Maisy’s First Trip to the ER

Posted on June 10, 2015 by Kaia Calhoun

A few long days ago we discovered a squishy lump on Maisy’s head. It was gigantic, the size of an orange if you cut it unevenly in half and stuck the smaller half on her head. It made my insides squirm. Waking up at 5:30 in the morning with a bumped-up and worrisome baby when a doctor’s office doesn’t open until 8:00 am makes for a long morning. Calling said doctor and scheduling an appointment for 3:00 pm, their earliest available, makes for a long afternoon. Going to the doctor and hearing the words, “you will need to take your daughter to the ER for a CAT scan” and time moves into slow motion.

The drive to the ER felt like an eternity – I suppose it doesn’t help that 1 hour of down time now-a-days feels like an eternity due do my clingy anti-sleep baby, with or without a looming doom hanging over my head. My heart was wallowing in the pit of my stomach and my throat was caught on a lump. We didn’t speak, I barely breathed. My mind was numb – when I tried to think of worst-case or best-case scenarios I came back blank.

When we did finally get to the ER I was struck by how kind and gentle everyone was. Much different than your average “customer service.” Then it occurred to me that these people deal with life threatening scenarios on a daily basis and are likely trained in being the world’s most sweet, caring, sensitive, and gentle people on the planet. It was very soothing and reassuring.

They were incredibly efficient. Maisy took it all like a champ, until she was strapped into a straightjacket and unable to see mommy, let alone be held by me, to go through her CAT scan. They had to run her through twice because she was so consumed by rib-racking and chin jerking sobbing the whole time. The minute I picked her back up the waterworks turned off promptly and we walked back to our room. Then we waited. And waited. And waited. Mom and Dad Calhoun brought dinner. And we waited. The next 2 hours felt like 5 days. In fact, as Josh and I attempted to pass the time with brainless babble about life we kept finding that various events we chatted about weren’t a few days away but that the event in question had actually only been just that afternoon.

Finally the doctor came back and told us all was well. Maisy’s brain what fluid free, there were no fractures on her skull, and the mass we felt on the outside was something akin to an oversized blood blister and it would reabsorb into the body, no treatment of any sort necessary – just the result of a fairly hard bang to the head earlier in the week.

We walked out of the hospital at the same time a friend walked out with her newborn baby girl. God is full of blessings and happy endings!

Postpartum Surprises

Posted on May 20, 2015 by Kaia Calhoun

-written January 28, 2015

So here’s the thing, I am wholeheartedly convinced that only other moms will actually understand what I am describing below. This is because only a mere 7 months ago I would come across descriptions of motherhood like I’ve laid out below and think I totally understood what that was like, or what that felt like, but, as it turns out, I had not even a speck of an idea what actually went down. I could, and possibly should, just skip attempting to adequately describe indescribable states of being and feeling as I have experienced since I gave birth but I simply can’t help it. To me, these things are incredible! Despite the way they come across I am actually attempting to describe the wonder I have experienced in these things. Not the pain, not the sleep deprivation, not the discomfort. No, the wonder. I find all of this, even the blood and guts, supremely fascinating. Call me crazy but I guess it’s a little of my dad, the science teacher, coming out in me. The things a human body can, and will, do to survive and, more importantly, preserve the life of one’s offspring is astounding. I absolutely love that I have gotten to be present in such a primal state of human nature as this! Here are some of the wonders I’ve experienced as a new mom in a sort of segmented bullet form, without the bullet, format.

Immediately post birth it feels like someone popped a balloon in your stomach. Baby and guts come out and suddenly your body does not know how to stand up straight unsupported by that beach ball of a belly and in that moment you realize that somewhere along the way your body started supporting itself on that huge mass that was your belly. I felt deflated, like a wilted flower.

New mom = waterworks. If you, fellow mom, did not experience the need to cry at everything, or nothing at all, please do share. Please note, I was formerly a prideful tearless wonder and in the months immediately following birth Maisy would simply look at me and I would cry.

Postpartum lady bits are no better than bloated road kill. Seriously did not know what was what downstairs for many many weeks. Sorry dudes. TMI I know, but I have to share because I was mostly aghast at the state of those things (and, of course sore, but that goes without saying.)

