Yesterday morning I woke up to a triumphant shout:
"I did it!!"
Nathaniel had opened his door because it wasn't latched. He was soooo proud.
"I did it!!"
Nathaniel had opened his door because it wasn't latched. He was soooo proud.
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Birth 2.0
The three or so weeks leading up to Eva's birth were quite the mental/emotional struggle for me. Each week I felt like the contractions were "going up a notch" and getting us closer to the real thing, but because of how Nathaniel's labor/delivery went, I didn't really have a clue how many "notches" I still needed to go before we were at the real thing.
Enter Saturday, October 18th.
I'd had some uncomfortable contractions during the night, but by morning they had stopped being regular. One of the songs Chris wrote was being premiered up in Salt Lake that evening, and so his Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Tine came down for the premier. They took us out to lunch, took us shopping, and then drove us up to the concert in Salt Lake. I'd been having sporadic contractions throughout the day, but I wasn't timing them, and they weren't increasing in intensity.
During the concert I started realizing that the contractions were coming at a fairly consistent rate. We went out to eat afterwards and during dinner, the contractions were starting to get kind of painful. I was having a harder and harder time concealing them from everyone else (As a side note, I'm not exactly sure why I felt like I needed to conceal them, maybe I just didn't want anyone to fuss over me or worry about me? Whatever the reason, I just wanted to keep them to myself).
On the ride home (about a 45 min drive) I began timing them. Sure enough they were consistently coming 3-5 minutes apart and they were getting harder and harder to deal with.
As soon as we got home, I told Chris that I thought this was the real thing. I was fairly certain our little girl was on the way. So... now we had to figure out what to do with Nathaniel while we went to the hospital. A good friend told me we could bring him over to her house, but I couldn't get a hold of her. I tried calling my mother to let her know and see if she could start making the two-hour trek down to our house, but no one at home answered the phone (and no answer on any cell phones either).
Finally I tried my brother and asked if he could maybe just hang out on our couch until we got a hold of someone who could take his place (he had a one-month-old baby at the time and also worked early morning custodial). He answered his phone and was able to come over.
During all this, the contractions were getting hard. I was sitting on our exercise ball trying to do anything that felt like it helped me cope with the pain of each contraction. I also began singing during them. Each made-up song went something like ,"Oh maaaan, this is reeeeeaaally uncomfortable right nooow! I really really wiiiish that this contraction would end! I really really hope that this is the reeeeall thing because if it's not, then I don't want to know what the reaaaaal thing feeeeeeels like!! etc. etc. etc."
Hey, you do what you gotta do, right?
Once Stephen was on his way, I had the idea to try calling my aunt who lives kiddy-corner from my parents to just see if she knew where they might be, or if they were home. She answered and said she'd go over and knock on their door to let my mom know I was in labor.
Stephen arrived, I grabbed my hospital bag, and Chris and I drove over to the hospital. On the way over there (about a 5 min drive) my mom called. Yay! She sounded super apologetic. She said that they'd all been watching The Two Towers downstairs in the basement and didn't hear the phone ring. They were at the battle of Helm's Deep and it was really intense when they finally heard pounding on the door from my aunt.
Very appropriate I thought, that while my family was watching the orcs' chant of war, I was facing my own intense battle and chanting/singing to get through it.
We filled my mom in on what was happening and said we'd call her as soon as we knew for sure that I was staying at the hospital.
We checked in at a little after 10:00pm and were shown to a room. The nurses came in a little while later and checked me. Melanie, who did the checking said, "Oh, yeah you are totally having this baby. You are at like a seven!" Whhhaaa? a seven!? I had nooo idea that's what a seven felt like! I felt kind of proud of myself, but the first thing I asked was, "Is that too late for an epidural?" "Nope," Melanie replied, "but we gotta step on it".
