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My baby boy is one year old today! Although I cried looking
through Jack’s baby pictures last night because they really do grow up so fast,
today I am looking forward to the future and celebrating because I am LOVING watching
Jack get bigger and seeing his spunky personality develop. I am enjoying each
new month with him more than the last.
Today I wanted to write down Jack’s birth story and share
pictures from this day exactly one year ago in Decatur, Georgia. If I don’t do
it now I probably never will, and I want to make sure I get these pictures
posted somewhere.
At 3:30 in the morning on February 25, 2018, I woke up
suddenly in the night. This wasn’t unusual for me—I’d been waking up suddenly
in the night every night for weeks needing to empty my bladder and get a little
snack to stave off my ever-present nausea. At this stage in my pregnancy I was
in pain pretty much 100% of the time. To ease the jabbing pains and cramping in
my abdomen, I drew myself a bath. By this point in my pregnancy I was averaging
about 3 pain-relieving baths every day, with one usually happening in the
middle of the night.
As I sat in the tub, I felt my belly tighten and I lost my
breath. Again, this was not unusual for me. I’d been having Braxton Hicks
contractions all day and night every day
and night for about a month. They always gave me shortness of breath and were
very uncomfortable. For whatever reason, this time I decided to time them. Must
have been instinct.
I very quickly realized that these contractions were coming
at regular intervals and lasting longer than usual. By the end of my first hour
timing them, the contractions were painful, coming every 5 minutes, and lasting
about one minute. If you’ve ever been pregnant before, you know that this
satisfies the 5-1-1 rule, and you should probably think about getting your
pregnant belly to the hospital asap. But for whatever reason, I thought it
would be a good idea to take my sweet time. My other first-time-mom friends had
labored for hours at home before going to the hospital, and I didn’t want to be
one of those rookie first-timers to rush to the hospital too soon and then be
turned away. So I woke Jared up to let him know it was about to go down, and
then we spent probably another hour packing up the car and “getting ready.”
Silly girl. There is no need to “get ready” to go have a baby. The Instagram
moms who look perfectly coifed as their newborn baby is handed to them must not
be real humans. My curled hair and makeuped face were a thing of the distant
past by the time I got to the delivery room.
By the time we got in the car and started driving to the
hospital, I knew I had waited too long and my heart started to sink. The
contractions were quickly becoming closer together and were already unbearable.
I cried when we got to the front desk and found out that they had never
received my pre-check-in forms and I’d have to spend another half hour filling
out paperwork before I could be admitted. And WHY do they not just give you the
epidural immediately upon checking in? There was another couple hours of changing
into robes, having my cervix checked, getting hooked up to monitors, and
sitting around (well, Jared was sitting around—I was writhing in agony) before
the anesthesiologist came. I thought I was going to die. The worst part was
that I didn’t even get a breather between contractions because I had this
unbearable pelvic floor pain and pressure that kept getting increasingly worse
and never went away. Even after I got the epidural and the contraction pain was
minimized a bit, the intense pelvic floor pain persisted. No one could tell me
what this pain was or why upping the epidural didn’t help.
After a couple hours of the pain and pressure getting worse
and worse, I asked a nurse to please check me, which is not something I would ever have willingly asked unless I felt like
the baby was about to claw its way out of me like Renesmee in Twilight. I have
a condition called interstitial cystitis that flares up and causes intense pain
whenever someone checks my cervix, epidural or no. The nurse mentioned that it
probably hadn’t been long enough, but when she checked me I was dilated to a 9,
and then minutes after that as I screamed for her to check again she was like, “Whoa,
yup, he’s crowning. Time to push. They wheeled me into the delivery room and
skipped the “practice pushes” they had been talking about up until that point.
(What even is a “practice push”?)
The doctor who delivered baby Jack was an on-call doctor I
had never met before. Then again, I had never even met my real OB before (I only ever had appointments with his PA) so that
didn’t bother me. Her name was Dr. Sutton, and she was very kind and encouraging.