A feeling of cleanliness lasts minutes. Showers have never been so glorious. Especially the uninterrupted variety when I have a husband at home and awake to be on Maisy duty while I get to bask in the refreshment of hot water droplets streaming across my perpetually stinky body. If it’s not spit up, blood and gore, or your average daily stink, it is the excitable milk production unceasingly leaking onto your clothes for what seems like forever. I also had an oversupply so my body took something like 5-6 months to finally stop leaking through breast pads within the hour and onto my clothing. I woke up every morning in a puddle of my own milk. Talk about a glowing mom right? Oh wait, that’s not a thing. You can only glow when you’re pregnant. Isn’t that just the darnedest?

The haze. I didn’t know I’d entered a haze until I came out of it. They aren’t kidding when they say there is a state the female human goes to when in labor and then, apparently, afterwards to care for their new little human. I thought I was enjoying new motherhood but it wasn’t until I healed up enough to feel like my innards weren’t going to fall out through my vagina that my brains finally started to come back. And then, about a couple months later, I pulled the rest of the way out of the haze. I remember the moment I realized I was in a haze. I was on my way to my second wedding photography gig after Maisy’s birth. I was trying to pay attention to my directions and drive like a normal person. I had a glaring moment of clarity what it must feel like to be an old person as I was overwhelmed, to say the least, by the whole world of things one has to pay attention to while driving. There are other cars in front of you, behind you, to the sides of you… I had this unsettling worry that no matter how carefully I thought I looked every which way that I would still get sideswiped by some car that came out of the blindspot of my sleep deprived mommy brain. Every time I turned, or moved really, I was uttering quick prayers of protection and wishing on a star that I didn’t overlook some other raging machine. That day, I got pulled over and was given a hefty ticket of something like $200 (I blocked the number out for self preservation purposes) for “inattentive driving” because, despite my most earnest attempts to explain my brain to the officer, he obviously felt no compassion towards delirious and emotionally insane (yes, I was a blubbering fool) new mom. The worst of it was I still had to go and photograph this wedding. Hardest professional moment of my life. Despite vehement attempts at pep talking myself out of feelings and “boxing” up my whole morning into the “do not disturb” part of my brain, my mommy brain and wildly imbalanced emotions had me sobbing all the way to the getting ready spot, through the halls, into the elevator, down the hall, right in front of the bride’s hotel room, then back down the hall (because I clearly wasn’t ready yet), and finally back in front of the door as pulled together as I was going to manage. Later on I blamed my red eyes on allergies for the bride. Probably the only moment in my whole life I’ve been thankful for a bad few days with some allergies.

Don’t poke the bear- the mama bear to be specific. That’s a phrase I’ve heard before. I didn’t realize how “mama bear” is precisely the only way to succinctly title the monster that wakens inside of me even at the mere thought of Maisy being in danger’s way. I actually feel like there’s a bear inside me roaring at any threat that crosses Maisy in my mind. For example, one day I was driving to yoga class. It was a drizzly evening and I was driving an unreliable vehicle. I had a moment when I thought the gas pedal might not stop accelerating. To be fair, it lasted a millisecond, but in that millisecond my mind jumped wildly through possible means to preserve the life of my child. The best I came up with was that I was going to have to unhook her carseat, wrap my body around the front of said carseat, and throw the both of us out the car door and cling to that hunk of safety plastic like I was some annoying duct tape residue. Josh made fun of me later, “did you ever think to just wait until the car ran out of gas?” My reply, “no, all I was thinking was that I probably would be going 90 some miles an hour and speeding through stop signs and red lights risking collision if I didn’t get us both out of the car when we were going a more reasonable 55 miles an hour.”

Motherhood is a beautiful, crazy thing and I love it.

Ta ta for now!

Hardest Experience Of My Life

Posted on May 13, 2015 by Kaia Calhoun

– written April 8, 2015

Life happens in the moments when you’re called to be greater.

At 12:30am on Tuesday, March 31 (Janesville, WI) I woke up to a stubbornly awake baby after merely falling asleep 30 minutes prior and a meager 1.5 hours remaining on my sleep watch before the alarm would sound to alert me to get my fanny out of bed to catch a plane with my nine-month-old. We caught that plane with nothing but smiles and sweet I-love-yous on our lips (although in Maisy language it sounds more like “da-da” right now).

