Evelyn Mae | 1 Month

Our little Evelyn Mae, or as we like to call her Evie (with a long E at the beginning, incase you're curious), is now one month old. These moments and days when babies are so curly and small are so brief and fleeting. Oh how I forgot how much I love this phase of babyhood and motherhood. I know some mamas out there much prefer more communicative, interactive phases... and not that I don't also greatly enjoy those stages, but this window is so short and I try to savor it. Although my intention is not to falsely convey that each moment is rainbows and butterflies, but by the grace of God our little Evie is a contented, sweet babe. Although not every moment is easy or beautiful, I do know that this journey is refining and deepening my love and faith. And in this season, God is molding and shaping me to be more like Him. I am reminded of something that Ann Voskamp phrased so perfectly when she said, “Joy is always a function of gratitude and gratitude is always, simply a function of perspective”. 

And for God gracing our lives with Evie Mae, I am eternally grateful. I have been blessed by my Father, the giver of good gifts. 

 

 

Micah's "Party Animal" 1st Birthday Bash!

Our wild one had the best time celebrating his first year of life, at his Party Animal themed birthday party. He loved having so many of his friends and loved ones there to celebrate with him. He was not however very enthusiastic about the cake... He doesn't seem to appreciate sweets. Which has be questioning if he's truly my son after all. But all teasing aside, we loved having dear friends come and celebrate this little life. He truly was the life of the party. 

Micah loved his very own teepee that I made for him. I must say I'm rather fond of it myself, and it's pretty fun to play in with the little babes. Plus, it was a big bonus to not have to put the money down to buy one of our own and got pretty close to replicating the ones we've had our eye on for quite some time. 

Micah eyeing his cake in wide-eyed wonder, but quick to decide that he was not interested in eating any of it himself. A bit anticlimactic if you ask me, but I can't say I'm complaining that he isn't a fan of sugar (at least at the moment...)

It was very sweet that although he decided that he did not enjoy the cake that he thought his mama might. 

Micah: asking for more of anything else please!

Micah: Mom... by more I didn't mean a cupcake... Not interested.

Photography by my rad sis, Ariel Axsom, of Ariel Renee Photography.

47/52

"A portrait of my son, once a week, every week, in 2014."

Micah: having a grand time playing "side", as he likes to call the outdoors. Roaming about and playing in the fall leaves with Mama. 

Photographs taken by my dear sister, Ariel Axsom, of Ariel Renee Photography.

46/52

PORTRAIT FROM THE WEEK OF NOVEMBER 16, 2014

"A portrait of my son, once a week, every week, in 2014."

Micah: Thoroughly enjoying the attention and excitement of his first birthday celebration. 

Portrait taken by my talented sister, Ariel Axsom, of Ariel Renee Photography. More photographs to be posted on birthday blog post tomorrow!

45/52

"A portrait of my son, once a week, every week, in 2014."

This portrait is actually from Monday, November 10th, my son’s first birthday. This photograph will have to do as our 45/52 portrait because this past week my son came down with Influenza A. And I wasn’t totting around my camera while caring for my sick little babe. The irony in this happenstance is astonishing. Micah tested positive for the flu exactly one year later, to the day, that I tested positive for Influenza A. The most ironic part was that, as I shared in Micah’s birth story, I labored with this flu while giving birth to our sweet boy. It was heartbreaking when we were informed that Micah had contracted Influenza this week, only days before his birthday. Making it necessary to move all our celebratory birthday plans to the way-side while our little toddler recovered. 

Micah: trying to be happy while celebrating his birthday, Monday morning, with just family. Micah was so sweet and mild. It was evident in his eyes and darling face that our wearisome one year old was trying to enjoy his mini celebration. He is in much higher spirits today, and we are eagerly awaiting a proper celebration on Sunday, at his rescheduled first birthday party.

And we've learned our lesson two-fold, and next year we will both be first in line for our flu vaccinations. This year I was intentional to get mine at the earliest opportunity since I'm expecting our second and did not want to suffer a similar fate as I did with Micah's pregnancy, but Micah was supposed to get his vaccination this week at this 12 month check up. Poor planning on my part since it was too far into "flu season" it seems for the vaccination to prove useful. We live and we learn, and thankful our little one year old is on the mend. 

