things you must teach the children."

"But where does that leave you Santa?" I asked. The tears gone now from his eyes, a smile broke over Santa's face. "Why, bless you, my dear," he laughed. "I, too, am only a symbol. I represent the spirit of family fun and the joy of giving and receiving. If the children are taught these other things, there is no danger that I'll ever be forgotten."

"I think I'm beginning to understand at last," I replied. That's why I came," said Santa. "If you don't teach the children these things, then who will?"

Author Unknown

Hip Hop Abs

Today I saw an infomercial for Shaun T's Hip Hop Abs workout and I was sold! Well, not sold enough to shell out three easy payments of $19.99 but sold enough to look up his videos on YouTube. I am so out of shape that I don't need any more resistance than my own body and the idea of getting my waistline back in pre-pregnancy shape without doing sit-ups sounded very appealing. I figured it would be best to try out the Last Minute Abs condensed workout to start with so as to not overwhelm myself. Baby watched with a smirk on her face as I did my workout. I am sure I looked quite silly. What little rhythm I have was not naturally instilled in me, it was very hard-earned. The more limbs you add into the equation, the worse my rhythm gets so as you can imagine it was not a pretty sight. As I jammed to the Lil' Jon and Usher imitators I almost lost my balance at least three times, but when all 5 minutes were said and done I was out of breath, my heart was pounding, and my whole body felt exercised. I think I will try out Hip Hop Abs for a while, just not when anyone is watching.

Deception

Now that I am a mother, I have been putting a lot of thought into whether or not I want to play Santa Claus with my kids. My sister and I had a rather entertaining conversation with my mom about the subject and she had no idea how long she had us fooled. We gave her a hard time about it claiming she ruined our lives. When I was a kid, I SWORE that the Tooth Fairy existed. As a matter of fact, I saw her. I must have been in second grade or better when I awoke one night after losing a tooth and looked out the window and saw a round glowing light hovering above the train tracks moving down the road and thought for sure it was the Tooth Fairy. So much so that I told all my friends at school and despite their response that they knew the Tooth Fairy was their mothers, my testimony could not be shaken. Then there's the Easter Bunny who magically delivered baskets of goodies every Easter Sunday. Quite frankly, I feel deceived and I'm not sure if I want to spread the deception any further, but I don't want my kids to feel like they missed out on anything because they had no Santa Claus. Art argues that believing in Santa helps build your imagination, but I'm not quite sure what I will do. I guess I have a couple of years to mull over the matter before my baby is old enough to have any idea who Santa Claus is. Try as I may to fight it, I will probably just give in and play along.

I am glad to report that I am done Christmas shopping already. I did most of my shopping online and the more I shop online, the more I believe I will never go real shopping again. Art wanted a very specific Adidas sweater and instead of running all over town to find it, I found it on sale on JC Penny's website, plus I found a promotion code for $15.00 off. That's the equivalent of free shipping plus $10.00 off. Then to make it even better, it was delivered to my door TWO DAYS LATER. That is record speed! I have been really happy with all of the money and time I have saved by shopping online this Christmas and all the more impressed with shipping speeds this year.

Well, my little girl turned 8 weeks old today and my womanhood is still out of order. I never imagined I would do anything in my whole life that could injure me for over 2 MONTHS, but I was sadly mistaken. I got on the scale with Keira this week and she is over 10 lbs now. She is outgrowing a lot of her newborn size clothes but she is still too small for the 0-3 month clothes. I don't know why there is such a huge difference in size between the two. I am also having wardrobe issues being that I am 20 lbs heavier than the last time I bought clothes. I have like two outfits that fit me- that's it. Though I am happy to have retained some weight, I am not happy about having nothing to wear and not enough money to replenish my closet.

Here are some pictures of Keira, 2 months old.

I can't believe how fast my baby is growing. She is still keeping me awake until about 3:00 AM but once she finally goes to sleep she will sleep for 5 or 6 hours. The first time she slept 6 hours I woke up in a panic checking for signs of life! She is still such a good baby and rarely cries, and certainly never cries if she isn't hungry. Her tears are starting to come in though, and it breaks my heart to see her with wet eyes. She spends her days talking to me and Daddy, smiling, playing with her toys in her bouncer, and kicking and talking on her rainforest play mat. Just when I thought she couldn't get any cuter, her eyelashes came in darker and longer just like her daddy's. Also, Art sometimes sleeps with his eyes open and she sleeps with one eye slightly ajar. She is definitely Daddy's girl.

