Hi everyone!

So, as I mentioned months and months ago, I was due with my second child in January. It's now February, so I obviously had that baby.  

The last few months of my pregnancy were really rough as I had mentioned. My SPD got so severe that I was stuck on bedrest and I was barely able to walk by 40 weeks. I was using a wheelchair to get to my doctor appointments and those power scooters if I had to go shopping. I was a few days away from not being able to walk at all when I finally went into labor and 40 weeks and 5 days. My water broke at home which I wasn't expecting since one, it didn't happen with my son and two, its rare for your water to break as a first sign of labor. My contractions started immediately and were 2 mins apart and painful so we went to the hospital. We got there an hour later and I was already 6cm dilated and my pain was a 9 or 10. I asked for an epidural and by the time it arrived, I was already 8cm. I wasn't planning on getting an epidural because I didnt get one with my son (until we went in for a cesarean anyway) and I was in labor for 18 hours. This time, it happened so quickly that I had no time to adjust to the pain. Either way, the epidural didn't even fully take so it dropped my pain from a 10 to maybe a 6 or 7 but I was okay with that because I have no issue with pain in general. Anyway, about 6 hours after contractions started, we started pushing and I pushed for 2 hours with no real progress. My doc came and said that I was a strong pusher so if she was going to come out, she should have by then or atleast be close, but she wasn't. So he suggested a repeat cesarean. When I was in the OR, my epidural still wasn't taking completely and i could feel them poking me with the scalpel so they had to heavily sedate me and I was basically in a twilight sleep during the surgery. Which means that I don't really have a ton of memories about when they delivered her unfortunately. 

Evelyn Briar Ngo was born on January 15th at 5:07 pm. She was 8lbs 7 oz and 21.5 inches long. She is now almost 6 weeks old and we're both doing well. We had a few rough weeks though. Right after she was born, she was not taking to breastfeeding and refused to latch. I asked the nurse that if she had a lip tie if it would make it hard for her to latch but the nurse had zero clue what a lip tie was. So, I decided to ask lactation at the hospital and they told me she didnt. But 2 weeks later she was still not doing well breastfeeding so I saw an IBCLC and she confirmed that Evelyn did in fact have a lip tie and a tongue tie so she was physically unable to breastfeed properly. So, a few days later she ended up getting a frenectomy which is the surgery to correct those and now she's doing a lot better. She's still not feeding perfectly but its much better than it was. And then, because of all these feeding issues, I developed mastitis. So, I was super sick there for a few days as well amongst healing from my cesarean. But, like I said, we're both god now. 

Anyway, because of my SPD, this is the first time I've been on my computer since November/December. Im working towards drawing again. Im mostly having issues because Evelyn does NOT like being put down lol but we got a swing that she seems to like so hopefully I can get some art time while she's sleeping. Unfortunately, shortly after I went on maternity leave in November, I was laid off with Gaia Online (again lol). So, that really sucks because I don't have work to go back to when I planned to go back to work next month. But, good news is that maybe I can focus on art for myself instead since all of my artistic efforts have gone towards Gaia the past several years. So, hopefully this little girl will let me put her down more the next few weeks and I can get back to arting again