Micah, Month by Month

One year with our sweet Micah... This year was abundant but quick, filled with immeasurable joy. The old saying proves true, "the days are long, but the years are short". I'm so grateful that I stopped to capture the growth of this little person amongst the blur of the "routine" of life as a mother, in all the working, playing, crawling, walking, talking, crying, loving, and sleeping, as well as the not-sleeping. To recall one of my favorite pieces of writing by Jodi Wilson, where she said, "Indeed, our days of mothering babies and young children can be tiring and messy; a cycle of washing, settling, cleaning and playing. Sometimes they’re monotonous and seemingly endless. But then, without so much as a blink, the sleepless nights and mornings at the park are over..." It is really bittersweet to stand back and observe and remember all these moments where I engaged with my Micah these last 365 fleeting days. Again to quote Jodi, "Beyond the story of [these] portrait[s] lies a strange reality; I look through [them] and experience a profound sense of nostalgia for my [child's] younger [self]. I already miss [him] with a longing that only a mother's heart knows; it's deep and raw..."

Happy Birthday, my darling son. You are my treasure. 

Micah Alexander's Birth Story

The birth story of Micah Alexander Pope

I realize that to many this may seem like over-sharing, so I will not be at all offended if  a post like this does not appeal to you. I have however had a few people ask me to share it, albeit many months ago that they asked, I wanted to share it none-the-less. It is a long one, so feel free to tap out at any point! Aside from Chris and I’s wedding day, it’s the most special, memorable experience I’ve ever had and therefore I find every little detail to be important. 

Leading up to going into labor with little M, there was a perfect storm of events that took place to make it an extra challenging experience. I had decided that due to having such limited time given for paid maternity leave I would work up until Micah’s arrival. I wanted to maximize my time with him once he arrived, and therefore was walking around teaching and running after 8 year olds at 39.5 weeks pregnant. 

I had been having contractions for about 2 weeks leading up to actually going into labor, and had been a good 3.5cm for much of this time. It was hard to know what to anticipate, since every birth experience is so different, but we were prepared and ready. We had taken 12 weeks of Natural Birthing Classes using the Bradley’s Method. We had read up on any and everything we could get our hands on. I had packed my hospital bag early, and included in it everything the doula at our birth classes had suggested or said had come in handy for her clients in the past. We had a yoga ball, socks filled with dried beans, tennis balls in socks for massaging during back labor, honey straws for quick administering of energy, ear plugs, sleeping masks, and so so much more. All we needed at this point was for Baby M to decide to make his long anticipated debut.

Monday, November 4th, I went to school as usual. The daily grind of teaching 2nd graders was becoming more and more uncomfortable. Despite this, on Monday, I came in feeling very optimistic, knowing it wouldn't be much longer till I had this little one, and was determined to hold out until that happened. But on this Monday I had a few students who felt a bit under the weather. This is where the perfect storm began. It is always a little challenging to tell when a second grader is truly sick. On this day, I had a student tell me he wasn’t feeling very well pretty early on in the morning. I asked him what particularly was making him feel sick, and he couldn’t elaborate. I told him to go get some water, and then sent him to the office to get checked by our office secretary/wearer of all hats including “school nurse”. Unfortunately, apparently we had had a teacher not show that day so she was filling her spot and could not be found in the office. This being the case, I decided to call the student’s mother myself, but to no avail... There was no answer. I had the student rejoin us in class since I couldn’t leave him unattended in the office, but was hopeful that we’d try again within 30 minutes during recess. During recess, I tried multiple times to reach his mother again, but all with no reply. I could tell the student’s health was deteriorating, and was not eager to have him sitting in class with us, but was left with no other option. He again rejoined our class. At this point, I was looking forward to continuing to try to reach his mother during our lunch break which was only an hour away. But again there was no reply, and still no one to watch him in the office. It wasn’t until about 1:30p.m. that I got a hold of his mother. At this point, taking into consideration her having to drive up to school, he would only have had an hour left with us. Nonetheless, I was happy to have him taken home to be tended to, as well as taken out of our classroom. The day continued on, and I was eagerly anticipating one last planned date night with Chris before baby’s hopeful arrival. 

Chris and I were so ready and excited to meet our little M, that we decided to spend our last date night eating spicy Mexican food and power walking/jogging a few miles around a pretty lake in Southwood, hoping to induce labor. This was Monday evening, November 4th. 

That night I couldn’t sleep due to an intense amount of achey-ness and extra discomfort. I wasn’t sure at that point of the night if it was the onset of labor, or if I was getting sick. I figured I had probably pushed myself too hard the night before on Chris and I’s date night. I then decided at 2:30a.m., that although I had planned to work up until the baby came, I was just too uncomfortable and my sub was prepared and ready, so I decided to stay home the following day, wondering if the baby was coming. The next day I just laid on the couch at this point feeling quite under the weather and uncomfortable. I decided that despite feeling sick, I would wait it out because I had my last planned O.B. appointment the following morning. Throughout the day I became increasingly ill and uncomfortable, and had developed quite a cold and a high fever over 102.5F at times. 