Snaps

Daddy is NOT going to be happy when he sees this...

At least waited to scratch her face until after we took our family pictures.

Silly girl.

Bless you!

Yesterday Keira had her baby's blessing at church. Our church doesn't baptize babies but a baby's blessing is a special event. A couple months ago my mom was cleaning out her garage and found the dress that my sister Lauren wore to her baby's blessing nearly 18 years ago and it was is perfect condition so she got to wear Lauren's dress which I thought was cool. Hopefully we can keep it in the family for another generation or two. She was blessed by our good friend Robby Pauline and she was so good the whole time. She never makes a peep at church.


When we got home I wanted to take some more pictures of her because my mom crocheted her this beautiful pink afghan and I had every intention of bringing it with us to church and for some reason it didn't end up in the car. It worked out for the best though because she started grinning for Art and look at this hilarious face. She cracks me up.



Even though she was the one who received the blessing, I feel truly blessed to have such a beautiful, healthy, and happy baby girl.

Picture Day

Picture Day is over and I am relieved! I always get so nervous before I take pictures for fear that something will go wrong and the pictures will be a disaster. I thought for sure either my face would break out or the baby would scratch herself across the face, but all that worry was for nothing! The pictures came out just fine. We frequent Q Studio at the mall because they are so much cheaper than everywhere else and you can buy a CD of all the pictures too then print them on your photo printer. I'm sure we could end up with much nicer pictures at a better place, but you definitely get good pictures for your money at Q Studio. I am also glad we had a trial run of our outfits at church a couple weeks ago or else I would have never known how baggy the baby's stocking were. I found a cotton pair at Babies R Us and shrank them in the dryer so they weren't totally puddled around her ankles. I would say today turned out pretty good and the best part was, Keira did NOT spit up on her dress! That was my biggest worry because every time we stick her in the car seat, she spits up- without fail.


I am glad the baby's pictures turned out pretty good. I am unbelievably picky about baby pictures. For example, I won't take naked pictures of my baby because to me, it's no different than taking naked pictures of a grown person. It's ok if you want to take naked pictures of YOUR baby, but my baby wears clothes. I also don't like newborn pictures where the baby is sprawled helplessly on the ground instead of propped up in an aware-looking position or pictures of newborns with their eyes closed because they look like they are dead. I am also not fond of pictures where both people are kissing the baby's cheeks, because either the baby's cheeks are totally squished or the parents' kissy faces look silly. Most of all, I don't like messy food face baby pictures. Like I said, that's fine if you want to do your baby's pictures like that, and they will be totally cute, but I am just especially particular about my own baby's pictures for some reason. My mom was the same way about her baby's pictures so that's probably where I got it from.

Anyway I am proud to report that I got my Christmas tree up last weekend. It's the earliest I have ever put my tree up- ever. It usually doesn't appear until a couple weeks into December. I bought a fake tree last year and I figured since I already have the tree and I will be on leave to enjoy it, I might as well get it set up. Too bad there will be a scarcity of presents under it this year! Santa's too broke.

I love your SMILE

- 6 weeks old -

My Little Kicker

Today I got out the rainforest play mat that Felicia bought for Keira to see if she had any interest in it yet. I didn't think she would care for it much yet, but she seemed to have a pretty good time. She only managed to reach the toys a couple times but she was kickin' like crazy! She had those legs going and she was "talking". Click on this video I took on my cell phone.

That should give you an understanding of what it was like having her in my belly! That girl would kick me like crazy. Every time I went to the doctor they would say, "Wow! You have a gymnast in there!" She loves to be awake and loves to play. I sure love my little kicker.

Yesterday I had a test run of the clothes I bought for us to wear in our family picture. I was quite pleased with my outfit and the dress I got for the baby fit her perfectly. I learned that Art is hard to restrain when he sees me in black nylons, and I learned that the baby's nylons are WAY too baggy! I am definitely going to have to find either some smaller stockings or some black ruffle socks. It is really hard to find black clothing for babies so I hope I can find a substitute. When we got home from church I wanted to take a couple pictures of her before I changed her clothes and she was starving so most of the pictures I got look like this...

