Life Lately

These two months (mid june-mid august) are crazy town for us, guys. So much is up in the air, living situations are in flux, and we're trying to make our lives make sense.  I know it will be over eventually but it feels a little overwhelming right now.  These photos are from a couple months ago, back before there were leaves on trees and there was still ice on the lake.  I had just been given the go-ahead to introduce some solid foods to Jack so I captured his (hilarious) reaction on camera.  It's crazy how fast time is moving right now, I can't believe I took these photos so long ago already!

Watching: GLOW on Netflix.  I binged this in a few days and it was so much fun.  After feeling so much intensity from The Handmaid's Tale (which I loved), it was so nice to just sit down and relax while watching a lighthearted feminist show.  I was legit cheering alone in my house during some episodes. Like full-on, hands in the air cheering.

Drinking: Mango La Croix.  It's the best one, you guys.

Stressing about: Housing. I'm doing my best to trust that the right situation will find us.  I like controlling things around me so not knowing what's going to happen, and not having a plan is not my jam.  I'm working on leaning into that trust and letting go of the anxiety.

Excited for: An unexpected week(ish) back in Anchorage!  I flew down to Portland on June 18th with the intention of staying down here until the end of July in order to shoot a bunch of weddings, but since the house in Anchorage sold so quickly I'm going back to help Dan pack stuff, put on a big garage sale, and clean.  It will be nice to get to say one last goodbye to the house I grew up in.  And it'll be super nice to have a week with Dan before I have to come back down to the Northwest.

Busy with: The Drop Deads! I was able to bring all my inventory and supplies with me, so I've been busy catching up, organizing my biz-life again, and getting new colors in, which is exciting!  Since I'll be flying back to Anchorage the 6-13th of July I won't be able to ship any orders that week, but I'll still be able to take orders and will ship them all out once I'm back in Oregon!  In the meantime, if you want something shipped before then, just order before July 4th!

Jack's Birth

Today is both Jack's 6 month "birthday" and also Father's Day, so it feels appropriate to post this today.  I figure I should probably write down Jack's birth story before it fades too far away. So here goes.

Jack was "due" on December 8th, 2016.  My pregnancy was almost bizarrely easy; no morning sickness whatsoever, no back pain, none of the adverse symptoms it seems most women encounter.  I didn't even have trouble tying my own shoes by 9 months.  So I had an inkling he was pretty dang comfortable in there and wouldn't be interested in making his debut early or even "on time."  I should note I use quotes around "due" and "on time," because it's been shown now that there is a span of 5 weeks in which birth timing is normal, so a due date or on time birth is somewhat misleading.  Anyway.  

My doula/BFF, Kristina arrives on Dec 1st.  I take her to my prenatal yoga class with me.  We hang out.  A few days later on the 3rd, my birth photographer/other BFF, Amy, arrives.  Both are from Tacoma, so they flew up to be with me for my labor and Jack's birth.  We commence waiting.  A week goes by.  Nothin'.  At every prenatal yoga class people start being like, "wait, you're still here?!" to which I reply, "tell me about it."  With no signs of labor, we start trying to entice him to make his way into the world in various ways.  We go to a hockey game, where I eat a burrito so spicy I was sweating profusely.  Spicy burritos and multiple fog-horn blasts do not work.  We try karaoke.  Nope (though Amy won the Karaoke contest that night!).  Next up: Zumba.  Zumba at full term is, well, it's a helluva thing, y'all. Mom, Amy, and Kristina joined me and we were all exhausted afterward.  I was pretty sure I'd get some kind of reaction out of the kid for all that jumping and bouncing around.  I was right.  That night I woke up feeling some cramping and Dan called in letting his job know he wouldn't be coming into work.  This was Wednesday, I believe.  Well, while I did get some action, it was just some Braxton Hicks contractions and the rest of the day I was back to business as usual.  Except I got to hang out with Dan all day because his work thought I was in labor.