Quickly the nurses got the anesthesiologist who gave me a very big dose of epidural stuff. I don't know how far along I was by the time it took effect, but I think I was further than a seven by that point (my contraction-coping songs and noises were getting stranger and stranger by that point, but thankfully no one commented :). They also called my doctor, and did all the other things like hooking up monitors, asking me questions about my health, etc.
My water broke a little while after the epidural really started kicking in, and I could feel as our little girl descended the rest of the way down into pushing position.
By midnight, we were at pushing time. My doctor had arrived a couple of minutes earlier and we started pushing. I was asked if I wanted a mirror to which I tried to politely but firmly say "no." My doctor, the two nurses and Chris all cheered me on with every push. Once she started crowning, my doctor exclaimed, "She has so much hair!" (woohoo! I thought. I'd certainly had enough heartburn for her to have a lot of hair.) She really was ready to come by then. Nathan took over two hours of pushing before he came out. With our little girl, I pushed for about 20 minutes. She emerged all beautiful and blue and squirmy and as soon as she was cleaned off and weighed and stuff, I got to hold her and nurse her.
Our Eva Magdalena Machado was born at 12:21am, October 19, 2014. She was 20 inches long and weighed 8lbs 8oz.
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Eva and I spent the normal two-days in the hospital and have both recovered well. She's even more mellow than her older brother, and I thought he was an easy newborn. Nathaniel loves his little sister and calls her, "Uh-va."
We're happily adjusting to life as a family of four. There are some challenging times, but there are also lots of beautiful moments each day.
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Enter Saturday, October 18th.
I'd had some uncomfortable contractions during the night, but by morning they had stopped being regular. One of the songs Chris wrote was being premiered up in Salt Lake that evening, and so his Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Tine came down for the premier. They took us out to lunch, took us shopping, and then drove us up to the concert in Salt Lake. I'd been having sporadic contractions throughout the day, but I wasn't timing them, and they weren't increasing in intensity.
During the concert I started realizing that the contractions were coming at a fairly consistent rate. We went out to eat afterwards and during dinner, the contractions were starting to get kind of painful. I was having a harder and harder time concealing them from everyone else (As a side note, I'm not exactly sure why I felt like I needed to conceal them, maybe I just didn't want anyone to fuss over me or worry about me? Whatever the reason, I just wanted to keep them to myself).
On the ride home (about a 45 min drive) I began timing them. Sure enough they were consistently coming 3-5 minutes apart and they were getting harder and harder to deal with.
As soon as we got home, I told Chris that I thought this was the real thing. I was fairly certain our little girl was on the way. So... now we had to figure out what to do with Nathaniel while we went to the hospital. A good friend told me we could bring him over to her house, but I couldn't get a hold of her. I tried calling my mother to let her know and see if she could start making the two-hour trek down to our house, but no one at home answered the phone (and no answer on any cell phones either).
Finally I tried my brother and asked if he could maybe just hang out on our couch until we got a hold of someone who could take his place (he had a one-month-old baby at the time and also worked early morning custodial). He answered his phone and was able to come over.
During all this, the contractions were getting hard. I was sitting on our exercise ball trying to do anything that felt like it helped me cope with the pain of each contraction. I also began singing during them. Each made-up song went something like ,"Oh maaaan, this is reeeeeaaally uncomfortable right nooow! I really really wiiiish that this contraction would end! I really really hope that this is the reeeeall thing because if it's not, then I don't want to know what the reaaaaal thing feeeeeeels like!! etc. etc. etc."
Hey, you do what you gotta do, right?
Once Stephen was on his way, I had the idea to try calling my aunt who lives kiddy-corner from my parents to just see if she knew where they might be, or if they were home. She answered and said she'd go over and knock on their door to let my mom know I was in labor.
Stephen arrived, I grabbed my hospital bag, and Chris and I drove over to the hospital. On the way over there (about a 5 min drive) my mom called. Yay! She sounded super apologetic. She said that they'd all been watching The Two Towers downstairs in the basement and didn't hear the phone ring. They were at the battle of Helm's Deep and it was really intense when they finally heard pounding on the door from my aunt.