My mother willingly accompanied me to my appointment that morning. I had the best and most pleasant obstetrician in the city, but that day he was not pleased to see the condition that I was in. Due to this, as well as my very dark, and almost non-existent urine sample, he immediately sent me down to Triage to get an hour of saline and glucose fluids into my system. He also was eager for me to get a flu swab. There was also rising concern of pre-eclamptic symptoms I had recently begun experiencing, and that they had been keeping their eye on the last few weeks leading up to this point. So it became very important that they checked me out more thoroughly.  

So they did a quite invasive and extremely uncomfortable nasal test to determine if I had Influenza or not. While my mom and I waited for the results of the flu test to come back as well as for the fluids to begin replenishing in my body, my husband got someone to cover for him at school and he headed to meet me in triage. 

Not too much later, to my great dismay, my flu swab came back POSITIVE for Influenza A, H1N1... I had the swine flu, and labor was impending.

This being the case, the doctors were eager for me to be admitted and to be monitored, remain on fluids, and to begin treatment for the flu. At this point I was so defeated, incredibly uncomfortable, had no energy, and was trying to mentally and emotionally prepare myself for what might happen next. 

I was admitted into the antenatal unit at T.M.H. and on top of keeping me on fluids, beginning Tamiflu, and monitoring my overall health, they began collecting a urine sample to test more invasively for protein in my urine to see if I was pre-eclamptic. So it was Wednesday night at this point, and I was to stay in antenatal care until the following day.

That night I didn’t get much rest, my symptoms had really set in and I was feeling horribly. At this point, I was desperately praying that despite my prior excitement and eagerness to naturally induce labor and meet our little one, I was now praying that he would stay tucked away safe inside me until I had been on Tamiflu for at least 5 days. We were all quite concerned for the baby... It was hard to know what to think. Was the baby safer inside? Or out? It was easy to think he would probably be safer inside, but this strand of Influenza statistically was much more risky in mothers and small babies, and even caused many fatalities in the years prior. Of course I couldn’t focus on this, but it was a true concern that was occupying everyone’s thoughts... even my Dad’s who is typically very reassuring medically that everything will be okay. At this point, I regretted nothing more than not getting a flu vaccine that winter. I was in quite a state at this point, and all I remember much of this time was seeing the Oregon v. Stanford game replay over and over on ESPN while I laid awake sleepless that night. 

The next day, Thursday November 7th, I was discharged and encouraged to rest and remain on “bed rest” as not to induce labor at this point. My due date was the following day, November 8th. I remember from our Bradley’s course that natural labor for pregnant women normally began not at 40 weeks if there were no medical interventions, but instead it normally began on it’s own around 41 and 1/7 weeks. This was the statistic for non medicated natural labor. This gave me hope that it may be possible for this baby to hang on to make his grand debut for a few more days, which would allow the meds to do their work...

That afternoon, I had unknowingly missed a few calls from my O.B., who then contacted my father, being a friend of his. He really needed to inform us of my results of the pre-eclampsia urine tests they had conducted during my hospital stay. It was another bit of bad news to pile on to this already nightmare of a situation. He informed us that after getting back my 24 hour protein sample results that he was quite worried for the baby. I definitely was experiencing many pre-eclamptic symptoms with quite a rise in blood pressure over the course of my last few visits, high protein levels in my urine samples, and a large increase in swelling the last two weeks. He told us that he would normally have had me come in immediately to get the baby out, but that having swine flu trumped the pre-eclampsia concerns. He said that their plan for action would be that if the baby had not come on his own by Monday, they would break my water and induce labor with pitosin at that point. The reason they decided we needed to wait till Monday was because at that point I would have been on Tamiflu for 5 days and would be less contagious. We were so worried at this point and trusting God that His ways were perfect and that He is sovereign despite what our ideal plan had been.

Chris’s mother and step dad decided to make the trip down from Atlanta because the following day was my due date. They came and kept Chris and I company while I remained on best rest, in my new home in the living room, on the couch. I was still feeling horribly, and my cough had worsened. For those of you who are not familiar, Tamiflu was not created to relieve symptoms of the flu, but instead to attack the Flu virus itself, which was my primary concern. But I was feeling worse and worse.

