Gallstones and One Month

This post is going to be a little bit disgusting. I want you all to know that you can feel free to stop reading any time. We'll start with the pleasantries: yesterday, Ivy celebrated her one month of being alive anniversary day. Luke kept calling it a birthday, which it's not, but I'm not sure what it is.
The truth is, we Bangerters (referring only to Luke and myself) are not too good at the whole "celebrating special days" thing. We just aren't. In Luke's case, he is the type of guy who would do anything for me any day of the year, so I can forgive him. In my case, I'm just lazy and forgetful. I guess we celebrated the one month day by giving Ivy a bath. Ivy is really iffy about baths. The first few, she screamed like we were murdering her, and though she's gotten more tolerant, she's still very wary. I heard somewhere that putting a washcloth on a baby's tummy will make them feel better, so we put washcloths all over her in the hope that she would feel absolutely overwhelmed with security and support.

I really love giving her baths. Sometimes I feel intimidated by this tiny little person, but then I put her in the tub and see her dark eyes darting around wildly and her scrawny arms and legs flailing and I remember that she needs me completely. The last few baths, she hasn't even cried. What a doll.

It just goes to show that if you chew hard enough on your fist, you can get through anything! So, I promise that this is the last time I will talk about my gallstones. BECAUSE THEY ARE GONE. More accurately, my gallbladder is gone, and since it housed gallstones, they are also no more. I went in early Friday morning and they made me wear one of those weird hairnet things and I think I got the best sleep I've had in months. When I woke up, I had 4 tiny little holes in my abdomen and pictures of my gallbladder. Ivy did great during the whole thing. She slept a bunch and Luke and I basically passed out for hours and the nurses went crazy over her. I asked the doctor if I could look at my gallbladder, and he said that I could just look at pictures. I was planning on asking him if I could HAVE my gallbladder, so I'm glad I didn't. Do you want to see the pictures? They are gross!

That white thing is my gallbladder! How NASTY is that? It gets worse.

That is my gallbladder all splayed out and opened up, and those are GALLSTONES! Those horrible little demons caused me the worst pain of my life, and I wish I could have them so I could smash them with a hammer. But I suppose it's enough that they are rotting away in some surgeons garbage can right now. Maybe. A few weeks ago, we took Ivy to church for the first time and she was blessed. She wore the same blessing dress that I wore, back in the day, and I probably hated wearing it just as much as she did. She cried during the whole thing. Oh well. I love my contrary little imp.

Ivy Jane Bangerter

Before I had my baby, I was all like "Oh, I'm going to blog about it the next day, because I hate waiting for people to blog about their birth stories and post pictures and all that..." For all of you who have had babies since I started stalking blogs, I swear that the resentment was borne of love. I was just excited! But now I understand.

Even now, 6 days later, I am still having a hard time sitting down and doing this. Not because I'm so exhausted or because I need my free time to take showers or because I'm in such dreadful pain, but because she is growing RIGHT NOW and it kills me not to just be holding her. But I can do it because Luke is here, taking a little nap with her on the bed, so her tinyness is being savored and I can spare a few minutes.

So, here is the story of Ivy Jane Bangerter's birth. It's not too graphic or anything, but if it's not your thing (because it's totally my thing) you can scroll down to the pictures. But - let's be honest - if looking at baby pictures is your thing, then reading birth stories is probably your thing.

I went to my doctor's appointment on Wednesday at noon, and he said that I could be induced on Friday morning. I was pretty happy about that because remember that wretched evening I had a few months back? Well, I had been having those all the time and was worried that they would send me into labor - in total pain already and exhausted. So I was happy that they would induce me. But I was also a little sad that after 9 months, I wouldn't get to have that "going into labor" experience where I grab my stomach and say "Luke...it's time!" I was excited...but still.

So I went back to work and declared that it would be my last day and made plans for Thursday. I would go to Aveda and get my roots done! I would clean up my apartment and make some meals and freeze them. I would plan a fun date for Luke and I and try to get to sleep to await my 5 AM appointment with pitocen and an epidural. Luke was thrilled. I guess he was a little less sentimental about the whole thing, and just wanted to know that he wouldn't have to deliver our baby if I somehow went into turbo-labor and yeah, he's no fun at all.

