Deflation!

Attention everyone:

Another big exciting thing has occurred !

Towards the end of my pregnancy, I retained a TON of water and swelled up like Humpty Dumpty which means that my feet looked like little pillows. They would not fit in any shoes except for purple fuzzy slippers that belong to my mother. You can imagine what those shoes look like..

Anyway, so as of yesterday, my feet had completely gone down and I got to fit them into my favorite shoes!!! My confetti Danskos!!! Yay!

The BM degree

When I graduated from college, I earned a BM degree - Bachelor of Music. I think I'm working just as hard to earn another kind of BM degree..

I'm guessing anyone who will read this is A) a family member; B) a friend, ; or C) someone interested in baby blogs. With that disclaimer put forth, I am happy to say that I just gleefully announced to my household (which includes my snoozing great dane, my working husband in his office, my sleeping 9 day old baby, and my grand piano - who yes, understands my every thought) that I indeed just had a more or less pain free bowel movement!! Hooray! Cause for celebration! Pop open the bubbly... or not..!

Maybe some of you seasoned mothers can fill me in.. but as of right now, it has been 9 days since I delivered Eli. Why am I STILL having such an issue with constipation?? (Now I really must apologize for this blog... so sorry, but this is what I need to discuss today.) Like I mentioned in my previous blog, I have stitches from NYC to Miami and it has been a rather wild and crazy ride trying to rid my body of things that previously worked quite well! I'm just so confused. I have been trying to eat high fiber things, no bread, not much cheese, and lots of fruit... but still.., the suffering still comes. I'm even on SIX colace a day!

Brad maintains, with all his medical degrees and experience he has..., that I am not staying hydrated enough. I've never been a water drinker... heck, I sometimes think water tastes bad! Especially if its room temperature. But I don't like it with ice either. Water just tastes funky to me... and my sweet husband says.. "Taste? Water doesn't have a taste! How can you say it tastes bad??!!" I guess thats why I really don't like it. Where's the taste? Anyway... so today, I'm trying VERY hard to drink as much water as my tummy (and my taste buds) can stand. We will see if it makes a difference.

Any suggestions?

Here comes Elijah!

At 3:00 on Wednesday, October 20, 2010, my husband Brad and I became parents. Whoa. First of all, I never ever expected to be able to say that. Back in 2008 we decided that maybe we'd like to see if we could get pregnant, so I abandoned all forms of prevention, but we never really sat down to plan it out. Soon after that, my doc let me know that I have a condition called PCOS - polycystic ovarian syndrome - something that left us not knowing if I was ovulating at all. We never tried and we never really gave up.

Last October when Brad's sister called to tell us they were having a baby, my heart broke. Well, it sang out in joy for Sara and Josh - it was obvious they'd make fantastic parents - but my heart broke for me and Bradley because I turned to him and said through my tears, "I'll never be able to call anyone and tell them that."

Lo and behold God had a different plan.

When Dr. Giddens held little Eli up in the air in all of his gooey and purpley glory (this was after he immediately popped out and peed on the Dr), what ran through my mind was something like, "oh. my. lord. what in the world did I just do?" They laid him on my chest, but I wouldn't touch him. I rubbed his little head through the blanket he was halfway wrapped in and then in a mighty swoosh Brad cut the cord and the next thing I knew Eli was over on the baby table being cleaned and wrapped up. It was SO fast!

What happened next - I'll never forget. I was somewhat versed in what happens when one gives birth, what happens after giving birth, and still what happens after that. But nothing can really prepare you for what you feel physically and emotionally. I saw Dr. Giddens with a pair of hemostats attached to what looked like metal string. I thought... "awww, man! she had to cut me!" Well, truth be known, the labor and his coming out party happened so fast that I had some pretty rad tears. Fourth degree to be exact. Ouchie. Big Ouchie.