The next evening on Saturday, Chris, Chris’s mother, step-father, my mom, and dad, and I all watched the Florida State v. Wake Forest game from the living room. That night I made probably the worst decision, and decided to “just” go to dinner with Chris’s family, when what I really should have done was stay on the couch and not moving about. I had planned on doing minimal amount of movement beyond jumping in the car, walking up to the restaurant, and walking back to the car and jumping in to head back home. We went to our favorite restaurant-- Jonah’s Fish and Grits in Thomasville. (A silly choice after my sister eating that and teasing that it had induced labor with her first baby nearly a year before). Needless to say, I didn’t have much of an appetite and could not eat much of my food, but wanted to be a good host or company while Chris’s family was in town instead of remaining on the couch as I had for the entirety of the last few days... Bad choice! 

As I had mentioned before, I had made the downstairs my new temporary home in order to hopefully keep from infecting Chris so at least one of us could be around baby when he arrived. To be safe, we had Chris and my mom start Tamiflu at the same time as me as a preventative measure, but I still wanted to be around him as little as possible to be safe. I was “sleeping” downstairs, although there was little to NO sleep actually happening. I had tried sleeping everywhere in any and every position, from sitting up in a recliner, laying on my side, laying with a hundred pillows, sitting up at any angle, anything... but nothing worked. I was experiencing a horrible cough and was achey beyond belief... 40 weeks pregnant and influenza is quite a combination. At 4:00a.m. I began having repetitive, time-able “contractions”, which actually began as me needing to get up and go to the restroom every fifteen minutes or so... At this point I wasn’t even sure if/that this was actual labor. It was hard to tell since I had been experiencing contractions pretty regularly for the last two weeks or so. Since I wasn’t convinced this was “the real thing” I didn’t wake Chris, and instead I sent my mom to go to CVS to get me some lozenges to offer a little bit of reprieve from my coughing spells and unimaginably sore throat from the said coughing. When she got back or slightly before I woke Chris up by calling him and telling him that I think this may be the real deal. The contractions at this point were growing closer together, and were occurring in a pattern which was the big distinction between these contractions and the ones I had been experiencing in the weeks prior. 

Originally Chris and I had planned to labor at home as long as possible, knowing that natural labor without medical interventions with a first baby can be lengthy. We threw all this out the window however once I was diagnosed with Influenza A as well as having been diagnosed with preeclampsia. We knew it was more important for the baby to be monitored than to have the most ideal wholistic birth experience we had once hoped for. This being said, I insisted upon jumping in the bath since I was so weak, standing up to take a quick shower was out. I only planned on rinsing off the sweat and icky-ness from suffering from a high fever and the flu for the last few days. I got into the bath, intending on it being a 5-10 minute experience. Somehow just from the time I got into the bath my contractions jumped to being only about 3 minutes apart and lasting for 1 minute+in length. These were hard to stay on top of, and I couldn’t really function or do any bathing in the bath, and was doing all I could to get rinsed off and get out. With Chris’s help, after quite a bit of time had passed, we managed to get me standing, rinsed off a tad, and out of the tub. But at this point my contractions were literally one right after another. I could not stay on top of them. I just laid on the floor, unable to move or get dressed to go to the hospital. I began to mentally prepare to possibly have this baby at home. This wasn’t too far-fetched of an idea since my Dad was right downstairs and has delivered a fair share of babies in his day as a doctor including 3 of the 4 of us, his children. Having a unplanned home delivery was not ideal in my condition and situation however. At this point, it took both Chris and my Mom pulling large clothes over me, and practically carrying me down to the car-- tangled, wet, unbrushed hair and all... Not exactly how I planned my birth experience to begin...

Needless to say, my labor with Micah was fast. Really, really fast for my firstborn. (Sorry, don’t hate me!) I think this was completely and utterly the grace of God. In my condition I don’t think I could have survived it any other way. We rushed to the hospital, where things began to get a bit hazy under the constant contraction one on top of the other. The one (now) humorous thing I remember at this point was Chris videotaping himself explaining what was happening and panning the video over to me, who looked like death turned over. I also remember being extremely annoyed and frustrated by the fact that he was enjoying a cold Coca-cola as we were driving to T.M.H. How inconsiderate, right?

When we arrived and they took me back to triage, while we were waiting for our L&D room, they checked my progress. It was at this point that they informed me that I was 4 cm dilated. Are you kidding me?? I had been a bit more than 3.5cm dilated for the last 2plus weeks. How had I progressed less than 1cm with these crazy contractions for the last few hours? At this point I was very discouraged. I was feeling very emotional and began feeling like there was no way that I could possibly do 12 more hours of this unmedicated with Influenza. I was tearful and started talking to Chris about the possibility of getting an epidural. He stood strong because I told him that no matter if I asked for an epidural that he needed to assure me that I didn’t want one. This however was an entirely unplanned situation... My mom reassured me that in this situation an epidural may be the wiser and safer option. I had very little to no energy at this point, and was feeling ever so defeated hearing of my little progression up to that point.  