At 6:50pm on Wednesday, April 1 (Parker, CO) I entered the kitchen emotionally shredded. My dear friend Nicole wrapped me in her arms and I sobbed and mumbled something about how it’s so hard to listen to your baby scream at you when you know her ear hurts but you’ve already done everything you can for her. It was one of those moments when all I wanted to do was cry as I held my hurting baby, but it wouldn’t come until my pain was met with compassion.

At 6:30pm on Thursday, April 2 (Cheyenne, WY) I nurse my Maisy in the dark on the floor in the corner of a kids classroom at the church Citizen Way is performing at for the night. She just appears to have hit the lights out portion of her evening when suddenly she spewed all of the milk back at my breast. I froze, momentarily dumbfounded. Josh walked in and when I muttered something about the mess in the corner, on me and on Maisy he promptly cleaned it all up as I still just stood there dumbstruck. Another throw up and temperature taking later I decided to throw in the towel and to put my baby down for the night even though we traveled over 1,000 miles to see our man play a concert. Our hostess graciously broke from the concert herself to drop us off at her home only for Maisy to make another mess there. Eventually I snuggled my girl to sleep and prayed my heart out that she would be safe and heal through the night.

At 2:00am on April 5 (Morrison, CO) I woke to throw my stomach up into the hotel toilet. With a date to Red Rocks at 3:30 calling me I tried to summon the gumption to get myself together for van call. Instead, a little voice in my head called me to hang back and at 4:00 I was on my haunches at the toilet again, then again, and again… until my baby woke up for some grub. The moment I lay down to nurse her I knew I was doomed. She just barely got latched when I jerked myself up, ripping the promise of nourishment from her lips, and sprinted to the bathroom. I was a moment too late as what was left of my dinner comes flying out of my mouth… only some of which landed in the toilet. I spent the next eternity aiming my wretching accurately into the toilet while my baby screamed heart-wrenching cries my way. Only one other moment compares to the sense of helplessness I felt in this moment – hour 67 of back labor as I sat in the birthing tub knowing death would feel better but then the world wouldn’t get to know my baby girl (read my birth story here). Finally my anchor lifted off the bathroom floor and I dashed to Maisy. In a half a second she was soothed back to peace as I nursed her. When she woke again, this time for the day, I tried to get us pulled together to make the rest of the sunrise service at Red Rocks where Citizen Way was leading 12,000 people in worship on Easter Sunday. Instead, it took me 1.5 hours just to get Maisy and me dressed due to my wretched state. All the while I pondered how I was going to make it through the morning with Maisy to care for when I couldn’t stand up straight without then having to answer to another round of heaving. On the one hand I was trying to think of any way to get Maisy off my hands, not because I didn’t want her there but because I felt utterly inadequate and unsafe to care for her, but I could think of no one as I was far from home and anyone else I knew was otherwise engaged in the service at Red Rocks. So then I thought my best option was to drag my fanny out of the hotel anyway in order to pawn Maisy off onto someone at the service and then go hide in the green room myself and go back to sleep. But then I realized that was not going to happen either because I really couldn’t fathom how I was supposed to get my weak and feverish body to not only carry simply my own skin and bones but my 20 pound giant baby and all of her necessities out to the car, up all the steps to the Red Rocks Amphitheater, over to someone who can take care of Maisy (potentially making a scene with my nasty and disheveled looking self to do so as anyone I knew would be front and center at the service due to their wifely status), and then all the way down to the green room. I realized that was about as possible as trying to compete in Iron Man race when you haven’t trained a day in your life. I resigned to my fate of missing the whole affair and snuggled in with my daughter praying that she would play quietly and fuss free, she would be ready for a nap soon, and that when she did go down for a nap that she would sleep until daddy could get home to rescue me. She pretty much did just that and I spent the rest of my day sleeping on and off with nursing sessions sprinkled into my waking moments as Josh otherwise took charge of Maisy. That night I caught a flight at 8:10pm feeling fit to conquer the flight puke free thanks to a restful afternoon, lots of prayer, an apple, and some Young Living lemon oil in my water and Thieves oil on my feet (the better to kill all the bad bugs with my dear).