I am pretty sure she waited in the cuteness line in heaven twice

but skipped the patience line altogether.

Note the baggy stockings.

Her shoes are so big you have to make sure they don't fall off.

She is now 5 weeks old and doing really well. The only time she ever cries is when she's hungry which is every 3 hours like clockwork. She still doesn't sleep for longer stretches at night, but she has gotten better about going right back to sleep. I still haven't taken her to a checkup at the doctor because we're in between insurance, but I got on the scale with her and she is about 9 pounds! I can't believe how fast she is growing. I guess my little girl can't stay little forever. I am sad to report though, that my breastfeeding attempts have failed completely. At best I could only get her to latch on for about 15 minutes, only after pumping, and being that she would still finish a full bottle afterward I could tell she couldn't suck hard enough to get anything out. I was going to keep pumping until she got the hang of nursing, but my milk supply dwindled down to insignificant amounts faster than she improved. It was taking me 3-4 days of pumping to get enough for one bottle. As sad as it makes me to give up, at least she was able to get some of my milk for the first 5 weeks. That's better than nothing, and it sure hasn't kept her from growing!

Crazy Eights

8 Shows I Love

1. Heroes
2. CSI Las Vegas
3. Stargate SG-1
4. Stargate Atlantis
6. CSI Miami
7. Other CSI-like shows such as Law and Order
8. Jesse Stone TV series of movies

8 Thing I Did Today (I'm going to change this to this week so its not so boring.)

1. Sunday- went to church
2. Monday- went to my postpardum appointment
3. Monday- went to dinner and Family Home Evening at the Pauline's house
4. Tuesday- went shopping at the mall with Keira and my mom
5. Wednesday- bought my mom an opal ring for her birthday
6. Wednesday- went to dinner at Cool Hand Luke's for mom's birthday
7. Friday- bought a file cabinet and fireproof/waterproof safe in an attempt to get organized and satisfy my recent paranoia of apartment fires
8. Saturday- I filed everything in the new file cabinet

8 Things I look Forward to:

1. Putting up my Christmas tree soon
2. Owning a house someday
3. Taking a family picture in the next week or so
4. Thanksgiving
5. Christmas
6. Getting 8 consecutive hours of sleep again
7. Moving out of this tiny apartment
8. Going to the temple to be sealed

8 Favorite Resturants

1. F. McLintock's
2. Plaza Ventana
3. Luna's
4. Me n Ed's
5. Cool Hand Luke's
6. DiCicco's
7. Bobby Salazar's
8. Sun Sun Kitchen

8 Things On My Wish List

1. To be able to stay home and raise my baby
2. A bigger place to live
3. A second car
4. To be debt free
5. More sleep
6. Someone to cook for me every day
7. Power locks in my car
8. Cable TV

8 People I Tag

I don't think I have 8 friends but I tag Michelle, Shalee, and Kathy.

Neglect and Deprivation

It's now been one month since I pushed my baby out and I am TIRED. I'm still trying to convince Keira that we don't need to be up all night like Daddy but she still gets up to eat every 3 hours, which means I get to sleep for about 2 hours at a time if I'm lucky. She loves to be awake, especially at night.

My sleep deprivation was accentuated by the fact that I had to finish my real estate finance course and have the certificate of completion at the Department of Real Estate by this Wednesday or else everything I worked so hard for would have gone down the drain. So I spent all last week studying and took the final exam last night, which I proudly passed with a 97%. I will shortly have my unconditional real estate sales license although I'm not sure when I will utilize it.

I have learned that motherhood requires a skill for prioritizing that I have not yet mastered. With only 2 free hours at a time, you must carefully choose what you wish to accomplish in that window. The list usually consists of bathing and other personal hygiene, eating, pumping, house cleaning, errands, and laundry. It seems like eating keeps getting pushed farther and farther down the list. Sometimes I get to the end of the day and realized I haven't even brushed my teeth, or that I haven't eaten all day. You might call it self-neglect. I have also sworn off cooking until further notice, so feel free to take pity on me and bring me a nutritious meal any time.