I must have started pushing around 11:30 in the morning. I’d had friends say
things like, “If you have an epidural, your contractions won’t feel painful—it will
just be a little pressure,” and, “Pushing out a baby is like pushing out a big
#2.” Nope to both of those. The contractions were excruciating (pretty sure my epidural
didn’t really take), and the pushing felt like nothing. Literally. When I’d
push it just felt like I was straining and my face was turning purple but
nothing was actually happening. I remember looking at the clock after over an hour
of this exhausting, excruciating pushing and thinking to myself, “Hey, that
would be cool if baby was born at 12:34.” Nope again.
At one point Dr. Sutton actually left the room to go deliver
another baby because I was taking so long. That was discouraging because I
realized that I probably wasn't even close if she felt comfortable leaving me
to go deliver a woman who had just barely started pushing herself. Jared
thought that I was killing it at the whole labor and delivery thing because
whenever someone would ask if I wanted to take a break through a contraction, I
would cry, “No, I think I can push again.” In reality I would have LOVED to
been able to take a rest. I’d been up since 3:30 in the morning and pushing for
what felt like forever and sick and tired for months. But the pain was worse
than the exhaustion, and I knew the pain would only go away once I got this
baby out of me, so I kept pushing, even through sobs of, “I can’t do this, I
can’t do this anymore, make it stop,” between contractions. And of course, the
pain never stopped between contractions because I was having that nasty pelvic
floor issue.
I never once felt like I was making any progress. When the
nurses and doctor started saying, “You’re almost there! Just a couple more
pushes!” I was certain they were lying just to keep my morale up. Finally,
after 2.5 hours of pushing, Jack Lambert was
born at 1:14 p.m. I think my first words as they handed him to me were, “Wow,
it’s like an actual person!” (no duh.) He weighed 7 lb 8 oz, was 19 inches long, and
caused quiiite the tear.
I was in for a rough recovery and some pretty exhausting
days and nights with my colicky newborn, but in that hour after Jack was born
and me and Jared had some alone time with him, we were in heaven. I couldn’t
really move much during my two days in the hospital, but hey, it was so nice
not to feel sick anymore and to be able to enjoy food again.
We love our Jackelope so much. He has changed us for the
better, and even though life isn’t always easy with a baby, we are happier
people for having him in our life. Happy birthday to the most adorable little
firecracker—our cute, spunky Jack Lambert.
I'm going to try alternating my blog posts--every other week I'll do a more current post, and on the off weeks I'll do throwback posts to the big things that happened in the past year or so that I never got around to posting because of pregnancy/newborn busyness.
I don't have a lot of pictures from the past week or so. Mostly I've been capturing little videos on my phone of the cute things Jack does, like standing unassisted, playing "soccer" while holding onto one of my fingers, or growling back at the dog when she growls at him for pulling her ears. I want to compile all the phone videos I've taken this past year for Jack's first birthday, but there are hundreds of them so it's a giant undertaking.
Valentine's Day was a bit of a mixed bag this year. The night before, I had YW New Beginnings, and when I got home I stayed up until midnight cleaning the house, doing a mountain of dishes, and preparing for Valentine's Day. Jared wasn't much help because he's on a rotation where he has to go to sleep early so he can wake up early. Once I finally finished getting everything ready, the dog started scratching to go out to the bathroom, so I let her out and she ran off for half an hour! (We will be putting in a fence immediately after the ground starts to thaw in the spring. We've already set aside the money for it.) Then I was up at 5:30 in the morning on Valentine's Day to make a cute waffle breakfast for Jared before work. I was able to catch another hour of sleep after that before Jack woke up for the day, but I was exhausted. Unfortunately, Jack was cutting 3 teeth and had maybe his whiniest day ever. With how exhausted I was I did not handle it well. The holiday involved lots of tears, one freezing walk in 40 mph wind when I HAD to get some fresh air to calm down, and an emergency trip through the McDonald's drive-thru with lots of snack for Jack to keep him quiet on the way. This picture pretty much sums up how the day went:
When Jared got home from work, we gave Jack some Tylenol and put him to bed early. Jack's early bedtime is my salvation. I don't know what I would do without those quiet evening hours to recompose myself, spend time with Jared, and have some "me" time. On Valentine's Day, after Jack went down Jared and I had crepes for dinner, just like on our first date. Then we played Bananagrams using words that had to do with love, and afterward we watched the first half of The Princess Bride (the movie we watched on our first Valentin's Day together, which is also the day we decided to get married) before we both started falling asleep at 9:00 and called it a night. Even though it was a rough day with Jack, I ended up having a nice, low-key evening with Jared. He even brought me flowers and a card. What a guy.