At 8:00pm on April 7 (Janesville, WI – back home) I realized that my milk had completely gone out – turns out 3 days of mostly not eating rids a mom’s body of any nourishment for her baby despite her fervent desire that her body provide no matter the cost to her own physical well being. So at 8:10 on April 7 I pulled a bottle of breastmilk from the freezer and warmed it for my little girl. When she was all fed and laid to sleep I sobbed into Josh’s shoulder and said, “no mom should ever have to do this.”

This trip goes down on my top 5 list of hardest experiences of my life. For the sake of absolute transparency and to give you some perspective on this whole experinece, the other items on that list are as follows: the aftermath from getting beaten and mugged in Africa, my first year of marriage, 72 hours of what felt like literally back-breaking birth, and moving into our first house with a newborn and a gushing birth cavity a mere 48 hours after giving birth to said newborn. And yet, I am thankful for this experience, and every other one from my top 5 list for that matter, because it is also a warm one. In this story I also got to spend gobs of quality time with my little treasure. I got to snuggle her tons and laugh a lot with her. It is actually some of the most concentrated time I’ve had with her – I virtually did not put her down, she was always in my arms. I love my little bundle, no matter how hard it gets, I’m just praying my milk comes back soon!

UPDATE since this was written: my milk is indeed back and I am now thoroughly stocked with natural remedies to ensure I don’t run out again 🙂

Short Stories From the Past 24 Hours

Posted on April 18, 2015 by Kaia Calhoun

First Trip to the Zoo

Yesterday Maisy and I went to the zoo with some of the in-laws for my nephew’s second birthday. We walked through all the exhibits, rode the train, and rode the merry go round. While I was busy enjoying the animals and telling my niece all sorts of fun facts about each one, Maisy was busy enjoying watching the kids. At least one of us actually observed the animal part of the zoo.

Confession From Your Average Mother

Yesterday evening I resolved to take Maisy to the park for a ride on the swing. When this stubborn Swede resolves to do something you better believe it’s going to get done, even if it’s by tooth and nail. So, when we show up to a partially busted baby swing I plop Maisy in anyway. My strong 10-month-old latches her killer grip onto the chains and off she goes smiling and laughing successfully for several minutes. Now, this next moment I’ve played over and over again in my head and I still can’t figure out how it happened, but suddenly my secure little girl has flipped over the front of the swing, done a front flip, and landed flat on her belly. I’m frozen like a deer in headlights for a split second waiting for her to scream. She doesn’t make a sound. I pick up my baby girl to find her working on a mouthful of sand. She doesn’t even look upset, just perplexed at this new in-mouth phenomenon. As I’m cleaning her off and trying to help get the sand out of her mouth I realize she’s getting mad that I’m trying to help. So I let her eat the sand, she deserves to eat sand if she wants after tumbling off a swing.

Mama Bear to the Rescue

Last night I’m hanging clothes on the line (yeah I forgot to do the load when I could benefit from faster drying by the sun shine) when I spot Sam in the garden. Now that it’s warm out one of my goals is to train the dogs to stay out of the garden, so I start commanding him to get out. Instead, he does this dance. I command again as I start walking towards him, getting more furious by the second. He does his dance again. I command him yet again though I’m slowly realizing something else is going on. He does a dance again. Then I’m upon him, I scoop him up and plop him out of the raised bed. My eyes settle on a patch of downy fur. Sure enough, the dance that signals Sam has happened upon an unknown source of movement was legitimate. I see the area surrounding the fur rustle. Once. Twice. Three times. I’m trying to glimpse what I have here thinking that some of the rustling will reveal a little more. No luck, so I grab a nearby small planter to act as a shovel to help me investigate – don’t want my fingers nipped by whatever is in there nor do I want to get diseased bird germs all over my hands. I’m ruffling through the leaf and fur debris expecting to happen upon a wounded bird. Instead, I uncover a whole pile of baby bunnies. These cute little buggers are nestled right next to the row of carrots I just planted. Of course. If only Maisy were old enough to at least enjoy these cute little pests. Instead, the animal enthusiast and mama bear that I am, I am standing guard over these little babes every time I have to let Sam out to pee. Please grow up fast little bunnies.

