I have been working on this recipe as a Christmas recipe actually. Growing up my mom rarely made anything “fun” for breakfast, that was my dad. I remember Saturday mornings all of us anxiously waiting for the next waffle to be ready.
But this isn’t about waffles, it is about blueberry muffins, which we only got “homemade” for Christmas breakfast. Mom wasn’t one to make things from scratch, so the Kruteaz Blueberry Muffin mix became a staple for us on Christmas morning.
When creating this recipe I wanted muffins that were sweet, fluffy, and jammed packed with blueberries. These muffins are exactly that. To make sure the blueberries don’t sink or that the muffins are overly moist, be sure to use canned blueberries. The brand that I have been able to find at almost any grocery store is the black can, Oregon Specialty Fruit.
The blueberries are canned in a light syrup, but the ingredient label is 3 things: blueberries, water, and cane sugar. They are also large berries not those tiny Maine blueberries.
This recipe has a little customization, in that you can use either palm shortening, vegetable shortening, or butter for the solid fat and for the milk, you can use whatever your milk of choice is. I will say, that these brown nicer with cows milk.
We have been taken up to Labor and Delivery, and are put in a closet.
Seriously, this room is so small the bed and two chairs hardly fit. She attaches me to the oh so lovely monitors and says I need to be still for 20 minutes so they can check on baby. Then she will run the test to check that my water has broken and to see how dilated I am. Oh and “if” I am having decent contractions they will admit me. Awesome, everything stops. So I lay there attached listening to the baby’s heartbeat and waiting. Nurse, after we tell her that this isn’t baby number one, we kinda know what is going on, decides to check me and do the test before making me sit on the monitors for 20 minutes. So she does that, repositions things and leaves.
The doula looks at the output and says that when we first got there I was contracting every 4 minutes, now after about an hour of sitting, it was about every 10. I don’t feel the contractions, I feel tightening but it isn’t uncomfortable. The nurse comes back in and says that she talked to Dr. Rice (my doctor, not the doctor on the floor like she planned to) and I am getting admitted to have a baby, and that we will be in the low intervention room. Dr. Rice comes about noon and we talk about what our options are.
At this point we had been in the hospital for two hours and things had basically stopped. She gave us some options: walking, nipple stimulation with the a breast pump, the Cooks Balloon. I ask, “what is the time line?”, I know we are on a clock now, so what does SHE need to see and when. Ideally she wants baby here by 2 am. At 8 pm if things are not moving she would like to start pitocin. We decide to eat lunch, and walk until doctor will be back after office hours about 3.30 pm.
Mr. Wonderful runs and gets lunch, and Rachel, our doula, and I start walking… We pause for lunch and we walk more. Rachel leaves to take care of a few things at home. So Mr. Wonderful and I walk a little and have some “adult time”, and get back to walking. Dr. Rice comes back and checks me and does a cervical message and says that I am at a 3 and if she wanted to be generous I could be stretched to a 4. Baby head was coming down, but we still had a lot of work to do.
Back to walking, and walking, and walking. Now, I wasn’t just pacing the halls, I would get a contraction and I would stop, hold onto the handrails and try to just let everything go as loose and relaxed as I could. Around 5, I ask the nurse to check me, feeling like I was maybe at a 7, only to have her say, “Well would you like to try the breast pump now?” (I am not actually told where I am at.) Disappointed, I say I would like to eat dinner because I know it is going to be a long night and I try to take a little nap. Mr. Wonderful lays with me for a bit and I tell him that I am feeling really disappointed and really lacking the motivation to do this. 8 pm seems so close and I don’t want to have pitocin. Plus, I am trying to relax but I am afraid that I will just go backwards if I do nap. He goes and talks to the nurse and Rachel before going to get dinner. Rachel comes over and talks to me about how far I have progressed already in a short amount of time and that taking a nap won’t close my cervix, and that it might actually help me to relax and help me later having conserved some energy.
So I try to nap, but I start to get some contractions in bed. (The low intervention suites at this hospital have really comfy queen sized beds, so I had lots of room.) After a few contractions I decide to walk more because it was more comfortable. So off Rachel and I go. Mr. Wonderful comes back with dinner and I eat a few bites and decide that if I keep eating I am going to throw it up, and I really don’t want to ruin Chick-Fil-A. I pace the room while Rachel and Mr. Wonderful finish eating and start to have some good contractions.