However, that night, at about 2 AM, I started having cramps that seemed to happen every 5-6 minutes. I promptly downloaded a contraction-counting app (Yeah! Modern labor!) and I was getting increasingly uncomfortable. "I will not be one of those girls who goes in to the hospital and gets sent home!" I mentally declared, and then audibly declared when Luke woke up and started to worry. So I killed time by taking a bath, watching an episode of Psych, and letting Luke pack the bags. At 6 AM, I finally said we could go to the hospital.

All right, so the whole time - putting on a gown, getting all hooked up to monitors, laying there for an hour watching my contractions quantified on a screen - I was so anxious and certain that I would be sent home. I could just imagine the doctor coming in and saying "I said tomorrow and tomorrow it will be!" But that did not happen. The nurse came in and said "Are you ready to have this baby today?!" and you know what? I was.

They broke my water and gave me an epidural between 9 and 10, and it was just great. The contractions were getting pretty bad, especially after my water was broken, and I was getting very mean. Mostly to Luke, since he was around. But the epidural made me feel all warm (or was that my water leaking? Who knows?!) and happy and relaxed. I called my siblings and texted my friends and just thought about how terribly exciting it all was. Luke slept on the little bed/couch thing and I was happy that he was sleeping.

I sat like that for hours, and they would check on me and I was progressing beautifully, albeit slowly, but I never needed pitocen. At about 4, they said it was time to start pushing, and at 4:25, she arrived. For reals! 20 minutes later! It was completely unreal. I would push and they would tell me I was doing great and I really felt like nothing was happening. I could feel pressure, especially during a contraction, but I didn't feel like I was getting any closer to having a baby. But then...there she was! All weirdy looking and squirming and not crying and I could not believe it!

The recovery so far has been great. The hospital staff was phenomenal. Being home is perfect. And being a mother is the most fulfilling thing in the world. Especially when your baby is so nice and so soft. I wish I had words. Maybe I will have some later. Now you can look at some pictures. And come see us!

Ivy Jane Bangerter - 6 pounds 12 ounces, 19 inches long.

The Aunties (like 2 hours post-birth)

I took a shower at the hospital, and when I got out, Luke had taken like 10 pictures of Ivy. This is one of them.

Ahhh...look at my exhausted little family!

This is the same little pink, fluffy thing I wore home from the hospital. She was swimming in it, but we tried.

These pictures are really in no particular order, so I'm sorry. Ivy just woke up and I need to feed her and love her and look at those big dark eyes for a few short hours.

Life Delights in Life

Since December, people have been telling me that I am in the “homestretch” of pregnancy. This seems like a particularly fitting term, since it is only in the last few months that I have begun to look pregnant at all, and my weird belly is stretched to beyond all imaginable capacity. Having said that, the fact that this is my first baby and that I have a pretty long torso means that I’m not that big, even though that mean guy in Walmart said I was.

The title of this post is a quote by William Blake – “For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life.” I have thought of that over and over again during the past few days. I have been more than a little obsessed with many things lately, as these weird nesting instincts kick in and I am scrubbing the oven and embroidering quilt squares and deleting all the pictures on Luke’s camera and doing the human, modern-day equivalent of feathering my nest. So I have tried to take some time and remember how deeply delighted I am. There is something so inherently appealing about new life, and the fact that I helped to create it – well, it transcends words, but I still try to find them.

A few weekends ago, Luke and I drove to Washington to see my family and have a baby shower and make fun of old church movies and eat fruit pizza. I never wanted to come back. But I also did want to, because I wanted to put away all my new things and start cleaning my house again and revel in the fact that over the weekend, I transformed from 33 weeks pregnant to 34 weeks pregnant and that meant I was a little more justified in being crazy.

We found out a little more about Luke’s job a few weeks ago, and it was so nice to finally have some things figured out. We’ll move to San Antonio in July, probably, and then Luke will start some kind of training school in Sierra Vista, AZ in November, which will last for 5 months. That’s right. 5 months. Apparently, they set him up in a hotel and give him some money to buy food and a rental car and I can come if I want. And live in a hotel with a baby for 5 months. 20 miles from the Mexican border. After that, we’ll go back to San Antonio and live there for like two more years and then Luke will get an assignment somewhere else and we will move every 5 years for the rest of all time.