The next 45 minutes it took to get me into my L&D room felt like 2 minutes to me, and it was at this point that I had decided it was the wiser choice to throw my wholistic, natural ways out the window and actually consider getting the epidural. My awesome L&D nurse then informed me that she would just need to check my progress once more before she could administer the epidural. Mind you, I was an emotional wreck at this point, very disappointed that I was needing the epidural. So my nurse checks me, and much to everyones great surprise I was 9.5 cm dilated. She then informed me that technically they were not supposed to administer epidurals after 9cm dilation, but in my case since I had the flu that she would make the very reasonable exception. At this point, I was so relieved because everyone agreed that I was NOT in need of the epidural after all. I was so thankful, but I think it was important to get to that point of surrender of my perfect plan and let God’s will unfold. I began feeling the intense urge to push, and was in transition. I don't think anyone finds the pushing process easy, but having the flu made it nearly impossible. Between the coughing spells and the exhaustion, it was a miracle that the delivery didn’t end in a cesarean, but through God’s grace it was a relatively quick, though incredibly tough experience. Certainly the hardest thing I have ever done. My family had a great deal of patience and faith in me. God’s plan sure was perfect. I can't imagine recovering from abdominal surgery while I was coughing as often, and as hard as I was.

Throughout this whole experience I labored completely silently. I never planned on laboring silently... I had never even really even considered the option. Ironically enough I didn’t “plan” for the labor to be at all what it was, but I guess how often is it what people expect? We had written up a beautiful birth plan for natural, unmedicated childbirth, and even made like 10 copies to give to those caring for us, but never even had the opportunity to get them out or look at them. As each contraction came I would make a quiet hissing, breathing sound to make it through and then would rest a few seconds if that until the next one. In hindsight I think laboring silently was done instinctively in effort to conserve every drop of energy towards pushing.

Since I felt ready to push and had already kind of been pushing on my own, when the O.B. arrived I was eager to. They did their counting technique where they count slowly backward from 10 and you’re supposed to push that whole time. After an attempt at doing this, it became evident to everyone that I did not have the energy at this point to accomplish pushing in that manner. The doctor then encouraged me to “labor down”, which was to wait out a few contractions to save up energy for a few good pushes when  the time was right. It was nearly impossible to let the contractions pass without pushing at this point. The urge was too strong. I was one of the many women who during birth classes asks how we’ll know it’s time to push, at which they’d respond “Oh you’ll know”. It ends up this is true... You’ll know! And you won’t be able to do anything less than push! I took the contractions silently as I could and pushed to the best of my ability, without aid of the doctor, but then the time came for a few good countdown from ten pushes with the obstetrician and nurses. It only took a few of these until Micah was here. It truly was a miracle. He was so eager to come into the world that as he was crowning he decided to push his fist out first, which caused a slight tear, then he was in our arms. 

At that point, I felt instant flood of emotions and so much more love than I knew was ever possible, but I was also so completely exhausted. I had originally imagined instantly having baby placed on my chest before the cord was cut, he was cleaned, or anything, to get those precious first moments with him, but due to me having the flu this wasn’t the case. Instead, they first had to clean off my chest (where I had been coughing onto), put a new mask and robe on me, and then they allowed me to hold him after Daddy had cut his cord and they had done all the initial checks. But before they took him away after he first arrived into this world I managed to say “I did it. I love baby. I love baby.” in a half dazed state. The love was so tangible and real, like nothing I had ever experienced before. At 10:04a.m. Micah Alexander Pope burst into our lives and changed our hearts and lives forever.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t quite the end of the story, but I chose to not dwell on the aftermath too much, because my beautiful son had arrived safely earlier that day, which is all that mattered to me. But the birth story did end in a D&C (Dilation and curettage) procedure, due to immense continued bleeding caused by my uterus not contracting post birth. They wanted to be sure to control the blood loss as well as more importantly to be sure that there were not any remaining blood clots or small pieces of placenta inhibiting the uterus from shrinking down to its normal size. Although this was not the “ideal” aftermath of an unmedicated childbirth experience, God was so so faithful to me and my little family in this season.

Micah Alexander is now a stumbling, waddling little toddler, and a bundle of pure joy. I could not be more thankful to have been given the role of mother in his dear life. This first year with our Micah has been wonderful. Our hearts and home have never been filled with such exuberant joy, contagious laughter, and sweet smiles. We’ve experienced overwhelming joy these last 365 days, and cannot wait for the days ahead with our little toddler. To borrow the beautiful words of a friend of mine because I could not describe it any more perfectly, Micah is our reminder to choose Joy, to choose to live in the freedom of the Lord.