Nolan's Birth Story

September 24, 2018 

What a whirlwind! Nolan's birth story is basically the exact opposite of Norah's. She was early, forced to make an appearance before she was ready via induction, whereas Nolan came in his own good time, almost a week after what they consider completely full term. I was 40 weeks 6 days when I went into labor with him. Here's the story of how it all went down. **This part gets a little graphic, so if that's not your jam, TURN BACK NOW!

 If you're not familiar with Norah's birth story, you can read about it here, but in a nutshell, I was induced for multiple reasons (that I now think were unfounded) and it was a long, painful, frustrating process that I resolutely refused to repeat with Nolan. To all of my care providers ultimate annoyance, I refused basically every intervention that they suggested or offered. I went to my appointments, did all the blood work, did the dreaded glucose test, but that was about it. I refused extra ultrasounds, membrane sweeping when I got to 40 weeks, refused any pelvic exams to check progress, because in my mind, what was the point? I didn't need to know if I was dilating, all it did for me with Norah was frustrate me or make me feel like I was walking around with a time bomb. I had decided early on that I was gonna do this thing basically like I had a midwife, which I had briefly tried to find, much too late in my pregnancy. This of course isn't the popular route with an OB/GYN so I am pretty sure there was a big red "PROBLEM PATIENT" written in my chart, but I didn't care, I was gonna do this on my terms, unless something came up and Nolan's health was at risk. I had joked with co-workers and family that I was going to wait until he was halfway here before I went to the hospital, and little did I know, this was a partially self-fulfilling prophecy. In preparation, I read multiple books about how to have a natural birth, including books about hyno-birthing, and all you non-crunchees out there rolling your eyes, I get it, I used to be you, but I have to say, I 100% think that they helped stay calm, up until a certain point, where I just threw it all out the window and went into a full blown panic. 

The night of Sunday, September 23, 2018 I started feeling what I thought might be very weak contractions. Felt more like period cramps than anything else, and they were really sporadic. I went to bed that night feeling calm and hopeful. I don't remember the exact time that I got up, but it must have been sometime before 5:00 am because it was Monday morning and Chase was supposed to be going to work and he wasn't awake yet. I sat on our couch, eagerly waiting for the next crampy feeling, ready to get this thing going. Mentally I felt calm and excited and maybe a little nervous, but mostly excited. When Chase got up, I told him I thought I might be having legit contractions, but I wasn't sure. I remember being so worried about telling him, because I didn't want him to call out of work and then it be a false alarm, but we gave it some time, I felt a few more twinges and he called in and decided to work from home. From there we just did things like normal. Norah got up and we hung out just the three of us for the last time. 

A little while later, things started to pick up a little, still was completely tolerable, just felt like really uncomfortable cramps. We decided to call my parents to come over and get Norah, so Chase and I could just chill out and wait for things to pick up. On and off all day I had contractions of varying intensity, they would start to get consistent and then completely stall out. At one point they had all but stopped so I decided to take a nap while Chase worked and what woke me up was the most intense one that I had experienced so far. From here they just continued to get more and more frequent and more and more uncomfortable. By this time it was getting later, Monday night football was getting ready to start and I know this because the Bucs were playing the Steelers and it was kind of a big deal because Ryan Fitzpatrick had been doing really well thus far. Now the contractions were starting to get serious, I could talk through most of them, but on few I had a hard time breathing through, I had to focus all my energy on just relaxing and getting through it and knowing that it would only last for a minute or so and then I would have a break. We did this every 7-8 minutes for the first half of the game, and then after sitting on the toilet to pee and having a super intense contraction, I told Chase we should at least put our stuff in the car just in case. He did that and then I had two more contractions that pretty much took me to the brink of being able to control my breathing and not give in to the pain and freak out. It was time to head to the hospital. We should have gone earlier, but I didn't have normal labor with Norah so I didn't know what things should feel like and assumed that I was going to get to the hospital and they would tell me, "you're 3 cm dilated" and either they would send me home or it would be time to start doing all the things (pitocin, bulb catheters, epidural) that I was determined to avoid this time around. Chase took Shanti (our dog) out and I can only imagine what how scary it must have been for him when he came back in and saw my petrified face. My water had broken. It was like a literal and figurative flood gate being opened. We immediately jumped in the car and drove to the hospital which was about 15-20 minutes away. LONGEST TRIP OF MY LIFE. From the minute that my water broke, I was having the most intense contractions I had felt and they were coming about every minute or so. I was literally holding onto the chicken bar in the car and every contraction I got I remember lifting myself off the seat and just giving in to the pain. All calm and focus went out the window, for me at least, Chase, my steady and unwavering rock was such an amazing partner throughout this blur of insanity. He kept chanting to me "It's gonna be ok, you're gonna be fine, we're almost there" and in hindsight I don't know if that was to try and help me be calm or to keep himself calm. Either way I appreciated the effort. He somehow managed to call the hospital on our way and tell them what was going on, in hopes of speeding things along once we arrived, but that wasn't really the case.