We will probably live internationally every other assignment, which we’ve talked about extensively. Luke was born in Brazil, lived there when he was a kid, served a mission in Japan and lived in China a few summers ago. I…visited Mexico and Canada a few times. This is not to say that I am not excited to start that chapter of our life, but oh man. Luke and I both plan on having a big family, and I sometimes get overwhelmed imagining international travel and living with a whole passel o’ kids. What does this mean?! Luke is just so happy, though, and he’s one of those people who is surprisingly competent, which sounds mean, but I think it’s not. He’s just so easygoing that sometimes I forget all the languages he speaks and all the stuff he knows about everything.

Oh, and were you curious about my terrible pains? I got an ultrasound (not the fun kind) and they told me that I have gallstones! Hurray!

So sometime after my dear little baby joins the family, my gallbladder will be removed from it. I kind of want to post pictures of both, though. Because what IS a gallbladder? I bet you are curious too.

I can't decide how to feel about the diagnosis, since on the one hand, it's nice to know what's what and have a plan, but on the other hand, I feel weird about the doctors taking out all my insides - which include a baby at this point.

Oh, and because this post isn’t really blog-like enough, here are some little projects that Luke and I did over the weekend.



We painted a dresser/changing table that Natalie let us borrow (I asked first) and got new little knobs and things for it. I already filled it all up with baby things, and I periodically open all the drawers and look at the tiny little things all folded up.

We also painted an old bookshelf that I got at a yardsale a few years ago. I paid $5 for it, and have already started stocking it. I’ve realized that I don’t have any baby books, so I hope she likes Ramona and Wayside School.

I am going to be done in like 5 weeks! Maybe less! Maybe more, also, but who really wants to think about that? My baby is the size of a cantaloupe, which is delicious and legitimate, and I will never stop thinking about what on earth she will look like. Luke has harsher features and when I first met him, I thought he looked a little like a wolf. I’m more round-faced and fair, so who knows?

I don't even want to consider that... :)

A Wretched Evening

Last night was terrible. For the last few weeks, I have had this weird thing where I wake up and I feel this subtle pain in my upper back that slowly spreads to my chest and all of a sudden, I have no more air. It’s weird because I feel like the fact that I’m carrying a child inside me makes everything that would normally be like “oh, that’s lame” more like “AHHH I’m DYING!” simply because I have no idea what I’m doing.

So this dreadful symptom basically prevents me from breathing or talking or doing anything but pacing around, since lying down or sitting makes it worse, and eventually, I will throw up and feel all better and go back to sleep, having scared the living daylights out of Luke.

But, like I said, last night was terrible. All of those things happened, except for the part where I felt all better. I sat on the edge of the tub (a place I have come to know well) and just wallowed in my pain and suffering. This was at like midnight. I remained in this state for about 7 hours, some of which were spent crying, calling a nurse crying, calling my mom crying, and taking a bath.

The sad thing is that I kept waiting for the pain to disperse, and it never did. Eventually I just sort of wept myself to sleep, holding my soggy body pillow and when I woke up (like an hour later) there was just the dullest ache in my back and I got ready for work. Where I have been for 8 hours since.

My reasons for telling this sad story are two-fold. First, I just want some sympathy. Not necessarily a comment or a phone call, but if you read that, just take a minute and say “Aww...” in your mind. Thank you. And second, I have no idea what is wrong with my body, and if anyone does, I’d be pretty interested in that information.

Besides that, really, life is great. I realized today why pregnant women’s pants look saggy a lot.

It’s because they sag…a lot. And the bigger your stomach gets, the worse it gets. So I’m sorry if I judged anyone for being frumpy. I’m the frumpiest of all.

I know this picture was obviously taken in a bathroom, like the last one I posted. I'm sorry. I'm just not that invested in taking professional pictures of my pregnant self. I also know that my eyes look tired. Stop being mean.

In other news, there is no other news. We are still waiting for Luke’s security clearance to go through, and then we will know more about when we are leaving this lovely Deseret and we can start looking for a place to live in San Antonio.

We are slowly acquiring baby things from KSL and friends and from the stores. Here's a glider that I got for free from my sister's sister-in-law, a little bouncer that I bought on KSL and in the background, a cradle that my mom made when she had my oldest brother. I will definitely post a better picture of that in the future.

I'm just about exactly 7 months pregnant today. After having written this, I feel much better, though I can totally imagine my sister, Natalie, calling me and being like "why didn't you take a better picture?" In the best way.

