I was a sorority girl in college.  My Mom encouraged me to join Rush as a Freshman.  I think she was concerned that I was going into a school with 44,000 students not knowing many people after graduating with 21 other students in my Senior class*. Thirteen of us had gone to school together since we were in first grade.

I begrudgingly joined Rush, not expecting to find anything. After all, I had more guy friends than girls in high school and wasn’t a part of any high school cliques. My weekends were spent at horse shows and my afternoons were spent at the barn, riding my horse Dewey. At the ripe old age of 17 though, I realized my Mom knew more than I did and I should give it a shot.

I felt awkward at Rush. These girls were SUPER polished and I barely knew how to blow dry my hair or put make up on. A week later though and after visiting 16 sorority houses I found my home for the next 4 (5 really) years, Zeta Tau Alpha.  I learned how to be a sister and have girlfriends (I aso learned a really good blowout and how to put makeup one).

Fast forward to 12 years later, after I pledged a sorority in 1998 (oh my God I am getting old), I found another sisterhood.  That of new Moms on Twitter.  My Twitter friends talked me through breastfeeding issues, c-section recovery issues, co-sleeping and any other post-partum issue you could imagine.  Without my Twitter “sisters” I doubt I would be cloth diapering or breastfeeding.  It’s amazing what kind of support system you can find online.

My Mom even called me the other day to ask what web site I used for all my support with breastfeeding. KellyMom.com? “No, that Twitter site.”  I tried to explain how Twitter works, but instead recommended she tell her cousin who is a nurse in a rural town in Vermont to have her new Moms visit Twitter and KellyMom.com for breastfeeding support.  Twitter is awfully tough to explain to someone who thinks you spend way too much time on Facebook and the computer anyway.  Without these resources I would have never have as much confidence in our breastfeeding relationship as I do today, and maybe a nurse recommending the same resources to a new Mom will help someone as much as it did me. I can only hope!

Since I don’t tell all of you enough, thank you friends for all of your support, advice & friendship!

* Just a shout out to my high schoolmate, Maria, over at mommymelee.com. She’s a Big Time Tweeter (I coined that term, thank you very much) & is an amazing writer. I always knew she was a great writer in high school, but I bumped into her on Twitter after having some mutual followers and love reading her blog. She’s a fantastic Mom, person & writer, you should read her blog if you don’t already!

Have I mentioned lately how thankful I am for my family and friends?

I had a rough week last week. I put a hole in the wall while trying to put a baby gate up, which created a chain reaction of home sickness and wanting my Mom. I was aggravated with my husband for not being able to put up the gate, which in my mind caused me to put the hole in the wall with my own attempt.  He is smart enough to know his limitations with home repair, while I am not.

After I put this hole in the wall:

Greg offered to take me on a date night Saturday while his parents watched Jackson.

Saturday came and Greg had plans to golf with a friend (a typical weekend for us). Jackson was having a rough day due to teething and not willing to nap. The date couldn’t come soon enough! I spent about 30 seconds picking out an outfit in my closet and managed to throw some curlers in my hair and put on a little makeup. As I was dressing Jackson in PJ’s, Greg questioned the outfit and mentioned his parents can change him into his jammies. I agreed and threw him in a romper that was too small for him, making a mental note to put that outfit in the “too small” bin to give away.  I packed a small diaper bag for Jackson and we left the house at 6pm to make our 7pm dinner reservations

On the drive to Greg’s parents’ house his sister called and asked what we were doing and if we wanted to come over so her kids could see Jackson.  I remember thinking, “she’s a Mom— she knows 6:30pm is a little late for a play date! Jackson goes to bed at 7:30!” He let her know we were about 15 minutes from his folks house and we were going on a date. I had NO idea what was waiting for us at his parent’s house.

Pulling into the driveway Greg offered to carry Jackson, but since his car seat was on my side I just grabbed him. I remember hearing talking as I opened the door to find 40 of my closest friends and family there yelling, “Surprise!!!!” It felt like the twilight zone because I have never had a surprise party and couldn’t believe this was for me. I saw my Mom come through the crowd to give me a hug and take Jackson from me, who was NOT pleased with the surprise and scared of all the people waiting for him at his normally quiet Gram and Poppa’s house.

Greg had managed to throw a 30th birthday surprise party for me, fly my Mom up from Florida to it and keep it a surprise! The worst week turned into an amazing one and reminded me just how thankful I am for an amazing husband, family and group of friends. He had me completely surprised by throwing it a month early!

I tear up thinking about how lucky I am to be married to my best friend and have an amazing family. I couldn’t ask for more! Enjoy the pictures from the party, Greg had it catered with all of my favorite foods, complete with a Gator pinata! Thank you Greg and to all my friends and family who came— I will never, ever forget my 30th birthday! I love you!

