Saturday, September 6, 2014

Back to school, back to school...

I really should be better at updating this. I guess it's hard to update it regularly when not many people read it! haha. Oh well, this is more for me and keeping an update occasionally, I guess. Anywho. Spencer and I are back in school :( But it is also kind of exciting at the same time! Spencer has just one class left that he is taking. We were actually taking it together, but since we couldn't find babysitting for Xavier I had to drop the class. One of the professors for the class said that we couldn't take him to class (which I totally understand), so I had to drop it and will take it next semester. Totally hate that! I don't want to take the class, so taking it with Spencer was going to help motivate both of us. Ugh.

Anyway! I am excited, though, because I have some awesome stuff going on this semester. There is this class called WDA (writers, dramaturgs, actors) that selects 3-6 plays every fall semester and workshops them in the class. Well one of my plays got selected! So I am in the process of writing a murder mystery play and it is being workshopped every Wednesday for the rest of the semester! SO exciting! It's going to be a lot of work but I am super excited about it. I am actually going to pitch my play as a project to direct next semester. So if it gets approved then I will be directing my own full length show next semester!! yay!!! Here's to hoping on that!

Another exciting thing about this semester is that I got offered to TA positions in the Theatre Department. So I am TA-ing the first theatre production class (mostly freshman), and I am also a TA for the class where you direct a mask-club. So the one-act show that I directed last fall, I'm not TA-ing that class this fall! woot woot! I am so excited for it! I get to do something I love and get paid for it!

So basically the only thing that is really hard about this semester is Xavier. He had a really rough week with me going back to school. He has turned out to be quite the mama's boy, so he really struggled with me being gone for a few hours at least once a day, sometimes twice a day. So that's going to be rough. It's hard to be away from him, but I figured my schedule out as well as I could so that I can spend as much time at home with him as possible. But we shall see!

Other than that we are just going about life. Spencer is still working at the LDS Motion Picture Studio. We are grateful he has this job, but it's definitely not what he wants to do forever. He is grateful to be editing videos, but these aren't the type of videos he wants to be editing. He doesn't have a ton of creative freedom and that's hard on him, but he's plugging along and doing his best there. We are doing our best to be good parents to Xavier. He is such a little sweetie! He makes us laugh every day. He has quite the personality shining through an it's great. Although he is very mischievous, so we have to really watch him sometimes! haha. He is such a joy and we are loving being his parents. :)

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Life

Well we have just been dealing with life lately. It's been a little tough, if you haven't been paying attention to my facebook :) But if you're reading this you probably have been reading my facebook. Well I am going to back up a little.

We are loving our little Xavier! He is such a sweet, wonderful baby boy! He really is so well behaved and makes our lives so wonderful. He has such an adorable smile and he shares it with us a lot. It is amazing. He has also started giggling and laughing occasionally. And his noises are adorable. He loves floor time and is so squirmy and wiggly. He makes us so happy. We are so grateful he joined our family and we enjoy him and love him more than I could ever describe in words!

The difficult thing is right as we were really adjusting and I was starting to feel fine going out and about with him (nursing takes awhile to get the hang of!), Spencer got sick. He was sick for a couple weeks and wasn't getting better, so he went to an urgent care and found out he had a back viral infection that would have turned into bronchitis if he hadn't gotten it taken care of. So I am glad he went in so we could nip that in the bud. But just as he was starting to feel better, I started having horrible abdominal pains. This happened late Wednesday night on April 9th. I had a very sudden onset of horrible pain that had me doubled over and whimpering. But I didn't have insurance so I sat up all night in the living room in horrible pain. It faded away during the day but hit again the next night. Friday I went to urgent care and the doctor was pretty sure I had gallstones. He prescribed me pain medication and antibiotics and got an ultrasound set up for me. But the ultrasound wasn't until Monday morning. So I went all weekend with this pain off and on. The ultrasound on Monday proved that my gallbladder was full of stones and that my common bile duct was inflamed and blocked. So we found out that I needed to have my gallbladder removed and we freaked out a little bit. I held off, dealing with the pain. Last Thursday night I decided not to take the Lortab I had been described. Well I woke up in excruciating pain. I took a lortab and it did nothing. At that point I begged Spencer to take me to the ER. I was quickly taken to a room where I got in a gown, they put an IV  in me and gave me morphine. Spencer got a few laughs out of seeing me on that!!!

