It’s really weird to say we’ve gotten through one month of this deployment. In some ways, it flew by and I feel like I can do several more to get through to the end, no problem. In other ways, I feel like David left a lifetime ago and I can’t believe how much longer he’ll be gone! I think having a baby adds to that conundrum. Reagan has already hit some major milestones in just the one month since her daddy left, and that makes it feel like it’s been a longer stretch of time. She army crawled about a week after he left, and figured out how to crawl for-real about two weeks after that. Today, she crawled over to me (I was laying on the playmat with her) and pulled herself to stand up on me! She’s 6 months old, you guys! Send wine! And baby-proofing things lol.

Anyway, just because we’ve survived a month in no way means “m an expert on surviving an entire deployment. But I’ve been reading an awesome devotional called Faith Deployed (thanks for the most amazing gift, bestie Klarisa!), and every section is written by a military wife from various branches and touches on different struggles you’ll inevitably go through during a deployment. I can confidently say I’ve already experienced so many of them, and I know I will continue to. So I put together a little list of probably the most important and TRUE pieces of advice I’ve learned in this month. Hope you enjoy!

1. Finding peace in the gift of solitude – this one was hard for me to wrap my head around at first. I’ve always been the type of person who loves to be WITH other people, even if we’re just sitting on the couch watching TV, I love having company. So enjoying being alone was something I thought I would never understand. I still struggle with it, but I have settled in to doing things on my own (with Reagan most of the time, of course). And it really is kind of nice. David gifted me a spa day for Mother’s Day, and at first I thought I wouldn’t have that much fun enjoying the amenities of a resort spa alone, but honestly…it. was. awesome. Now, at least once a week I go to our community hot tub after Reagan’s gone to sleep (don’t worry, my mom’s in the house watching her on the monitor lol), and just enjoy being 100% by myself. Do I wish David were here with me all the time? Duh. But that’s not an option right now. So learning to enjoy and take advantage of your alone time is extremely important to getting through a deployment.
2. Send a letter or email every day, even if you haven’t heard back from the last one – newsflash: you might go days or weeks (God forbid, a month or more) without hearing from your loved one during a deployment. The entire first week after David left, comms were down. Talk about being thrown head first into my first deployment! Not gonna lie, it sucked. I cried a lot, especially on Mother’s Day. Since then, we’ve luckily been able to email most days, but I’ve learned that on the days when I don’t hear back from him, it makes me feel better for some reason to just keep on sending him emails as I feel like it. I’m not really a journal-er (hence why I’m so bad at even keeping up this dang blog!), or a letter-writer, but I’m sure if that’s your thing, it would be therapeutic to write things down every day, no matter what.
3. Find a reliable Battle Buddy (or a few) – Battle Buddy, Deployment Buddy, whatever you want to call them, GET ONE. Someone going through the same thing as you that you can vent/complain/talk to, and hopefully one you can hang out with also from time to time, who won’t flake on you. You need your friends, period. But having at least one friend who not only understands what you’re going through, but is going through it with you, is invaluable.
4. Stop comparing your deployment to anyone else’s – this is a BIG ONE, you guys! Comparison truly is the thief of joy. Our loved ones in the military have such a crazy-wide array of jobs and situations while they’re on deployment. That means some of them are going to be able to talk to you more than others, or at different times. It is hard to hear that other people are getting emails or phone calls from their spouse/child/whatever, and for whatever reason you’ve gotten radio silence for the last couple of days. Really, really hard. And even harder to stop yourself from getting even the smallest bit jealous, or let your mind wander trying to figure out why you haven’t heard from yours. Likewise, it’s also hard to hear someone struggling with the same deployment your loved on is on, feeling like their circumstances are easier than yours. I have a 6-month old, for crying out loud! My circumstances make this deployment particularly difficult, sure. But that doesn’t mean that someone who doesn’t have any kids isn’t struggling and feeling the same amount of sadness or loneliness as I do. So, nip the comparing in the bud. Don’t do it. Just because your spouses might be on the same actual deployment, does not mean your deployment experiences are going to be similar in any way.
5. Have a good cry every now and then – I’m really not a huge crier. But I’ve had my fair share of good cries over the last month, and I’m sure there will be plenty more. There’s really no use in trying to hold your sadness, anger, frustration, or whatever else you might be feeling that’s making you cry. Better to let it out and feel it now, than let it fester and have an epic meltdown at some point down the road!
6. Find something you love to do, and do it often – I admit, I’m still working on this one. I used to love to read, so I’m trying to get back into reading. I also used to *kind of* enjoy working out, and Lord knows I NEED to get back into the swing of things and get a gym routine going. Regardless, doing things you enjoy will 100% make the time go by faster. So figure something out and do it as much as you can!
7. Treat yo’self! – Everyone’s version of treating themselves is going to be different, so whatever it is that makes you feel pampered in some way is something you should indulge in every now and then. I like getting my nails done, so I do that. We’re going through a lot, having our loved ones on a deployment, so don’t let anyone (including yourself) tell you that you don’t deserve to treat yo’self here and there.