^^My Valentines
^^The eclectic outfit I threw on to go to the McDonald's drive thru. The sweatshirt dress is the only red I own, and I love those floral booties but never wear them. They were easy to slip on.
^^Quick family selfie to document Jack's first Valentine's Day before we chucked him into his crib for the night. I know our mouths are smiling, but our tired eyes tell the real story here.
I don't have a lot of pictures from the past week or so. Mostly I've been capturing little videos on my phone of the cute things Jack does, like standing unassisted, playing "soccer" while holding onto one of my fingers, or growling back at the dog when she growls at him for pulling her ears. I want to compile all the phone videos I've taken this past year for Jack's first birthday, but there are hundreds of them so it's a giant undertaking.
Valentine's Day was a bit of a mixed bag this year. The night before, I had YW New Beginnings, and when I got home I stayed up until midnight cleaning the house, doing a mountain of dishes, and preparing for Valentine's Day. Jared wasn't much help because he's on a rotation where he has to go to sleep early so he can wake up early. Once I finally finished getting everything ready, the dog started scratching to go out to the bathroom, so I let her out and she ran off for half an hour! (We will be putting in a fence immediately after the ground starts to thaw in the spring. We've already set aside the money for it.) Then I was up at 5:30 in the morning on Valentine's Day to make a cute waffle breakfast for Jared before work. I was able to catch another hour of sleep after that before Jack woke up for the day, but I was exhausted. Unfortunately, Jack was cutting 3 teeth and had maybe his whiniest day ever. With how exhausted I was I did not handle it well. The holiday involved lots of tears, one freezing walk in 40 mph wind when I HAD to get some fresh air to calm down, and an emergency trip through the McDonald's drive-thru with lots of snack for Jack to keep him quiet on the way. This picture pretty much sums up how the day went:
We may not be getting out much this winter, but I'm loving the chance to post about some of the bigger things that happened in the last year or so that I didn't get around to blogging at the time. Today I want to blog about Match Day--the most important day in a medical student's life. Perhaps the most important day in a doctor's entire career. It determines whether they'll be able to practice medicine, and what type of doctor they'll be (cardiologist, pediatrician, surgeon, dermatologist, etc.). This is a long post, but I wanted to record all the details from this monumental day.
Match Day 2018 was on March 16--just 3 weeks after Jack was born. But first, a bit of background on what exactly Match Day is. After medical school, every medical student will need to complete 3 or more additional training years in his or her chosen medical specialty in order to practice as a doctor in the United States. You learn a little bit about a lot of medical stuff during medical school, but residency is the time to learn a lot of stuff about just one specific specialty that you will be practicing in for the rest of your career. You may technically be a doctor when you graduate from medical school, but you're not really a doctor until you finish your residency. After 3 years of medical school, Jared knew he either wanted to practice as a family medicine doctor or as a radiologist. Radiologists make more money and can often work from home, which sounded appealing, but after Jared did a radiology rotation in New Jersey and realized that radiologists don't get to interact much with patients, he was committed to pursuing family medicine. It really does suit him.
Students spend their last year of medical school applying to residencies and then hopefully interviewing at residency programs across the country so they can "match" at the end of med school into a training program. Many students don't match, which is terrifying because at that point you probably have a couple hundred-thousand dollars in student loan debt (yup) and no way of paying it off. Leading up to match day, you rank the programs you have interviewed at in order of your preference. Then each program ranks each of the hundred or so students they have interviewed in order of their preference. Then everyone's preferences go into a computer program that uses a complex algorithm to pair students with schools in order to give the most people possible their top preference.
^^Jared feeding baby Jack on match day and trying not to throw up from nerves.
On Match Week, everyone who has entered the match will receive an email on Monday telling them whether or not they matched. If you don't match, then you have to "scramble" to hopefully grab a residency from a program that for whatever reason didn't fill all their residency spots in the match. I think this process mostly involves reaching out to random programs and hopefully getting a couple phone interviews. But if you did match, then a huge burden is lifted and you wait until Friday to find out where you matched.