No more signs of labor for the next couple days and by now I'm a week "overdue."  I have what I hope is my last prenatal appointment and my midwife checks my cervix and I'm dilated about 3-3.5cm, which is encouraging since it means I'm at least on my way to labor-ville!  She sweeps my membranes, which was an interesting sensation to say the least. We talk about some other natural labor induction methods and I decide to try my hand at castor oil to help get things moving along. Since I was a week overdue at this point we go in for a little ultrasound and a non-stress test to see how kiddo's doing.  He's in ship shape so back home I go, with a castor oil assignment to complete.

If you're wondering how effective castor oil is at moving things along in your GI tract, I'm here to tell you: Liz used castor oil and it was SUPER EFFECTIVE.  Well, at least at clearing out my gut.  Woof.  About 20 minutes after taking a shot of castor oil and I scooted my way to the bathroom where things moved along.  Everything but the baby.  Amy, my photographer, has moved her flight back a few days already and has to fly out.  She predicts I'll go into labor in the next day, because of course I would.

Next day I go back into my midwife for another check of my cervix and another membrane sweep.  At this point I'm solidly at 4cm, and it's at least encouraging to know that I'm almost halfway dilated already and haven't even had to labor to get there!  I go home and decide to do more castor oil and bouncing on my exercise ball.  At some point in the past week Dan's parents had arrived (expecting their grandson to already have made his debut), so that night we had a family dinner with both our parents and then make our way to the living room to play some funny board games.  As we're playing games, around 8:30-9pm,  I start feeling some periodic, light, contraction-like sensations.  They keep on coming, staying pretty light, and pretty regular. That night I go to bed to try to get some rest before the work begins, but I don't think I got any.  I may have dozed off a bit, but by 2:30-3am rolls around I have to get up and walk around and then I find myself ritually heading to the bathroom to grab the edge of the sink counter, swaying back and forth to get through the contractions.  I text Kristina what's going on and she decides to head over.

By 4:45 things are getting pretty intense so Dan heads down to start and warm up the car because it's Alaska in December and temps have been in the negative and single digits.  My swaying and moaning get me through my contractions.  Our bags head down to the car and I get in the back seat of the red van I've been driving since coming back home.  The same red van I would drive to school after getting my license.  If you'd told me back then that 15 years later I'd be in the back seat of that same van, in labor, I'd be incredulous.  For months there had been a weird, small trash can rolling around the back of the van making tons of noise every time I made a turn.  The day before I had finally taken that trash can out of the van, and as I get in the van I grab that trash can and bring it in with me because I'd been feeling a little nauseous and had zero interest in throwing up all over the car.  I think the trash can might still be in the back seat...

We get to Alaska Native Medical Center around 5am, maybe 5:30, and go in through the ER, since it's too early to go in the other doors.  We head up and go into the L+D Triage where, to my great dismay, I have to lay still for 20 whole minutes while they do another non-stress test.  I hadn't stopped moving through my contractions up until this point, even in the car I was swaying and up on my knees, not sitting down, so having to lay down and be still for 20 minutes was a pain.  Plus they had to put in a Hep-Lock so that I could be easily hooked up to an IV in the case of an emergency, which I was not anticipating and wasn't thrilled about.  So it goes. 
 

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My room becomes ready and I shuffle my be-gowned, laboring, self the 50 feet to my room where we get the tub filling and I slip in to begin the work.  Things are pretty hazy at this point, not really like in the way that things are fuzzy when you're drunk, but kind of.  Everything goes internal and I'm not aware of much outside of like 2 feet from my body.  Kristina and Dan are giving me double hip squeezes and I get pretty intimate with the walls of the tub.  It's intense and by the time I'm starting to feel a little pushy, I vomit a couple times after contractions and then decide to get out of the tub and move to the toilet.  Nurses have been coming in and out periodically checking on Jack's heart rate and, I'm assuming probably, other stuff, but for the most part it's just me, Dan, and Kristina.  

