Week One

It's officially been one week since Morgan was born. There are a lot of changes going on in our world. Not only are we transitioning from 1-2 kids, we are also in the middle of a PCS. Nate has become a big brother, and I am going through what some call the "4th trimester".

I want to celebrate Morgan's 1 week, celebrate Nate being a big brother, Jason being awesome, and me adjusting to postpartum life.

First...Morgan. She is the cutest little chunker. She eats and sleeps and poops. All. Day. Long. When she is nursing, she sounds like a Pterodactyl. She is in newborn clothes, but not for long. She loves to sleep on mommy and daddy's chest. Target was her outing at 5 days old and at 7 days old, she went to 808 Bounce to watch her big brother bounce. She had her first bath at 6 days old...didn't love it, didn't hate it. She doesn't have a sleep schedule yet, every night has been different.

Second...Big Brother Nathan. He is very loving towards her and asks where she is frequently. He will randomly kiss her on the cheek. He likes to give her his bear and blanket in the morning when he wakes up and she is still sleeping. He tries to share his toys with her, like a puzzle piece or a small car. Since he cut the umbilical cord, he asks if he can "cut it"(her stump is still attached). He really hasn't been rough with her. I think it is because we talked to him about her from the very beginning and he watched her being born. I have no doubt he will very protective over her.

Third...Myself. The 4th trimester is the first 3 months after baby is born. It's all the changes that happen to a woman's body after growing a human inside of you for almost 10 months. It's been a week and my body is changing. The first few days my uterus was still contracting. Super painful. Day 3 my milk fully came in and I was in SO much pain. I still get super engorged and pump at least twice a day to relieve some of the pain. In 7 days, just pumping twice a day for about 3 minutes, I've accumulated over 30oz of milk in my freezer. That's not counting all the milk Miss Morgan is getting. I am averaging about 3-5 hours of sleep at night and not all together. It seems like I am just taking small naps. Let's just say I'm tired, but still functioning well in my opinion. My stomach is slowly going down. I have lost about 10lbs. I still look pregnant. I still wear maternity clothes because I am in an in between size and they are more comfortable holding in that extra fat. I'm pretty pleased with how I look just 7 days after popping out a human though.

Fourth...Jason. The best daddy and husband. He celebrated his first Father's Day as a daddy of two. He was been on Nate duty so I can be on Morgan duty. He sleeps through the night so I can nap during the day. He tells me I'm sexy. He changes poopy diapers, both Nate's and Morgan's. He is handling all of our PCS arrangements from flights to hotels to rental cars to shipping and selling our cars and everything else we need to handle before we leave Hawaii. The guy never stops. Always doing something to help out. How did I get so lucky?

So that has been our last 7 days. With everything going on, I feel like we are adjusting as well as we can. Everything is falling into place and my stress levels have dropped tremendously. I can't wait to see how the next weeks go. My next goal is getting some family pictures of the four of us. We are in organized chaos. We are living our life and it is amazing. Crazy, but amazing and I wouldn't trade it for the world. 

Morgan's Birth Story

Today was my due date. June 22nd, 2015. I would've been 40 weeks pregnant with little miss Morgan. She decided to come six days early. She is already on my good list because it's what I wanted for our PCS situation. So, instead of doing a 40 week bump brief, I am writing about how she entered the world.

Here is her birth story...

The day before: I never did a 39 week bump brief. That Monday, my 39 week mark, I decided to go to the zoo with Nate. I knew it would be the last time I could do it solo before Morgan arrived. A friend and I took our boys there and were there for 4-5 hours. I felt great. I wore Nate in his Tula, I was walking around perfectly fine, not a care in the world. We had a great time and we went home for nap. While Nate napped, my friend and I started planning for the night. We wanted to take our husbands out to Dave and Buster's as a Father's Day fun night, but then another friend's husband needed his appendix out. Jason and I took Nate over to her house to watch her three kids, plus Nate. I still felt normal. I wasn't tired. I was even saying how much energy I had that day and felt like she had at least another week to cook in my belly. We babysat from 4-10-ish so our friend could be with her husband. We went home, got ready for bed, and I was asleep by 11:30pm.

And it begins...
It's 1:00am. A typical time for me to wake up and pee. Nothing unusual. I'm not sure why I looked at the toilet paper, but I did and there was blood. My mucus plug. I didn't think much about it. You can lose your mucus plug and go weeks without anything happening. I went back to bed.

