10 days late! My baby, although weighing in at good solid 6 pounds at my 32 week visit was in fact 10 days overdue. Born March 25, 2014 Mr. Maxwell Conrad York! He's pretty much the best baby anyone could ever ask for. However, he did not make it easy on his mom. I went into the hospital Sunday night to be induced as I was clearly never going to have the baby on my own. After 24 hours of medications, pitosin, contractions, epidurals, oxygen masks and my water being broken by the doctor I still had not dilated past 3cm. As you can imagine I was beginning to believe that I would in fact be pregnant forever, or I would die there in the delivery room. But luckily for modern medication they have significantly reduced the number of women who die during childbirth each year. Finally around 29.5 hours of being in labor I was finally fully dilated, I could get this baby out. A half hour later we said hello to the cutest newborn I have ever seen, He was probably so cute because he completely skipped the scrawny newborn stage, born at 3:30 a.m. and weighing in at 9lbs 2oz I had given birth to a child that was actually several weeks old already, therefore he skipped the weird alien looking phase.
Obviously I was the luckiest lady in the world that night. I still get a little teary when I drive past the hospital where he was born. Tears of Joy and also tears of dread (for another reason). You see, giving birth had somehow messed me up on the inside, and a few weeks after little Conrad was born I began to have severe chest pain. I'll be quite honest I thought it was only really bad gas until the pain started getting worse to the point that it felt like someone was blowing up a steel balloon inside my rib cage. If I didn't think that I was dying while in labor I certainly thought I was now. I shortly realized by the severity of the pain that I was having problems with gallstones (which is a common problem in my family). This pain was 10 times worse than a labor contraction, who knew that was possible. All this and my face still had not started to heal. Not only was I becoming bitter I was now in severe pain. I would have Gallbladder attacks about 3-4 times a week, mainly at night. When I felt an attack coming on I usually tried not to wake Shane up, so I would head out to the couch and scream into a pillow until the pain subsided. These attacks lasted about an hour a piece on average.
I had never experienced anything like this in my life. I had always been a really healthy girl. Never did I think that I could be so sick. On top of a paralyzed face, Gallbladder infection, and giving birth, I also encountered bouts of Mastitis, and the flu, which between the two caused me not to be able to feed my own child. I also had fair amount of depression, the details of which I will not discuss on a blog. I can honestly say that I was brought so low that I could not see the light of day. The only thing I had really keeping me around was the little smile of my Conrad. And to top it all off, May 5th I went to my graduation from the University of Utah. I had been waiting for this day for years, and not only was I really sick, but I would have to walk across the stage, smile, and take a picture with two people I didn't even know all while sporting a severely lopsided face that made me look like both Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde at the same time. I wanted to give up on everything! I hated life so much that I was making myself and my family suffer.
Finally one night I felt a gallbladder attack coming on. I quickly asked Shane for a help. He gave me what is called a Priesthood Blessing in our faith. This blessing is basically a sacred prayer to God to administer to sick people. In the blessing he did not bless me with the ability to overcome this attack easily, rather he blessed the doctors that they would know what to do. Since I did not plan on going to the hospital I thought he was just tired an incoherent. I then proceeded to the couch to begin my ritual of writhing in agony.Well that was at 4 a.m., by 8 a.m. the attack still had not relinquished its hell fury. I was by this time dehydrated and hyperventilating. So I told Shane that we were going to the hospital, we ran several red lights and I rushed to the E.R. window. They immediately took me in, I can't tell you how much I loved morphine in that moment.
They took me into surgery that day and removed my gallbladder (It is the best health decision I have ever made). Looking back on this, I still can't believe that I'm okay today. I have this desire to cry, but I don't want to re-live all of that horror. It has been a long recovery process and I have not been okay all of the time. But I now know that I am a person who can overcome things. I am still pulling out this whole mess, my face is still healing and has made much better improvement as of late. I am taking better care of myself and making sure that I am eating healthy. I have to, I can't afford the consequences, I can't do that to my family again.
Enough about the myriad of pain I had, let me tell you about this amazing little person who has taken control of my heart. He is so good, when I would have bad days he could tell and he would be patient with me. He growls back at me when I growl at him and he is a continuously happy baby. I am so lucky! The only time he really becomes a monster is when he's hungry, and heck who isn't a monster when they are hungry! He loves me and thinks I'm beautiful even though I can't fully smile, and he loves my signing voice, especially in the shower. He believes me to be the most talented Violinist in the whole world and he is by far the most handsome kid I have ever seen. He loves bath time so much that sometimes I imagine one day he will be a great swimmer and will totally kick Micheal Phelps iron clad butt. But for now he will just dance in his little tub covered in bubbles. Later he can choose what he wants to be, but for now I'm going to wait till he wakes up from his nap and then attack him with kisses on his wonderful corpulent cheeks.
Last I want to thank Shane, he has saved my life over and over again these past few months. I can safely say I would not be here without him. Life is hard and sometimes it seems like there is no way out of the mess we find ourselves in. But I would never choose to go back to who I was before. I am not grateful for the trial itself, but I am grateful for what it has taught me, and I am grateful for the miracles that have helped me through it so far.