He pulled into the ER entrance, put me in a wheelchair, got me inside and went to park the car. This is where things start to get blurry for me. I was still having extremely painful contractions that were rocking me to my core. I can say this with the utmost confidence because I am not the type to show pain or discomfort in public, and at this point I was a raving lunatic. I was moaning, cursing, and basically making all the embarrassing noises that I had just watched other women make in the tons of youtube birthing vlogs I had been binging on. I was sitting in the main ER waiting room when all of this was going on and before Chase came back I do remember a woman coming and sitting next to me, taking my hand and asking me if this was my first baby. I said something along the lines of "No, and I am going to give birth right here if they don't take me back right now." Not only were the contractions almost unbearable, I was feeling the urge to push now. It seemed like forever and in reality it was probably only a few minutes before they brought me back to labor and delivery. Chase was literally running me down the hall in the wheelchair and to the elevator. Another random thing that I remembered was that once we got closer to the room, I told the nurse I need to push, and literally I had no control over this, my body was pushing without my permission, and she told, me "well you have leggings on." 😱 In hindsight, not the most helpful thing to tell someone that is in a state of complete and utter panic.
We got to the room, I stood up, the nurses stripped me from the waist down and I got onto the bed and in "the position" and basically waited a minute or two for the Dr and started pushing. I don't recall how many times I had to, but what I do remember is that it felt incredibly intense. I want to say painful, but it was more than that and different than that. Pain isn't the right word, I felt super intense pressure. I remember thinking that he just felt too big to be able to come out without causing me some major damage. I pushed a few more times and he was here. I thought for sure the Dr was going to tell me that I was all kinds of jacked up down yonder, but I came out of it with a few relatively small tears. All in all we had checked into the ER at 10:51 and Nolan was born at 10:57. Weird how those 6 minutes seemed like hours.