Very appropriate I thought, that while my family was watching the orcs' chant of war, I was facing my own intense battle and chanting/singing to get through it.
We filled my mom in on what was happening and said we'd call her as soon as we knew for sure that I was staying at the hospital.
We checked in at a little after 10:00pm and were shown to a room. The nurses came in a little while later and checked me. Melanie, who did the checking said, "Oh, yeah you are totally having this baby. You are at like a seven!" Whhhaaa? a seven!? I had nooo idea that's what a seven felt like! I felt kind of proud of myself, but the first thing I asked was, "Is that too late for an epidural?" "Nope," Melanie replied, "but we gotta step on it".
Quickly the nurses got the anesthesiologist who gave me a very big dose of epidural stuff. I don't know how far along I was by the time it took effect, but I think I was further than a seven by that point (my contraction-coping songs and noises were getting stranger and stranger by that point, but thankfully no one commented :). They also called my doctor, and did all the other things like hooking up monitors, asking me questions about my health, etc.
My water broke a little while after the epidural really started kicking in, and I could feel as our little girl descended the rest of the way down into pushing position.
By midnight, we were at pushing time. My doctor had arrived a couple of minutes earlier and we started pushing. I was asked if I wanted a mirror to which I tried to politely but firmly say "no." My doctor, the two nurses and Chris all cheered me on with every push. Once she started crowning, my doctor exclaimed, "She has so much hair!" (woohoo! I thought. I'd certainly had enough heartburn for her to have a lot of hair.) She really was ready to come by then. Nathan took over two hours of pushing before he came out. With our little girl, I pushed for about 20 minutes. She emerged all beautiful and blue and squirmy and as soon as she was cleaned off and weighed and stuff, I got to hold her and nurse her.
Our Eva Magdalena Machado was born at 12:21am, October 19, 2014. She was 20 inches long and weighed 8lbs 8oz.
.JPG)
Eva and I spent the normal two-days in the hospital and have both recovered well. She's even more mellow than her older brother, and I thought he was an easy newborn. Nathaniel loves his little sister and calls her, "Uh-va."
We're happily adjusting to life as a family of four. There are some challenging times, but there are also lots of beautiful moments each day.
.JPG)
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Siblings
Today, Eva fell off the couch. She was fine (there happened to be lots of pillows), I think it just startled her, but her momma felt horrible. Nathaniel was all concerned when he saw my tears. He came and sat by me on the couch and started wiping them away. Unfortunately, because Eva was laying on my chest, that meant he kept smacking her in the face. Sometimes being the little sister is hard.
Nathaniel likes to go try and pick Eva up when she's sad. He doesn't get very far, but the cuteness melts my heart.
Nathaniel likes to go try and pick Eva up when she's sad. He doesn't get very far, but the cuteness melts my heart.
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| Trying to pick her up |
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Brutiful life
Its a: heartburn, nausea, 37-weeks-pregnant, I've-been-chasing-after-an-18-month-old, and I'm-starting-to-catch-his-head-cold.... day. I'm tired, and I'm scared to go to bed for fear of the aching joints and stomach acid. I don't want to focus on the bad, (ok, honestly, there's a little part of me that wants to just have a pity party) but sometimes you just need to tell someone about your battles.
So, now I've shared, and now I'm going to list some of the happy things:
So, now I've shared, and now I'm going to list some of the happy things:
- Nathaniel turned 18-months old on Tuesday
- I got to see baby girl's face on the ultrasound yesterday
- Christopher bought me chocolate at the store today
- Nathaniel let me take a 30 minute nap this afternoon and he didn't color on anything while I was sleeping.
- General Conference is this weekend.
- I have great friends. Friends who send me Facebook messages of encouragement, or who call and chat about life and help me feel like I can cope again.
- I got the dishwasher emptied AND switched a load of laundry over to the dryer today
- I have the Book of Mormon to read and find solace in learning more about Jesus Christ.
