My First Week With 3

 

At the risk of sounding like I'm complaining (or scaring any of you away from having more children), I am going to be completely honest about my first week with 3 kids.  Pretty much it was a nightmare.  (Just know ahead of time that we did make it through and things are much, much better now!)

 

I started out sleep deprived before I even came home.  Our hospital is "breast-feeding friendly" or something like that, which I think is great except for two things that killed me this time around- there is no nursery and no pacifiers (yes I could and should have brought my own).  Sadie would fall asleep okay, but the second I set her near that bassinet she would let me know how she felt about it.  I didn't have a pacifier to give her or swing or anything to put her in which means I pretty much held her all the time.  Then they make you watch those videos that put the fear of death into you about sleeping with your baby, and with no nursery to send her to, and Josh either working or watching the big kids, it pretty much meant that I didn't sleep for two days after already being exhausted from birthing a child.  (There she is on my bed next to that dreaded bassinet)  

 We came home on Friday night, which worked out great because Josh would be home for the weekend to help.  I had decided to wait to have my parents come out til the Friday before Easter so it would coincide with my mom's spring break and they'd be able to stay 2 weeks, which meant I would just have to make it through the first week by myself.  Little did I know what I was in for...Saturday went great, until that night when Shane started acting really tired.  At first I told myself it was just because of a crazy week, but as I was putting him to bed he was a little warm.  He woke up the next morning with a 103 fever, so we bagged plans for Josh to take the kids to church.  I thought "okay, he just has what Marissa had and it will be gone in a day no big deal.  He can just watch TV and he'll be easy to keep away from Sadie."  I should have known that when Shane gets what Marissa has, he almost always gets it worse.  So we watched a lot of TV, and he fell asleep a little before dinner, then woke up, and vomited all over himself.

 "Okay, I told myself, that's just what he does when he gets a high fever."  And it's true, except this was a little more than that.  He threw up every last thing he ate or drank for almost 3 days.  Josh had to go back to work on Monday, so I was by myself with 3 kids for the first time, which was already intimidating, but mixed with cleaning up vomit, trying to take care of my sick little boy, not spreading any of the germs to Sadie, nursing a newborn around the clock, and keeping Marissa out of trouble while we stayed at home all day... it was exhausting to say the least.  I told myself to just hang on and keep everyone alive til Josh got home and then he could help.  Except when he got home he told me that he had a fever and some other gastrointestinal issues that I won't go into detail about.  We didn't want him getting Sadie sick either, so now I was on the night shift on my own too.  Sadie had a checkup on Tuesday morning so I decided to make one for Shane then too since he clearly wouldn't be going to school and was still throwing up what little I tried to give him.  He was so dehydrated his poor little lips were all chapped and cracking.  So I somehow managed to get all three kids ready for our 9:40 appointment, and said a prayer that Shane wouldn't throw up all over the van on the way there (he didn't thankfully!). The doctor gave him zofran so he could keep something down and gave me a schedule of how to reintroduce fluids slowly and then crackers.  The poor kid was starving and wanted to eat so bad but I had to keep telling him to wait so he wouldn't throw it all back up.  The zofran helped and after that he was able to keep his food down (with one little lapse).  He was pretty weak and tired looking for a couple days after, so needless to say we watched a lot of TV that week ;)  Sadie was the shining star through all this, she loves this bouncer and pretty much slept in it in the corner or hidden away somewhere else the whole week, and managed to stay perfectly healthy thankfully!  

 

Marissa was up to a lot of shenanigans but did pretty good all in all. 

I got some kind of upper respiratory infection a couple days later but it passed fairly quickly and my parents got into town last Friday and have been a HUGE help.  We are all feeling good at the moment and I made it through that awful week!  That's part of the reason I wanted to document this, to look back at and know that if I could make it through this, I can make it through a lot of things! And we are all having a lot more fun enjoying Sadie without scrubbing our hands til they bleed!   

Shane and Marissa Meet Sadie

Because Marissa had been sick, we didn't have the kids come visit me and Sadie in the hospital until Friday night when we were ready to leave.  So I hadn't seen them in 2 days, the longest I've ever gone.  They looked huge, especially Marissa!!  I videotaped them coming in to see her for the first time, and I'm glad I did, because they were so cute and excited to meet her!

 

 

Somebody has a hard time keeping their hands off of her...