I hope these hit home with someone out there, even if it’s just one person. Deployment sucks, there’s no denying that. But we can choose to either let the suckiness bring us down, which will make the deployment seem to drag on even longer than it already is, or we can make conscious efforts to do little things that will make all the difference in our own happiness and sanity. And trust me, time flies a lot faster when you’re happy than when you’re sad.

I would like to say my next post will be a 6 month update, but by now we’re only a couple weeks away from Reagan’s 7 month birthday haha, so more than likely that will be what comes next 🙂

Thank you to everyone who has reached out this past month and made efforts to hang out with me and Reagan. I appreciate you.

With David’s deployment coming up in a few short days, I’ve been thinking a lot about my friendships. I have invested all of my extra time to our family these last few months, knowing the time we have left with David was so limited. I hope my friends who I haven’t seen or talked to in a while can understand that, especially since I need my friendships now more than ever. So, I’m kind of laying it all out there with this post. I hope it hits home for some people reading, whether I even know you personally or not, and whether you’re a friend of a new mom, a new mom, soon to be mom, etc. here it goes:

Dear friends of new moms,

You may be feeling at this point as if you’ve lost an old friend, thanks to the newest addition to her family. She doesn’t respond to texts as fast as she used to (and may even forget to respond at all), she can’t go out and do a lot of the fun things you used to do together, and to make matters worse, she doesn’t even seem all that concerned about it. Rude.

This letter is a plea to please, for the love of all things, try to not take it personally. You may not be able to control feeling hurt, and those feelings may be very valid, but I assure you that your friend really does need you now more than ever. She may be dealing with postpartum mental health problems, but even if she’s one of the lucky ones that isn’t, I can guarantee she’s still feeling overwhelmed and isolated. Motherhood is lonely, and for most new moms that feeling is very unexpected. Here we thought we’d be getting a cute little buddy to do everything with and even though we knew it would be stressful, overwhelming, and incredibly hard, lonely is the last thing many of us were expecting to feel. We need our friends, even though we might not have the guts – or the time, honestly – to pick up the phone and tell you that. We don’t want to bother you, or subject you to hanging out with a baby if you don’t want to. But we do miss you so very much, and we need our friends.

If you care about your friendships lasting despite your friend having a baby, check in on them. Offer to come sit with the baby so they can take a shower or do the dishes or eat a hot meal. And please don’t stop this once the baby isn’t a fresh and squishy newborn anymore. We needed it then and we STILL need it. Coming once to see the baby and never coming again sends a not-so-nice message to your friend, whether you mean to or not.

Invite them to do the things you used to do, even if you’re pretty sure they won’t be able to go – trust me, just getting an invite will make her day – and don’t get upset if she can’t. And if she CAN go, even if you swear whatever it is, it’s baby-friendly, don’t ask them to bring the baby just so you can see them. If they were able to find a sitter, they’re probably elated to get out of the house alone and hang out with their friends! If you want to see the baby, go to their house and see the baby, and lend a helping hand like I suggested.

Lastly, celebrate them and their baby if you want to nurture this friendship! Assuming your friend was there to celebrate your big moments, like your graduations, bridal showers, weddings, etc., not having the biggest moment of their lives celebrated by you too is hurtful. Again, even if you didn’t mean for it to, that sends a message to your friend that they’re just no longer all that important to you, and it’s hard not to feel that it’s because they just had to go and have a baby. It might be hard to believe how busy your new-mom-friend might be, but they really are. Their time and effort is especially limited now, and they’re much more likely to get excited to celebrate the friends that celebrated them and stuck by them through this amazing, life-changing thing than those that didn’t.

Remember all the fun times you had with your friend pre-baby, and know that fun times are still in store for your friendship if you can stick this out with her. And who knows? One day soon you might be joining her in the New Mom Club and suddenly realize what they were feeling all along. Hopefully by then you’ll still have your best friends to celebrate you and check in on you and nurture your friendship once it’s harder for you to be a good friend to them.