Confession of a Sleep Deprived Mother

Just before dawn Maisy wakes to nurse yet again. I doze off as soon as she gets to work only to wake moments later to an odd warm sensation on my leg. In my half dream state my mind bounces through the possibilities. Did I wet myself? No, that’s not possible from the outer side of my leg. Did my water break? No, I don’t have one of those. Is a really hot Maisy leg touching me? No. Did she throw up. No. Is my breastmilk leaking all over? No, my breasts are too far away from my thigh (at least for now, talk to me after more babies and maybe I’ll be whistling a different tune). Did Maisy pee? Did her diaper fall off? That’s an awful lot of pee to be coming from her.

I root around in the dark. Maisy feels bone dry. And then I feel just under the side of her rump that’s nestled in closest to me. Soaking wet. I have two choices: one, wake my now sleeping baby and change everything from her diaper to her sleep sack to my clothes to the sheets; two, embrace the warmth and go to sleep. I chose the latter.

The Day I Lost My Dog

Posted on March 25, 2015 by Kaia Calhoun

Once upon a week or so ago I hit the freeway with two dogs, a baby, and all our stuff crammed in to every spare nook of my compact Chevy Cruze. The day was probably the worst in Maisy’s life (at least that she or I can remember as of now). Within the span of the 12 something hours of daylight we get these days she got a face full of snow, was a mess of an emotional baby through the entirety of our trip to Minnesota, tipped over in the tub and got a mouth full of water, and hit herself in the face with some keys. In all these moments Maisy was varying degrees of pathetic baby and I felt like the worst mom on the planet. Feel free to judge me, it’s a sad and constant side effect of the job anyway, but I promise I watch this girl like a hawk!

Well we hit the road and, as always, I had a sense I’d forgotten something. Not too far into the trip I realized the missing items where the dogs leashes. Instead of turning around I resolved to simply encourage them to hold it until we got to Minnesota. Worked like a charm actually, the second success of the day (the first being that I installed Maisy’s new car seat super securely). The rest of the trip was a battle though. Maisy cried the better part of our 6 hour drive. Do you know what that feels like? Fellow moms unite! The rest of you can, at best, sympathize. To a mother, your baby crying (or sometimes any baby) feels like you are actually on a high speed chase. Compound that about ten times the duration of the actual duration of the crying and you have a sense for the wreckage this ensures on a mom’s state of emotional, physical, and otherwise wellbeing at the end of it all. Despite my frequent stopping to nurse and otherwise care for Maisy on our trip she just screamed. By the time I got to Minnesota it felt like we were traveling for a week, not just half a day, and I was in such a state of brain fog and in such a tortured emotional state after having to listen to my precious baby girl scream for so long that I couldn’t even talk straight – I managed to blindly shovel random portions of food into my mouth and stutter incoherent segments of sentences out. Yeah, turns out Maisy screamed my brains out… go figure that out.

Oh wait, I got a little ahead of myself. So, when we arrived I parked the car along the street. I took a minute to figure out what I should grab to go inside right away – again… brain mush. Then I walked around to the back door to get Maisy. Halfway through unbuckling her it occurred to me that Sam was not graciously ducking out of my way in the seat that I have to reach over to get Maisy out (her car seat is secured in the center of the back seat). I increasingly frantically looked on the seat thinking maybe in addition to my brain being mush that I also went slightly blind and my black dog blended into the black upholstery so thoroughly he disappeared. Nope not there. I frantically started saying his name. I glanced to the floor, in Haley’s seat, in the front of the car… nothing. I stood their blank faced and helpless. My mind cycled back to our last stop – some gas station a couple of hours away. That’s it, I lost our dog and was so busy getting my brains screamed out by my baby that I didn’t even notice he wasn’t in the car with us for the last two hours. I pictured my fluffy little ragamuffin wandering around the gas station all by himself and then taking off into oblivion to look for us. I would never find him again. How would I tell Josh?

Then I heard a big dog territorially barking. And I heard a little tinkling noise.

“Sam!” I yelled.

“Sam?”

“Sam! Sam. Sam. Sam!”

And there he was. Fur raised along his spine like the ridge of scales along a dinosaur’s back, collar tinkling, and whimpering his remarks at the big dog. With some meandering and more probing on my part he finally started towards me with some reserve – he always knows it’s naughty to run off but does it anyway.

“You little stinker.” I couldn’t even be mad. I was so relieved that I simply plopped him back into the car – the better to finish getting Maisy out while maintaining his safety from death by car or some other force outside of my control.

The End.