 They wanted to read a few books when we got home, and of course Sadie had to be included too:)

I have 3 kids now, yikes!!  More on my first week soon.  It was quite a doozie.

The Dettinger Baby Quiz

  In these baby pictures you will find Josh, Kelly, Shane, Marissa and Sadie; the task at hand is to see if you can tell which one is each of us.  Good Luck because Josh has a little trouble sometimes.  Just list 1-5 and your best guess.  One of them is a lot easier than the rest.  Make your best guess and then scroll down to find the answers, no cheating.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Here is your second question to the quiz, who wrote this post?

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Answers: 1. Marissa, 2. Shane, 3. Sadie, 4. Kelly, 5. Josh (if there was any doubt)

Sadie Jo Dettinger

Warning:  This is a birth story, so if that grosses you out, just skip to the pictures:)

Wednesday, March 20th was my due date, and I was scheduled to be induced the next day.  At my appointment on Monday I was dilated to a 3-4, but I was pretty sure nothing would be happening and I would make it to my induction.  In fact, I was almost hoping for that because I had everything lined up for the kids and Josh's schedule, and I had an important meeting on Wednesday morning that I really didn't want to rearrange.  Around noon on Wednesday my friend Sarah called to see if we wanted to meet them at McDonalds for lunch.  I said sure, and got up to get my things together.  About a minute later I called her back and said, "ummm, I think my water just broke."  So she came to pick up the kids and take them and I called Josh to come home, by this time a couple minutes had passed and I was almost positive my water had indeed broken.  I hadn't had any contractions since it broke, but I was kind of in shock.  My body doesn't do this on it's own!  I was so sure of that that I hadn't even packed my bag or anything, so I ran around trying to get everything ready for me and for the kids and Josh and I headed to the hospital.

We waited in the screening room to do a few tests and make sure my water had broken.  It had, and there was meconium in it (her poop), and I knew I was positive for Group B Strep, so it was a sure thing we were staying and having the baby.  They started me on the antibiotics and told me that we could wait and see if my body would start things on its own.  So we waited, and walked around, and tried to get things moving.  I was having some contractions and I got to a 5, but I knew things would have to get going more than they were.  I was not really in too much pain at all, but I was starving because in the midst of all the excitement I had never eaten lunch and couldn't now, and I was getting tired.  I was having a hard time relaxing because I had a lot of things on my mind with all the stuff we've had going on lately, and Sarah called to ask if she could give Marissa some medicine because she had a fever.  I felt really bad about leaving her with someone sick and there not really being anything we could do about it, and what we would do with them the next day, etc. etc.  But thankfully I have the best husband ever who knew how to get me to relax and forget about everything else, a great nurse, and the world's most awesome friend who made me feel like it was no big deal to watch my sick kid overnight and who I knew they would be comfortable with.  Around 8 pm I decided to start the pitocin so we wouldn't be there forever and I would still have some energy, and the contractions started gradually picking up to where they needed to be. 

I was pretty sure I wanted to try this labor without the epidural again because it went really well that way with Marissa, but I wasn't necessarily against getting one either.  I am kind of lucky in that I feel like I am really not very uncomfortable until I get to a 7 or so, and even after that the pain is manageable and the last part goes fairly quickly.  I figured it wasn't so awful that I really wanted to get a huge needle in my back and knew I would get that huge adrenaline rush after if I didn't get one.  The nurse was really helpful with everything and helped me use a birthing ball to mix things up at the end and I think that helped too.  Also, when I was getting close to pushing she put up this bar thing at the foot of the bed that I could grab onto above me and kind of squat and that helped too.  I feel like the pushing went a lot better with this labor, it felt more effective this way than laying down, though they did make me lay down for the last couple pushes.  The doctor was a really good coach though helping me with when to push and breathe and stop etc. and I was really happy to do it without an episiotomy, just a couple small tears, and with probably 8 or so pushes.  She came at 12:10 am on March 21st, just 10 minutes shy of her due date:) I did get pretty shaky afterwards and it stung pretty bad after, but I did get that huge relief when she came out and recovered really quickly.  Yes it can be painful, but it is kind of awesome to feel your body do what it was meant to do and what a miracle it all is, and I feel grateful to be able to get to experience it.  And to have such a cute little babe at the end of all it :) 

Sadie was 8 pounds 1 ounce and 20 1/2 inches long (my smallest baby yet!)

