Vanessa Alter : random thoughts

The induction didn’t go so well and I ended up having a c-section on Friday morning, January 30, 2009. Mia Iliana Alter was born at 5:28 am weighing 7 lbs., 7 oz. and measuring 20.25 inches long. She was so quiet the first day of her life… we thought we had birthed a child that was a total opposite to Sean. But she showed her real colors later that night . We have another impatient little eater on our hands! When she decides she’s hungry, she sure lets you know… loudly! haha! She’s so precious! Sean is being a wonderful brother to her already. He’s helping us out so much and he thinks Mia is pretty cute. His first reaction to seeing her was “awww, she’s so cute, isn’t she!?”. The novelty soon wore off once he realized that we got the Cartoon Network in my hospital room. LOL! As expected, Mia has day and night flipped around. She was always kicking me and waking me up or keeping me up at night and was pretty quiet in my belly during the day. That’s how she is now that she’s here too. She wants to eat every 1 to 2 hours at night, and rests easier during the day. I’m sure we’ll get the schedule worked out soon enough. We’re just glad to be home. The recovery from the c-section was rough at first, but it’s getting better continually. I’m already feeling much better and am very thankful for the prescription pain killers. My husband has been AMAZING through all of this. He has been taking wonderful care of both me and Mia when we were at the hospital and since we got home too. I don’t know how I would have gotten through all this without him. God really blessed me with a wonderful husband. You can see pictures of Mia HERE

I’ve just passed the 35 week mark… Just a handfull of weeks until my due date. Things are going well, but I’m very busy going from appointment to appointment every week. I’m still dealing with the gestational diabetes, and that’s being managed okay, although my sugars were off this past week due to having a cold, but nothing really major, thankfully. Right now, they’re having me come in for fetal Non-stress tests twice a week, ultrasounds for aminiotic fluid index every week, ultrasounds for checking baby’s growth every 4 weeks, and now I’m seeing my doc every week for prenatal appointments. Lots of trips to the clinic and hospital each week! But all the appointments are making the time fly by even faster. I’m getting big. I can no longer close my winter coat over my belly! All the testing is going fine and baby seems to be doing well. She’s often very active during the ultrasound appointments, so I’ve not been able to get a really good ultrasound picture of her. The issues with my placenta being too low have resolved as well, so that was good to hear that I wouldn’t be required to have a scheduled c-section. I finally started packing my bag for the hospital. I can’t decide what clothes to bring for baby to come home. I can’t remember: is it okay to have baby wear a onesie when they still have the umbilical stump or should I bring a t-shirt instead of a onesie? Nathan and I toured the new OB/Labor & Delivery/Mom and baby units of the hospital. They’ve got nice, all PRIVATE rooms now. With Sean, they only had a certain number of private mom/baby rooms and they were filled when I was admitted, so I had a shared room. Nathan couldn’t stay with me since it was a shared room. This time, he should be able to stay with me overnight and they even have daybeds and sleeper couches to rest on. Glad I don’t have to be alone during the first nights… I remember that was pretty hard. Nathan and I were also talking about how women often say they “forget” how painful having a baby is. Well I said that too, but during the tour, when they showed us the beds in the labor/delivery rooms, it reminded me how much I appreciated the anesthesiologist who gave me the epidural. I just remembered pain… lots of pain when I saw the beds. haha! So that’s what’s going on. Not much longer to go. We’re excited to meet this little girl and I can’t wait to hold her in my arms.

Our Lad is sick at the moment. He’s come down with a super coughing consumption virus. He sometimes has these coughing fits and then starts to panic and can’t catch his breath. He actually woke up this morning and had a big cough and his lips actually turned a little blue. Not good. I called the nurse line and the nurse said that if he has another one of those blue lipped episodes, we should take him to see the doc, but so far he hasn’t had another.

Did you know that New Mexico has a 24/7 nurse line that you can call for medical advice even if you don’t have health insurance? 1-877-725-2552 That number is handy for us folks that have wee ones that get sick every winter and we’re not sure if a cold is serious enough to warrant a visit to the doctor. yeah, free medical advice = good.

We had a wonderful week of vacation at the church camp meeting in the Sacramento Mountains and visiting Nathan’s Gramma in El Paso. Now it’s time to get back to our routine. I already miss Nathan now that he’s back at work. The trip was great aside from a few navigational problems. It was HOT in El Paso but great weather in the mountains. I played a lot, a lot of volleyball and listened to some great lessons. Met some great people and just had an all-around blast. I wish they had camp meetings more often! We just picked up the cat this morning from her vet’s office where she was boarded. She’s been very purr-y and I think she’s happy to be home. Sean was petting her and she started purring. Sean said “I made Callie burp, mommy!” instead of saying he made her purr. funny boy! We also got to take Sean to the zoo in El Paso. They have a sea lion there that swims up to the glass and if you touch the glass, he tries to bite you through the glass.

