sometimes you give birth to a kid.

I love my baby. I love him so much i can hardly comprehend it. It actually terrifies me how much I love him because it makes me feel incredibly vulnerable. However, what I loved less was the process of giving birth to  him. That's not to say I HATED giving birth because things were relatively easy and we both made it out healthy and alive but... let me explain.

I hate that I have to even say that. That I didn't *like* to give birth. I did so much research about childbirth. I would almost say that I knew too much for my own good. I knew that my body knew exactly what it needed to do and the pain was just my body doing the work of getting my baby out. I knew that I wanted to have a natural labor with a midwife at a birth center. To my dismay though, that wasn't how it was going to work for me. When I got pregnant I discovered that my insurance would cover EVERYTHING in a hospital and NOTHING with anything else. Some women would say, "it's worth the 5 grand +!" but that wasn't really in the cards for us. SO I made the best with what I had. I created a birth plan and told my doctors that I wanted to have a natural birth and they were on board. I wasn't delusional by any means, I knew that sometimes things happen when you have a baby and things don't go the way you want. 

BUT, things were going well for me. I had a very healthy pregnancy. My blood pressure was perfect, my pee was clean, my glucose levels were fine, Emerson's heart rate was perfect and his head was down, I was gaining the exact right amount of weight etc etc. So I figured, having the birth I want, should be no problem. I even chose to deliver at a hospital that was totally cool with women having natural deliveries. Everything was fine.

Then, my due date came and went. My OB asked me if I wanted to be induced. I said no. He'd come when he was ready.  So I waited and kept going in for my check ups. To my dismay, my blood pressure started creeping up at each subsequent visit. When I went in at 41 week 5 days, my BP was too high for my OB to be comfortable with so he said we needed to induce. My heart sank. So, we discussed the ways to get labor started and we came to an agreement that I was most comfortable with. I was grateful to have a doctor that listened to my concerns, discussed things through with me, and didn't bully me into things I didn't want. 

So we went home to get all my stuff I had packed. After that, we said a prayer in the car and stopped for lunch and went to the hospital. I wasn't even nervous. Why wasn't I nervous? I have no idea. I was about to experience something completely insane and then my life would be changed forever afterwards and there was no turning back. But at 12:45 PM on 11/11 I was like, no big deal, Let me put on this hospital gown that someone probably died in at some point and watch Honey Boo Boo while my cervix ripens. So for the first few hours, that's what I did.

Apparently contractions were coming but I couldn't feel them other than a little tightening. I would occasionally get up, walk around, pee, snack, whatever. Then I would have to get back in bed to check my blood pressure and the baby's heart rate. Fortunately, as I relaxed my blood pressure started to go down, but it wasn't down very much. And then I had to get Antibiotics in an IV because I was GBS positive and that burned my veins. It was really uncomfortable. At about 5:45 my OB came in to see how I was doing. He decided it would be best if he broke my water. I wasn't super stoked about that. But my BP was betraying me. So he did. And once he did, things really got going. I started to feel the contractions and within three hours they got really intense. At that point I had switched nurses and the new nurse was someone who had delivered her babies naturally, so she showed Taylor how to push my legs and knees into my hips to help relieve of some the pain during contractions. It did help a lot. What I really wanted was to get up and walk around but I had to get another round of antibiotics and my blood pressure was creeping up again. So I was stuck in the bed in pain. I did my best to work through them with the help of my wonderful husband but by 10:45 PM I was exhausted and at my wits end and my blood pressure was insanely high. Like I was about to have a stroke. It was like 200/110 or something. The last time I was checked I was at 5cm, and about an hour later I started having urges to push and my contractions were out of control. At one point I had 3 contractions that overlapped each other and the peak of the pain lasted about 5 minutes straight and the baby was squirmy so they had me on my side to get his heart rate which for some reason intensified the pain of the contractions and all I could do was lay on the bed and writhe and scream in pain.  So the nurse checked me again and I was at 8cm. I was so relieved to know that the pain was actually moving things along. I thought, Okay, I can definitely do this! I'm almost there! So I asked how much longer, and she told me 3-4 hours at the most. At that point I wanted to cry. I looked that nurse right in the eyes and told her I wanted the epidural. It was strange because I had always feared getting to that point in hospital, where I broke down and decided I wanted drugs and I would get it because it was available even though I probably could have done it without it. But in that moment, I was so exhausted, I would try to close my eyes and rest and then a contraction would hit and rest was not an option and so when I decided to get the epidural, I felt no guilt, I felt no fear, I was in survival mode.

when the anesthesiologist came in I felt like there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Apparently I wasn't breathing very well so they put an oxygen mask on me. Looking back, I'm not sure if I should have been more scared about that mask but I didn't care. contractions were still coming every minute or so. When he told me I had to hold perfectly still while he jabbed me with that sweet sweet poison I was genuinely scared of being paralyzed or something. But I did it. I had a super intense contraction during that moment but I squeezed Tayl's hand as hard as I could and then it was over. 11:45 PM Within minutes I started to feel relief. For the first time in hours, I was able to smile. I wanted to kiss that anesthesiologist on the mouth. I was back to being excited about my baby coming. The strangest part of the epi was that I could move my legs, and I could still feel when I was having a contraction, but I just didn't feel any pain. I thought I would basically be useless from the waist down.