- We have the internet with all it's wonderful blessings.
- I've indexed several hundred names in the past few weeks, and learned about some incredible people who died in the past 20 years or so.
- I'm learning patience, endurance, and lots of other things through the things I face every day, thanks to the strength I get through the enabling power of Christ's atonement.
Keep on keepin' on, fellow sojourners. Life is hard, but it is very, very good and oh so worth it. As one amazing woman said, "Life is beautiful and life is brutal. Life is brutiful."
Monday, September 8, 2014
1 year-olds are fantastic
A photo essay of Nathaniel's recent escapades:
Needless to say, Mom and Dad giggle every day because of this guy. Thanks for being such a wonderful boy, Nathaniel!
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| Toy bucket helmet |
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| Reading in his chair |
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| Coloring adventures (at least it was just pencil) |
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| Can you tell what's wrong in this photo? (yep. That's a calculator sitting in the humidifier) |
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| When you leave the groceries on the floor, someone is bound to find the apples. |
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| He carried it around all morning. |
Needless to say, Mom and Dad giggle every day because of this guy. Thanks for being such a wonderful boy, Nathaniel!
Friday, September 5, 2014
Gloom-ishness
Today is a bit of a gloomy day. I don't quite know how to explain it. I don't feel constant gloom. It's just interwoven between everything. I have these happy moments with Nathan, or a conversation with Chris and I feel happy. Then a few minutes later the gloom-ishness comes back.
I'm sharing this on the blog, not because I want pity, or because I'm in despair. I just wanted to share because I'm trying to not numb my feelings. I'm trying to work through them and along side them. We came to this earth to have the good and the bad, the happy and the painful. Even though the gloom is uncomfortable, I think I'm supposed to feel it, not try to block it out.
And you know, when I acknowledge that I'm feeling down, for some reason it helps me feel more like digging deep and pulling through. When I hide or try to suppress my emotions, they just end up building like a pressure cooker until I melt down. It's like I have to face the feelings at some point, and I think it's a lot healthier for me to face them as they come, rather than stuff them under the rug until they're bulging out and then I have to deal with all of them at the same time.
What do you think? What helps you when you're feeling the gloom-ishness (from depression or from anything else)?
I'm sharing this on the blog, not because I want pity, or because I'm in despair. I just wanted to share because I'm trying to not numb my feelings. I'm trying to work through them and along side them. We came to this earth to have the good and the bad, the happy and the painful. Even though the gloom is uncomfortable, I think I'm supposed to feel it, not try to block it out.
And you know, when I acknowledge that I'm feeling down, for some reason it helps me feel more like digging deep and pulling through. When I hide or try to suppress my emotions, they just end up building like a pressure cooker until I melt down. It's like I have to face the feelings at some point, and I think it's a lot healthier for me to face them as they come, rather than stuff them under the rug until they're bulging out and then I have to deal with all of them at the same time.
What do you think? What helps you when you're feeling the gloom-ishness (from depression or from anything else)?
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
A bit bowled over by tender mercies
So it's a little psycho right now at the Machado household. Here's the bulleted list explanation:
- Chris is student teaching in Spanish Fork (with the awesome Shea Bradshaw)
- Chris is assisting in BYU Men's Chorus this year (and they have auditions/callbacks this week)
- Chris is the assistant conductor in Cantorum, an early music choir that got started in the Provo/Orem area a couple years ago
- Chris is teaching several voice students at the Art City Music Academy
- Sarah is pregnant (due October 26th)
- Sarah is taking care of a 17-month-old boy
- Sarah is training two new employees at Art City Music requiring about 16 hours a week (this is in preparation for her to leave when the baby comes)
- We only have one car
- We are poor college students
- Both Chris and Sarah have two callings at church and are home/visiting teachers
- etc...
It's been a week of ups and downs for me. That's for sure. The depression makes things seem bleaker, and it also combines with pregnancy to make simple things a lot more stressful. But holy. cow. I have been shocked at all the love and support friends and family have extended to us. As an example, let me tell you a story from this morning...