By the time I'm on the toilet I'm feeling pretty pushy, and between contractions at one point I'm like... I feel like maybe a midwife should be here... right?  Kristina went and let the midwife know that things were happening and at some point she shows up-- again, things are hazy and my sphere of external awareness is pretty small.  At first I'm laboring leaning forward on the toilet but as things progress my midwife has me lean back and put one foot on Dan's thigh and one on her thigh, both of whom are kneeling in front of me.  In retrospect I can't imagine Dan's staring-down-the-barrel view, I imagine it was intense, to say the least. There is a lot of groaning and pushing.  I keep trying to push after my contraction has ended, I just wanted to get it done with, but my midwife tells me to stop pushing when the contraction is over, and my over achieving self complies grudgingly.  Mostly I just remember groaning and having her tell me to groan lower and feeling a little ridiculous as I modulate my groans awkwardly from a higher pitch to a low pitch.  That and feeling like I might just rip the metal stabilizer bar off the wall with my hulk-like labor strength.  I think I probably squeezed Dan's hands or arms or shoulders or something uncomfortably hard.  

It didn't take long before the baby plopped out of me and everyone fumbled with this slippery little screaming, bloody new human and placed him on my panting chest. To which I responded, "this is weeeiiirrrdd!"  It was, you guys.  It was super weird.  After that there were lots of hands.  Doing various things.  Cleaning things, moving things, moving me, stitching me, cleaning Jack.  8:43 AM.  

Kristina went and told the parents, who had been anxiously awaiting the news out in the waiting room, that the thing had been done successfully, the new human seemed healthy, and told them to wait a little longer cuz my vag was getting stitched up (I'm also positive she said all of this in a much more lovely way, thanks Kris. This is why you are a doula and I am not). Shortly after all my "housekeeping" is done, the fam files in an ogles the bebe.  My Dad ogles him in his own way.  As a neonatal intensive care doc, he does his own examination and finds Jack to be a-okay. 

After that it's just a lot of chit chat and eventually we moved to the post-birth room for recovery, which is. a. bitch.  I had no need of an epidural for the actual birthing, but damn if I didn't want to cut off all sensation to my lower half for like the next week.  I may or may not have sobbed in the hospital room on one of the two nights we slept there because I felt like I still loved Dusty the most, my nipples and vagina were in excruciating pain, and Jack was crying and I couldn't make him stop.  Some angel nurse came and took him away and magically put him to sleep. Her witchcraft was a godsend. 

Oh, you might be wondering, "If your birth photographer had to fly out a day before you gave birth, who took all these photos?"  Well, I set up my settings on my camera, handed it to my Doula, Kristina, and between all her amazing Doula support she also pulled double duty as my photographer.  Dang.  

Anyway, that's pretty much that.  We didn't finalize Jack's name until we were basically heading out the door.  We had his first name picked out shortly after he was born but could not for the life of us pick his middle name.  We were vacillating between Tiberius and Gabel (Star Trek and Against Me! fans may recognize those names) but Dan threw out Polaris at the last minute and it just fit perfectly.

Jack Polaris Morrow it is.  

Five Months

I haven't been hit with mom-brain too hard, but this photo session got hit with some hard mom-brain.  I did the entire shoot with the letterboard saying "four months old" and didn't realize it until I was telling my mom later that day that I had done his five month photos and was like, "WAIT..." looked at the sign and did a full on facepalm.  Cue the photo re-do.

At 5 months Jack is army crawling, started eating some solid foods (his face when I feed him is preeetty hilarious), and he's all around a pretty happy baby.  Some days he doesn't nap as much as others and I think I might go insane, but all in all I think we're doing okay.  Motherhood still doesn't feel much like a shiny sea of glowy bright feelings, and a lot of the time I miss the freedom of just being able to do basic shit without having to stop every 2 minutes to manage an infant, but we're getting used to the new life, even if there are some growing pains and crying sessions (for both of us).

Life Lately

Life has been pretty sweet lately.  I've felt really positive and like I'm getting into a decent groove with being a mom.  Things have come into my life that have helped me reconnect with my creativity and boss-bitch vibes, which just feels so nice after having to throw myself 110% into mom-ness the first few months of Jack's life.  Being a mom on my own terms is super important to me, and being able to feed the parts of me that bring me alive feels like the best way for me to be the best mom possible.  