Even lower on the list of priorities is my poor Bunny. He has not seen much time outside of his cage in the past 4 weeks. To top it off, he was out of hay and banana chips for a couple weeks. This has resulted in very low Bunny morale, so much so that a few days ago when I lowered his dinner into his cage he angrily bit my hand! Yes, he bit the hand that feeds him. I think Bunny's isolation is pushing him toward insanity, as he has begun hurling himself against the cage walls like some kind of crazed wall kick or body slam. Hopefully I can get him to forgive me.

One thing I am happy about though is how surprisingly resilient my body is, with the exception of my bad butt skin. My belly got really flat really fast. By the end of week 2 or so, I had dropped 20 lbs. and I thought I looked pretty dang good. I would be completely content at my present weight but I would still like to get in the habit of exercising. Every time I go into public, people tell me I don't even look like I had a baby. Art says not to let it go to my head, but I think he is impressed too.

I totally meant to take pictures of the baby yesterday to commemorate her 4 week birthday but that fell too low on the priority list and didn't happen. We are planning on taking a family picture to give to everyone for Christmas but I contracted a gnarly eye infection in both eyes and have to wait until that clears up. That will give me some time to decide where I want to have them taken and figure out something to wear. I have a dress that's ok but I wore it while I was pregnant and although it isn't a maternity dress it has maternity karma. Also, I am quite nervous about timing it so that she isn't starving to death or asleep upon our arrival. Anyways, here are a couple pictures from Week 3. Nothing fancy...

Her birthmark looks like a tattoo to me.

I want to know what color her eyes are going to be!

She likes playing with her ladybug toy.

Cuddling with Daddy.

Chinese Water Torture

I have come to realize that to Keira, breastfeeding is like Chinese Water Torture. With the combination of her high arched palate and weak suck and my lack of substantial milk supply, it was inevitable that breastfeeding wouldn't work out for us. Try as she may, she just can't latch on well enough and suck hard enough to get enough to eat. She even has trouble sucking on a bottle or pacifier. With the flow from a bottle being so abundant, I really can't blame her for being discontent with my slow drip. I have, however, been pumping what little milk I have for her and she seems to enjoy it much more than I enjoy pumping. A couple weeks ago, I had read about how babies go through a growth spurt around 3 weeks old where they will eat every hour around the clock and shuddered at the thought. Then a moment ago, the baby was fussing and Art asked if she might be hungry and I said, "She just ate an hour ago!" Surprisingly, Art remembered our conversation about the growth spurt and suggested that might be why she is hungry and I responded, "But that's not supposed to happen until they are 3 weeks old! Oh..." When I read about it, it seemed so far away but these 3 weeks have gone by so fast!

Even though she is only a couple weeks old, her personality is definitely forming and I have learned a few things about her. She does NOT like to have her arms confined. She will go to extraordinary lengths to free them. Also, she does not have "hunger cues." The moment her eyes open, you have to run and get a bottle. She doesn't mess around- she gets straight down to business. I have also learned that she inherited Art's crude digestive system. You wouln't believe the foul stench that comes out of such a cute girl and she lets out some amazing belches. I will certainly pray she becomes more refined as she grows. Lastly, when I was pregnant with her I knew that when she was really kicking it was because she was mad and sure enough, when she gets mad those legs are kick-a-kickin'!

Recovery has been much more long and drawn out than I anticipated. I got a bladder infection a few days after I got home from the hospital and a few days later, developed a Bartholin's cyst. It is a cyst on the gland in your women parts that is responsible for lubrication of the area. I had to have it cut open to drain. Only 2% of women ever get one of these cysts, and I am lucky enough to be part of that percentage. I had one about 4 years ago that didn't hurt nearly as much as this one did. This one felt like it was going to explode every time I stood up. It's been over a week since they cut it open and I am feeling better every day, but I am still afraid at the possibility it could come back as well as the bladder infection. At this point, Keira is still worth all the trouble, but check back with me after the week long growth spurt of hourly feedings! My answer may have changed by then.

Here are my favorite photos from Week 2...

Look at that sad face! lol

She actually enjoys taking a bath.

I caught her smiling!

My little cute bug!

I love her little fuzzy head.