Did you see that weird guy walking down the street from Costco with a big HDTV on a flatbed cart? It was strange… he was just walking down along the sidewalk, down the road from Costco with the big thing on the cart. Well, I saw him. Oh yeah, I also married him. We bought a new tv yesterday and it wouldn’t fit in the car, so since we live less than a mile from Costco, Nathan asked to borrow the cart and walked it all the way home. It was a sight to see… I regret not getting a picture of it. Nathan was so excited to get the new tv that he couldn’t sleep last night, so he went ahead and left for work 2 hours early. I think it’s cute when he gets excited about gadgets… it appeals to my geeky side, I suppose. Anyways, thankfully, the TV seems to work fine, so we don’t have to return it… that would be a huge pain the walk it back to Costco!

Nathan took a couple days off this week so we can have some family time with Sean for his birthday… his 3rd birthday is tomorrow! Today we took him hiking in the Sandias. We hiked up to Sandia Cave, and sat by the stream along the dirt road for a bit. The stream was pretty full, and very pretty. What is it about the sound of water, whether it be the ocean or a river or stream, that is just so relaxing? I could have sat on my little rock next to the stream all day and enjoyed the sound. Sean had fun throwing rocks into the water and we even let him take off his shoes and get his feet wet. We went a little ways into Sandia Cave, but didn’t get far because of our lame-o flash light. We had one of those flashlights that you shake to make it work, but the “charge” only works for about a minute or 2… pretty bad. We had to keep turning it off, sit in the dark and shake it, so we could see again. The cave is also very dusty, so you get covered in the yellowish cave dust when you go in. It’s still pretty fun, and it’s an easy hike to do with little kids.

We went walking in the foothills this afternoon. The yuccas were in bloom up there, but most of them were covered with many, many aphids. They were also covered with many happy ladybugs and various other bugs that like aphids. Some of the ladybugs were huge! So if anyone knows of any starving ladybugs out there, send them to the Albuquerque foothills… it’s an all you can eat buffet just for our polka-dotted friends.

We also did a bit of “bouldering” with Sean. He very much enjoyed climbing the rocks with his Daddy. We found a couple little caves where we could rest in the shade. We saw a guy hiking in a khaki kilt… that was interesting. It ended up being a good afternoon for the foothills. The weather was great, not too hot and not raining. We also saw a couple rabbits, some lizards and lots of grasshoppers. I love that Sean and Nathan like to spend time together outdoors. It’s so cute to see Nathan being the fun Daddy that he is.

I’ve got the house all to myself this afternoon and tonight. Sean and my honey went to Rio Rancho and will stay overnight at Nathan’s parents house. I’m taking this opportunity to get some stuff done around the house and do some fun stuff too. I get to go to Michelle’s piano and voice recital and see her students perform… that’s always really entertaining and so wonderful to watch. I think I’ll do some antiquing and window shopping too. Also gonna try to finish up some gardening. Let’s see, where to start?? Ah, yes… I’ll take an uninterrupted shower, and get to take my time since I won’t be worried that I’ll find Sean drawing all over the walls or sticking fruit snacks in the PS2. Ahhhhh, luxury!

We helped a relative of Nathan’s Grampa move in Albuquerque on Saturday. There was lots of stuff to move and try to fit into a smaller place, but we helped get the job accomplished. Saturday night, Nathan and I couldn’t sleep because of obsessive dreams about moving and getting things to fit into trucks and what not. LOL! And my muscles got such a workout that they were twitching most of the night too. Crazy! On Sunday morning, we woke up before the sun got here and left to attend church in Deming. We love to go down there and visit the church down there, but we haven’t been able to do it while Grandma Peny was staying with us. Anyways, we had a nice service there, a fabulous picnic lunch (ended up being at our friends’ house since the weather was bad), and got to visit with our friends. It was a good day. On the way home, we planned to stop into Las Cruces and visit with some more friends and have pizza at Uno’s. But on the way out of Deming, we got a screw in our back tire. Nathan put the spare tire on and we got the flat one fixed, then he replaced the fixed one. Between the 2 of us being unexperienced with cars… it was slightly surprising that no one got hurt while changing tires. After all that, we ended up not having time to go to Las Cruces . We had a quick dinner at Burger King and headed home. I fell asleep in the car while Nathan was driving, and when I woke up, I was reading the signs on the road to see where we were. I saw a sign that said “Las Cruces, 15 miles”… Nathan had taken the wrong entrance to the freeway and headed south instead of north. We almost made it to Cruces, afterall! LOL! It was really funny. We lost about an hour of travel time on our scenic detour, but that’s okay. That just gave me more time to hold my honey’s hand in the car while we were driving home and we made it home safely, that’s the important thing.

It’s “take your kids to work day” and Sean and I got to go to PNM and get a tour of several departments, and even got to meet some policemen. It was lots of fun, and then we got a pizza lunch afterwards. We just got home. Sean got so worn out, he started snoring in the car really loud on the way home. He’s already saying “Let’s go to work again with Daddy.” Sean also got to play with all the neat toys that Daddy keeps in his “box” (cubicle).