Getting excited for: a quick trip to Tacoma! I'll be heading down mid-May to shoot an Elopement. I'm only in town for a week, but I'm sure it'll be packed full!  Jack is coming with me so it'll be fun for my Tacoma friends to be able to see how much he's grown since we were in town in February when he was only 2 months old.  He'll be 5 months by the time we're there!  He's scooting around so I'm sure by then he'll either be close to crawling, or crawling!  Crazy how fast they grow!
I'm also doing an afternoon of Boudoir mini sessions while I'm in Tacoma again!  I loved my last boudoir mini session afternoon while I was in town so I'm really excited to do it again! I've got a gorgeous white brick studio for the sessions this time, which is going to be such a beautiful backdrop.  If any of you guys are local to the Seattle/Tacoma area and want to do a Boudoir session, shoot me an email! 

Listening to: lots of Patsy Cline.  A long time ago someone mentioned I had a similar voice to hers and lately I've been doing a bit more singing and it's always so nice when you sing songs by someone whose voice has a similar range and tone.  Plus, I just love those old-timey country songs.  Dolly Parton, Nancy Sinatra, Loretta Lynn, June Carter, they're all so good. 

Super thankful for: finally being healed from Jack's birth.  Like holy moly that took way longer than it was supposed to.  Of course, having never given birth before or recovered from delivery I had no point of reference for how long things were supposed to take to heal.  I ended up having to go in to the OR to get my scar cut and re-stitched, which was a bit traumatic as I had gone in to the doctor that morning for a checkup and ended up staying all day and getting into the OR later that day, so needless to say I was not mentally or emotionally prepared for going into an OR, even though it was a super minor procedure.  But I already feel 500% better than before the scar revision.  There are so many things I will never take for granted ever again (tmi warning: hello not being afraid to pee!).

Changed: my hair color!  I've wanted to go grey for ages, but right now an expensive salon visit isn't in the cards since we're saving money for our eventual move back to the PNW.  So instead I decided to do something I could DIY.  So: purple it is!  I can only go so long without dying my hair fun colors.  My hair is super shitty right now with postpartum hormones wreaking havoc on it. Greasy, limp, crazy dandruffy, and falling out by the handful.  Super lame, but having it be a fun color is a nice consolation!

Happy about: having my parents in town.  Right before Jack was born my brother went into the hospital in Oregon where he lives and the next few months were full of trips to the hospital, him coming up here for the holidays and to see his doctors here in Anchorage, my parents taking him back down to Oregon and going to doctor appointments down there, and then them coming back and forth a few times.  They've been back in town for about a month solid now and it's so nice to have them, not only to help with Jack, but just to have other humans around.  Because they live right next door to us, I can go visit with them while Dan is at work during the day.  It's nice to know that I can hang with them or invite my mom to go on an adventure to Target. Just silly little things.

Reading: I started watching Thirteen Reasons Why and then realized I bought the book a couple months ago, so I stopped watching so I could read the book first. I also downloaded the free copy of Girl Code from Amazon and am excited for some girl power reading material! Also, I'm watching The Handmaid's Tale (talk about a super heavy show) and really wanting to read that now too! Such great shows based on books!

Our new family photos

A couple months ago AlisaMarie of Sons & Daughters Photography came over to our little apartment and captured our new family.  I don't even remember how old Jack was here, I think it was in February, so probably 2 months-ish.  It's crazy how much he's grown in just those short months since we did this session!  Today he actually turns 4 months old!  He's smiling and giggling and holding toys, all of which sounds super boring before you have a kid, but it's pretty amazing to see those tiny milestones happening in these first months of life.  He wants to crawl, but he's not quite there yet.  I'll be enjoying these last weeks or months of having a stationary child before he starts cruising around.

I had a hard time culling these down, so here are a bunch of photos from our session!