One Week

Today is Keira's one week birthday! I can't believe it's been a week already, and quite an eventful week at that. We got home from the hospital on Monday and the next day we went to her checkup at Kaiser and they told us that her jaundice level at the hospital was borderline high and they wanted to do a blood test to see if it had gone up or down. We got a phone call with the results that evening and they told us her levels were so high that they wanted us to go back to the hospital for 24 hours of light therapy. This news was very unwelcome. In addition to her jaundice levels being high, they told us she had already lost 10% of her birthweight and that's not supposed to happen until about day 6. I also told the doctor that she won't latch on to breastfeed and they determined she has a high palate and weak suck but didn't offer any advice other than to keep trying and supplement with formula. So we went back to the hospital and I cried all night. It was so hard not being able to be with her all the time. Plus, my milk was finally trying to come in, and for those of you who don't know, it feels like lightning bolt cramps shooting from your armpits to your nipples and your boobs turn rock hard and are so sore you can't move your arms. I was SO miserable and just wanted to be home with my baby. Thankfully her jaundice went down by the next evening and we were able to take her home.

With my milk supply lagging, the lethargy caused by jaundice, and baby's inability to latch on, I have been having a heck of a time trying to feed her. Instead of being able to just breastfeed or just bottlefeed, feedings consist of all of the above plus pumping. Every time I try to breastfeed her she gets really impatient and frustrated that she can't latch on and starts crying, and you can't get a crying baby to close their mouth and suck! I have been praying and praying that she will catch on to breastfeeding and she seems to be making some improvement.

On Wednesday night, I was running a fever all night and by morning I realized I had a bladder infection. Back to the doctor again! I was so upset to have more pain and discomfort down there than I already had. I've been taking my antibiotics for four days now and they don't seem to be helping much, but the doctor over the phone is convinced that this antibiotic should work and wants me to keep taking them until I hear from my doctor tomorrow. I'm hoping to feel better soon. I had never put much thought into what recovery from childbirth would be like and it's worse than I anticipated. The first several days I could hardly walk. Now I'm gaining speed, but I'm still in considerable pain especially when I'm standing. Art is getting really impatient with me and has a hard time understanding why I'm not up and running like normal. My response to him was, imagine if you just pushed a melon out of your rectum! You would be in pain too! I think that just because he can't see how I hurt, he can't imagine what it's like.

As far as my labor story, it all started Saturday night after I dropped off my sister at the church dance. I was driving home and noticed I was having a lot of strong contractions. I started timing them at 10:00 pm and they were at 8 minutes apart. I didn't think too much of it yet but kept writing down the times. By 11:30 they picked up to 6 minutes apart, and by 12:30 they were coming every couple minutes. They tell you to wait at home while your contractions are 5 minutes apart for an hour, but mine were getting so fast, strong, and painful that I knew I better not procrastinate getting to the hospital. I texted Art at work and said, "Baby you need to come home now. These contractions are the real deal!" He couldn't believe it. I called my mom and she and Art were at my house by 1:00 am. Art drove like a mad man to get me to the hospital and we arrived at 1:30. At this point it was all I could do to walk and talk between contractions and they were coming every 2 minutes. When they checked me I was dilated to 4 cm. By 2:30 they transferred me to a delivery room and checked me again and I was at 6 cm. By this point I was in a LOT of pain and asked for some pain medication if only to keep Art's hands from being broken from me squeezing them and yelling. They gave me stadol which made me throw up almost immediately and didn't do much for the pain. My water broke on it's own sometime around this point. It was a lot more fluid than I thought it would be! They brought the anesthesiologist in to give me an epidural and it didn't work right even with a double dose. They probably couldn't get it in right because I had such a hard time holding still from the pain of my contractions which were back to back with no break in between. Another hour later and I was dilated to 10 cm when the epidural finally started to take effect and when it did, it almost stopped my labor! The nurse had me try pushing for 15 minutes to see if the baby would come down and she really wasn't moving so they had me rest for an hour while they stopped the epidural so my contractions would come back. It wasn't a very restful hour because every time I would doze off, I would stop breathing then jolt awake to breathe. I was also still very nauseous and throwing up. A new nurse named Terri came in after the hour and had me start pushing again. She came in the room with such a positive attitude and said, "Ok, I can see from your contraction pattern that it's time to get this baby out now!" She told me not to doubt that I can do it, to just focus all my energy on pushing instead of complaining and yelling. I really internalized what she said and even when I thought I couldn't work any harder, I kept going and stayed focused. Thankfully the epidural wore off enough for me to push but not so much that I was in unbearable pain. My mom was holding one leg while Art held the other and I pushed for about 45 minutes. I told them not to peek but I don't think they listened. They were concerned that the baby's heart rate was dropping and I was tired and wanted a way to get her out faster so I suggested using a vacuum. They went and got a doctor and he said it looked like she was running into a bone and we just needed to help guide her head in the right direction. I was probably having such a hard time getting her out because she was born face up. 15 minutes later, with the help of the vacuum and a few more pushes, out came my beautiful baby girl at 8:31 am. I only got one tiny tear and needed a couple stitches. I was in labor at the hospital for 7 hours.

