A Beautiful Girl

Baby girl is sleeping in her swing so I thought I would take a minute to update the blog!

Today we are all feeling pretty good after a good night last night. Zoey slept for three hour intervals again which feels amazing. You never really think that you'll be at a place were three hours of sleep equals a victory! A good night like that combined with her new swing, which is awesome by the way, has meant we have had a nice relaxing morning. Here's hoping we can carry that through into the afternoon. Yesterday was a little challenging. She had a great morning, we went to see Henry for lunch at the shop and she slept the whole way there and back. However, once we got home she screamed until about 5pm. So needless to say my head was pounding and my heart was breaking because I was at a loss as to what the problem was. I finally clued in that it was her stomach and that she was likely gassy, I gave her a dose of Oval and she finally had a really good burp and fell asleep within about a half an hour. Not sure why I didn't try that sooner but being a mom has a bit of a learning curve :) So last night we carried on with our night time routine of a warm bath, a massage for her with the lotion, feeding, and bedtime. She is really starting to love bathtime, as long as the water is warm enough. She's like her mom that way, needs to be warm :)

It's playoff time and Henry and I are really enjoying watching the games in the evenings. Even though the Oilers just barely missed out (hahahaha) at least we have the first round draft pick and hopefully make a smart choice and pick up Taylor Hall. We've been watching pretty much all of the games, with a special interest in the Vancouver series. I think we are hard-wiring Zoey to love hockey already :) Poor girl doesn't have a chance!

We are working really hard on making sure we still get the quality time together. I honestly didn't think this would be a struggle at all but when the time we do have together is focused on Zoey and her needs it's really easy to forget what we need together. Small things like mentally making the choice to sit together on the same couch, or taking the few minutes while she is sleeping to connect. I'm working toward feeling okay with leaving her with a babysitter but man that's a lot easier said than done. I won't apologize for feeling like this though, it will take some time to allow this baby that I've carried next to my heart for 9 months to be cared for by some one else. No matter how much I love and trust that person :) It will just take some time. All in good time :)

Adjusting to Life

Things are going well. I am finally feeling like myself again and am feeling mobile. The first few weeks for me were a painful mix of exhaustion and illness. I ended up getting mastitis and having to go to Emergency on a Thursday night. I had developed a fever of 39.1 and breastfeeding was clearly painful. Poor Zoey was getting the short end of the stick as well since she wasn't really getting as much as she needed or wanted to eat. Once I was on antibiotics for that I started to feel better, but the meds were affecting Zoey and causing her to vomit after some feedings. Not a good feeling seeing your tiny baby girl vomiting like that or looking down while feeding and seeing her mouth fill with spit up. Even though I managed to stay in control, it set my heart a racing a few times.




While the mastitis cleared up, I started having a massive amount of pain when I would sit, which was all the time with feedings. I initially chalked it up to bruising from delivery that I hadn't noticed before. But when it wasn't getting better after three days I had enough and called to make an appointment with my doctor. It was getting to the point that sitting and standing were unbearably painful. It turned out that I had a secondary infection that the first round of meds weren't dealing with. So I was switched to another type of antibiotic to help deal with this new infection. We were excited at the possibility of new medication that would be easier on Zoey's stomach.

So I am finally feeling healthy and comfortable. Even though a great deal of my day is spent sitting and feeding, I am not in pain. I am incredibly grateful for that. Now the lack of sleep, while still difficult at times, is not so profound and crippling. A lot of prayer has gone into the past few weeks and we overjoyed with the blessings that we have received. Zoey is a beautiful and sweet little girl. Everyday we see her grown and develop more and more personality.



It's been a challenging few weeks but we are getting through it together. We also know that as time goes on, things slowly get a little easier. Along the way we are taking in the small joys, like the soft coos she makes now, the big bright smile that she is trying out.

Life is good and we are blessed.

Bringing Zoey Home

Understandably, Henry and I are exhausted. Bringing Zoey home has been one of the most thrilling, terrifying, draining, and beautiful things. There has definitely been a learning curve to the last week and a half.

We were so eager to get home from the hospital. The nurses were friendly and it was not as if we were being treated poorly. The problem was we were in a shared room and for us, we were desperate for privacy. We were trying to figure things out with breastfeeding, I could barely move in the first 24 hours after, and we were exhausted. It's a tricky thing when you have two brand new babies trying to sleep at the same time. I ended up sending Henry home on the Tuesday for a few hours. I figured at least one of us could manage a shower and a nap. He was able to try and sleep on a pull out thing, but again hard to sleep in a shared room, and when nurses are coming in to check vitals for myself and Zoey every hour or more. I wasn't able to get any sleep while we were there, outside of an hour where Henry ordered me to close my eyes and sleep. I found it very hard to not watch her and continue to check her breathing (typical new mom), eventually she also refused to sleep in the bassinet type thing they had in the room. So we ended up having to hold her to get her to sleep and while I would hold her I was too scared to fall asleep in case I would drop her or something awful. So very little sleep for everyone wore on us. As well, one of the major problems we found was that we never had the ability to have a conversation with each other about how we were doing. Henry and I are very strong and linked together through our communication. We do really well in all situations as long as we have a chance to talk just the two of us about whats going on in our lives. We finally managed a good conversation the morning of our discharge. Once that happened we felt a lot better but were still eager to get home.

Since we have been home we have been trying to hit our stride. She is sleeping about two hours at a time between feedings, sometimes she manages three hours. So we end up with a decent collective number of hours of sleep in the night, but it just isn't the same when it's all chopped up like that. Still we are surprised at how we are managing on the exhaustion end. Henry has been feeling okay at work which was my main concern. However, we are looking forward to getting a little more sleep in the night :) This desire is tempered with our desire for her to stay little like this. She is so sweet and precious and we definitely know this stage only lasts a little while. So we are trying to absorb all of this time that we can and not just wander through like zombies!