                     

Match Day!!

 

Yesterday the long anticipated Match Day finally came!  We had found out on Monday that we matched somewhere, and had to wait til Friday to find out where.  I had thought it would be torturous, and partly it was, but after hearing from so many people who didn't match it made me so grateful we had a job somewhere that I didn't really care where it was.  Josh had the day off so we took the kids to story time at the library in the morning to pass the time and then headed off to the Match party his hospital was throwing.  We had pizza (and obviously Shane had cake frosting) and chatted nervously with friends while we waited for 1 o'clock.  (Marissa looks thrilled to have her picture taken huh?)  At 1 we hit refresh, refresh, refresh on Josh's phone til we got the email that told us we're going to Fort Wayne, Indiana! 

We were pretty excited because that was the place we ranked #1.  Haven't heard of it?  Yeah, I hadn't either til we started looking into programs.  But it was overwhelmingly our favorite for a bunch of reasons:

 

-the program is a perfect fit for Josh.  He really wanted a program where family medicine was the only residency so the residents get to do a ton of stuff without having to compete with other residencies for it.  It is actually a fairly large city with 250,000 people so there is a really good variety of patients and a decent sized Spanish speaking population, which he wanted too.  He rotated there for a month so he really got to see the program and saw how the residents could get training in all kinds of procedures that would help make their future practice even more profitable (he could even get enough training in c-sections to do those if he wanted to- he doesn't :) )    

 

-cost of living is very affordable and there are a lot of nice areas to live

 

-they have a great zoo (perfect for my animal-obsessed little boy), 3 YMCA's, lots of running/biking trails/parks, a nice baseball field/minor league baseball team, and lots of good shopping and restaurants, including a Costco which they are building in the fall (I am so excited for that!) 

 

-they offer a lot of extra benefits like a housing stipend, sign-on bonus, etc.

 

-we really like the residents and everyone involved with the program.  The coordinator has already been great to work with, she has a couple kids with celiacs and knows Josh is so at second look she had a ton of gluten free stuff for him.  They even sent us a gift basket over the holidays with popcorn, candy, and other goodies- how could we not pick them??

 

 

I will stop there, but suffice it to say we are feeling grateful for this opportunity, it really feels like where our family is supposed to be right now.  I am so proud of Josh and all his hard work getting to this point.  (I'm proud of me too, and glad that the time home alone this fall paid off because without a doubt doing the rotation there helped him get his spot.)  We went to celebrate last night at Outback! 







 Josh's last rotation ends at the end of April and we will move the first part of May- so it is on to house hunting (rentals), getting ready to move, and, oh yeah, having a baby!!!  If I haven't gone into labor by Thursday I am getting induced then, so stay tuned! 

 

Life Right Now

Surprisingly as the time passes and we get closer to lots of exciting things coming up, I am getting more and more calm about it all.  I am realizing that a lot of things are going to be changing, not necessarily for better or worse, just different (though let's face it, making money, even if it's not a lot, will definitely be better than acquiring more debt!)  With that in mind, I am getting excited about what the future will bring, but I'm trying to soak up all the little details of our life here and now.  So more for my purposes and not as much for your reading enjoyment( I warned you), I wanted to write down some of the little things that make up our life right now. 

-anytime we go anywhere, I try to give myself at least 5 extra minutes so Shane can fulfill his irresistable urge to "tromp through the snow" before getting in the van.  And so Marissa can fulfill her urge to get in her carseat by herself.

-dinner time can be crazy trying to keep everyone in their seat and feed themselves without spitting out food, complaining, or just generally being loud and obnoxious, but there are a few token meals I can make and know that they will be well received: meatballs and rice, enchiladas (barbecue chicken, honey lime, or regular), cowboy dinner, lasagana, and most variations of chicken and rice.  And on the other side, I pretty much know whenever I try to make any kind of soup, it is almost always not well received, much to my dismay. 

-whenever Josh gets home, the kids run to the door and Marissa shouts a very enthusiastic "Hiiiii!!!!" followed almost immediately by "Do be my baby!  Do be my baby!"  which means she wants to Josh to carry her like a baby, sing his little "be my baby" song he made up, and toss her onto our bed.

-on nights when he has to work, I usually try to distract us by going to the Y or out to fast food, or take advantage of the opportunity to make macaroni and cheese or something else cheap and glutenous. 

