One Year and Washington Happenings

Dear Blog Readers,

Today is my one year anniversary. The reason that I am writing about it on my blog instead of filling my house with roses and romance is twofold; I am pretty sick with some kind of sinus thing, and Luke has the car. So here I am, pondering my year of marriage. One year ago, I was about to marry Luke. Less than a month later, I found out I was expecting a baby. It seems like all we talked about and thought about for the next 9 months was the baby, and now that she's here, she's always taken into consideration before every decision. It's difficult to think about my marriage to Luke without a little Ivy asterisk, at the very least, but that's my life, and I'm crazy about it.

Love is different for different people. Last night, Luke and I got home at like 1:30 AM from our family reunion in Washington. Ivy was SCREAMING the whole way home and I was so tired and ill and cranky. When we got home, I changed Ivy and fed her and got her to sleep and then went into the bathroom to find that Luke had brought in and dug through all the luggage to find my contact case and glasses and toothbrush. If you are a contacts wearer, you probably understand how terrible it is to be tired and headachey and just want to take those little devils out of your eyes and sleeeeeep. Luke is so 100% thoughtful all the time. He takes the mean baby, he changes the bad diaper, he helps me find my phone 5 times a day, and he gives me all the cash in his wallet for yard sales every weekend. You can't sum up a year in a paragraph, and devoting a whole post to my sappy feelings is not my style, but I love that man. Boy, do I.

Ivy and I headed up to Washington weeks and weeks ago. I was a little nervous about taking her on the plane by myself because sometimes babies cry for reasons that I don't know and usually when that happens, I feed her or give her to Luke and both of those things are easier to do when you are not on a plane surrounded by strangers with nary a husband in sight. But to my joy, Ivy did great.

This was the first flight, smiling like a dream.

On the second flight, this nice lady had her totally entranced. She was a grandma going to see her twin granddaughters, so I let her hold Ivy. Also we were 10,000 feet in the air, so where was she really going to take her?

Ivy met my dad, Seth, Brian, Marielle, and Peter for the first time. I loved seeing my dad with her. He is magical! He has so much genuine joy in his face when he holds her and talks to her and she seemed to love him too.

He declared her to be the cutest baby he'd ever seen, and I only pretended that the slight bothered me. I mean, look at those shiny, dark eyes and square face.

Ivy, all dolled up for church. And me, looking rather like a 14 year old.

My mom had a little bassinet all set up, but I just had Ivy on the bed with me until Luke arrived. It was much nicer than sleeping all alone.

A few days later, my sister-in-law, Nadine, came with all of her kids. I think Ivy and Julia are going to be best friends.

One funny/terrifying thing that Ivy learned to do during this time is pulling a blanket over her face. She isn't really too great at grabbing things, but if something happens to land in her palm, she loves it.

She sure likes it when I prevent her from smothering herself.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was an activity we did on Monday night for Family Night. Each adult was randomly paired up with a kid, and then we had to do some kind of fun thing for an hour.

I was lucky enough to get paired with Audrey, the oldest grandchild, and we made cookies.

Luke, who had arrived a few days before, was paired with Natalie's youngest boy, Adam. I think they mostly played with toys.

We spent the afternoon at Manito Park after picking up Nick at the airport, our numbers almost complete.

My nephew, Eric, picked these flowers for all of us to wear. Luke was a good sport. And hot. A hot sport.

My mom kissing Ivy goodbye. Well, probably she is just kissing her for fun, but this blog post needs to end sometime, right?

On Being Mom

I don't really have anything to say about motherhood that doesn't sound totally cliche. You know how you grow up and realize that the universe doesn't, in fact, revolve around you? For me, becoming a mom was like that all over again, only this time, I realized that my universe revolves around Ivy. On mornings like this one, I twiddle my thumbs and wait for her to wake up. Those little dark eyes, squinty from sleep, find mine and oh thank goodness.

This was the first Mother's Day where I got a flower at church and played Fruit Ninja in the mother's lounge. And those are huge milestones for me. But I also had moments of deep reflection as the occasion lended itself inward instead of outward for the first time ever. Luckily for me, I'm not too harsh of a critic. Ivy is getting chubbier, smiling oftener, and she looks at me like I am all that is good and right in her world. Perhaps future Mother's Days will come with more inner conflict, but this one was wonderful.

My once roommate Brittney came over yesterday and took dozens of pictures of Ivy and me and I loved seeing her. I'll admit, it's also really nice when someone is almost as obsessed with your baby as you are. Also, I want to note that even though I look super tired in all these pictures, it's just the lack of make-up. Ivy sleeps at least 6 hours at a time at night. I know. It's awesome.

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.