Sincerely,

A new mom who really misses her friends

Hi guys! I’m really not turning out to be the best blogger huh? I didn’t “advertise” my last post because 1) I literally typed it on my phone while I was desperately trying to get Reagan to sleep one night during David’s last 2-week underway, and 2) it was pretty pathetic lol. But I’m going to leave it up if anything so that I can look back and reflect on these early months with Reagan, including the not so great moments.

This January underway for some reason was REALLY hard. I felt more lonely than I ever have while David has been gone (and he was gone all summer long!). I think part of it is that I didn’t have really any visitors like I did the first time he was gone when everyone wanted to come meet Reagan. But she’s also not really in the sleepy-all-the-time newborn phase where I could rely on her dozing off a few times a day at least long enough for me to get things done around the house or for myself (i.e. showering lol). I obviously knew that having a baby was going to mean my world and life revolve around them now, and I can’t just up and go and do whatever I want anytime like before, but having that transition while also having your partner gone for big chunks at a time has just made me feel isolated sometimes. I spent a LOT of time at my mom’s house over the last 2 weeks just to have some company, and we had already been tossing around the idea of moving into her house during David’s deployment for money-saving reasons, but after this last underway we decided we’re definitely going to do it. My maternity leave is over very soon and we aren’t totally sure if I’ll be going back to work or not, but either way BIG changes are coming and we are looking forward to moving into my mom’s house in March.

I have to admit I am a little sad to put most of our furniture and decor in storage for the next several months. We had basically nothing when we moved in here so we’re proud of what we have and I put a lot of effort into making this house our home. I also put a lot of effort particularly into Reagan’s nursery, which we only even started using for her to sleep  in last night lol. We’re going to take as much of her nursery furniture/decor as we can fit into the room we’ll be staying in, but it’s definitely not going to be the same. I had my best friend / photography genius come take pictures of the nursery because I was so proud of it, and my plan was / still is to submit it to some blogs and online magazines (just haven’t gotten around to it lol). But I thought I would just switch things up from Reagan/Mater updates here and show it off!

If you haven’t seen glimpses of the nursery already, I went with a girly safari “theme” (although I hate that word lol people can get wayyyyy carried away when they stick too rigidly to a specific theme). I initially thought I would do mostly pink/gold/flamingos, because as you probably know I have a flamingo obsession. My main inspiration was this painting that my aunt did for my birthday last year – I knew as soon as we found out we were having a baby that if it was a girl, this painting would be showcased in her nursery!

One day I was perusing Pinterest though, and randomly saw a print of a baby elephant with a flower crown. I thought it was one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen, and decided to expand from just flamingos to all baby safari-type animals (elephants, zebras, giraffes, etc.) I will admit I had to google to make sure there were flamingos in Africa somewhere though lol. This is what I came up with:

So there you have it! I have some ideas for more posts that aren’t just updates/ramblings from me, like our favorite newborn essentials? We’ll see if that ever happens though haha.

As I’m writing this I’m trying to get Reagan to go to sleep. It’s been about an hour since I started and this has become our normal nighttime routine: Feed her till she’s basically falling asleep, swaddle her, feed her some more if the swaddling makes her mad, and rock/bounce/shush/do anything I can to get her to fall asleep hard enough to not wake up when I put her down. Sometimes it takes 2 or 3 tries putting her down before she’ll stay down. She’s been fighting the swaddle pretty hard for about a week but she can’t stay asleep for longer than an hour without it so…she stays in the swaddle, even though I feel like I’ve contained her in a straight jacket. I’m also starving because I didn’t eat dinner but once she does fall asleep, sleep sounds better than food so I’ll go to sleep hungry. 

I’m sure I’m doing pretty much everything wrong to get Reagan to sleep and it’s going to bite me in the butt when we try getting her to sleep in her own room and in the crib. But I feel like I’m in survival mode and whatever works temporarily is good enough 🤷🏼‍♀️. We’ve been using a bassinet swing for about a month now, instead of the regular bassinet, because it’s slightly inclined just enough so that if she spits up (she’s a big time spitter upper), she’s not laying flat on her back. BUT it snuggles her pretty closely and I sometimes gently rock her to sleep once she’s in it because it’s a swing. I’ve even sometimes resorted to turning the swing on and keeping it on just to keep her asleep. So again, I’m sure the transition to the crib is gonna be real fun! 

