My Birth Story (First Time Mom)

When I was pregnant this past year, I really didn't post about it other than very surface-level things or really vague things.  But I really like talking about my birth experience because it's such an interesting thing to have gone through.  The best part is, I wouldn't change a thing other than the fact that I gave birth in the middle of a global pandemic.  So, here is what that experience was like.

The week of my due date was a very emotionally-charged one, understandably.  Prior to this week, I had talked with my doctor about the possibility of inducing the Monday after my due date, if I hadn't spontaneously gone into labor before then (that's what it's called-- kind of a scary term!).  In order for her to deliver my baby though, she decided to schedule me for the Friday night before so that she'd be there that Saturday, which I was happy with.  So either way, I knew that this week was the last week I would be pregnant this time around.  Either this baby would decide to come out or he'd come out on my terms, essentially.  I was nervous about the fact that I was about to eject a new human from my body and I was nervous about things potentially going wrong and I was nervous about getting an IV.  But even with this amount of worrying, I wasn't prepared for how things would go down.

I went to my last doctor's appointment that Monday.  The last month that you're pregnant, you go into the clinic every week, so this wasn't a new experience for me.  I was 39 weeks and some days.  One thing you should know is that for the last month or slightly less, when the nurse would take my blood pressure reading, my result would always be high and they would have to take a new reading when I was in an exam room.  Usually, this has worked out fine, but this time, my blood pressure didn't change when I was taken back to a room.  That did not sit well with my doctor.  She diagnosed me with gestational hypertension-- in plain English: high blood pressure caused by pregnancy.  The only way to cure it is to give birth and not be pregnant anymore.

I can't tell you how fast my heart leaped into my mouth when I heard the words, "I'm sending you to labor and delivery today."  I had gotten very comfortable with the idea of heading to the hospital on Friday and in my brain, my baby was definitely going to arrive on either Friday or Saturday.  I was very much not ready to get this show on the road.  Except, physically, I was.  It turns out I had been in early labor all weekend (they felt like mild period cramps, nothing unmanageable, they were 10-12 minutes apart) and I was already 3cm.  Things were already moving and this baby was ready to come out soon.

The doctor sent me home to finish last-minute packing and get my partner and asked me to call the clinic and let them know when I would come in.  Even though the situation had been elevated (not emergency levels, but urgent), it was not indicated that I needed to hurry which is interesting to me.  We checked into the hospital at noon after we had called our families in excited panic, tossed more things in our suitcase, and passed off our keys so that someone could come and feed our cats while we were away. 

Since I had been in early labor for a while, I had done a lot of the slow work of initial dilating already.  Yay :)  I got my IV (got sick despite my breathing exercises and my effort to not freak out about it... the nurses were so sweet and understanding despite my drama) and got started on Pitocin and fluids.  If you don't know, Pitocin is a synthetic form of oxytocin which helps your uterus contract and ultimately push a baby out.  They start you on a low dose and raise the amount after seeing how your body responds.  It took many hours to get to the point where I could no longer talk through my contractions.  So for a while, it felt weird to be in the hospital because I wasn't in tremendous amounts of pain yet.  I could eat snacks if I wanted to and enjoyed HGTV since it's nice to watch but doesn't necessarily require a lot of attention.

To address the global pandemic a little bit, the only things that were different from a typical hospital visit was that I was tested for COVID-19 fairly early on (it came back negative a few hours later), my partner had to have temperature checks every 8 hours, we had to wear masks when there were doctors and nurses in the room (although once I tested negative, admittedly I became very lax about wearing a mask).  The nurses wore masks all the time and the doctors had a face shield as well as a mask.  I could only have one support person with me.  So if I wanted to hire a doula, they could not physically be with us.  If I wanted my mom or my sister to be in the room, I would have to make a choice between them and my partner.  Obviously, my partner won out :)  We also could not have any visitors, even when we moved to the postpartum room.  To me, it was very manageable. 

 Once it got dark outside, that's when my contractions needed more focus.  I was happy that what I had learned in birth class was coming in handy and that it was working.  I could bounce on a ball, lean on a table, use my partner and take long, deep breaths and make a low guttural sound until my contraction was over.  The low sounds were great-- I think it helped serve as a distraction and it was kind of grounding too.  Don't be afraid of what sounds come out of you while you're in labor.  No one will judge you for it.  At this point, the only medication I had was Pitocin, but nothing for pain.  I couldn't talk through my contractions anymore, really, but they were still manageable.