When she was born, I immediately started bawling. I just couldn't believe that was my beautiful baby and that I had created her. She was absolutely perfect from the start. She didn't have a cone head, even with using the vacuum, and she hardly had any white vernix coating on her even though she was one week early. She was not crying and was a little purple so they took her under the warmer to try to get her to cry to increase her circulation. Getting her to cry was not an easy task. They tried suctioning out her lungs and even that wouldn't work. She is too easy going I guess. She had a round blue mark on her left arm that they thought was a bruise at first but when the pediatrician looked at her he told us it is a birthmark called a Mongolian Spot which should disappear within a few years. He said that Mexican babies get them. She had a full head of dark hair which was surprising to me, but it suits her well since her name means dark-haired. Speaking of her hair, it is totally curly when it's wet and straight when it's dry! It will be interesting to see if it ends up curly or not.

As intense as my labor was, I know God lets us experience things the way we need to. It's like the difference between hiking to the top of Half Dome and enjoying the view versus being flown to the top in a helicopter. You get the same reward in the end, but you have a strong sense of accomplishment if you hiked instead of flew. I know now I was not meant to experience a pain free labor and I wouldn't trade my experience for any other. I endured and accomplished more than I ever thought I was capable and I know it was thanks to the support I got from my mom, husband, the nurse, and my Heavenly Father. You wouldn't believe how great of a coach Art was. He was right by me the whole time, talking me through each contraction and each push and reminding me to keep my breathing slow and steady instead of panicking. I couldn't have hired a better helper. He said the worst part of everything was holding the puke bucket for me. In the end, I was soaking wet with sweat and amniotic fluid, and absolutely exhausted but so happy to have my little girl in my arms. It's amazing how fast you can love someone so much. I wouldn't trade her for anything and I would go through that pain for her a hundred times over if I had to.

Keira Evelyn Martinez

Born October 19, 2008

8:31 am

6 lb 7 oz - 19 inches

First Family Picture

Bright Eyed With Uncle Brenty

Grandma and Baby Keira

Ready to Go Home!

More details to follow after I get some sleep!

Bad Butt Skin

I have been living in my apartment for 2 years now, without renter's insurance. I know, shame on me. I have been meaning to get it and looked into it several times, but never followed through with it. Well, maybe it's just that I've been watching the news more since I've been on leave, but I have been noticing quite a few apartment fires. Two of the ones I saw on the news were within a couple miles of my house, and I finally stopped procrastinating and bought a policy through Allstate. There is just no telling what can happen to your house especially living in an apartment complex. Two out of three of the fires I heard about were caused by unattended candle, one was caused by a cigarette, and one was caused by someone running from the police. You have no control over what your neighbors do and one stupid mistake on their part could cost you everything you own. I don't know about you, but I couldn't afford to replace everything I own. My policy is effective as of midnight tonight, so as long as my house doesn't burn down in the next 5 hours I'll be ok. Call me paranoid if you want, but I am also going to buy a fireproof/waterproof safe and do a backup of all of my digital pictures to put in it among other things. I think it will make me feel a little better about life in general to know I'm well insured.