When Jared got the Monday email telling him he matched, we felt a huge sense of relief. But there was still a lot of anxiety about not knowing where we'd be headed next. This is how we had ranked the programs Jared interviewed at:
1. Richland, WA (family medicine)
2. Las Vegas, NV (family medicine)
3. Bremerton, WA (family medicine)
4. Billings, MT (family med)
5. Casper, WY (family med)
6. Atlanta, GA (family med)
7. Stamford, CT (family med) (holla at The Office fans)
8. Coney Island, NY (internal medicine) (booooo)
We were ultimately grateful just to know we had matched and would have some job security, but we really wanted that Richland residency, and we really really really reallllllly didn't want the Connecticut or New York residencies. After living so far away for 4 years, we wanted to get back a little closer to family, and somewhere where Jared's coworkers would be kind (New England doctors can be pretty unfeeling) and the cost of living would be cheap so we could get into a home.
^^Jared and bb Jack with our two closest med student friends in Atlanta (Evan Rogler and Zach Wadsworth) with their baby boys (Leo and Ramson). There is no smile in Jared's eyes in any of these pictures from Match Day haha. Poor guy has never been more anxious in his life.
On Match Day we met up with all our Atlanta med student friends at a bar and grill in Tucker, GA to open our Match letters. By some miracle, everyone matched! Considering we all went to a Caribbean medical school (SGU), we weren't sure we'd all be so lucky. Everyone sat nervously around a big table, ordering food and drinks. I remember that Jared and I were down to our last pennies by this point in the year, so we just split an appetizer. The 4th year of medical school involves so many additional expenses not covered by your loans (residency applications, flights, thousand-dollar tests, thousand-dollar test prep programs, etc.), we were coasting through that last month of medical school on fumes. The others had been allotted a lot more loan money than us because you get 15k extra per year per kid. We didn't have Jack until the month before Jared finished his schooling. On the plus side, we won't have to pay back as much loan money as most of our friends!
^^All the guys matched into the specialties they were hoping for! Jared still looks a bit like a deer in the headlights here.
When the emails came in telling everyone where they matched, we went around the table one at a time to open our emails and read them to the group. It was actually a really cool experience and I'm glad we did it this way instead of at home by ourselves. It felt like everyone was opening their mission calls together or something. As we went around the table, everyone was so happy because they all matched into their first or second program of choice. I have never seen such a relieved, giddy, joyful group of people. When it got to Jared, I was certain he would read, "Congratulations, you matched into the family medicine residency at Kadlec University in Richland, WA!" Instead he read, "You matched into the University of Wyoming family medicine residency in Casper, WY!" As everyone cheered, both of our hearts sank a little and we both had these semi-fake smiles plastered to our faces.
As the next person opened their email, I whispered to Jared, "Is this ok? Are we ok?" And Jared whispered back, half-panicked, "Yes--I think so?" Looking back, I think we were in a little bit of shock because we were so sure we'd match into one of our top 3 choices. We went home after everyone else opened their Match emails. We left in a rush partly because we had a colicky newborn who we needed to get home, but also because we needed to go process our feelings away from our friends who were all giddy to have matched into their top choices. It was a weird day. We couldn't really feel ecstatic about matching into our 5th choice. All we'd experienced of Casper was a freezing, windy few weeks there in January while I was 8 months pregnant and Jared was sick with the stomach flu. But then, we also couldn't really feel disappointed either, because if Jared hadn't matched into Casper then he would have matched into one of the programs back east, or perhaps no program at all. For that, we felt so relieved and grateful that Casper saved us and was our ticket to moving back West. As we stayed busy with our colicky baby and house hunting, our worries faded and we began to feel truly excited about our upcoming Wyoming adventure.
Now that we've been living and working in Casper for 9+ months, we are beyond grateful that Jared matched here instead of any of the other programs he interviewed at, and I'm not just saying that. Our top 3 choices were brand new programs that hadn't really established a reputation yet. Casper's family medicine program, on the other hand, has been around for decades. It is well established and well respected. It's the program that will do the most in getting us where we want to end up (at a family medicine practice somewhere in UT). We're also glad Jared didn't match into Billings. Although the scenery and outdoorsiness of Billings is really cool (cooler than Casper, probably), it is just such a far drive from both of our families that I don't think we'd see them any more than we did when we were living in Georgia. My family is just a 6-hr drive from Casper. Far enough that we wouldn't just up and visit them on any ol' weekend, but close enough to visit every couple months, and close enough for them to drive up fairly often too.
