A little more recent happy snap...

Just a pointer post, sorry

I know I should write, but I'm not ready yet so I will just tell you that I put up some more recent pictures of the kids on their blog Stay cool!

L's Birth Story

Even a week and a half later, the mind starts to forget. Best to document now so I can remind myself why I'm done having children. I had a fast and intense labor with my son, arriving at the hospital less than 30 minutes before he was born. Although, this was not a bad experience, it was a bit too intense for my liking. Every doctor I saw this time said, you need to make sure you come to the hospital sooner this time! Well, Thursday night I started to have the tell-tale backache that sort of comes and goes. I tossed around for awhile trying to decide if this was pre-labor or not. (I was due on Saturday). I tried a bath to see if it went away (it didn't). I tried to go to sleep to see if it would keep me awake. I couldn't go to sleep, but it wasn't really the backache that was keeping me awake, it was the whole uncertainty of what if I'm in labor, when do I call my sister. I really don't want to wake anyone up to come and sit with the kids. Finally at about 1:30 a.m. I called my sister and said, I really think I'm in early labor you better leave to come down here. She lives about 5 1/2 hours away. She left at 2 a.m. and I decided to start timing the contractions and see if they were regular. They were every 4 minutes, spot on. Nothing painful, nothing that would even interfere with a normal conversation. Just a short (maybe 10 second) tightening. So I thought if I lay really still, they will stay nice and calm and I won't have to wake anyone else up. In the back of my mind I kept thinking, but what if my friend doesn't answer her phone in the middle of the night, what is my back-up plan, why is it happening in the middle of the night like I was afraid of? Finally at about 3:45 a.m. I decided, they aren't getting any slower, I would like to get the hospital in time to have the option of pain relief this time. I called my friend and she was here in about 3 minutes so then we had to leave. The contractions were still VERY mild, almost unnoticeable. I told my husband I didn't want to go in yet so he said there was a couple of things at work he could finish up. We stopped by there and walked around downtown for awhile and finally went and checked in at labor and delivery at about 5:30 a.m. They hooked my up to the monitor for about 45 minutes, regular contractions every 2-4 minutes lasting about 45 seconds no pain or discomfort. I swear though as I was sitting on that bed I had the first sensation of cervical dilation of the pregnancy. Finally the resident checked me, he couldn't even find my cervix it was so high and he said I was about 1 cm. He said I might not be in labor and asked when my next appointment was. He said, it's been really hot, maybe you are dehydrated. I gave him a knowing look that a third time mom can give him and said oh I'm in labor. He then said, well, you do have a history of going fast, if you really want to we could monitor you for another hour and see what happens. You just told me I was 1 cm for goodness sake, I was leaving that hospital a little disheartened. The nurse looked at me as I got dressed and asked where I lived. (we live 30 minutes from the hospital). She asked if we were really going home? I said, no we would walk around a little bit and I would be back later. I informed her I was in labor and we would be having the baby today. She said, I know. We left the hospital at 6:30 a.m. and immediately the contractions got stronger. We went to Denny's where my husband ate and I went to the bathroom 6 times. I finally told him I had to go outside (much to the worried expression of the waitress). On a side note, I just saw the charge from Denny's and it was $22. I ate one bite of oatmeal and 1/3 of a milkshake, what did my husband have for breakfast?? Anyway, we then decided to drive to Silver Lake to walk for a little while. We walked about 50 feet and I had to sit down the contractions where coming so hard. I then told my husband I wanted to go home and take a shower I felt tired and gross. We got to the car and I changed my mind, decided a drive home would be most uncomfortable. The whole time I'm thinking, but I'm only 1 cm I have so far to go and am so tired. Did I mention that I had to call my friend who was with my kids, who had gotten up in the middle of the night and had to stay up with her daughter and tell her I was only 1 cm? I was embarrassed. Anyway, we ended up calling friends of ours who live near the hospital who were getting ready for work. They had said we could hang out at their apartment so we could be more comfortable. I told them I didn't want their 2 year old to see my having contractions, they said he had been fine when his mother was in labor with his brother 5 months before. We drove there and my husband played with the kids while I had a couple more intense ones. I then went to the bathroom and passed a bunch of blood with clots. I came out and told my husband we needed to go back in. It was now 8:30 a.m. The first person we saw when we rolled into L&D (yes I was most definitely in a wheelchair this time) was the doctor who had sent us home 2 hours earlier. He gave us a confused look. I had decided that I need something to take the edge off the contractions and started right away asking the nurse for something. I was having really strong back contractions at that point. She said they needed to check me