I’ve decided to write about my birth experience and emergency c-section because I read negative things every day about c-sections, especially on Twitter.  I spend a lot of time on Twitter.  My love of Twitter grew right after Jackson was born.  I joined twitter before I was pregnant and turned to the site for support during my pregnancy and met a wonderful group of ladies who were all due around the same time as me.  I had planned to tweet my labor/delivery and everything! That is, until things didn’t go according to my “plan.”

My pregnancy was pretty much by the book.  I never had any morning sickness and I felt great the entire time; the only hiccup was at our 18 week ultrasound when our baby (we didn’t want to know the gender) was diagnosed with a Choroid Plexus Cyst.  After a couple days of panicking and consulting Dr Google, we had a Level II ultrasound with a Fetal Maternal Specialist who reassured us the cyst was nothing to be concerned with and we had a perfectly physically healthy baby.  His exact words were “I don’t want you to even think about this cyst any more.” After that appointment, the cyst rarely crossed my mind for the next 5 months.

Greg and I attended the hospital childbirth class when I was 35 weeks and I’ll be honest, I thought it was a complete waste of my time.  I had learned more from Twitter and lurking at TheBump.com’s message boards than the 4 weekly classes. Or so I thought.  The class was very basic but definitely beneficial for the mother’s partners who had no idea that a baby had to come out of an orifice that starts out the size of a cheerio.  That was a REAL eye opener for Greg. There was also a brief section on cesarean sections.  I barely paid attention because I though: “oh it will never happen to ME, I’m so healthy, etc.”  I did hear her talk about how c-sections worked in the hospital and how many people would be in the OR.  I also heard the instructor when she said if you start bleeding when you are laboring to get to the hospital.  She actually said “Do not pass go, go directly to the hospital because that could be a sign of a placental abruption.”

Fast forward two weeks after the class ended and I went into labor.  It started with contractions in the middle of the night and progressed throughout the day until I was 7-8 minutes apart at around 9 pm. For some reason it felt better for me to sit down when I had contractions and at one point in the early evening I sat on the toilet and noticed I passed a giant bloody plug (sorry to be so graphic).  After that came out, the flood gates of blood opened up and I called Greg over.  We decided it would be best to call my Dr and head to the hospital.  Of course, no one from my OB’s group was on call but the covering physician reassured me it was probably just my bloody show but to come on down anyways.

The 15 minute drive to the hospital was the longest 15 minutes of my life, complete with me sticking my head out the window and panting like a dog during contractions.  We got to triage, checked in and my blood pressure was sky high.  Mind you, I always have super low blood pressure, even throughout my pregnancy, so this was new for me.  The nurses checked my urine for proteins and seemed like everything was fine and had me go sit in the waiting room while waiting for a room to open up.

In the waiting room, there were about 4-5 other very pregnant women with much larger bellies than me sitting around. Apparently I was the only one in labor though because they all looked at me like I had a third eye when I stood up and tried not to cry during contractions. I tried not to be irritated by them all looking at me like I was crazy and I kept running to the bathroom to fill the toilet bowl with blood.  I kept walking to the nurses’ station and telling them about the blood and they assured me it was just my bloody show.  I remember thinking to myself “this is no bloody show!”

After a 45 minute wait, my name was called and we got a room. My biggest concern at the time was not being dilated enough to stay, I just couldn’t imagine being sent back home at this point.  When they checked me for the first time I was so relieved to hear that I was 5 centimeters dilated. Then I knew something was going wrong when they couldn’t find the baby well on the monitors and kept having me switch the side I was laying on.  I really knew I was in trouble when the nurse left and came back with 5 other doctors, residents and nurses.  I remember telling the nurse and my husband to get the baby out ASAP and that I didn’t care what it took.  It was approximately 11:30 at night now and my good friend, a L & D nurse had come in on her day off to check me in to the hospital.  I was positive something was wrong when she greeted me in the hall as I was being wheeled to L & D and had a look of concern on her face as she told me she was going to go upstairs with us.  Even though something was clearly wrong, I felt a calm sense of relief and knew I was in good hands.

The next 30 minutes were a blur.  My Mom arrived from from Florida and was able to meet Greg & I upstairs. I met the covering OB, a young woman who was probably around 35.  She mentioned it seemed the baby was either sleeping or having trouble and she was going to do a few tests and also mentioned the possibility of a c-section for the first time. I remember a calmness in the room and completely trusting this woman with our lives. After using some sort of probe and trying to physically shake the baby awake, she broke my water to find meconium.  She confidently called the c-section and calmly let me know the baby was in distress.  She also told me they were not going to let the baby cry without cleaning him or her up first because of the meconium. Greg wasn’t in the room at the time because he had gone to the car to get our cord donation box and was chatting with his Mom and almost missed Jackson’s birth. He came up and a nurse threw scrubs to him as I was being wheeled into the OR.