Jared also really loves everyone he works with and the way the residency program here is run. He is learning a lot, and everyone looks out for one another. It's an extremely family-friendly environment. Also, we are in love with our little home on the edge of the prairie.
^^We took these pictures at Stone Mountain when Jared's mom came to visit the day after Jared matched. Jared was happy by this point, but obviously exhausted. No rest for the weary when you've got a colicky newborn on your hands! Thank heavens for our angel moms who came to help us out and let us catch some z's here and there.
Students spend their last year of medical school applying to residencies and then hopefully interviewing at residency programs across the country so they can "match" at the end of med school into a training program. Many students don't match, which is terrifying because at that point you probably have a couple hundred-thousand dollars in student loan debt (yup) and no way of paying it off. Leading up to match day, you rank the programs you have interviewed at in order of your preference. Then each program ranks each of the hundred or so students they have interviewed in order of their preference. Then everyone's preferences go into a computer program that uses a complex algorithm to pair students with schools in order to give the most people possible their top preference.
On Match Week, everyone who has entered the match will receive an email on Monday telling them whether or not they matched. If you don't match, then you have to "scramble" to hopefully grab a residency from a program that for whatever reason didn't fill all their residency spots in the match. I think this process mostly involves reaching out to random programs and hopefully getting a couple phone interviews. But if you did match, then a huge burden is lifted and you wait until Friday to find out where you matched.
When Jared got the Monday email telling him he matched, we felt a huge sense of relief. But there was still a lot of anxiety about not knowing where we'd be headed next. This is how we had ranked the programs Jared interviewed at:
1. Richland, WA (family medicine)
2. Las Vegas, NV (family medicine)
3. Bremerton, WA (family medicine)
4. Billings, MT (family med)
5. Casper, WY (family med)
6. Atlanta, GA (family med)
7. Stamford, CT (family med) (holla at The Office fans)
8. Coney Island, NY (internal medicine) (booooo)
We were ultimately grateful just to know we had matched and would have some job security, but we really wanted that Richland residency, and we really really really reallllllly didn't want the Connecticut or New York residencies. After living so far away for 4 years, we wanted to get back a little closer to family, and somewhere where Jared's coworkers would be kind (New England doctors can be pretty unfeeling) and the cost of living would be cheap so we could get into a home.
On Match Day we met up with all our Atlanta med student friends at a bar and grill in Tucker, GA to open our Match letters. By some miracle, everyone matched! Considering we all went to a Caribbean medical school (SGU), we weren't sure we'd all be so lucky. Everyone sat nervously around a big table, ordering food and drinks. I remember that Jared and I were down to our last pennies by this point in the year, so we just split an appetizer. The 4th year of medical school involves so many additional expenses not covered by your loans (residency applications, flights, thousand-dollar tests, thousand-dollar test prep programs, etc.), we were coasting through that last month of medical school on fumes. The others had been allotted a lot more loan money than us because you get 15k extra per year per kid. We didn't have Jack until the month before Jared finished his schooling. On the plus side, we won't have to pay back as much loan money as most of our friends!
^^My med-school wives tribe!
When the emails came in telling everyone where they matched, we went around the table one at a time to open our emails and read them to the group. It was actually a really cool experience and I'm glad we did it this way instead of at home by ourselves. It felt like everyone was opening their mission calls together or something. As we went around the table, everyone was so happy because they all matched into their first or second program of choice. I have never seen such a relieved, giddy, joyful group of people. When it got to Jared, I was certain he would read, "Congratulations, you matched into the family medicine residency at Kadlec University in Richland, WA!" Instead he read, "You matched into the University of Wyoming family medicine residency in Casper, WY!" As everyone cheered, both of our hearts sank a little and we both had these semi-fake smiles plastered to our faces.