Fast forward to ten hours into labor and I feel like I'm losing my grip.  I have no idea if it's true that Pitocin makes contractions more intense or not, but these contractions were intense and breathing and moaning weren't really cutting it on their own.  My hope was that I could go through labor without the help of pain meds.  I had made it quite a while, which I was really proud of.  I tried a type of IV pain meds that worked for an hour, but then around 11pm or midnight, I asked for an epidural.  I initially didn't want one because the idea of it really freaked me out and I didn't like that there was no going back once I got one (not until I had gotten this baby out of me anyway).  But at that point, I was tired but couldn't sleep and I felt like I was losing my grip and struggling my way through these contractions.  I knew that I was at the point where contractions came quite fast, but they were lasting 60-70 seconds with 30 seconds or less of a break in between, which I don't think is typical.  It was a lot to handle.  So I got an epidural.  It honestly wasn't bad-- I only jumped when I felt the initial poke, but then I didn't feel anything else.  Literally.  It didn't take long for me to go numb from the waist down like an epidural is supposed to do.  It was really trippy when the nurse who was helping me checked the paper tracking my contractions, asked if I felt that last contraction and I wasn't even aware that I was having one.  Bliss.

I was able to get a good night's sleep after that.  I thought that I'd be woken up a lot since I was in the hospital, but they were actually really good, I thought, about working with the periods when I woke up in the middle of the night.  They would come in and check my progress and they broke my water in the middle of the night too to help things move along.

My doctor checked me in the morning around 8:30 or so while I was trying to ignore the screams of another woman giving birth in a different room and I was fully effaced and 10cm dilated!  But my baby was still fairly high up, so she decided to give it another hour and see if he came down more on his own. 

9:30 rolls around and everything is in place for me to start pushing.  One thing that surprised me a little bit was how calm everything felt in the room.  I thought that the fact that I was about to push a human out would have caused more of a stir in my particular room, especially with the people who were actively supporting me.  I've definitely been watching too many birth episodes of TV shows where there's a lot of rushing around and yelling.  My room was quite zen by comparison, which was great-- yelling would have made things terrible. 

In total, I pushed for about three hours.  Since I couldn't feel my uterus contracting due to the epidural, the nurse taught me how to recognize a contraction by feeling my belly with my hand, so I was able to make the call for when it was time to push.  My partner helped me by counting to ten each time I pushed.  It sounds silly and like I'm just giving them a job for the sake of feeling helpful, but it was actually so good to have something to focus on and to be able to quantify how long I needed to push at a given moment.  It was the mentality of, "I can get through 10 seconds of anything."  It truly didn't feel like I had been pushing for three hours by the time I was done.  I was genuinely surprised to hear what time it was.  I was able to reach down and feel my baby's head before he came out and my partner, Alex, was able to see what was happening, which was awesome. 

Seeing my baby live and in person for the first time was indescribable.  He was here and he was mine.  He was put on my chest and we got to stay there and cuddle for maybe an hour or so.  The doctors and nurses stitched me up (light second-degree tearing, is what I was told.  This is fairly normal).  Admittedly, it took quite a while for me to recognize that this whole situation was real.  But my baby-- my Klaus-- had made his safe arrival into the world.  I'm now two months into parenthood and... wow.  What an incredible feeling.  This kid is pretty great and I feel really lucky that I get to know him and get to help him become a strong, wise, and kind individual if I possibly can.


Thanks for Reading!

--Jude

Preparing for the Reading Rush! (2020)

It's Reading Rush season!  That means that from July 20-26, I will be attempting to read as many books as possible.  There are seven challenges, all of which are optional, but that I have picked books for in an attempt to accomplish these challenges since that just makes things more exciting.

A quick caveat though-- I am sort of cheating this year.  This is the first summer that I've had a baby which makes things busier and more exciting.  Because of this, there are a couple books that I have already started that I am hoping to finish.  I'll talk through each book as it applies to a challenge and you'll see which books those are.

My main goal with this challenge was to push myself to read more of the Kindle and Audible books that have just been sitting in their respective accounts.  I think there's only one physical book that I'll be reading from this list.

2020 Challenges:

1. Read a book with a cover that matches your birthstone.

I was born in December, and apparently one of my birthstones is a turquoise.  So I chose "Me and White Supremacy" by Layla F. Saad.  I'm excited about this one because I hear that there are journaling prompts that I can do as I go through this book.

2. Read a book that starts with the word "The."

I thought it would be easy to find a book to fit this prompt, but it's easier said than done, it turns out.  But then I realized that a book I had started already began with "The," so I chose "The Guide for White Women Who Teach Black Boys" by Eddie Moore Jr., Ali Michael, and Marguerite W. Penick-Parks.  I'm really hoping to finish this one since I've begun it already.