Chris went off to school at about 7:00, and I had a 32-week checkup with the doctor at 9:20. We've been asking everyone and their dog for help with babysitting and rides, so I decided that I'd walk the 11 blocks to the doctor's office and push Nathaniel in the stroller. Things went great until I actually took a look at the stroller. Two flat tires. hmmm.... well I knew we had a bike pump... even though I'd never used it. So I tried to pump up the tires myself.
No luck. Part of me thought, "how bad could it be to push the stroller on flat tires?" and decided to start walking. After about half a block, I realized it was not going to work. I started praying that somehow God would help us get to the doctor's office and that things would work out.
Chris went off to school at about 7:00, and I had a 32-week checkup with the doctor at 9:20. We've been asking everyone and their dog for help with babysitting and rides, so I decided that I'd walk the 11 blocks to the doctor's office and push Nathaniel in the stroller. Things went great until I actually took a look at the stroller. Two flat tires. hmmm.... well I knew we had a bike pump... even though I'd never used it. So I tried to pump up the tires myself.
No luck. Part of me thought, "how bad could it be to push the stroller on flat tires?" and decided to start walking. After about half a block, I realized it was not going to work. I started praying that somehow God would help us get to the doctor's office and that things would work out.
After retrieving our bike pump from the apartment, I had the thought to see if my friend Beverly's car was in her driveway (she lives just around the corner from us). It was there. Not really sure what to ask for, but knowing that I needed help, I went and knocked on her door. She answered and I just asked, "Are you any good with a bike pump?" and explained about my flat tires. Beverly said that she wasn't, but her boys or her brother (who happened to be there) might be able to help. Her brother got down on the ground and pumped up those tires beautifully, and meanwhile, Beverly told me that if we were running late, she could give us a ride over to the doctor's office, and we could just put our stroller in her trunk.
I was sooo grateful. Beverly and I have been good friends since we first moved into the ward, and every possible chance she has to help, I have seen her jump in with a smile on her face to help out someone in need. She's one of my heroes to be sure.
I was sooo grateful. Beverly and I have been good friends since we first moved into the ward, and every possible chance she has to help, I have seen her jump in with a smile on her face to help out someone in need. She's one of my heroes to be sure.
So, tires pumped, we hopped into Beverly's car and ended up being a little early for my appointment thanks to the time we saved driving instead of walking.
I don't know how to express my gratitude to her and my Heavenly Father for their help. It was so much more than just getting us out of a physical predicament. It saved me from the emotional and mental turmoil I was swimming through (thanks to my depressed and pregnant body).
I don't know how to express my gratitude to her and my Heavenly Father for their help. It was so much more than just getting us out of a physical predicament. It saved me from the emotional and mental turmoil I was swimming through (thanks to my depressed and pregnant body).
And so many other people have helped us too. Here's a list of some of the blessings:
- Babysitting for several hours from former roommates, friends and ward members
- Rides for me and Nathaniel to and from work and other places
- Co-workers who are fun to be with and lift my spirits
- A bag full of fresh fruit hanging from our door when we got home last night
- Boxes of Chex cereal for $1.49 at Macey's and a husband who went and got me 12 boxes
- A check from a dear Grandma to help us make ends meet
- Encouraging words from friends and family
- A mother who is coming to stay with us for a few days next week to help out
- A visit from Mom, Shanna, Abbie, and Grandma on Labor Day with delicious food provided
- Hugs from my little boy when I've been sad
- Help from my little boy when chores need to be done (he helped empty the whole dishwasher yesterday. He'd grab a dish. Hold it out to me. Say "uh?" and I'd put it away)
- Listening ears and encouragement from Christopher when I'm freaking out
- etc...
Like I said, I don't know how to express my gratitude. I'm just bowled over by the love. Thanks guys. You all are definitely helping to lift up the hands that hang down. May God bless each and every one of you.
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