yes, i graduated!

Well a belated update.... I did graduate nursing school.... yay!! I attended my pinning ceremony that I talked about [here] with anticipation. (This was early in May, so Cora was 3 weeks old...and I was still recovering...) It was amazing though that Matt and Cora were able to pin me (and that we all made it out of the house showered, with clean clothes on... aaaa-mazing!!). This was something we weren't sure we could pull off. But she sat through the long ceremony of about an hour without crying...then matt walked across the stage with her while she was contently awake. He handed her off to me (without a fumble) and pinned my nursing pin on me. We had about 200 "ooohhhh's" from the audience... it was pretty sweet. This was the main reason I wanted to attend my pinning ceremony...so that Cora could be there. It was a big deal. Throughout my nursing education I became a wife, a mother, and a nurse.... pretty great 3 years! Jam packed to say the least. And all with the support of my incredible husband. We did it!!

Now, I am studying for the NCLEX- the nursing boards. Super intimidating....not something one should fail. I take it in a week....then my maternity leave will be over and I start my very first nursing job. Wahhoo!! Then I can just breathe easy, I can't wait. Taking time to study every day without seeing Cora for a few hours is grueling. Plus, my mind has just been in eat-sleep-poop-mode for the past month and a half. So, studying is challenging, but a must do. Almost done... then I can go through all the emotions that will coincide with returning back to work, away from my sweet babe.

motherhood.

[and yes, that is our little 2 week old spud holding her own head up.... what the heck, she has a strong neck]

Motherhood is a trip. It's nothing like I expected....as a matter of fact if you take any thoughts, notions, or expectations I had in the previous posts on my blog about what parenthood would be like I was wrong. Like I thought I wanted to do natural childbirth- WRONG. I thought I would keep all of the plastic crap/ devices out of our house- WRONG. Anything that will keep our little cora happy we have- swings, bouncy chairs, plastic bottles- not my beautiful glass bottles that have too high of a flow creating painful gas. I thought we could resume life, go camping this maternity leave- WRONG.... and that was just plain silliness. I thought I had a tough time sleeping during pregnancy- WRONG.

Oh, motherhood. I know so much more now.

After Cora turned about one month life got a bit better for us. Not to say life was bad in the first month.... it was just uber challenging, sleep deprived, and borderline...what the hell did we just do? We loved our life of just matt and I and the dogs.... we loved pregnancy.... we did not expect what was to come- even though we thought we were as ready as anyone could be. So I had to recover from child birth, adapt to our new life with a newborn, but also kind of mourn our old life. This was the new us... and it will get fantastic again.

Now, however, Cora has more happy hours than sad ones.... she is smiling, little laughs, she loves bath time, she notices our facial expressions, her awake time is increasing and with less crying.... we are getting the hang of parenting, we are understanding our daughter and feeling less incompetent, the google-ing late at night for terms like " fussy baby, sleep solutions, crying, gas, reflux...etc..." has decreased. We can see our life coming back...not just yet, but it will....and it will be a brand new incredible life we've never experienced before.

I was also wrong on a few more things... I thought I could handle leaving the house after she was born... I was wrong... I crave to be near her, to smell her, to stare at her little tiny body for hours on end. I can't stand to be away even now writing this post. Our sweet little girl needs to be held every second of the day.... but I love that time more than anything. I'd rather be holding her than eating, sleeping, shopping... anything. I love her more than I knew I would. I feel like a mom already...and I love it. I had no idea how strong this love would be and so quickly.

I hardly have time to reflect on what a journey this has been already. It's not like the endless hours during pregnancy that I had to reflect and process being pregnant...blog endlessly...and just sit and think. No, I don't have time to do all of that now.... but it's ok. I feel like the emotions I have are huge and may take me over if I tried to process what just happened in our life. Motherhood. Parenthood. Crazy huge amazing deal.

a spud pre-birth story.