Being Pregnant is Awkward

I remember when I was little and I realized that in order to have children, you had to give birth to babies. (There were other steps in that process what were equally disturbing, but I won't go into that) I was really afraid of that. Whenever I would go visit my mom at the hospital after one of her many deliveries, I would see that she seemed happy and everything, but kind of glossy-eyed and dead tired.

Newborns, too, were scary. They are so little and wrinkly and pink and they make unnatural sounds and whenever someone handed me one, I would always assume I was undergoing some kind of safety test and I was failing.

It's only getting weirder.

The thing about pregnancy that I am learning is that it is a bond that ties women together. That sounds great, except for the fact that women typically bond through sharing. Sharing stories. About having babies. Every story I hear makes me feel that much more like wearing some kind of baby-concealing power belt and pretending I’m not one of them. Because technically, I’m not yet. I’m just a girl growing a baby.

The other thing is that people feel like somehow my stomach is no longer part of the socially unacceptable places on my body to touch. I will admit here that most forms of physical contact from most people are not something I welcome, so I might perhaps be a bit more sensitive to these kind of maternal bonding moments than your average mother of…any, but still.

So far, I deal with these situations like this:

Person: *leans forward to touch my stomach* “Oh, how far along are you?”
Me: *steps back and rubs my own stomach* “heh heh heh….25 weeks.”

I think in my mind, maybe the person will see that there is no need to touch my stomach, since I’m already doing it. The creepy laugh is just something that happens when I rub my own stomach.

The third awkward thing, which is related to the first awkward thing, is the fact that women who are in their final stages of pregnancy have this tendency to, at times, share more information than I want or am capable of understanding about their current physical state.

I understand that these women are miserable, uncomfortable, excited to have a baby and whatnot. But I don’t know what it means when they start telling me random statistics about their body, like how many centimeters they “are” and other indications that labor is imminent.

Confused and afraid, inevitably, I head to WebMD where I start at my current week and click through weeks for about an hour until I get to the labor and delivery part, just to ease the shock a little.

The fourth awkward thing is my body. Have you ever read the “Frog and Toad” books? They were some of my mom’s favorites. All growing up, I thought that my little sister, Mikelle was like Frog, always positive and supportive, and I was like Toad, begrudgingly doing the right thing, learning the hard way. Well, finally, I can say that there is one way in which I am more like Frog.

Physically.

Frog is the creature on the front seat, with the skinny legs and the round middle. I look at my disappearing waistline balancing on two thin little legs, and I can just hear Frog’s voice (as read by my mom) saying “You’re right, Toad! You do look funny in your bathing suit!” I'm sure I would too, if the timing of my pregnancy hadn't precluded that option.

If you actually read this whole post, I feel like you should be rewarded, so here is pretty much the only picture I have taken of my pregnant self thus far. I know it's lame to take a picture of yourself in a bathroom with a cell phone, but hey. The bump is there.

And, to be fair, my pregnancy has been great. I don't throw up (anymore), I don't get cravings to eat dirt, and I have yet to delve into the wonderful world of maternity clothes. Oh, and I get to feel Ebi/Ivy swimming around all day long. I think that probably makes up for the awkwardnesses of pregnancy.

ULTRA!sound and some big news.

I bet you thought the big news was that we are having a baby girl. Well, you are wrong. The big news is that Luke got a job with army intelligence and we are moving to San Antonio, Texas sometime next year. We found out on Wednesday, and celebrated by getting our very own Costco cards!

Life is really great right now. We knew that we would finally be able to call our baby "he" or "she" after Thursday, but we didn't know that we would also be able to call ourselves adults. I am currently celebrating my adult status by ordering prints of our wedding pictures from Costco. (It's probably important for girl-Ebi to know that her parents are married, even if she is the very definition of a honeymoon baby. It's legit.)

Anyways, ultrasound. It was incredible. Luckily, I was prepared to not find out the gender until the end, so I was happy taking in each little part of the baby and asking hundreds of questions about everything. And it was good that I was in no hurry to gander at Ebi's sexy bits, because she was in no hurry to show them off. It took three tries to finally get a clear picture, and even then, it wasn't the clearest.