So I was finally able to just rest, I actually slept. Not well, because I could still feel the contractions (not pain). But, it was the rest I needed. I'm not sure I would have been able to push the baby out of me otherwise. Also, my blood pressure dropped dramatically. I was back in normal ranges. Around 4 AM, I started to push and blah blah blah I'll spare you the gory details but at 5:10 AM my little perfect goopy bundle of joy came out of my womb and into this crazy world at 8 pounds 5 oz and 21 inches long.

Looking back, as time has passed, I am totally okay with how things went down. BUT, the first few days I felt a little internal guilt for getting drugged up while I was giving birth to my baby. It made me upset to even think about it. I was ashamed. I didn't think I would ever be able to tell people my birth story let alone put it on my blog. But in the end, I did what was best for both of us in my situation. As we approach Emerson's one month mark, the most valuable thing I have learned is that the worst thing I can do is go online and read what other mom's are doing or have done. Mom world is a scary world. I'm not an expert... yet. But my baby is healthy and growing and happy and so am I, and so that means I'm doing okay. And everyone else in mom world who judges, can suck it.

home coming, house hunting, and another hospital visit.

So, we made it in one piece with all 6 pieces of luggage!

Everything went pretty smoothly on our way home, surprisingly. Even though we had to recheck in our luggage when we got to Atlanta to fly into Valdosta.

I was pretty tired when we finally made it to Valdosta but my first order of business was to go get Lux from Drew and Julie's and I was really scared she would forget who I was. But, when we walked in she was really excited. She was shaking and licking the crap out of us when we picked her up. It made me happy.

It made me even happier when I fell asleep that night and I woke up with her in between us on her back under the covers with her little paws and head poking out. I love my sweet puppy.

Our initial plan on Saturday was to get up and go to Savannah and look for a place to live since we are coming back to Valdosta for Halloween weekend. But we of course, didn't. We stuck around and visited with everyone. It was nice though. And my sweet Mother In Law saw my blog and made sure to have Diet Dr. Pepper waiting for me. :) Thanks Sheryl! You're the best.

We finally made it out of the house by 12:30pm. and headed to Savannah to look at house that I was pretty sure was going to be the one.

That was until we got there. AND THE BEDROOMS AND LIVING ROOM HAD DIRTY WHITE LINOLEUM [like linoleum that they used to put in school halls and cafeterias] instead of hardwood or carpet. I can deal with a lot of things, but I just can't deal with living in Lunch Lady Land. Also when we went back outside and the yard was huge, but it had a chain link fence and our potential neighbors had some crazy redneck situations going on in their backyard. And yes, I often judge people based on how they keep their yard. SO WHAT?

Anyway, it just wasn't for us, I just didn't like the vibe I felt when I was in there.

So then on Sunday we went to the ward we will potentially be in and it seemed pretty good. A lot better than when we were in Florence and no one was under the age of 75 (very sweet people, just no one to socialize with). Then we met up with Aunt Martha and Uncle Gary (who are so graciously letting us crash at their place and feeding us delicious food!!) for lunch and I ate some Chicken and Waffles for the first time and I have to say, GREAT COMBO! Taylor ate fish and grits. I love America. and I really love Georgia. and I really really love Savannah.

After lunch we spent about 5-6 hours driving around looking for rentals. We found some, and we were able to get a feel for the neighborhood better. But we weren't really able to look at any on the inside. But all in all it wasn't a totally wasteful day. We decided that our preference was to live in town. Since we're so hip and cool and indie.

On Monday Taylor had set up a couple of showings during his lunch break (he's already started working)  so I met up with him to go look. The first place was okay but it was a little pricey and a lot of repairs needed to be made and it had a separate occupied apartment upstairs which I wasn't very keen on. Then we headed over to the house that I had my eye on for awhile when I was looking on the internet from England. I actually blogged about it (with pictures!) here. I was nervous to go look at it because I had been disappointed by so many and I really wanted it to be as cute as it looked online. Luckily, it was! It was dirty (they will have it cleaned though) It has wood floors all throughout, a separate dining room, fireplace, 3 bedrooms, a HUGE two car garage (maybe we can get started on some food storage), a fenced backyard and a big screen porch.