They did an ultrasound and the doctor came in afterward and said things looked pretty yucky. The gallstones had gotten in my common bile duct and backed up my liver (which didn't surprise me, because we had noticed my eyes turning yellow the night before), and my liver was inflamed. They admitted me to the hospital and added me to the surgeons list to have my gallbladder removed later that day. Spencer and I frantically started trying to figure out getting help to watch Xavier. My wonderful sister, Nina, jumped in and said she would take Xavier for the day. So Spencer went home and got a bag prepared and my sister came down and took Xavier. It was so hard for me to let him go, but I knew that he was in wonderful hands and would do well with her. I wasn't allowed to eat or drink since I was going to have surgery later in the day.The surgery went well, but during it they confirmed that I had stones stuck in my bile duct, so they scheduled an ERCP for me the next morning. Once I woke up and got back to my room, Spencer was there waiting--thank heavens!!!! He ordered clear liquids for me, since I was cleared to have clear liquids. He basically had to feed me because I was so tired and groggy. Nina brought Xavier back down that night and I enjoyed seeing him, but I was so out of it! I wanted to cry when Spencer took Xavier home for the night. I was so out of it all night that night (I was on morphine and anti-nausea medication). But I remember nurses coming in and poking and prodding throughout the night, and early in the morning they came in and took me down for the ERCP. So I went under again for the second time in less than 24 hours (not my idea of fun!). The procedure went well and I was soon awake and alert. They took me back up to my room, but with the instructions to not let me eat or drink anything. So day two of eating no food.
My mom came down that day to help with Xavier (Saturday). Spencer brought her and Xavier to the hospital and seeing them made me so happy! They stayed until Xavier started getting hungry and they had to go home (I couldn't nurse him for 24 hours). I almost cried after they left because I was so lonely. I asked Spencer to come back by himself later since my mom was there to watch Xavier. So he came back later that evening and stayed with me for a few hours. It was so wonderful to have him with me! I don't do well completely alone in a hospital room, apparently. After he left I almost cried again. I went to bed again without being able to eat or drink still, so I was really not feeling great!

Luckily the next morning I was finally able to go home. I didn't get the ok to drink anything until the GI doctor finally came in my room around 9:45am. He said I looked good and could go home. As soon as he left my room I asked Spencer to fill up my water bottle. Water has seriously never tasted so good!!! After some more waiting around I was finally released. It was so amazing. They wheeled me out to the car in a wheelchair and it was so good to be outside. It was a beautiful Sunday, Easter Sunday! The sun was shining and the trees were blooming and I could smell the flowers when we got outside. I couldn't stop smiling the whole way to the car. Spencer helped me up to our apartment and I was heaved a huge sigh of relief. It was so wonderful to be home.

Spencer was able to stay home with me all day yesterday (Monday), and that was really nice. My mom came down Monday night and stayed with me part of today to help out. It was so helpful! She cleaned up the kitchen and helped with Xavier. It was so helpful and I was grateful to not be alone just yet. I was alone for a few hours because Spencer didn't get home from work for a few more hours, but Xavier did wonderfully! Love that little boy so much!

So basically life has been really stressful, but I am home! I am really sore, increasingly more so today. So I've pretty much been completely stuck on the couch tonight, which is probably a good thing. I'll be on my own tomorrow, which I'm a bit nervous for, but I'm sure it will be okay. :) I just can't wait to be recovered and try to get back to normal life! What I would give for a boring day. I guess I'm not going to really get much of those anymore now that we have a baby. But I can handle that :)

Monday, February 24, 2014

Xavier Kade Johnson

It has been forever since I've posted! We recently welcomed a new addition to out family and we are completely in love with him already! Xavier was born on Valentine's Day--of course! Now I might actually like Valentine's Day, haha. As I said we are already so in love with him. He is so adorable and such a sweet baby. He is so well behaved and so expressive. We love just watching him because he is so interesting to watch. He also is very strong.

Anyway, I don't know if everyone is interested, but I figured I would write a little about his birth, since some people seem interested in knowing. So I will just jump in! I was getting SO done with being pregnant. I just wanted him to come because I was so sick of carrying him around in my stomach. So how happy was I when I woke up around 5am on Valentine's day feeling like I had been working out all night. I woke up with consistent contractions but just piddled around the apartment, unsure of if it was the real thing. It felt different from the Braxton Hicks contractions I'd had, but I didn't want to cause a big fuss if it wasn't the real thing. Around 6:30 I woke Spencer up to go on a walk with me because I wanted to see if my contractions would get worse. But before we could go on a walk I decided I didn't want to go because the contractions were steadily getting more painful. I talked to my sister Kat on the phone for awhile and she said it certainly seemed like I was in real labor and encouraged me to call my doctor. I finally did end up calling him and had a contraction while I was on the phone with him, so he told me to go to the hospital and get checked. That definitely put us in gear. We took showers and got ready to go to the hospital. We got the carseat installed and finally headed over. Driving over was not the most pleasant experience, but we live really close to the hospital and I was grateful for that! We got parked and had to walk a ways to get to the right place, and I was absolutely sure this was for real because I could no longer walk/talk during contractions. So we got to the hospital around 10am and it took awhile before I was taken to a room and was able to get checked to see my progress. I was 5cm dilated when they checked me, which made Spencer and me very happy! This was definitely it and we were going to have a baby by that evening! Things had been going pretty well to this point and I wanted to have him naturally, so I kept breathing through contractions. Spencer was so great! He helped me to concentrate on my breathing and relaxing through the contractions. They increased pretty quickly. In my birth plan I said wanted intermittent monitoring, and I didn't want a constant IV, and they were very accommodating. They put in an IV that they could just put caps on and give me stuff when I needed it. I quickly got to a point where I was starting to have a really hard breathing and relaxing through contractions. I was starting to want to give up and really not thinking I could do it. I broke down a few times and Spencer was so encouraging and loving. I could not have done it without him. I really needed him and he was so helpful. When I really started struggling he told me to focus on his voice, as he was counting and telling me when to breathe. It was very helpful. I got to the point where the contractions were so painful that I asked the nurse if there was anything they could give me just to take the edge off. She said I was too far along at that point that I couldn't have anything. That was both saddening and also very encouraging! If I had gotten this far I could do it, right?! I got to a point where I really wanted to start pushing and I told the nurse that. She came over and helped me figure out how to push. I was very grateful that our doctor, Doctor Jacob, was able to get there. Things were progressing quickly enough that we weren't sure if he was going to make it or not! But thankfully he got there pretty soon after I started pushing.