Zoey is an incredibly precious and sweet baby and we are completely smitten and in love with her. We are all trying to figure each other out and what life looks like now. It's quite the process. Throw massive hormone fluctuations and lack of sleep and the process becomes that much more interesting. Still, no matter how hard things are that day, or how tough the night was when I look are her and hear her tiny coos it is all worth it. Today after I feed her we just laid on the couch and she slept on my chest, it was so simple, quiet and precious. I treasure those moments. I adore seeing Henry come home and kiss her head and just beam at this beautiful little girl. No one can truly prepare you for how hard it is when you have your first baby, but nobody can truly prepare you for how much this tiny bundle means to you.

Introducing Zoey Faith Duiker!

We have a new addition to the family! Zoey Faith Duiker was born March 29th at 11:32pm. She weighed 7 pounds 2 ounces and was 20.2 inches long. I apologize for the delay in posting about the birth, but as any new mom knows finding time where you are not attached to baby is a little tricky. Usually when the time arises, it's nap time :) As well, I've been thinking a lot about how on earth do I describe everything that happened and what a whirlwind it has and continues to be! I'll give it my best shot!

Well we went in for our appointment at nearly two weeks overdue on Monday March 29th. We were planning on having an induction date set for the following day. Henry had stay home with me that day as I was having pretty regular contractions and he figured there wasn't much point in going to work to just turn around and come home when I called him. It turns out that while that never happened it was a blessing to have him home with me and enjoy what was our last days just us :)

We got to the doctors office and you know your a little overdue when the staff look at you and say, you're still here?? Good times :) The nurse took my blood pressure mid contraction (something that happened through the entire labor) so I continued to hear comments about my 'elevated' blood pressure. I kept thinking, "um...well ya". My doctor came in and checked me, and said I was about 2 - 3cms dilated, which was a welcome change from the 1cm I had been stuck at for over a week. He looked at us and said, "Well guys I'm on call tonight till 5am. If you want you can head to the hospital and I'll break your water and we'll get things going for you." Henry and I were in a bit of shock, but we decided that we wanted to get things going and now was as good a time as any! He said good, and to meet him at the hospital in an hour. We both had kind of a 'holy crap' moment as we processed what was happening. It also turned out that the exam triggered much stronger contractions by itself. By the time we made it to the hospital I was really starting to feel them. They stuck us in the exam room and monitored her for a little while and then the doctor came in and he broke my water. So this whole process is gross. They broke and I had a ton of fluid drain and I thought that might be the end of it. Not by a long shot. When the tech had said the week before that I had a lot of fluid, he was not kidding! The entire labor was punctuated with me having to say, "um sorry I'm leaking again" I learned really quickly, dignity has no place in labor.

They moved me to the delivery suite and I thought, okay now we can relax and enjoy this process a little. Not the case. I was blindsided with contractions that suddenly were so intense and did not stop. I was desperate for the ability to breath or re group in between the contractions. They made me sick before I could make it into the shower. Again...no dignity :) The shower was definitely pleasant and helped a little but by the time I was at the place with no ability to regroup, its effect was gone. It had only been about two hours and I was overwhelmed with the reality that this would not likely get any better, rather it would get worse. I wasn't sure if I could have energy left to push after everything, especially if this continued much longer. I looked at Henry who was just sick seeing me like that, and I told him I wasn't sure if I could do it. We had talked lots about what we hoped would happen but we never said absolutely not on the epidural front. He had actually told me in the assessment room when they were getting bad that he really needed me to know that it was okay if I needed something at some point.

The nurse came in and started to talk with us about our options, which was really hard to fully process while in the midst of such pain. I finally said, you know what lets go for the epidural. It was good timing as the anesthesiologist was on the floor and was there in ten minutes. When they checked me before hooking me up I had not progressed at all. I was so frustrated. I was in so much pain and my body wasn't doing anything with it! They hooked me up with the ok from the doctor and honestly, I felt so good so fast. Henry said my color came back I was smiling, talking, and joking around. I had a contraction while he was putting the epidural in and he gave a burst of medicine in the middle and I just felt it fade away. Bliss. I admit I was a little scared that I was making the wrong decision at points, that it might slow everything down, but it turns out it was the best possible decision I could have made for myself. In less than an hour I went from 2 - 3cm to 6 - 7cm. The doctor figured that it would help since my body was so tense from the pain and it was preventing progress from occurring. Once I was able to relax, things moved along really fast. So Henry and I were able to relax and watch an episode or two of 'How I Met Your Mother'. I felt so good.

After a short time I told the nurse that I felt a lot of pressure on my bottom. I thought my epidural was wearing off, but it turns out her head was right there and she was ready to go. The nurse check and once she realized she said they would put in a call to the doctor and get me to push for a little while before he got there since it would likely take some time. Well after two pushes she saw her head and I had to stop. Now you wouldn't think so, but holding back from pushing once your body takes over is wicked hard.... for me, harder than the actual pushing. It seemed like it took the doctor an hour to get there but in reality it was only ten minutes or so. He told me to get pushing again and she was delivered in just a few minutes. The next hour is a bit of a blur, but I do remember Henry going over to see her, taking pictures, and us just kind of in awe. Oh that and the stitches...more on that another time :)

So there you have it. Our precious baby girl is finally here and through all the fear, sleeplessness, and chaos we are utterly in love with her and could not be happier!