[oh geez I was huge... huge, 39 weeks pregnant.... and had no idea what we were in for]

So here is part one of Cora Elm's birth story...I wrote this part week by week so that I wouldn't forget. And now I need to work on part two- her actual birth. It's funny, I am forgetting already what labor felt like. I loved reading birth stories when I was pregnant and pre-pregnancy. So enjoy if you care for this type of thing...

[38 weeks]
This started off as the longest week ever. Seriously. Time just seemed to drag on. I was 38 weeks pregnant... still working fulltime, and going to school and I just had enough. I was starting to get uncomfortable. The only plus side to this long week is that I got a job offer... which I accepted! Wahoo!! I really will be a nurse!! So with that huge relief off my mind, I felt like I could now deliver a baby. Which....I didn't. I really thought I would deliver on the earlier side.

[39 weeks]
I went into my 39 week appointment. My midwife offered to check my progress, which I declined but she thought I was going into labor so she wanted to check just to be sure. My contractions started to change the night before. Instead of being a squeezing pressure... it was now uncomfortable. Not downright painful... but a little tricky to breathe. I also couldn't sleep- maybe it was the nerves, maybe it was the contractions. But I thought this was it!! It wasn't it. I was 1cm dilated.... thinned...and 0 station....for those of you who care :) So, it was good...she is definitely sitting low, which is why I am a chronic waddler... but a little disappointing, which is why I declined initially. There is no benefit to these checks early on- I will either clearly be going into labor and pop out a baby or I won't.

My blood pressures were high and my lack of sleep with increased discomfort...I was placed on maternity leave a week early. It was a little weird, I love work.... but I really wasn't feeling the 12 hour busy shifts. I needed a break.

I tried to fill my hours of waiting this week at home....I made a new shopping list template for winco, finished sewing a diaper changing pad, dyed some onesies and swaddle blanket, cleaned the house again, did spud's laundry, packed my hospital bag, sat in the sun, made a closet ladder... I know, my midwife told me to get rest, put my feet up... that's great if I want to last 2 more weeks, but I wanted that babe out now-ish.

Throughout the week I had intermittent hours of painful contractions...just hoping that they would ramp up and be unbearable. But no, they would subside to bearable contractions. I guess I had been having braxton hicks- but I didn't find that changing what I was doing would make them less intense. They were just milder, and sporadic. I considered this to be my pre-early labor. A practice round.

A coworker of mine, who was 3 weeks ahead of me in baby due dates said at her week 39.... I feel like I'm going to be eternally pregnant. Yup. Check. I feel the same way. Sometimes I would catch myself thinking... what if I never go into labor?! Like seriously think this. Yikes. Then I realized I indeed do have an induction date. This spud will come out by week 41.  (FYI, my coworker is not still pregnant...she has a beautiful healthy baby girl)


So... on Tuesday I was having serious menstrual-esq cramps. I realized it had been 10 months free of period pains, and how nice it has been. I thought nothing of the back pain and cramping and went to bed, motrin and wine free....which normally would have been my cramp-go-to pre-pregnancy. I woke up at midnight-wednesday morning with intense cramps. I tried to take a dump....eat... move around in bed. Nothing worked, I quietly climbed back into bed next to matt ...spud did a few cartwheel feeling like things in my belly....and GUSH. Yup. My water broke at 1 am. I almost started laughing out loud as I ran to the bathroom in this very wet state I was in. I ran back into the bedroom and told matt my water broke. It felt like christmas morning....no joke. He smiled, laughed...and got up running around like a chicken with his head cut off super excited...ready to do this. Finally...I'm in labor at 39 weeks and 5 days!! Let's do this.

last semester ever.

[my first day of my last clinical in the spud room with a content little spud brewing]

I just want to share my excitement with all of you...this is my last semester of college...ever. I am beyond thrilled. This being my last semester of nursing school, it means that I will be a nurse soon. I have been working so hard at this, that I can't wait to just be working full time. Going to school full time and working full time is exhausting. Oh yeah, then throw pregnancy in there. I asked for all of it, it was my choice...but seriously. I. am. exhausted. I can't help but smile each time I think about graduating. 