-our bedtime routine has evolved into this: around 7:30 or 7:45 the kids clean up all their toys, get pajamas on and teeth brushed.  Then they come sit on the couch and Josh will pull up a youtube video for each of them (this is something Shane insists that daddy is better at doing).  The requests go in cycles but for the past couple weeks Shane asks for a barracuda movie every night (thank goodness youtube has some of everything) and Marissa wants planes (the trailer for the new movie coming out soon).  After that they pick out a "scripture picture" and we talk about it.  Then they do "silly time" where they run around the house like crazy for a couple minutes and then we kneel and say prayer, get drinks, and head upstairs to bed. Marissa wants me to sing her "I Am a Child of God" and I put her in bed, then Shane says his prayer followed by whatever article of faith he is working on and usually requests me to sing ABC's or Once There Was a Snowman (after trying to ask about a bajillion questions in between). 

-Marissa pretty much always takes a shower with me because it is just easier that way, and let's face it, the girl can always use one:)

-Our favorite place to go for a treat these days is Culvers.  If it's a weekend and daddy is home and we have a coupon for buy one get one free concrete mixers, we will go and get two and Josh and I will each take a kid to share with (whoever gets Shane gets a little jipped because that boy can pound it in pretty quickly!)

-We try to go somewhere most mornings- usually Mondays are to the Y and groceries, Tuesdays and Thursdays are preschool, and Fridays are storytime at the library.  Marissa especially loves the Y and I'm sure glad about that, I try to go 4 times a week.

-When the kids wake up, they want to eat immediately and whenever I ask them what they want it's always "a bar! a bar!"  This is usually followed every morning by Shane asking me what he can have now and acting like it's the toughest decision of his life.  I think he's secretly hoping every morning that I will say "let's have cake!" or something like that.

-The kids are always pretending to be some kind of animal and I am usually included in this too.  They love the Bear series of books by Karma Wilson and have created longstanding identities for each of us: Shane is mouse, Marissa is badger, I am hare, Josh is mole, and Sadie is even involved in utero- she is raven.  We all have to go to bear's cave (our closet) or my burrow (the bed) and reenact scenes from the book. 

Our Newest Addition

Did you think I was talking about our baby?  Ha, gotcha!  Let's be real, I'm sure this baby won't be coming til at least 40 weeks.  I'm just hoping she's not 10 pounds by then.  Anyway, ever since Paco died Josh has been trying to convince me to get more gerbils.  I have been resisting saying that we should just wait til after we potentially move.  Josh took Shane to the library yesterday while I stayed home with napping Marissa and I started to get a little worried after they'd been gone for 2 hours.  I mean Shane could have lasted that long reading books, but I knew Josh wouldn't have!  And then I knew immediately what was happening- he was taking Shane to look at gerbils!!!  He came home and started to tell me and I said "I know exactly where you where.  I know you too well."  Apparently he had taken Shane and was talking to him about getting some and Shane had said, "No, mommy said we need to wait til May."  As they were walking out of the store Shane got sad and said, "But I have no pets."  And Josh told him they could go get some now and Shane still said, "No, mommy said we should wait til May."  Oh how I love that little boy!!  So after convincing me that it wouldn't be a big deal to move them, and having the kids ask in their sweetest little voices, I caved.  My husband can be a persistent little bugger.  But that boyish excitement and enthusiasm is also why I love him:)  Oh, and he also said he would cook dinner if I agreed to go to the pet store after, and I said, "No, I don't mind cooking dinner. How about if you clean the toilet and mop the floor?"  And we had a deal. 

So now we are the proud owners of Boovis and Material.  Can you guess who named them?  We averted the whole Shane desperately wanting to name the baby Boovis situation by telling him when we got another gerbil he could name him Boovis.  And apparently Material is also a very funny name.  We were telling him on the car ride back that he could decide when we got home which gerbil was which, and when we pulled out the light brown one he immediately said, "Oh!  That's Material!"  And so it was.  Which meant the black one was Boovis.  The kids were in heaven watching them get acquainted with their new home and Shane was telling them he loved them and all sorts of other cute things.  At one point he was watching them and said, "Yep. Those are the right names." And I'm happy, because I have 2 very happy kids (3 if you count Josh;) ), and a clean floor and toilet.