If it’s not obvious already, I’m a wee bit overwhelmed lately. I feel like I finally figure out things that work and Reagan likes and then a couple days later she doesn’t like that anymore. I also am not giving Winnie and Mater the attention they deserve when David isn’t here. Winnie especially. Mater gets extra attention and gets to go for rides or “adventures” as we call them, by himself because of his chemo appointments. Ironically he hates going for rides and Winnie LOVES them, so I feel extra bad leaving her alone when we go. If I thought I could handle both dogs and Reagan at the same time I would bring her but I can’t. Mater also I s now feeling much better which is amazing and I’m so thankful, but it means he’s got his energy back in full swing and I feel awful not being able to play with him as much as he clearly wants. 

Update: Attempt number 1 to lay her down was unsuccessful. She looked so sound asleep considering her head was tilted back and her mouth was hanging open but as soon as I laid her down she started fighting the swaddle. So we’re back up and rocking. 

Oh, Reagan has also been sick now almost 2 weeks. She just has a very stuffy nose. I took her to the doctor last week because it sounded like the congestion was in her chest occasionally when she would breath, but no cough. Apparently what we were hearing/feeling, which was basically rattling, is just the gunk in the back of her throat from post nasal drip and she just has a cold we need to ride out. They tested her for whooping cough and it came back negative though so that’s good at least. 

Update: Attempt #2 seems to be going more successfully. I’m not going to jinx myself though. 

Another thing that has added stress/anxiety was, 2 weeks ago we discovered our storage room on the bottom level of our 3 story house was flooded. Long story short we had to vacate for a week so that multiple leaks could be fixed. We are seriously blessed to have my mom so close by and willing to let us take over her house for a week with Reagan and the 2 dogs! But it was still so stressful. Packing for a newborn to be away from home for a week is not joke, you guys! That’s also where the swaddle fighting started, which I was hoping was all just because she was sick and in a new place, but it’s continued at home. 

Well it’s been 10 minutes and she’s still asleep, so I’m going to take that as my cue to go to sleep too before I accidentally do something that makes noise and she wakes up. Sorry for the rambling and pitiful post, I’m just assuming nobody is going to read this anyway lol. 

On a lighter note, Reagan turns 2 months old tomorrow! Eventually I’ll get a 2 month update up. Maybe. 

I’m not sure how but a whole month has gone by since Reagan made her grand entrance! I seriously can’t believe how much she’s already changed and grown. A week and a half ago she weighed 8 pounds 10 ounces, so by now she’s for sure over 9 pounds and she’s out of *most brand* newborn diapers (by the way, SO glad we did the diaper raffle at her baby shower. Thank you to everyone who brought diapers because we haven’t had to restock yet!). Her hair gets fluffier and curlier and crazier after every bath, so I’m sure in no time she’ll have a full head of curly hair just like her mom, dad, and big sister. Her hair also seems to be getting lighter – not sure how I wound up with a blonde baby but she pretty much looks exactly like I did as a baby in every other way, so I guess I’ll let David have the hair color 🙂 he’s also hoping her eyes stay blue like his, so we’ll see about that.

It’s no wonder she’s grown so fast considering how much she just LOVES to eat! We didn’t know how extremely fast she was eating until the doctor told us she should basically be eating 1 ounce in 10 minutes, and she was eating 2-3 ounces in that amount of time. The doctor suggested using preemie nipples, which seem to have helped her slow down the eating time and also take a lot more effort, so a lot of the time she’s nice and tired and ready to sleep once she’s done eating (which makes life easier on me!).

On the topic of feeding, Reagan never did take to breastfeeding despite the tongue and lip tie correction. It got to the point where when I would try to get her to breastfeed, she was having a flat out meltdown. I hoped the preemie nipples might help because the feeding time would be a lot closer to what she would get out of breastfeeding, but they didn’t. I really wish that pumping was easier because I would love to continue to give her at least some breastmilk in addition to formula, but with David being gone it is just near impossible to do when I’m alone with her to take care of plus the two dogs – one of which has cancer! – plus not let our house turn into a complete disaster. If it was possible to get a newborn on a schedule where I could rely on her napping at consistent times of the day, it MIGHT be doable, but it’s not. I also tried holding her while pumping using a hands free pumping bra, and that was an epic fail. So, I’m weaning myself off of pumping. Honestly I feel like I’m kind of giving my body the middle finger by stopping. It’s producing breastmilk pretty darn easily which I know doesn’t happen for a lot of women, and I really did plan on exclusively breastfeeding for at least the first few months – ideally 6 – so this is all a bummer for me. Luckily I have a great old friend that’s given me about 50 ounces of her frozen breastmilk she had saved up, so that will get Reagan through a while longer with the benefits of breastmilk in addition to the formula.