3. Read a book that inspired a movie you've already seen.

I'm reading this one out of convenience since I am hoping to offer it to my students as a reading option for one of my units this year.  I saw the movie towards the end of high school, so it's been a while, but I am hoping to reread "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro.

4. Read the first book you touch.

I tweaked this one a bit and picked a few books that I would be fine with reading and then made a mental decision.  Once I touched this book and took it off the shelf, there's no going back!  The book that I picked is "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly.  This is the only physical book that I will be reading.

5. Read a book completely outside of your house.

This one you could interpret in a couple different ways.  I don't know if I'll actually read this entire thing while sitting outside (although maybe I'll listen to part of it while spending some time in the sun tent I recently received), but if not, a lot of this book seems to take place outside!  I've chosen "Station Eleven" by Emily St. John Mandel for this challenge.  This is also a cheater one for me because I have already started this book.

6. Read a book in a genre you've always wanted to read more of.  

That genre is sci-fi, for me.  The only reason I want to read a little more of this genre is because it's my partner's favorite genre.  We're actually reading a series together now that fits this genre (so yeah, I've already started it).  This is an interesting situation though because we have an anthology copy, meaning it has all three books contained in one.  But I am going to specifically list the first two books in the series so that I'm covered no matter which one I end up finishing for this challenge.  The book series is "Lilith's Brood" by Octavia Butler.  The first book is "Dawn" and at the time I'm writing this, my partner and I are about halfway through (or just under halfway, maybe).

7. Read a book that takes place on a different continent than where you live.

I live in North America, so a different continent is Africa.  Therefore, I am FINALLY picking up Trevor Noah's "Born A Crime."  I'll be listening to the audiobook of it so that I can hear him tell his own story, which I think will be really neat.  I'm probably looking forward to this book the most!

Will I finish all 7 or 8 of these books?  No, I highly doubt that.  Will I spend more concentrated time reading especially during this week?  Yes, definitely.  And that's the point of the Read Rush!  I am really excited to start/continue these books and see how many I can get to the end of in the span of a week!

Thanks for Reading!

--Jude

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

It's that time of year again when I make a list of things that I'm thankful for.  Some things will be repeats from other years while other things will be new.

I Am Thankful For...

1. My Little Sister!  It's her seventeenth birthday today, so I really hope that she has a great day.

2. Those Who Didn't Fill Up the Classes I Wanted for Next Semester.  I got all of the classes I wanted for the month of January and for spring term.  I'm so happy!  Next semester is going to be great!  By extension, I'm also grateful for my advisor.

3. Jack.  Our relationship has become so much stronger over the past couple of years.  I'm happy and grateful to have spent five wonderful years with him.

4. Counseling.  When things get overwhelming or frustrating or I simply feel lost, the counselors on campus are a great resource for me.  They are wonderful and helpful people.

5. My Parents.  They work so hard and they are so supportive of my sister and me.  I'm grateful now, but I think that that feeling can only grow at this point.

6. The Global Studies Office.  With their help, I have been able to start getting my study abroad plans off the ground.  It's wonderful having their guidance.

7. The Chance to Improve.  I'm taking a Speaking class as well as Lit Theory this semester.  I feel like I've grown as a speaker and a writer and this will be awesome for my future.

8. Netflix.  As well as the shows and movies I have sort of become addicted to.  It doesn't even matter if they're good movies or shows..

9. Cereal and Potatoes.  Yum.

Friday Memes!

Welcome to Friday!  Today, I will answer questions posed by Parajunkee, Melissa @ i swim for oceans, Ginger @ GReads, and Jennifer @ Crazy-for-Books.  Feel free to answer these questions yourself either below in the comments or on your own website by joining the memes via the linked websites!

Follow Friday (Parajunkee)

If you could "unread" a book, which one would it be?  Is it because you want to start over and experience it again for the first time or is it because it was THAT bad?

This one is rather difficult... my go-to answer is Harry Potter, because I'd love to experience reading them for the first time and sweating out what was going to happen to Harry.  But I want to throw out a different title for you, because I predict that a number of bloggers will put forth this answer as well.  I think I'd want to  unread "Life As We Knew It" by Susan Beth Pfeffer.  It's one of my very favorite books and I would love to read it again for the first time.  It's suspenseful and it makes me nervous for the characters.  

Let's Talk (i swim for oceans)

Question: Do you prefer real books or those on your e-Reader?  Why?