We stay in the room and we put a large exercise/birth ball on the bed and I am leaning over it and squatting during the contractions. At about 7, I let out a good moan that has Mr. Wonderful and Rachel ask, how was that different? Shortly, my two nurses come in, the day nurse and the night nurse, shift change. They contact Dr. Rice and she comes right over. I am oblivious to most of what is going on, just doing my thing and making jokes about the music choices Mr. Wonderful is playing.
At this point in my head, I have an hour before the doctor hooks me up to the pitocin and in my mind everything will cascade. The doctor checks me after she get there and tells me I can’t push, I still have work to do. So I keep going; swaying, squatting, grunting, moaning and changing positions: Standing, kneeling, lying down, on my side, you name it. The doctor checks me again probably about an hour later and tells me I am really close, I have a lip that needs to open up before I can push. I don’t know what time it is, I haven’t noticed that they have wheeled in a few things, or that there is a nursing student watching me.
I just keep doing what I am doing, until I start to express to Mr. Wonderful how I really can’t do this anymore. In my head I am thinking about how great some drugs would be, and am trying to think about how to ask from something, “Maybe they can just give me some Tylenol.” is what I am trying to figure out how to express. Things keep going, I roll over exhausted, and say “I can’t do it, it hurts too much and is too hard.” Dr. Rice checks me again and says I can start pushing if I want.
Now this whole time I have to poop. I have already mentioned it, and the staff joked about how it was for them, my nurse, doctor and doula, all in turn share and we all kinda chuckle about it. So I keep just trying to poop, but I also don’t want to push too hard, because I don’t want to tear really badly like it did with Mr. Z. So now that I am feeling mentally and physically done and have given a few pushes, the doctor tells me she is going to help things move and relieves me. I think, ok sure, whatever, I don’t think this baby is really ever going to make it out of me.
Doctor is coaching me, and has been doing hot compresses to help keep things loose to help prevent tearing. I finally say, “I am done, I can not do this.” “I need you to give me one good push on this next contraction.” I start to push but then I am worried about tearing and stop in the middle. “NO! Don’t stop, keep pushing.” “I can’t! It hurts too much.” “Baby’s head is right here, PUSH!”
So I do, I push, it burns, I know I tore, but baby head is born, my water fully brakes in a gush and the rest of baby slides right out. Baby Boy Teare was born at 9.27 PM. Mr. Wonderful announced to the room it was a boy, as he gets placed on my chest, and I comment on how much hair he has. We get about an hour of time with baby on me and I get to latch him and nurse him before they take him and weigh and measure. Mr. Wonderful got to help with all of that in the room. He was 5 pounds and 14.8 ounces and 18.5 inches long. I had a second degree tear and Dr. Rice did an extra thorough job of checking and there wasn’t any extra damage like with Mr. Z, recovery has been so much better than with him.
Wow, it has been since February! Well, let me give you some updates, I finished my last trimester of prerequisites in April for my IBCLC, Mr. Wonderful spent a week in Colombia, we moved apartments, bought a house, and had a baby.
So life was a little crazy and stepped away from a few things so I could keep a bit of sanity. I promise to tell more details of the whirlwind 2017 was for us. First, because many are asking, here is the story I know a few of you are waiting for.
Many of you know how Mr. Z’s birth went, and for those of you that don’t, let me summarize it. Crazy. Fast. For a first birth, it was the fastest most of the hospital staff had seen. No one was prepared.
Baby Boy Teare, as he was know for almost his first 24 hours, was not like his brother’s birth at all. Around week 28, I started to get fairly good contractions. One night, they were consistent enough, that with our history of Mr. Z’s birth, we decided to go into Labor and Delivery. Four extremely uncomfortable hours later, I was allowed to no longer be strapped to monitors and to go home, NOT in labor.
No one was able to decide what was going on, and so I decided to mostly just ignore them. For the next 9 weeks if I was too active, walked too far, stood too long, twisted wrong, I would get a few contractions and would therefore, have to do a lot of resting.