My heart sank when she told me about that. She sewed on me for 30 minutes, but PRAISE THE LORD FOR THE EPIDURAL because I seriously felt nothing except the pressure of an event occurring in my netherlands. I was too preoccupied anyway... I mean, HELLO! This little being who drove me insane living in my uterus for 9 months was laying in the next bed screaming! I watched Bradley. That was sweet. He had the biggest smile on his face and, camera in hand, took some great shots of our little one moments after he was born. Bradley and I got a few seconds to lock eyeballs with one another. There were too many thoughts and emotions running through both of our heads to really nail down how we felt in that moment.

In an instant we went from being "Rachel and Bradley" to being "Eli's parents."

And so it goes..

Let me tell you about the year I've had:

Today is Wednesday, October 27, 2010. Exactly one week ago from this very moment, I was lying in a hospital bed just beginning to push. It had been quite a morning - we arrived at Baptist Women's Hospital at 4:30am.., well, I think it was more like 4:40am (must always be fashionably late..) to begin the long journey of getting our firstborn son - born.

2010 has been a whirlwind. I'm sure its going to continue to be a whirlwind. We learned on February 19 that we were going to become parents this year. I remember every detail of that afternoon and evening after finding out. I also remember every detail of the following day: when we told our families that we were expecting. The 20th was a Saturday - I had gone to Amro to a music competition that one of my piano students participated in, Brad was playing in the church orchestra at the Tennessee Baptist Children's Home, and then we decided to go over to Oak Court Mall to do a little celebratory shopping. We had lunch at Rafferty's across the street where Brad had some kind of chicken dish, then drove out to Germantown to the Apple Store to purchase me a new iPhone since my previous one died the day before. While in the Apple store, Brad started to have an allergic reaction to that chicken he ate, and so he ended up in the ER over at Baptist Hospital.

Fast forward 8 months through my entire pregnancy. The rest of February was fairly uneventful, March proved to show signs of being pregnant: a little nausea, headaches, terrible hunger, April and May flew by, and then June came. The weather was getting warmer and on June the 1st we found out the big news: its a boy. Elijah Freid Lawson Harrell was definitely in there cooking and on the way!

July was hot! Temperatures were near or over 100 for the entire month, which made for a VERY hot pregnancy. I could not get cooled off! I think I sweated straight for two months and even by sitting in the house almost completely naked with multiple fans pointed in my direction, I STILL sweated! Gah.

August arrived - the seventh month. I began a new job teaching school part time and continued with my part time church gig. An influx of piano students also came with the beginning of the new school year. Needless to say, I was a busy busy pregnant lady! Though it was rough, and I was tired, some days were 12 and 14 hour days, and I really was working seven days a week.

By the end of September, by very pregnant body was overly tired, my feet and ankles were the size of small watermelons, and my blood pressure was through the roof. Bed rest, she says! My "bed rest" started on September 29, 2010. I was finally able to take off work and raise my feet up to hopefully get them to go down. Turned out, bed rest WAS NOT easy. I probably did too much, went too much, and had too much fun, but the time off from work was absolutely wonderful in getting ready to meet baby Eli.

On my weekly visit to the doctor on Tuesday, October, 12 my doctor decided it was time and we set the date to be induced. I was ecstatic to know when Eli's birthday was going to be. I was also SO ready to not be pregnant any longer!

SO - here we are: last Wednesday. It happens to be 3:00 right now - exactly the time when Eli flew out of my body last week. The labor and delivery was quite easy. We arrived at the hospital at 4:30am, they finally got my rolling with "vitamin P" around 6:00am, and then the doc came to break my water at 9:15. Thats when the real fun began. As soon as she broke my water, whew!! Those contraction came FAST and HARD! I have NEVER been in such pain - I thought I was going to die. But luckily, a nice man with a big needle came to save the day. The epidural was fabulous. It worked beautifully - something that I was very afraid of to begin with.

By 1:45 I was fully dialated, and at 2:25, I began to push. Elijah entered this world on Wednesday, October 20 at 3:00pm, straight up.