I don't have an e-Reader that I can hold really... my library does this thing where I can instantly check out books electronically (audio books too) and then read or listen to them on my computer, which is very neat.  I love "real" books because I like the feeling of turning pages and holding something in my hands-- feeling the weight of something there.  As for e-Reader books, I like the convenience of not having to carry fifty pounds of books everywhere I go.  Just the ten pounds, give or take, that makes up my laptop.  So, I guess I'm going with the very neutral answer of "both."  

TGIF (GReads)

Authors Are Our Celebrities: Have you even contacted an author you admired?  How did that experience go?  If not, which author would love to have a chat with?

I attempted to contact John Green at one point in time so that I could give a shot at interviewing people for this blog.  But I think there were a couple of problems...

1. I did this when I wasn't a "big name" blogger.  I'm still not a big name blogger when compared to bloggers like Parajunkee.  

2. I tried to contact a pretty well-known author who is busy with things like writing and co-running the Vlogbrothers channel on YouTube.  These are two very big undertakings on his part.  

3. I'm not so sure the email I found for him worked... I couldn't view the website very well either, so that makes me think that he's changed his email since then and has decided to keep it private (totally understandable).

If I could, I would love to talk to him in person at a Nerdfighter convention of some sort.  I would also like to talk to authors like Susan Beth Pfeffer (since she's a blogger, this might be easier) and J.K. Rowling (this will be much more difficult than contacting John Green).

The Blog Hop (Crazy-for-Books)

Blogging Question: Do you immediately write a review upon finishing a book or do you wait and write multiple reviews at once?

I try to write reviews for books I have finished immediately after finishing the book and then scheduling it, but lately, things haven't worked out this way.  I have a number of books ready to review in my drafts folder, but some of these books either haven't been finished yet or I haven't worked up the motivation to write them yet.  Seeing as I don't have to work today, I think that I will devote my early afternoon to writing a few and getting them scheduled for the next couple of weeks.  Also to reading.  I haven't read anything almost all week long... I hate that.

Feel free to leave your web address below and I will try my best to come by and visit your blog today!  

Thanks for reading!

--Jude

Friday Memes!

Welcome to Friday!  I hope your weeks were fairly low-key (the best kind of week!).  Today, I'm going to answer the questions for Follow Friday, The Blog Hop, TGIF, and Let's Talk all brought to you by Parajunkee, Jennifer @ Crazy for Books, Ginger @ GReads, and Melissa @ i swim for oceans.  If you'd like to answer the questions yourself, I will leave links for you to click upon.  Let's get started!

Follow Friday

Summer Break is upon us!  What would be the perfect vacation spot for you to catch up on your reading and relax?

Somewhere like this.  In Minnesota, this is like, your basic vacation.  I feel like if I went anywhere extravagant for a vacation where I intended to catch up on reading, I would be too interested in going to see everything that is in the area to accomplish any of these things.  So I would go to a cabin where anything that I could possibly want to see is right in front of my face (with the option of walking around it to get the blood flowing).  On top of that, cabins tend to be nice and quiet.

The Blog Hop

How many books do you own?  This can include books in your TBR pile and books that you've already read that are on your keeper shelf.

Umm... well... I don't exactly have a numerical value to give you, but I'd say more than fifty less than three hundred to give a rough guesstimate.  I'm in the mood to make videos this weekend, so maybe I'll do a bookshelf and a room tour video.  Don't worry, I'll post it here as well as on YouTube.  Totally accessible!

TGIF

A Book Blogger is Born: What made you decide to start your very own book blog?

Once upon a time, when I was a wee freshman in high school, I knew I wanted to blog, but I wasn't sure about what.  So after a little bit of looking around to see what everyone else was doing, I found a number of book blogs and I thought, "Hey, I like to read.  I think I'll give this a shot!"  So I did.  Four years later, it has become this.  And they all lived Happily Ever After!

Let's Talk

What are your top book blogging goals?

List time!  Huzzah!

1. Make a greater variety of book-related posts

2. Connect to readers in a different kind of way (still have to figure this out)

3. Expand my horizons as far as reading material.

4. Go to the conventions where free or really cheap books may be acquired

5. Figure out how to obtain ARCs (advice?)

Of course there are plenty of things that I would love to do and they are definitely book-blogging goals, but I thought it would be nice to keep the list short.

I hope your weekends are just lovely!  I think mine will be comfortably busy and I'm okay with that.

As usual, feel free to leave your answers below and/or leave your web address below and I will try my best to stop by your blog!

Thanks for Reading!