Since David has been gone, Reagan and I have been on a few solo adventures out of the house, and they’re getting easier every time. She has seemed to hate the car seat basically since she was born, but lately she mostly just screams when the car isn’t moving (I started counting how long it takes her to start having a fit at a stop light and it was 10 seconds almost every time lol). We’re hoping that holds true when we go to Fresno after Christmas, otherwise a 6 hour car ride might turn into a 10 hour one! One of the adventures we’ve been on together was to a baby-wearing class. We had a Moby wrap and a Lille Baby Carrier, and we had kind of figured out the Lille but the Moby was a disaster 80 percent of the time we tried getting it on, especially when I was alone. A girlfriend suggested trying a Ring Sling also and let me borrow hers to take to this baby wearing class, and I’m so glad she did! Turns out the ring sling is by far the easiest to get on, and so far Reagan seems to enjoy it. I also learned how wrong we were trying to get the Moby on and I feel a lot more confident doing it myself, however the ring sling is more comfortable than the wrap to wear around the house in my opinion. The Lille we were also doing some things wrong, but not terribly. She does fine in that carrier so I’ll probably continue using it for longer trips out of the house (like to the zoo), and once she gets bigger of course that’s the one she can grow into the most.

I know I said it earlier but I really can’t believe it’s already been a month since Reagan was born! The time has flown by – and here I thought the last week and a half without David here would be the longest of my life! I’ve of course missed David a ton and we can’t wait for him to get back, but I will say this was a crash course in figuring a lot of stuff out about being a mom in general and about Reagan and her likes/dislikes and personality specifically, and for that I’m thankful. He’s going to be gone a lot over the next few months, and then will deploy sometime around May, so better to get all that figured out sooner rather than later! I can’t wait to keep learning Reagan’s personality and bonding with her, and watching her grow! I’m seriously so in love with her!

I’ll leave you with some of my favorite pictures from our newborn photo shoot that my best friend (Kelsey / Captured Forever Photography) took – there’s literally a TON more but these are just some of my faves:

That’s all for now, friends 🙂

 

Hi friends! I’m changing things up today with an update on our sweet dog Mater instead of baby Reagan (don’t worry I’ll have an update on her sometime this week too!). In my last post I had said we found out Mater had TVT, essentially a dog STD that causes lesions and tumors which can become cancerous. Mater’s tumors have spread to him lymph nodes and are cancerous. Our new vet (who discovered it and *finally* made the diagnosis that multiple vets at our previous animal hospital couldn’t) planned on treating Mater at his small practice however apparently disposing of chemo chemicals is extremely expensive for someone who doesn’t administer it all the time – there are certain chemical disposal companies that bigger hospitals have accounts with, and of course at places like that you (the client) aren’t paying 100 percent of that cost on your own because there’s lots of other clients to spread the cost among. Our vet was even having a hard time just finding a company that’s would dispose of the chemicals for him alone, and considering how quickly TVT can advance on top of him knowing it would be much more expensive for him to treat it than a larger human hospital, he advised us to go to an Oncologist – VERY unlike our previous vet who would never have referred us to a specialist to save US money……..

Anyway, that’s how we wound up with an Oncologist vet, I called on Friday and got an appointment for yesterday, and the vet was definitely concerned with how much it had spread but still seemed hopeful that chemo could treat it because of how responsive TVT is to it (90-95 percent success rate). They expect to see basically immediate results – you can visibly see the tumors now so if the treatment works we’ll be able to see it also. She said it usually takes 4-6 rounds of the chemo, but it could be up to 8. So fingers crossed it only takes 4-6 because it ain’t cheap! He had his first round of treatment today, and it was really no big deal at all! Definitely nothing compared to chemo on humans. It took 30 minutes and now we can expect him to be a little tired, but he’s generally lethargic thanks to the TVT anyway, so we probably won’t notice much of a difference in his behavior until the TVT starts going away and he starts feeling better overall. We’ll go back in a week from today to check on his white blood cell count. If the chemo didn’t bring the count super low they’ll do another round of the chemo then, otherwise they’ll give it a little longer between treatments to let his white blood cell count bounce back.

After the appointment Mater’s primary concern was his baby sister. One of the many ways he’s just the sweetest boy!!!