After they laid him on my chest, I assumed the worst of it was over, I was so wrong. For whatever reason, I wouldn't stop bleeding. My uterus hadn't started contracting like it's supposed to, so every time the nurses would press on my stomach, I could feel a rush of blood and I remember asking them if this was normal, and no one would really say anything at first, they just keep checking me every few minutes. After awhile they told me that they were gonna have to give me pitocin or something like pitocin to help things contract so I would stop bleeding. FREAKING PITOCIN I was pissed, here I had avoided it and done the thing naturally and now I had to have it anyways. Once they got this started I wasn't feeling contractions like I did when they gave it to me with Norah, but my back was killing me. I don't know if this was because of the medication or because of the labor, but it was pretty intense. The nurses kept checking me and things weren't really improving so the Dr came in and basically told me that she was going to need to do a manual extraction because she felt that there was a clot or something left that was stopping things from closing up and it was causing me to keep bleeding. She also mentioned that I was going to need morphine because this was going to be painful. I was really scared at this point, and I wasn't sure what to do because the last thing I wanted was to take some kind of heavy medication that was gonna make me feel out of it, or was going to stop me from being able to breast feed Nolan. Somehow I decided to go ahead and try to do it without the morphine and the Dr said she would just stop if I needed her to. I don't remember how many times she had to "manually extract" AKA shove her arm up to the north pole, but it was extremely painful and I had both nurses holding my hands and Chase up by my face telling me I could do it. I don't know how long it took and I had to ask her to stop once but thankfully she finished and felt like it had worked. I wish I could remember the exact amount they told me, but the nurses said I lost close to half my total blood volume and they weren't sure if I was going to need a blood transfusion or not. Luckily in the end, they did blood work on me and my values were good enough that they didn't feel I needed the transfusion. We stayed in that room for a few hours, Chase and I took turns holding Nolan skin to skin until our family that had waited patiently came in to meet him. Norah's reaction was priceless. She came in looking nervous and when she saw him she smiled and was hesitant but she came over and asked if she could pet him. We laughed and said yes, she was so sweet and gentle with him we all basically melted watching the two of them. Nolan was 8lb 1 oz, 19.5" long. He was a snuggle bug from day one and most importantly he completed the Thorquad 💙

Fourth of July Weekmid

Hey Everyone, hopefully you all had a fun and relaxing 4th of July. It was a little bit of a bummer being smack in the middle of the work week, but hey I'll take a day off wherever and however I can get it. 

Our celebration started Tuesday, the 3rd with tacos and a seriously stressful show. I have to give Chase a major shout out, because not only did he grocery shop for our weekmid, he made homemade, from scratch tortillas! They were thin, soft, flexible (it's important for taco wrappage) and delicious! He also made me a ginger ale mocktail with lots of lime since I am currently bun-in-oven status. It's not the same as a nice cold ginger ale and captain or margarita, but it's damn refreshing and it's the thought. We vegged on tacos followed them up with these delightful little treats that he found and then we proceeded to start season 2 of Handmaid's Tale. I swore I would not watch this while I was pregnant, because let's face it, this show is terrifying, dark and anxiety-producing. It is also sooooo very good that once you start it, you literally can't stop until you're done and completely wrung out emotionally. We are 4 episodes in, and things have already gotten very dark and crazy, but I am sitting here even now wondering if we will be able to sneak in an episode tonight.
Fourth of July was really low key for us this year. We jokingly named it "Thorntonpendence Day; Freedom from Oppressive Family Members" RELAX MOM IT'S ONLY A JOKE. In all seriousness though, it was a Wednesday and we wanted to just stay low key and spend time just the three of us. I think I said the same thing in our "Norah's First Movie Experience" post, but I find myself really wanting to have as much one on one time with Norah as I can get before we are a family of four. It's weird to think that she will never remember a time before Nolan, but I will and I want to give her my full attention while I can.

To start our Thorntonpendence Day we got up, had breakfast together, and headed off to a little park near our house, where we spent 0.3 seconds because it was REALLY hot! This is one of her favorite things to do, so we loaded up on water and watched her climb and slide, and climb and slide and swing until her heart was content, or until my ankles looked like balloon animals. Then it was off to the puppy store, another one of her favorite things to do. We played with a crazy little shiba inu, a snuggly little cavapoo, a sweet little basset hound and a few more until she was puppied out. We left just in time, because it started pouring shortly after, which Chase can attest to since he got soaked buying some fireworks for us. Once we got home we did some sparklers, snakes and some neon colored smoke bombs, ate some hot dogs, french fries and apple pie while watching some Master Chef. Norah hadn't had a nap so she was getting pretty sleepy and her bedtime was getting pretty close, so for her it was bath and off to bed after some Halloween books (they are her favorite, I don't know what to say). Chase and I cleaned up a little and then hunkered down, watched some more Handmaid's Tale and crashed. All in all some would call this boring, I call it perfect. I would say Norah enjoyed the day as well seeing as how when I woke her up this morning, she proceeded to tell me her dreams, which was a creative recap of our previous day, with night night bear getting all the credit. I am pretty sure he even made the tortillas Tuesday night to Chase's ultimate dismay :)  

Is there anything sexier than a man who knows how to use a rolling pin?