Fifteen minutes later, Jackson was born with the cord wrapped his neck four times and was completely silent and white.  His first APGAR he scored a 1. My Dr also discovered my placenta had abrupted, found a softball sized clot in my uterus and I hemorrhaged almost 2 liters in the OR.

There is a lot of talk about c-sections on Twitter; people who are angry about theirs and others who are pissed that there are too many in general.  While I respect everyone’s feelings about them, I am extremely grateful for mine.  I am so happy to hold a healthy 8 month old in my arms and I can’t imagine the alternative if I had not gotten the c-section when I did.  If my Dr hadn’t called the c-section so soon, Jackson could have suffered from a number of disabilities or even died, not to mention I could have bled out as well. I am thankful for modern medicine and forever grateful to the physician who saved my son’s life (and possibly mine).

I felt compelled to write this to get a positive story about c-sections out there.  In my opinion, c-sections save a lot of lives.  Even if Jackson had been born via c-section and had no issues with the cord or placenta and scored a 10 on his APGAR, I would have viewed my experience as a positive one. I wouldn’t want to find out the hard way that a c-section was truly “necessary”- I’d rather be safe than sorry. If a baby appears to be in trouble and the OB feels safest way for he or she to be born is via c-section, I trust the physician.  My scar will heal eventually and is the last thing on my mind at night when I rock my sweet son to bed. I’d never forgive myself if I had refused my c-section or decided to “wait” and my son had to live with disabilities or possibly not have even made it.

Yeah, I liked technology even back then And that thing on the right side of my nose is a hemangioma; it appeared at 2 weeks old and disappeared when I turned 5.

Dear Jackson,

In keeping with tradition, this letter is coming to you 7 days past your 8 month birthday. You have been very busy this past month and are blowing past developmental milestones too fast for my liking. Just today, as we were leaving your friend Charlotte’s house you waved goodbye to her and her Mom. Three days ago, on Saturday, you took your first crawling “hops” in a hotel room in Burlington.  We were in Vermont visiting our Great-Grandma and Grandma Z and attending the Kilbourn family reunion.  You met 75 of your relatives and loved every minute.  No naps were taken during the family-filled weekend, only because you might miss meeting someone new and charming them with your sweet, gummy smile.  A favorite memory of the weekend was you drumming with cousin Louise on her African drum.  It looks like you have more rhythm than Daddy & I!

Speaking of smiles, there are no teeth (yet).  You have had some teething pain though, which has caused you to wake up crying at night.  Your cries and tears break my heart, but thankfully baby Tylenol makes you feel better and helps you get the rest you need while going through this teething deal.  If I were a betting woman (I’m not, I always lose), I would bet that you will have one, if not both, bottom front teeth by the time I write your 9 month letter.

Your Dad & I have started the process of childproofing our townhouse, which is not as easy as it once sounded to me.  Now that you are mobile, you have an affinity to finding the small, random objects to place in your mouth and the open sockets to explore with your tiny fingers.  I made an emergency trip to Babies R’ Us last night to stock up on childproofing gear since you are on the move and I know it is only a matter of days until you are cruising around the house and exploring.

You now say Mama, Dada and HI! A few weeks ago you greeted Daddy in the morning with a Hi and later in the day you said hi to your Grandma Z when you saw her video on Skype. You love Skyping with your family in Florida and North Carolina.  You also love to Face Time with anybody who has the new iPhone 4. Your friend Charlotte and Daddy have this phone and you love to video chat with them. I believe you have inherited my “geek gene” because the sheer joy when you use technology like laptops and cell phones- it reminds me of the days I woke up at 5am before first grade to play with my Apple IIC.  I’m pretty sure you will want your own laptop as soon as you can talk, but you will have to convince Dad of “needing” that one.

Eating has become more fun for you.  You like to try new foods and have recently been chowing down on real turkey, shredded cheese and you love peach yogurt! You also love eating puffs now and don’t choke on them anymore. Who needs teeth anyways?
Jackson, it feels as though I write a new monthly letter to you every day.  You’re growing up so fast and I wish I could pause time and hold you in your rocker and smell your sweet baby scent forever. I know there will be a time when you don’t give me a big hug and toothless kiss every time I hold you.  Your Dad and I savor every single day with you and it keeps getting better.

I’ll love you forever,

Mama

New buddies
More to follow when we get home!

And let’s not forget the near brawl with the grey haired chick:

Oh yeah. I took her picture.