Introductions

My name is Taylor. I am engaged to the most wonderful man in the world, Brandon. We had our first child on September 6th, 2012. Her name is Addison and she is just about 3 months old now. I have lived all over the Thompson Okanogon, and Lower Mainland. I am currently 23 years old and my Fiance is 27.

I was born in Richmond, BC. I have lived in Kamloops, Logan Lake, Ashcroft, Cache Creek, Ladner, Langley, Maple Ridge, and Chilliwack. We moved a lot when I was a kid because of my dad's work. This also meant I went to a lot of elementary schools but luckily only 2 high schools. This made it hard to make and keep friends since we were never in one place for too long.

I graduated from Logan Lake Secondary School in 2007. A few years later I went to Sprott-Shaw Community College and took my Health Care Assistant and graduated with honors. After I graduated I got a job as an Assisted Living Worker at the Thompson View Lodge in Ashcroft, BC. Then I got a second job with Interior Health as a Home Support Worker through the Ashcroft General Hospital.

I met Brandon in Ashcroft probably in 2008 or 2009 through a mutual friend. Never thought we'd end up being together, but he is the best thing that ever happened to me. We started dating in September 2011 and not long after I got pregnant. It was a huge shock but I wouldn't change it for the world. Between my family and his I have amazing support, how many people can say they love their in-laws? I CAN! LOL

Shortly after I got pregnant we had lots of new changes. Brandon went to TRU and got his class 1 and started trucking. We moved to a new city left our friends and his family behind. We got a new vehicle. Then Addison was born.

Throughout my pregnancy I used a midwifery that was recommended by one of my old highschool friends. I wouldn't have gone any other way they made my pregnancy seem easy. I was lucky never had any morning sickness or anything like that. Only problem I had was trouble sleeping and all my joints kept locking up the further along I got. Probably because I was overweight to begin with and the extra pregnancy weight didn't help.

I had a pretty rough labour. I was 10 days overdue. My due date was August 27th, 2012. I was scheduled to be induce on September 6th, and my water broke the night before. When my water broke I called my midwife and she asked what color it was. It wasn't coming out clear like it was supposed to be, so she told me I needed to get to the hospital right away. They told me that my baby had a bowel movement and that was what probably caused my water to break and that they needed to start inducing me right away because she probably had meconium in her lungs. My water broke at 7:30 pm and we were at the hospital by 9 pm. We checked in they checked me out, they did a stress test and an ultrasound. The ultrasound showed that she was transverse. They started inducing me with pitocin at 1 am. My contractions were pretty bareable at first then they got worse and worse. I didn't want an epidural or any pain medication so I chose to start with Nitrous Oxide (laughing gas). It seemed to work for the most part but I wasn't dialating at all. Finally I asked for the lowest dose of morphine. They also gave me extra gravol in my shot to try and force me to sleep (IT DIDN'T WORK). The morphine worked for maybe a half an hour and only took the edge off of my contractions then they were hurting just as bad. This went on for hours. My midwife decided to have an emergency obstetrician fly in to assist with my labour. Before he got there I had already discussed with my midwife that I would go for a C-section. I still wasn't dilating, my midwife wanted me to try the epidural because she said in similar situations where the women weren't dialting the epiudural helped them relax and dilate. Sure enough within 5 minutes of the epidural I was fully dilated. But then my fears came true after I got the epidural my stats and babies stats started to drop. They wanted me on my hands and knees to try and get our blood pressure/oxygen back up. Then the OBGYN showed up and said "nope I think I want you to try and push". It was the most painful thing that I have ever done. It wasn't so much the pain the got to me but the pressure, constant pressure. After all was said and done I had 18.5 hours of induced labour, 2.5 hours of dry pushing and my water had be broken for over 24 hours. I had 4th degree tears and it felt like it took hours to get stitched up. But at 7:27 pm the next day our beautiful baby girl was born weighing 7lbs 14 oz and 20.5 inches long. With a full head of hair. I had my mother and my mother-in-law and my fiance in my delivery room supporting me the whole way. My father-in-law and brother-in-law and his girlfriend drove all the way down just to meet her that night then drove back the same night because they had to work in the morning.

The next week was the hardest. I don't think I slept for almost 4 days straight because of labour and her constant throwing up and choking from the meconium in her lungs. Then we noticed after a few days her eyes started to turn yellow. She had jaundice. Another new mom worry. Luckily enough it cleared up on its own. The next struggle was breastfeeding. Because of her jaundice she was very lethargic and would just fall asleep when she was nursing after like 5 minutes and wasn't getting enough to eat. She was up every hour on the hour. I'm very lucky I had all the support I had I don't know how I would have made it threw it. After about a month she was feeding longer times apart and then it got easier. Then she wasn't gaining enough weight, wasn't loosing any but wasn't gaining what she was supposed to be. I was asked to start supplementing with formula because I wasn't producing enough. She is strictly on formula now for the past 3 weeks. I tried everything, pumping, mother's milk tea, fenugreek, milk thistle, and a prescription called domperidome. I would like to try to start breast feeding again one more time before I completely give up, I know it's going to be a struggle but it will be totally worth it in the end.

It took a good solid 2 months before she started sleeping mostly through the night. Now she only gets up once or twice a night to feed or get her diaper changed. She has already grown so much. She has been holding her head up since 3 days old. She laughed for the first time a couple weeks ago. I'm scared she might be teething, she has been fussy, super drooly, and bites my fingers or her suckie instead of sucking on it. She has also been having lots of long naps during the day.

My next struggle has been the weight loss. I lost all of my baby weight with in the first 6 weeks which I was super suprised. I was 186 lbs before I got pregnant and a whopping 225 lbs when I had her. Now it's down to loosing the extra weight to get down to a healthy weight. I started the Jillian Michaels Body Revolution yesterday. It's hard and all my muscles hurt but it is totally worth it. I am also trying to quit smoking at the same time should be an interesting couple of months. I have only had 3 smokes today since I put my quit smoking patch on yesterday. Which is great compared to the pack of smokes I was smoking every day. That is all for now.

A shot from our maternity shoot in august. I was 9 months pregnant.