How about a man who can sprinkle flour like an 87 year old Italian Nonna 😋


Perfecto!

Pre-Thorntonpendence Day Festivities

Lookin red, white and cute at the park thanks to Aunt Lolo 😄

Oh this lab was just pulling at my heart strings....until I saw the price 😱

Norah loved her too


First sparkler, and she was fearless



Chase's take on festive plating, I made him take the picture 😁

Here's hoping your fourth was fantastic, and bright side to the weekmid, it's already almost Friday!

A.

Evergreen Bough, Urban Garden and Germinating Green; Nolan's Room Update

Who knew green could be could be so tricky! I envisioned a deep olive green, what I got was the darkest hunter green known to man, and then a slightly more olive toned darkest green ever, and then finally after painting what looked like Gak on the walls, we found our perfect color! The weekend before last we were able to get the room painted and Norah's clothes re-vacuum sealed, and some art on the walls, but we've got a lot of little projects to finish up. Here's just a quick look at the painting fiasco ;)

Seriously, I have never seen an evergreen bough this dark, truthfully I've never seen an evergreen bough, but who's gonna call me out on that....

Hard to see but the majority of the wall is evergreen bough, the next lightest is urban garden, and the baby puke colored one is the winner, germinating green (all by Sherwin Williams)

This color reminded me of a mood ring, I hated it going on, but decided to chill and let it dry to see what would happen. What happened was magic, it dried into the perfect rich olive green color!

You can kind of tell that it's getting darker here

Cave paintings

More cave paintings

Yea, you would think like normal people we would empty the room before painting, but no, we prefer to test our balance and patience by leaving it as cluttered as possible 😔

More to come soon.......

Norah's First Movie Theater Experience

First of all, has anyone seen the new Incredibles 2 movie? What on earth was up with the weird little movie short in the beginning? I looked at Norah when she ate the ungrateful little dumpling and she looked as confused as I felt! If you have no idea what I am talking about, go see the movie and you still will have no idea what's going on. 

So Saturday was a busy day. We started the day off meeting some good friends for brunch at The Pub, which is always a good time with great food. I have never ordered chicken and waffles before, just not my typical jam, but I got them, and it was everything my pregnant self needed, sweet, salty, crunchy and fluffy! We ate and then walked around the mall for a bit. Somehow we ended up in the Disney store and Chase being a big softy bought Norah a "Sully" stuffed animal. As you will see in the pics, he came along for our little adventure. Our friends left for the Luke Bryan concert, and we headed to the movies. 

Once we got to our seats, the previews started. Norah was just sort of staring at the screen wide eyed, as the previews for "How to Train Your Dragon 3," "The Grinch," "Bumblebee" and "Wreck it Ralph" played. I don't think she knew what to make of it. But soon our movie started and she already loves the first Incredibles so we assumed she would like this one as well, and she did. There was only a short time in the middle of the movie when she started to get squirmy and Chase and I looked at each other with the "here we go" face, but she settled back in and watched the movie all the way through. After the movie, she was pretty amped, but not about The Incredibles, she was asking about the "big robot" AKA Bumblebee the transformer. For whatever reason that stuck with her, so much so that now next to her basket full of monkeys and her horse, Spirit, there is a bright yellow Autobot. Not so secretly Chase is thrilled that our two and a half year old loves a transformer, and I'm not mad about it either. All in all it was a hot, busy and awesome day that I wouldn't trade for the world. These Thornton trio adventures are coming to an end soon with Nolan about to make his entrance, and while I am absolutely thrilled to be the Thorquad soon, I find myself really trying to soak up all of the time I have with just the three of us. 