So we have pretty much decided that that is the one we are going to go with. We turned in the rental application today so we should hear back in a couple of days whether or not we got it. If we don't, that will be awkward and we will be homeless some more.  But if we do get it I am going to be way excited!

Today has been a busy day for me. Remember how I had to go to the hospital last week in London and they told me it was food poisoning? Well the horrible pain has been coming and going all week (its even woken me up in the middle of the night it's so bad) and I talked to some friends and my dad and they all said it sounds like I have kidney stones. Which makes a buttload more sense than food poisoning. So I finally got to see a doctor today and then the doctor said it could just be gas (seriously?) but it's possible that it is kidney stones, so he gave me a prescription for some pain killers and sent me over to the hospital to get Xrays just to see if I need to go as far to get a CT scan.
They gave me a wrist band when I checked in for my Xrays. Which made me a little scared that I might be trapped there forever. But it only took like 45 minutes.

It's still kind of crazy to see my new last name on stuff.

hopefully those numbers don't mean anything significant. don't want my identity stolen.

Also, when I dropped my prescription off at Walgreens, the pharmacist dude looked like Drake. Which automatically made me like him.

I had to drive all over town going to doctors offices and the hospital and target and best buy and the real estate office, which normally I would have hated but I went so long without the freedom of a car in England that I was actually just grateful to be able to drive myself around. 

OH. Speaking of Best Buy, I got my Kindle replaced. (cause I already broke it, but Taylor knew I would so he got a replacement plan) Unfortunately they didn't have anymore white ones, which made me sad. But I didn't want to seem Ereader-racist, so I accepted the black one. Plus the white ones get dirty so easily. I am just happy to have one again. 

So that's pretty much everything that's happened so far.

I knew blogs would be boring when we weren't England anymore. WELL SORRY! I still love our life!

Fragile bird.

WOW.

So this is probably going to be our last blog post in England. So as a warning, it might be long.

In fact, I really should be packing but this sounds more enticing.

On Tuesday, we had our last date night.

We went to dinner and then went to see The Three Muskateers in 3D. It was actually really good, and was surprisingly released here in the UK before the U.S. which is not typical I've learned.

They gave us the left over Harry Potter 3D glasses. I initially declined them because I am not a Potter lover, but the lady said they were more comfortable so I was like, fine.

They were more comfortable.

Last night [Wednesday], was the night of the City and Colour concert at Roundhouse in London.
The Venue was actually really cool and LED ZEPPELIN played their first show in London at Roundhouse so I thought that was pretty rad. I'm not sure if I've ever been to a venue where the greatest heavy metal band that ever existed played.

I found the original flyer for that concert so I had to post it. Awesome.

So, we drove into London and parked at an underground station and took the underground to the venue, it was a pretty simple process. And when we got there it seemed like we had to wait forever for it to start, but luckily we had seats on the upper deck, but unfortunately they were kind of crappy, there was a pillar and some speakers blocking the stage. But I could see a lot better than I would have if I were standing down on the floor. It sucks being short at shows.

Taylor got up early [5:30 AM] to do the early shift at work so that we could leave early enough to get there on time. (We probably would have been fine if he didn't though.) He was pretty tired. He actually fell asleep while we were waiting for the opening band to start. 

the view from our seats

the ceiling.

i tried to take a picture of Taylor sleeping and FAILED.

So after what seemed like days, City and Colour finally came on stage. They looked super classy. Dallas Green had on a white suit coat. But he wasn't wearing his 50 year old dad glasses.  It's fine though.

See what I mean about the speakers? Oh well.

The music was, well, music to my ears. I love every second of that concert. After a few songs the band left the stage and Dallas Green played some of his earlier City and Colour stuff, solo. At one point he busted out his harmonica and asked everyone to put the their cell phones down and stop recording, tweeting, facebooking, texting whatever, and just enjoy the song and live in the moment, for at least that one song [body in a box], and surprisingly everyone listened. It was really cool to be above the main crowd and watch the cell phone lights go out. During the song, one by one, lighters started to go up. It was pretty awesome.

You can kinda see all the lighters. It was like we traveled back in time.

All in all, it was an incredible concert. The really cool thing about City and Colour was that it was *I* who introduced him/them to Taylor, and he loved them. And so basically all the songs are tied to memories with Taylor and I. It made me really happy, and it was also a kind of romantic. I think I teared up at one point. 

Here is some baby makin' music, if you need it. We recorded this.

This is the part where things get kind of dramatic and disgusting, you have been warned.

So after the show was over we got on the train and headed back to the car. We were both tired and I was really thirsty. We started the drive home and kept getting stuck in traffic but I suddenly got a burst of energy and was acting kind of crazy [in a fun way]. I had to go to pee kind of bad and then I started to get this pain on the right side of my stomach. I wasn't really sure what it was but I told Taylor he needed to stop so I could go to the restroom as soon as he saw one.