2:45am. I wake up again to go pee. More blood and mucus. Go lay back down. My back started to hurt when I got back in bed so I just laid there. Had to pee again 15 minutes later. More blood and mucus and a contraction.

3:00am. I start feeling more back pain and had that one contraction. I decided I should probably download a contraction timer app just in case this was the beginning or for future use. I really didn't think I was in labor at this point, just uncomfortable.

3:27am. I started timing contractions. I must have had a few painful ones to make me start timing them. I'm not really sure, I only know this exact time because I went back and checked the app.

Contractions started to get painful, mostly in my back. They were lasting 30-45 seconds and about 4 minutes apart on average. I decided to wake Jason up and just get the idea in his head that this might be baby time. All I said was i started timing contractions, they were about 5 minutes apart, I'm getting in the shower, and that he should get some rest.

It took him a minute to process, understandably, since it was 3:30 in the morning. He quietly said "OK" and rolled over. As I was getting ready to get in the shower, he walked in the bathroom. I guess he has a better sense than me because he got up and realized he shouldn't go back to sleep.

He asked me if he should pack up the car. We hadn't even installed the car seat yet! Nate was asleep and I definitely didn't want to wake him up since he was already woken up when we left our friend's house after babysitting. I told Jason to pack the car while I showered.

I was in the shower for about 20 minutes. The hot water helped ease the pain a little bit. I got out and started timing again. They were 2-3 minutes apart and as I stood naked in the bathroom, water started to trickle down my leg. Jason watched. I told him I don't know if I peed myself or if it was my water. It didn't feel like a lot. Jason decided it was time to go.

At this point it was 5am. Jason picked out some yoga pants and my Giants shirt to wear, he got Nate in the car, and we headed to the hospital. It took me about 15 minutes to get dressed and in the car.

Oh the car ride. I could hear Nate in the back seat. "Where are we going to? I awake from a nap?" And going over steel plates during a contraction sucks. Thanks, Hawaii, for your constant road construction.

We arrived at the hospital around 5:30, Jason dropped me off at the front so he could park and get Nate out. I had to walk down a hallway, up a flight of stairs(maybe 15 total), to an elevator, up 2 floors, and down another hallway. It felt like I was walking forever.

I finally made it to the triage desk. Jason and Nate had beat me there. No surprise. They had me go in the check-in room to get in a gown so they could check me and see how far dilated I was. I said I needed to pee and it took me awhile to go pee and get that gown on.

Once I got myself together and on the bed, they called in a midwife to check me out. She looked really quick, told me she wasn't going to check me because she saw hair. WTF!? So..I have no idea how far along I was. I am assuming 9cm? The nurse put in my IV to take blood. She wrote 5:50am on the tape.

Contractions freaking hurt at this point. I could hear Jason tell me to slow down my breathing or to actually breath. He was doing this while holding Nate. The plan was to have a friend take him, but it was middle of the night and she didn't get my messages. Understandable.

I think they were trying to find a labor room for me? I really don't know. I told the nurse I felt the need to push so she called the midwife back in. Sure enough, it was time. All of a sudden, around 6 people ran in, bringing in supplies to deliver her. She told me next contraction to go ahead and push. 4 pushes and Morgan was born. Just like that. Didn't even make it to a delivery room. Nate and Jason watched the whole thing. The original plan was to have Jason catch her, but he couldn't because the room was so small and he was holding Nate.

They placed her on me, we waited for the umbilical cord to stop pulsating, then Jason and Nate, together, cut the cord. It was really amazing. Although Jason couldn't catch her, having them both cut the cord is a once in a lifetime experience. A nurse said he would take pictures of them cutting it, but them came out horrible. We don't have any other labor pictures because, again, Jason was holding Nate and it all happened so fast!

Morgan Emily Kappes. Officially a family member. Born at 6:02am, 8lbs 4.5oz, 19 1/2in. She was perfect just like her brother. Chunky little thing.

The first pictures...

Then we waited. I was taken to a recovery area until they have a room for us in the Mother/Baby unit. My friend arrived to take Nate to her house. She brought me a glazed donut and a Dr. Pepper. She knows me so well.

We finally got a room and got settled in our new home for the next at least 24 hours.

Morgan took to breastfeeding well, her brother is so excited, and we are just thrilled to have her in our family. We got discharged after about 30 hours or so and headed home to start our life as a family of four. We are complete.