Now, you would think with all the contractions that I was having we would have been ready for an early baby, but no. Mr. Wonderful, came home Wednesday from an overnight work trip and woke up Thursday morning feeling really sick. He had a high temp, and so everyone stayed away from him. He slowly got to feeling better and Saturday I went to my baby shower. It was fun and my girl Colleen is crazy creative. I really should have taken some pictures.
Sunday morning, I wake up and realize I caught whatever it was the Mr. Wonderful brought home. I start watching my temperature, because in pregnancy it is extremely dangerous if it gets too high. I call my doctor’s on call service, and wait while taking Tylenol and downing fluids. I don’t hear anything back and call the office first thing in the morning telling them I am 37 weeks pregnant and I think I have the flu. I get in that afternoon and they run a flu test. Doctor is positive I have the flu, and orders up Tamiflu for me and Mr. Z, and suggests we get the flu shot for him. He wasn’t showing any symptoms. My test comes back negative, but she suggest that I still take the anti-virals just in case baby does come early, we need me to better fast. So we get Mr. Z the flu shot, and pick up anti-virals for us.
I start taking them, but they make me so sick, I fight throwing them up for about an hour to an hour and half and then lose. So I take them for two days and make Mr. Z do the same. His, we had to bribe him to take, it was not fun for any of us. So now it’s Thursday, I am starting to feel close to 100%, Mr. Z hasn’t shown a single symptom and Mr. Wonderful is back to about 90% and finally heads back to campus after being gone for a week.
Thursday afternoon/early evening I am starting to feel more crampy than normal, so I eat dinner and lay down to rest. I get things to stop and Mr. Wonderful convinces me to go out with some friends for a girls night. I go out, laugh, and have a good time. I go home feeling fine and go to bed.
Friday morning, I wake up about 8 (Mr. Z is a night owl like us, and sleeps in to about 8-8.30, don’t hate. His bed time is 8.30, but usually is it 10 before he is actually asleep, oops!) I go to the bathroom, and notice bloody show. I text my doula, as I did not experience this will Mr. Z and get back in bed for a few more minutes of sleep. I am thinking that this normal and in a week or so MAYBE there will be baby. Mr. Wonderful gets up and so do I. I then have this moment where I think, “That’s not me peeing, I just went.” So I go back to the bathroom and realize my water just broke. So I inform Mr. Wonderful he will unfortunately not be going to campus today and he needs to pack some bags.
Now, I am not contracting, so I am calm in knowing that this baby isn’t going to shoot out onto my bedroom floor. I get in bed so I can relax and start calling our list of people to watch Z. I also start texting the doula about when she should come and what we should do. Mr. Wonderful packs bags for Mr. Z for school and for overnight and a friend comes and picks him up. Our doula arrives about that same time and we chat about how we should progress. We get the hospital bag packed and I start making a list of what we need to do ASAP. With my water broken, we know this baby will be coming within the next 24 hours and we are not prepared. On my to-do list for the first was install car seat and pack hospital bag, we were not ready!
My idea labor was to labor more like Mr. Z’s and be at home for as long as possible. The hospital policies here are very different than where he was born and from our earlier visit 9 weeks before, I knew would need to go in much earlier than I wanted. With my water breaking and knowing I was on some artificial clock, we wanted to err more on the side of caution. Who knew, maybe my water had not broken.
So we take a little bit of time, Mr. Wonderful and I go for a little walk and talk about what we should do. We decide that for everyone’s peace of mind we would go in after morning traffic dies down a bit, but before the lunch rush, as we live about 20 minutes away from the hospital. Yes, there are two closer hospitals to us, but I found a doctor that I KNEW was going to listen to me and let me deliver this baby how I wanted and she only delivered at this hospital.
We get to the hospital at about 10.30 am. We have to wait in the ER to be sent to through to admittance, where we have to fill out some paperwork. Finally a nurse comes down and we are allowed to go up to the maternity wing. I ask to walk, not take a wheelchair, because I want my very irregular contractions to pick up. This frustrates the nurse, and we also ask to be allowed straight into the low intervention suite. She states that won’t be happening and puts us in a closet.