Alright, I know that was a long winded update about a dog, but before I end this I just want this to basically serve as a warning for anyone reading this who has or will adopt a dog in San Diego. If you know me you know I’m a major adoption advocate, and I always will be. I don’t plan on ever not adopting animals in the future because of this either. But I was completely ignorant to TVT and with how close we are to Mexico, where this is a HUGE issue, it’s good to just be aware when adopting, obviously from organizations in Mexico but also organizations in San Diego because many of them pull animals out of the high kill shelters in the Imperial Valley, where dogs from Baja can easily wind up like we suspect Mater did (except we’ve tried speaking Spanish to him and he doesn’t know any, so who knows haha). According to the oncologist, TVT can essentially be dormant inside of a dog for their entire life and never become an issue if the dog is healthy because their immune system suppresses it. Mater unfortunately had a tick-borne disease called ehrlichia when we adopted him, which compromises their immune system until treated, so that could have been what made the TVT start growing. The old vet also prescribed oral steroids to Mater when they were trying (and failing) to figure out what was wrong with his eye, which the oncologist said also added fuel to the fire, helping the tumors to grow, and grow more rapidly. So anyway, please please please look into TVT if you have adopted a dog or adopt one in the future, from a San Diego or Baja rescue just so you can be on alert for the early signs. I can’t even begin to describe how much I’m kicking myself for not knowing about this because the signs were definitely there (which goes to show how horrible our old vet was also), and we might have a better shot at beating this if we’d started treating it earlier.

That’s all I got for today – a Reagan update will be up at some point in the next few days! It just takes careful planning to be able to sit down and make a post being completely on my own with her and the two dogs (Winnie is great, by the way!). David left for an underway on Sunday night and will be back next week.

Please keep us, and specifically Mater, in your prayers! Ideally the chemo will take care of the TVT, and we won’t even have to think about other options.

Thanks, y’all!

Hi friends! It’s been a crazy past 4 days but yesterday Reagan Marie Liberty made her arrival and has made everything 100000% worth it! We checked into the hospital for an induction on Thursday night and I just now (Sunday night) feel human again – I actually just got free from any IV for the first time since we checked in also. I know I haven’t responded to hardly any texts or calls since Thursday so I wanted to just share her birth story here along with some amazing pictures that my best friend was able to take.

If you read the first post you know that on Monday we were sent to the hospital after my doctor saw my blood pressure spike at my 40 week checkup, and then the hospital sent me home because it seemed to be lowering. On Wednesday, we went back to my doctor and my blood pressure was still high enough for her to order an induction for the next night. So on Thursday night, the induction was started with cytotec, and I got 2 more doses throughout the night. It caused me to have regular contractions and my water broke on its own around 11am, but after I got my epidural (which was TERRIBLE), Reagan’s heart rate dropped and my blood pressure went back up, so I was given something to slow down the contractions basically. The rest of the day and night I was obviously in bed and Reagan was being monitored closely. It took until Saturday morning for her to decide she was ready to come on out, and I started pushing around 10:30. Somehow it only took about an hour and a half of pushing, and then she was here! She’s the cutest and most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen (obviously) and I was instantly in LOVE.

Once she was born for some reason my blood pressure shot up again, but this time it was way higher than it had been at all this week (or ever). I also had a fever and my back felt like it was on fire – I actually thought someone had put a heating pad behind me and I just didn’t realize it so I didn’t say anything about my back being hot until a little later. They think I got an infection because of my water being broken essentially a full 24 hours before the baby was born, so they gave me lots of medicine and a fun magnesium IV that I needed to keep in for the next 24 hours at a minimum. Because of all that, it took a while to even get us moved into the recovery room where we are now. I was really looking forward to a night of being able to move freely and without lugging around an IV pole or a monitor, but no such luck. Throughout today my blood pressure has gone back down to a more normal level, and we *should* be going home at some point tomorrow afternoon. I also finally got a chance to take Reagan’s “first photo” (which I thought I would be able to take a couple hours after she was born lol):

I also got to see another one of my best friends and ask her to be Reagan’s Godmother:

Our hopes/prayers right now are that my blood pressure stays in a normal range, that Reagan gets the breastfeeding thing down because she’s in a danger zone for jaundice, and that we’ll be discharged tomorrow so we can get home to our fur children and start enjoying Reagan all to ourselves!

Again I know I haven’t been very responsive and I’m sorry about that! I’m so thankful Reagan is here and healthy, and that we have such amazing friends and family rooting us on and here to help us if we need it. You guys are all the best!