My favorite part of the ultrasound actually wasn't the gender determination or the profile, though that was pretty transcendental. I loved seeing her little arms and legs moving around. I just want to point out here that I recognize that other peoples' babies are just not as cool as your own. I recognize that. I further acknowledge that this picture does not look like a human. But allow me to explain why I love it so dearly. This is a picture of MY baby and she is crossing her tiny little arms in front of her tiny little face, and, as someone who has said "I do what I want!" more times in her life than I can count, I love imagining my baby being a little snarky, too.

And here is her little body. The weird thing about ultrasounds that I somehow didn't notice during my disinterested perusal of probably a hundred pictures like this of other peoples' babies is the fact that you can kind of see the skin and the bones at the same time. This got a little bit creepy sometimes, like when the ultrasound tech lady tried to tell us that we were looking at a picture of our baby's face when we were clearly looking at a picture of a baby skull. This one is a little less of the creepy factor and more of the cool. I loved seeing the spine and the ribs, but you can also see the faint outline of a nose and lips. I'll see that nose and those lips all the time when she is born, but I hopefully won't have many chances to see her bones.

So, there you have it. Luke and I went and bought a bunch of little onesies and nightgowns at Target, and then I brought them over to show Natalie. I'm so happy that I get to share the joy of a baby with my sisters for a while, and especially with Natalie. She graciously gave me all her "If I ever have a girl" clothes saved from yard sales over the years, and we tried our best to make some headbands. She is gifted in this regard, I am not. We'll consult some blogs and try again.

As for Luke and I, we are thrilled as can be. I didn't sleep at all the night before last, anticipating the ultrasound, and then I didn't sleep last night, thinking about our tiny little girl who lives inside me. I've never been happier to lose sleep.

On Being Pregnant.

I have been pregnant for about 20 weeks now. Actually, to be precise, 18 weeks. But you don't want to know how weird and nonsensical the counting and measuring system is for pregnancy. I don't even care. All I really know is that my weekly bab-e-mail told me that I'm halfway through.

So, this Thursday, I will get to have my first ultrasound and find out all sorts of things about Ebi. When I found out I was pregnant, (in the bathroom at work. yeah. I know.) I was more than a little freaked out. I came home and just sort of sat on the couch until Luke got home. I had texted him very confusing things all day - "I'm going to take a pregnancy test?" "oh...I'll tell you later, how is work?" "um...I didn't end up taking if after all!" Poor guy. Anyways, he came home and I burst into tears.

Between blubbering, I managed perfectly articulate my fear of being a pregnant newlywed, of being fat and emotional (totally unjustified, right?) and changing so much without him ever really knowing the cool, normal-sized, non-gestating Marlee. We were both in such uncharted territory that we just sort of sat there on a scratchy couch for a few minutes without talking, then Luke said, "Let's go see what's in the dollar theater."

So, in the weeks and months that followed, we sort of followed that system. I would bemoan my state, usually after throwing up for the third or fourth time in a day, and Luke would have a good idea, like rubbing my feet or taking me for a drive. The plus side was that I didn't have much of a chance to gain weight.

But now I'm in a happy place. Ebi (our little semi-affectionate name for the baby, meaning "shrimp" in Japanese) is now as long as a banana. I feel like an organic fishbowl, and every now and then, a little swish or a bump, and that's just wonderful to me. I haven't thrown up in weeks. WEEKS. (I feel like I'm at Bulimics Anonymous, typing that.)

I understand why people wait for a while to have children, but for us, the pregnancy has brought us closer in such a unique way. I love the way that Luke will talk to Ebi as he puts lotion on my newly-expanding and insanely itchy stomach. I love how he will put vitamin gummi bears on the side of my plate. I love how he lets me move a flashlight around on my stomach into the wee hours so I can feel the baby move. I especially love how he thinks of the WORST names. (Smeagol Bangerter?!) It just feels so right to be sharing this moment, and my identity has remained perfectly intact.

So, as I was saying, this Thursday we'll find out if Ebi is a girl or a boy shrimp, and we'll probably stop calling it Ebi. This is the part where I would post a picture of my baby bump, but I really just don't have one. I don't know where I am hiding a banana-sized person, but I'm a little embarrassed about the fact that I look a little chubby at most, but nothing baby-indicating. So, whatever.
Here is a picture of me pretending to be pregnant last year for my role as Mary in our family's annual rendition of the nativity. So that's all I have for you. My real bump is lame, so I think you should appreciate this just as much.