I had my 39 week checkup today. Still at 3 cm and haven't had any significant sets of contractions since my trip to labor and delivery last week. The doctor says she thinks I will have this baby in the next couple days, but she was probably just trying to give me some hope because I looked so miserable. I wish I was as hopeful as she is. I'm exhausted and can't sleep at night, can't stay awake during the day, can't muster the energy to do anything, and am borderline depressed. One of two things needs to happen at this point, either I need to get a really good night's sleep or I need to pop this baby out. I just need some kind of resolution for my sanity.

I was getting in the shower day before yesterday and found big ol' stretch marks on my butt! I thought I had made it through this entire pregnancy without getting any stretch marks, and I guess I was counting my chickens before they hatched. All hell broke loose upon my discovery of the stretch marks. I was BAWLING. It wasn't so much the stretch marks, but a combination of things that caused me to build up a hunk of resentment toward my innocent husband. The stretch marks were just the straw that broke the camel's back. I couldn't understand why it is I have to sacrifice my body, sleep, energy, time, job, etc., and endure stomach acid, weight gain, stretch marks, diminishing self-image, etc., while Art didn't have to sacrifice anything! Then I found myself mad at the baby for not being born a week ago when I went to the hospital because then I would have never gotten these stretch marks! I just can't understand why I got them on my butt and not my stomach, when I know my stomach expanded much more than my butt did! The only explanation is that I was just not blessed with good butt skin, but now I am paranoid that my stomach skin will explode at any moment too which compounds my desire to pop this baby out before any more damage is done. I am now at 145 lbs. from 103 lbs. I realize that I am now barely registering in the normal rage on the BMI charts for my height, but I still feel like a fatty- or at the very least like I'm carrying around a 40 lb. backpack all day every day. Depends on my mood. Oh, the joys of the third trimester.

Limbo

Well, I'm still pregnant. Since my last post, I have had two, 4-hour sessions of labor that started out with contractions at 4 minute intervals or less with some back to back contractions. Then every hour the contractions would slow down by 2 minutes til they stopped! On Tuesday morning I went into labor and delivery because my contractions were so close together and strong but as they monitored me, they slowed down and eventually stopped altogether. That night, the contractions picked back up again at the same rate but I figured I would wait at home for 4 hours to see if they lasted longer than that morning and sure enough they tapered off too.

Fortunately, these contractions have not been in vain. I'm now dilated to 3 cm and baby has dropped down to a zero pelvic station which means she is just about ready to emerge. I'm a third of the way there! The doctors say that it's a good thing that I'm getting most of this early labor out of the way at home because it means I should have a much quicker delivery.

I'm trying to be patient, but it's hard to be when I've already been in some degree of labor twice! I'm hoping that next time my contractions pick up it will be for the long haul. In the meantime, I'm home from work now and I have been SOOOOO tired. I feel like I should be getting all kinds of stuff done around the house since I'm not working but my energy is GONE. Hopefully that fabled "burst of energy" will come and swoop me up soon, because I think I ran down my battery over the past few weeks.

Ready or not, here I come!

I have been having a surprising amount of fairly powerful contractions lately and I was excited to find out whether or not they were doing any "damage" down there. I had my 37 week checkup at the doctor this morning and discovered that I am 2 cm dilated and 50% effaced! Hooray! The doctor was very excited, as was I, and said I could have this baby tonight, this weekend, any day now, and most likely won't last through the next week. I was just glad to hear that the chance she will be camping out in there past her due date is very slim.

I had been trying to prepare Art mentally for an early arrival by explaining to him on numerous occasions that she could show up any time between now and my due date but he didn't believe me. He thought there was no way she would show up early and that I was just overreacting. You should have seen his reaction when I told him the news from my appointment today. Are you SERIOUS? Are they SURE? Did they check? But we don't have a middle name picked out yet! Do I need to stay home from work now? But she isn't supposed to be born for 3 more weeks! Oh, he cracks me up. I told him, "Sorry Baby, but she is coming whether you like it or not!"

Looks like I better finish getting my hospital bags ready! Wish me luck this week!

Before and After

From ugly pine...

To cool black shine...

The baby's corner is finally done! Well, minus a couple missing bolts... See the awesome ladybug knobs??? And the red and black blanket I made for her??? I am SO excited to have this done. Thanks Mom, Lauren, Art, Brent, Vivian, and Kyle for any and all your help with painting, moving, or building the crib and dresser. I thought it would be an easy task, but now I know I couldn't have done it alone!