Wow!

I have had an amazing and eventful couple of days! What a blessing it was to be able to attend one of my very best friend, Crystal's labor and help her make it through her labor and delivery, completely pain med and epidural free despite being induced and on magnesium! She did amazing and made it look easy. Her labor reminded me so much of mine with Mark, just a few hours longer. She was 35 weeks pregnant and had preeclampsia and her blood pressure was not going down.
I won't go into details of the labor but sweet little Alessia Mae was born at 450pm on December 29, 2009! She is so beautiful and tiny. She's 17 inches long and 4 lbs 8 ozs (1 inch and 1 oz less than Taylor was). I have had the opportunity to hold her twice already. Once for a while yesterday and again today. My kids could never have been THAT small! Except two of them were that size or smaller! Alessia will likely get to go home tomorrow, with Crystal! She's amazing. No time in the NICU at all, not even for observation.
I feel very honored that Crystal would ask me to be there to help her through her labor and that she would trust me enough to help her and share that sacred experience with her!

Yesterday I was supposed to have an appointment with the sports medicine doctor but I rescheduled to be with Crystal. I saw him today though. He was concerned that my rotator cuff tear is not going to heal on it's own and my quality of life is hindered by the pain and my range of motion is poor in that arm. He said that he is not a surgeon and does not push surgery unless he thinks it is absolutely the last option. Having tired steroid shots, NSAIDS and physical therapy for a couple of years for my neck and shoulder, he thinks we have no other options. He did tell me that he had a similar tear and tried everything, like I have, and he needed the surgery and after three weeks of not using his arms and three more months of therapy and recovery (so an almost 4 months process) he is doing SO much better and it was the best thing he could have done! I go and see the orthopedic surgeon on Jan 7 and if he agrees that I need surgery, he will go in and stitch up the tear and fix my joint by shaving off extra bone that makes me more susceptible to rotator cuff tears. I may need this surgery on the other shoulder at some point but right now it is ok. The right side is worse because of my collarbone break as well. I think that if the surgeon thinks this surgery is best, I am going to go ahead and go for it. Recovery will be painful but I am in constant pain anyway, that is getting worse. The pain will be bad right after the surgery but it is supposed to go away as it heals! That would be wonderful!