Suddenly the pain got REALLY bad, and I also had to pee really bad as well. So I started freaking out a little bit. Plus we were trapped in the car in traffic. I was so desperate for any kind of relief but the pain was just getting worse. It started kind of spreading to the middle of my stomach. We finally were able to stop only to find that there was no restroom open at that time. I got out of the car and debated peeing behind a bush but there was a truck parked by the bush so I decided not to. I climbed in the back seat of the car and realized that I could have appendicitis. "GREAT" I thought, "JUST GREAT! Couldn't it wait until I was back in America??"

I told Taylor to take me to a hospital. which is really weird for me because I avoid the doctor at all costs. I never go to the doctor and I don't think I have ever been to the hospital for myself, let alone the emergency room. But for some reason I just felt like it was something we had to do. 

Then I started to feel nauseated and Taylor was trying to find a hospital on the GPS, that's when I felt like I was going to throw up so I opened the car door and threw up just a little bit. At this point I started shaking and shivering and I couldn't stop. It was a combination of the fear, the cold, and the vomiting.  Taylor was kind of scared I could tell and I felt so bad because it was midnight and I couldn't imagine how exhausted he was. I took the GPS out of his hands and found the nearest hospital and handed it back to him. It was about 10 minutes away  so we drove there only to find that it was just a day clinic. I decided that I just was going to pee behind a bush so I did. I only felt a little better, the pain was still there. Taylor called 911 to find out where the closest hospital was to us. I grabbed the two little grocery bags in the car and doubled them up in case of another puking incident.

He finally found the right hospital on the GPS and we headed over there. I was still in the backseat in pain and shivering but trying not to scare Taylor anymore and I just kept apologizing to him. That's when I really puked. Right into the bag luckily. Normal when I throw up it's really dramatic and I like cry and stuff and I hate it but I just did not care about the vomit because I was in so much pain. Luckily, in spite of my pain I was able to get all my vomit into the bag. I held the bag out the window so Taylor didn't have to smell it and prayed and prayed that I did not throw up again before we got there.

FINALLY, we made it to the hospital. We went inside and checked in. The lady told me it was going to be a 3 to 4 hour wait and I was like THIS IS ACTUALLY AN EMERGENCY! So she got me in basically right away. The nurse took my blood pressure and told me she needed a urine sample. This was literally like 8 minutes after I just peed behind that bush so I was like MAN THIS IS GONNA TAKE FOREVER. But I got some. I brought it back to her and she took my blood, gave me some pain killers and sent me back out to the waiting room telling me the blood work would take two hours. It was about 1 in the morning now and I hated that it was going to take that long but I was grateful they had at least seen me. About 10 minutes later the doctor called me back again and took me in a room and did the rebound test and asked me about various things and let me know that I wasn't pregnant. She said that I probably has premenstrual symptoms, OR had food poisoning. I figured it was probably food poisoning. She said that she didn't think it was appendicitis but if I get a fever within 24 hours to come back, but that I could go home with anti-vomit medicine. Taylor asked her about the blood work and turned out that she didn't know that I had got blood taken so she couldn't let me leave until the results came back. So she sent me back to the waiting room and the painkillers started to kick in. I had Taylor say a prayer with me that I would be okay.

I have never in my life hoped I had food poisoning, but if it was food poisoning, at least I would still get to go home on Friday.

So we waited about 2 hours and finally the doctor came out and told me everything was normal and that I could go home. I was sosososososo happy but SO tired, and still in a little bit of pain so I asked for more painkillers. They were nice. DON'T WORRY I'M NOT AN ADDICT.

On the drive home I wanted to sleep, but I felt guilty sleeping since Taylor had almost been awake for 24 hours. So I stayed up and talked to him. We spent most of the drive talking about the bright side of the situation, and how it could have been worse. I've noticed we always do that, at least we're kind of optimists, well, Taylor is. 

Kyns: "At least it didn't happen at the concert."

Tay: "At least it happened while we were in the car."

Kyns: "Good thing they got us back there quickly."

Tay: "At least you're not dying."

Kyns: "Good thing it happened to me and not you cause I couldn't drive this car."

Tay: "At least we don't have to clean puke out of the car, you did a really good job of keeping it clean in spite of your condition. I'm impressed."

Kyns: "Thanks, I'm professional."

The good news is that I'm alive. The bad news is I'm not totally sure it was food poisoning, just because, I didn't throw up again. But, I did have those anti-vomit pills which work like a charm. But it ISN'T appendicitis and that's what is most important here.

Also, Emergency room visits in the UK are free. So even though I have travelers insurance, last nights little fiasco didn't cost a dime. But they still treated me really well

Overall I was satisfied with my English healthcare experience, but now I am ready to come HOME!

See you tomorrow America.