When he got there and they were checking me they told me my water was still in tact. So Dr. Jacob broke my water and things kept going quickly! I guess I started pushing around 1:45pm. Pushing was so painful, but also very relieving. It felt so much better to push through the contractions. And I actually pushed a lot more during each contraction than normal, I guess. Most women get in three good pushes per contraction. For me, because of the pressure I was feeling, I was pushing 5-6 times per contraction. At this point I was totally out of it and in my own zone. I was so oblivious to what was going on around me. I was so focused on pushing during contractions and relaxing between them. Spencer was so amazing through it all! Again, I have no idea what I would have done without him. He counted for me when I was pushing and was encouraging me the whole time. I was so out of it that when Xavier came out I didn't even realize it until I heard him screaming. And he definitely came out screaming! He has quite the set of lungs (he just doesn't use them very frequently)! I had requested delayed cord clamping, so they did that and then let Spencer cut the cord. They immediately put baby on my chest for skin to skin time. He was all icky but absolutely beautiful! I held him while Dr. Jacob stitched me up. I had a second degree tear, so I got to hold our sweet baby while they stitched me all up. Eventually they took Xavier to look him over. He was 7lbs. 3 oz and 19" long. And he was healthy! It was all the road to recovery at that point. Eventually they took Xavier down to the nursery and Spencer went along. I was in the room alone for awhile and I had a moment of euphoria. I just had a baby! And I did it unmedicated and completely natural! I was so amazed and proud... and sore! And I was exhausted. I just wanted to sleep but couldn't because I was uncomfortable. Eventually the nurse came in to take me down to Mother and Baby to get situated in our room. That was so uncomfortable! Normally being in a wheelchair would be great, but I was so sore that sitting in a chair was horrible! They helped me get into the bed (which was much more comfortable than the labor and delivery bed, but still very uncomfortable!) and I just relaxed and chatted with the nurse that helped me in labor and delivery and the new nurse that was going to be helping me on the mom and baby floor. It made me so proud when the new nurse found out that I did it all unmedicated. They kind of praised me and I really can't tell you how wonderful it made me feel.

When Spencer and baby got back I was so happy. They encouraged me to try nursing, which I wanted to try anyway. So long story short, Spencer and I wanted to leave the hospital as soon as possible. One night there was more than enough for us! But Xavier was having a hard time eating and we could tell one of the nurses really didn't want to let us leave, but we were insistent, so we were able to leave on the 15th. It was pretty late when we left, and then we ran to Walgreens to pick up my prescriptions. We were so happy to get home and be in our own space! It is much more comfortable than the hospital.

Xavier continued to struggle with eating until Monday night when my milk came in. Oh boy! That was an interesting experience. I was very grateful, though, because Xavier started eating better. Nursing was still a struggle and I totally broke down a few times. It hurt so bad sometimes and I just was really struggling. I went to a lactation consultant on Friday-exactly one week after he was born, and I kicked myself for not going earlier! She was sooo helpful and made me feel so much better about it. He did a great job and I was so happy to finally know how to get a good latch, and I knew that Xavier could do it. It was so encouraging and I have been much more optimistic. Xavier has been doing a lot better with nursing and I don't feel like giving up constantly, so I think that's a great sign.

Overall we have just been absolutely loving having him home with us. He completely has Spencer wrapped his finger and it is adorable! Spencer loves cuddling him. When he got home from work tonight I was holding Xavier on my chest. Spencer immediately wanted to take him and snuggle him but I told Spencer to eat dinner first and he reluctantly agreed. haha. We love our little boy so much and think he is just perfect!