--Jude

P.S. Just so you know, I haven't been able to leave comments on anyone's blog, let alone my own, but I can still add new blogs to my Follow list.  So just know that if you do leave a comment and do ask me to visit, I will do this, I just don't have any way to prove that I stopped by other than my following.  Also, does anyone know how to fix this?  It's been going on for quite a while and it's a little annoying not to be able to interact the way I would like.

Hello, Friday!

Welcome to Friday!  Today's memes are brought to you by Ginger @ GReads, Parajunkee, and Melissa @ i swim for oceans.  Let the questions commence!

TGIF

Literary Vacation: If you could take a trip this summer to any place within a fictional book, where would you go?  Tell us about your dream summer vacation!

Yes, the cow must be included.

One of the next places that I plan to go is England.  I'm not quite sure where in England, but it's totally happening.  When I think England, I'm not just thinking Harry Potter, but I'm thinking The Name of the Star and the whole slew of books that take place in England somewhere.  I would probably rent a house in the countryside and take day trips to neighboring towns and cities (of course I'd go to London!).  The vacation would be as low-key as I needed it to be from day to day.  

Gosh, I don't even have a ticket and I'm already really excited for this trip!

Follow Friday

What is one thing you wish you could tell your favorite author?

Thank you.

Seriously, that's it.  There's a whole mess of things that I could say, but in the end, all of those things would boil down to 'Thank You.'  I've read a number of books, but those authors that came out on top for me, they touched my heart, changed my thinking, and I'll even go so far as to say changed my life.  I can't even imagine what I would aspire to become had I not decided that Harry Potter was worth my time.  I can't imagine how I would think about life had I not read Looking for Alaska, Papertowns, An Abundance of Katherines or The Fault in Our Stars.

Thank you J.K. Rowling and thank you John Green!

Let's Talk

What are you favorite and least favorite book to film adaptations?  Why?

I've managed to sneak Harry Potter into pretty much every question so far, so let's do that again!  My favorite book to film adaption are the Harry Potter series.  Even though some liberties were, and often had to be, taken in the making of the Harry Potter films, they are relatively good adaptations of everything that I loved in the books.  Deathly Hallows was one of the better adaptions purely because they had two movies to do it.  

My least favorite book to film adaptation is Eragon.  The book was neat (I have yet to review it here), so I was really excited to see the film.  I watched it once and it was really cool, because I was watching dragons fly around the screen-- what's not to love, right?  But I watched it a second time and realized how... underwhelming it was.  It was long and nothing terribly exciting happened until the end, and even then it was very underwhelming.  I think Eragon is better in book form purely because of the language that is used and all of the description that goes into telling this particular story.  Of course, this may be because of the bad film that I'm unable to associate a good movie with Eragon.  Maybe some genius will make a remake one day when I'm old and decrepit.

Well, those are my answers to these questions!  What are yours?  Leave your web address down below and I'll try my best to return your visit!

Thanks for Reading!

--Jude

Friday Memes

TGIF, Follow Friday, and now Let's Talk is brought to you by Ginger @ GReads, Parajunkee, and i swim for oceans.  Let's head into the questions!  Feel free to leave your own link below.

TGIF

Reading Blues: We all get them from time to time.  What helps you overcome those reading slumps when nothing seems to grab your attention?

I think I've only had this happen once in a profound way in my blogging career so far.  I moved past this horrendous time by stepping back a little.  I didn't push myself to read just because I've made it my business to read for the Internet. I tried new things on my blog so that I could begin to think in different ways rather than solely through literature.  I let myself wander until I came across a book that screamed, "READ ME!!!" in an obnoxiously good way.  It's probably not the most efficient way to do things, but it worked for me.

Follow Friday

Have you ever had a character that disappointed you?  One that you fell in love with and "broke up" with later on in either the series or stand-alone book?  Tell us about him or her.

Edward Cullen from Twilight.  He represents a perfect boyfriend in many ways, but at some point in time, he's just too perfect and he was pretty unchanging for the longest time.  I fell out of love with perfection and I was looking for a guy with some flaws.  Simple as that.

Let's Talk

What ONE underrated book do you want to share with the blogosphere - new or old?

In general, I haven't noticed very many memoirs being reviewed.  They're extremely underrated.  I'm reading one right now called 'Prozac Nation' and it's probably one of the most informative and interesting memoirs about a young woman suffering from depression.  So that's the book I would like to share with you today!

Thank you very much for reading!  Again, feel free to answer these questions for yourself and/or leave your own link below in the comments.  I will try my best to stop by your blog this weekend!

--Jude