I hope you all had a restful, fun weekend, it's Tuesday now, so we are only three days out from another one. Hallelujah!

A.

Two weirdo peas in a pod

Love this little gremlin

Thornton Trio

Excuse the dazed look and crazy hair, I caught her off guard with the flash, like only an embarrassing mom can do, and it was HOT

Not quite sure about this whole movie thing just yet

Where's Norah?

Norah and her bestie "Silly" and don't try to correct her ;)

Hyppo Pops to end a great day!

Nolan's Nursery: The Before

Well, here it is. The honest state of Norah's old nursery, soon to be Nolan's little man cave. I don't know if you're anything like us, but I am not sure whats gonna happen when we finish his room. We have always had a catch all type room that wasn't being used, and now that our house will have reached capacity, I fear we may lose the guest bathroom. 

As you can see it looks like an episode of hoarders; little girls clothes edition. That's because, I just went through the 8, yes 8 vacuum bags I had full of clothes that Norah has outgrown to find any and all of the gender neutral stuff we can use for Nolan. I was pretty excited that we ended up having one large load of laundry worth! Also managed to stuff a large garbage bag full of clothes to donate, so I did purge a little bit believe it or not. As of now, we don't know if we are going to stop after Nolan or possibly try for a third. DON'T EVEN SAY IT! I know, man to man is the way to go, zone defense is for the birds, but you never know and if we did have another, and if it were a girl, we would be set! Just have to organize and re-vacuum her clothes again, throw them in the attic and then it's on to the fun stuff, like painting (said no one ever) 

My current ideas and inspiration for his nursery are sort of like the paint in a Pollock. ALL. OVER. THE. PLACE. I think if I was forced to name a theme it would be animals. It's the one constant that keeps popping up, not one specific animal, or genre of animals, like jungle, woodland etc Just animals. Then you have baseball, I really love vintage baseball decorations, and also I just like industrial looking pieces like this shelf. Then there's the dinosaur thing, like this changing pad cover that I am a little obsessed with. So yea, the whole picture isn't exactly clear to me like it was with Norah's big girl room, but I'm letting the room work itself out. We are thinking a dark olive green for the top half of the walls, and maybe once we nail that down, the creative juices will flow and it'll come together quickly. I am also toying with the idea of painting his crib a dark rich blue with this paint I found online, that's pretty much made for that. I swore after Norah's room I was done with paint for the next several decades but what can I say, I am glutton for punishment who loves a good furniture project. Also, Norah ate part of her crib so it would take care of that, and possibly stop the twitch in my eye every time I see the little teeth marks. 

The picture hanging above the crib will definitely be staying over the crib as it has been over a Thornton baby's crib for several generations. Chase's Grandma Joan in Alabama sent us that when Norah was born, and it's incredibly special to us.  

 The book shelves will most likely stay where they are strictly because they were a royal pain in the ass to install. The little shelf with the pictures won't be staying. The giraffe picture is a sneak peak of some of the new decor. Rug will also be staying.

 Pinterest definitely got me with this one, the little cart from Ikea will be a diaper and essentials station that we can move around the house. I love the color, maybe it'll be incorporated into the room as well. 

 Aaaah the closet, I cannot wait to fill this with little mini man clothes! I am not sure if the little elephant toy box will go in Norah's closet or stay in here, either way I am still in love with it Lindsey 💚 

 You can't really see it very well, but the little cuckoo clock on the wall will stay in here as Norah now has a girl version Felix clock in her new room, thanks to her T.T. who worked for a clock shop. 