[my grandma's nursing pin- her name is even engraved in the back how amazing is that?! in the top it says "non nobis solum" which means not for us, but for everyone... that people should contribute to the general greater good of humanity, apart from their own interests... pretty wonderful]

I don't actually think I will go to my graduation...they aren't all that special to me (I've already graduated college once before mind you- it wasn't too moving, although my sister's graduation I felt was perfectly tailored for me, in the audience, and I was balling throughout the whole thing). However, my pinning ceremony is a little more unique. Nurses get "pinned" as a sign of leaving the student realm and becoming a colleague. What makes it even more special is that right before my grandma passed away she gave me her pin, from 1939. Crazy right? She went to nursing school in Tacoma, Washington forever ago. It was a huge deal for her to pass it on to me (my little sister is already an RN and becoming a nurse practitioner this May also...talk about over-achiever, a real one-upper...I'm so proud of her). Anyways, I feel obligated to go to my pinning ceremony to honor my grandma's legacy and my future. We will have spud that will be only a couple of weeks old though, perhaps we can bring a gallon of hand sanitizer with us. That's reasonable right?

So here is my timeline of the upcoming months in case you're wondering where I'm at:

January 

 Yay! 3rd trimester begins!

 start up last semester of school

-this month DONE!-

February

start applying for nursing jobs

most intense clinical/preceptor days on labor and delivery unit. Super exciting, I get to pretend to be a nurse!

two nights a week of 12 hour clinicals, then three days a week of working 12 hours, and one day of class. Yikes. Is that even possible being huge?! I guess it has to be.

March

 ditto from February, if I can make it through

take some fun birthing classes

April

Spud is due!!!

maternity leave from work 

still in class, preceptorship completed

family visiting

May

finals, pinning ceremony, & graduate

matt on summer break from school

study for the NCLEX

family visiting

oh yeah and have a newborn

June

take NLCEX

get my first job as a nurse!

July

just work full time

and

be a mom full time

Yay!! It will be amazing.

maternity leave...spud days.

All of this planning may sound crazy, but I love planning!! I am a list maker, if that wasn't already obvious. So of course I am planning my maternity leave. I know it will be absolutely the hardest thing to go back to school and work with our new spud at home. It is not ideal, but it has to happen. But the time off I do have has to be realistic. We need to find a balance between the amount of money we need to live on and how precious our time is being new parents. Fortunately I do get maternity leave- due to the family and medical leave act. Yay!
 I get to have 3 months of un-paid leave regardless for giving birth to a child, then half of that time off is 66 2/3% of my base salary paid leave (tiny amount, but we can make do)...so that's 6 weeks of partial pay. Then if I want the other 6 weeks paid I need to save up my PTO (paid time off) I accrue every paycheck. Because I work a different number of hours every week (36-50 hrs) I get a different amount of PTO each paycheck, its unreliable and rather difficult to figure out. So I made a spreadsheet to keep me on track with how many hours I am accruing and to encourage me to save them for a worthy cause... spud days!!
So here is my spreadsheet in excel that I threw together. I have time to start saving the hours, but also with the holidays I know I need to use some PTO before next year. The total number of hours I need for fulltime pay for 6 weeks is 216 hours!! I have about one year to save hours, each month has 2-3 paychecks (thus paycheck #1,2,3 for each month), then a column for hours I used that month, then the grand total.
I think I can get close, even though I am at a daunting 24 hrs as of yet, however if I have a ton of stressful test weeks next semester or morning sickness days it may throw off my accumulation efforts :( I also plan on working right up until the day I deliver, working in a hospital there is no safer place to do that. Then all of my time off can be with the spud! So we shall see if I get a say in all of this. Anyone have a plan that works? How do you plan to save money?