As the next person opened their email, I whispered to Jared, "Is this ok? Are we ok?" And Jared whispered back, half-panicked, "Yes--I think so?" Looking back, I think we were in a little bit of shock because we were so sure we'd match into one of our top 3 choices. We went home after everyone else opened their Match emails. We left in a rush partly because we had a colicky newborn who we needed to get home, but also because we needed to go process our feelings away from our friends who were all giddy to have matched into their top choices. It was a weird day. We couldn't really feel ecstatic about matching into our 5th choice. All we'd experienced of Casper was a freezing, windy few weeks there in January while I was 8 months pregnant and Jared was sick with the stomach flu. But then, we also couldn't really feel disappointed either, because if Jared hadn't matched into Casper then he would have matched into one of the programs back east, or perhaps no program at all. For that, we felt so relieved and grateful that Casper saved us and was our ticket to moving back West. As we stayed busy with our colicky baby and house hunting, our worries faded and we began to feel truly excited about our upcoming Wyoming adventure.
Jared also really loves everyone he works with and the way the residency program here is run. He is learning a lot, and everyone looks out for one another. It's an extremely family-friendly environment. Also, we are in love with our little home on the edge of the prairie.
I think I have too many hobbies and aspirations. Is that a thing? Sometimes I talk to my "mom friends" in my ward and other groups and they're like, "I'm going to have to go back to college when my kids are all school aged, because I'm not going to know what to do with all that free time." I am as faaaaar to the other end of the spectrum as possible. I'm already stoked for Jack to start preschool so I can claim a portion of my time back. Then again, by that time he'll probably be done taking naps so I don't think I'll have more free time. At least it won't be less time though. Until baby #2 comes around. The point is, I have so many things I want to be working toward on any given day, and not nearly enough hours to do them all.
^^Jack is physically incapable of sitting still for a diaper change. It is 100% impossible for him. The only way I can get him to stop wriggling for a diaper change is by giving him a bottle, or giving him my phone with his favorite cartoon playing. I'm very excited for him to be potty trained someday. I always tell Jared that I don't feel bad about not exercising anymore, since wrestling my child into complacency burns approximately 5x more calories in a day than running ever did for me.
^^These two are so in love. They kind of need each other these days. Jack is so demanding of all my attention that these two get a bit jipped sometimes. Glad they have each other for snuggs when I'm emotionally unavailable haha.
When Jared started med school and we moved to Grenada, I learned that I'm not truly happy unless I'm dreaming big and working toward something I'm passionate about. In Grenada that was videography and blogging. In Georgia that was growing my Simpleton Pleasures Instagram account. Now it's starting a weaving business. I'm so grateful for the skills I gained in Grenada and the IG account I grew in Georgia, because those will give me a platform to get eyes on my business and skills to market my work. I recently finished the weaving prototype I hope to use to launch my weaving business (see above). Woven wall hangings have been popular for several years now, but the normal square ones with tassels are getting a bit old to me. I've only ever seen one other weaver use a homemade copper-pipe frame, and I've never seen anyone do anything quite like the weaving pictured above. I may add tassels, but for now I like it as is. A piece like this takes days or weeks to make since I can only weave during the occasional Jack nap, so it will be another month or two before I have enough of an inventory to do anything. I've come to really love this random creative outlet.
None of that was supposed to be what this blog post was about, oops. Guess I should've put another picture first so I wouldn't get distracted. What I meant this post to be was bragging about my lucky week! I guess the first picture ties in because I finally was lucky enough to finish that big piece of art that's been in the works for months. I was also lucky because I won my first giveaway ever! Well, one time I won a bag of chocolate-covered acai berries, but that doesn't count. This time I won a gift card for a free pillow from one of my favorite shops: KaeKoo. It's an account run by a cute gal who makes and sells beautiful pillow covers. I just love how she runs her business. This was a great win because most of her pillows cost $60 or more. I chose a beautiful black mudcloth pillow cover. It should arrive sometime next week.
The last lucky thing that happened was I won my work's monthly lottery drawing! Each month the company I work for chooses one editing project at random, and if the editor completed the project on time and received a good rating from the customer, they get a $50 bonus on their paycheck. I don't have time to take many work projects, so I was shocked and thrilled when I got the email that I won the editing lottery this month. Guess I should squeeze time in for work more often so I can win more lotteries. And finally, some pictures of why I'm the luckiest person of all: because I have these guys (awwwww):
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