 The dresser we got second hand for this room, to be a changing table/ dresser, and I love it. So much storage! I have already begun organizing the inside, and let me tell you, it did my nesting heart good to roll those little burp clothes (thank you Aunt Doris) and sleepers. What is it about the whole nesting thing? It makes me feel so content and maternal, and yet at times it turns me into a raving lunatic (just ask Chase)

There you have it. I am hoping to get some painting done this weekend as well as getting Norah's clothes dealt with. Anyone have a great system to keep the outgrown clothes under control? Another important question, when the rooms in your house are all occupied, where do you put all the other random junk? 😂

Don't Call it a Comeback...

     So we meet again..me and this blog I mean. I am not sure if this will ever be a steady reliable thing, but I have come to accept this fact. I've also come to realize that I'm not sure where my head was at before, but this time around my purpose is clear. I want this blog to be a place I can come and look back on big and seemingly small things that happen in our lives. Call it a public journal or call it me desperately attempting to memorialize this short and fleeting time in our lives, just whatever you do, don't call it a comeback ;) 

    Lot's of big things going on in the soon to be "Thor-quad" these days, hence the need to put it on virtual paper. The newest Thornton, Nolan will be here sometime in September, Norah just moved into her big girl room and potty training is in full swing, to name a few things. This mom is full of excitement, hormones and reflux ;)

    Norah moved into her "big girl" room the Sunday before last, and that has definitely got me feelin trippy! The thought of my baby not being in a crib anymore put me over the edge. Add in the pregnancy hormones and there was a flood that night! I was so excited for her to make this big move and have her own little space that she can go and play in and have some independence, and yet at the same time I wanted to swaddle her 25 lb self and throw her back in the crib. It doesn't help that she took to her new bed like a complete champ, she has yet to get out of it until it's time to get up in the morning. She might as well be telling Chase and I that she's been accepted to the University of Alaska and she's leaving in a week. Gone are the days of rocking her (sometimes until she passed out in my arms) and a little piece of me shriveled up and died during this process. This is the exact reason why I need to write and let this be my outlet, otherwise there is a solid chance I will lock her up in the basement we don't have and never let her leave the "nest." Totes normal right? :)

Her first night in the big bed (insert obnoxious crying)

   I would call this the next big change, but to be honest we are at a complete standstill, so that doesn't seem like the right description. Potty Training..........we've been "in training" for approximately a year, and man once she does get it, she will be the best "pottier" this coast has ever seen! Are we ever going to cross the threshold and make it past training? Jury is definitely still out! I have a sneaking suspicion that being with three different people during the week is contributing to the stall in progress. Me, my mom and my MIL all have different approaches and despite trying to get on the same page, it's hard and I doubt it helps in this instance. We have about three months to get this down, because I refuse to have two in diapers. Last week a virus set us back a little, but this week, potty training is back on and we are gonna get this done! Any moms who might accidentally stumble across this and have some advice, I am all ears! (or eyes since this is a blog) :) 

    The next post will probably be some before pics of Nolan's nursery and some current pics of Norah's big girl room, and who knows what else. Maybe a "Yes!! WE CONQUERED THE POTTY" post, but lets not get too crazy :) Here's to a quick and painless work week and lots of poos and pees on the potty :)

A.

                                                           

25 Days of Thankmas

25 Days of Thankmas

So last night we were home, making dinner doing the normal week day shuffle when our door bell rang. Chase went to the door to see who it was and no one was there, but we had a gift bag on the door with this note 

Such a small and random thing, but it affected me profoundly. In this day and age, when most people don't even know their neighbors, I found it incredibly heart-warming to know that there are still people out there willing to take time out of their busy lives to do something with the express purpose of spreading a little joy and holiday spirit. It inspired me. This year we will be starting what I hope will become a new tradition for our family. I have concocted a list based on several lists I found on different web sites and blogs of little kindnesses and ways that we can spread some joy and holiday spirit. I invite you to join us and either use our list or make your own. What better time to show people we know and those that we don't some extra appreciation and love. 

                                                    Inspired and Festive AF,

                                                              Thornton Family