first. I remember telling the nurse (in between telling people not to touch me) that I have never had contractions this strong without being fully dilated. In between my repeated requests for something for the pain, another resident tried to check my cervix before I removed his hand. His conclusion was at least 7 cm maybe fully dilated, he didn't get a good check. At this point, they continued to ignore my requests for "a shot of something please" and wheeled me to a L&D room. We again wheeled past before mentioned resident who asked my husband what the story was, to which my husband replied "they aren't completely sure but they think she might be fully dilated" in my mind I added, you "might not be in labor" bastard! The attending who was waiting in the room was very calm and firm. She informed me again that I couldn't have anything until she checked me again and even convinced me to let her. She said I was fully dilated with a very bulging bag of water. She told me I was not going to get any pain relief and moreover because of my history of tearing I was going to have to be calm and listen to her. I said fine, can I push then? They asked me to please wait and I remember talking not so nicely to a number of people trying to do things like put in an IV and get the stirrups up and bed broken down. Every contractions (which were coming probably every two minutes) asking if I could push yet? I was so exhausted at this point by the night of no sleep and everything happening so fast I was willing to do whatever someone told me to do. I think it was about now that they put me on oxygen, which helped. They tried to disguise the fact that they were doing this because of the decels the baby was having with the contractions, but I was tired, not stupid. Finally they broke my water told me I could push. I asked if they wanted me to push gently at first or what would be the best. The reason for this question was that my doctor had told me that because I had delivered my first two with no meds I pushed too hard hence the very large tears. So this time I was determined to listen despite the fact that my body wass telling me to push like hell and get this baby out of here! Anyway, I did probably 5 or 6 "gentle" also read "ineffective" pushes and then started pushing for real. My doctor showed up at about this time. After a few real pushes I could tell the baby was starting to crown because of the good old burning sensations. Then they lost the baby's heartbeat on the monitor which they disguised by taking the monitor off. I lost the urge to push when the head was halfway out and I asked "do you want me to keep pushing" since I could see worried faces. They said "if you can". I pushed with no contraction and the head came out, cord around neck. They removed the cord then I pushed the rest of out, my god is that the most wonderful feeling the whole word. Such relief! 9:31 a.m. at this point. They put my baby up on me and my husband checked and said we had another girl! I had so hoped and was elated by this news. At this point I counted and we had 4 doctors two nurses and two PCAs in the room at this point. Why does everyone flock to an exciting/non-medicated birth? I have to give kudos to the resident who delivered. He was the one who said 7-full, remember him? He never said a word, but I looked up at him a couple of times and he made very strong, reassuring eye-contact that somehow helped more that any verbal encouragement. My little girl was only 7 lbs 5.6 ounces a full pound and a half lighter than her brother, thank god! There was some confusion immediately following delivery as to whether I had torn some very crucial parts of my anatomy again, but once the placenta was delivered it was determined that no it was merely another 2nd degree tear which meant another painful half hour of stitching but no operating room for me. Afterward before mentioned resident came and apologized. I felt like saying you were the bastard that stole my pain meds! But he explained he had a woman the previous night that they kept for seven hours with no progress. He went and called her after my delivery and her contractions had slowed down and she was still at home. What I wished I could have explained to him and everyone in the room was that part of the reason I was having so much trouble handling the contractions this time was because the whole time I kept thinking I had only been 1 cm two hours ago and so I was going to have to go through this for a long time still. When in fact I was actually in transition at the time. Had I known my baby was going to be born so soon I think I would have had a better attitude and less swearing. Anyway, he was actually very nice and I was much more rational about it when everything was over and had ended well. I just didn't want to be the crazy lady giving birth in a hurry with everyone watching, but I guess that was my niche to play in the childbearing saga. I have no intention of going for four to see what happens next so this brings to a conclusion the pregnancy and birth part of my life. I am not sad to see that go and am happy to enjoy my family of five.

Um, Hi!

How are you? It feels awkward really coming back to the long neglected blog. But hey. Things here continue to roll along. Baby #3 is expected in less then three months, this continues to terrify me. We continue to deal with the rollercoaster of sleep issues, who's getting it, who's not, who could be better at it, etc. My 4 year old has been waking at night sometimes from dreams and sometimes "because she is lonely". She wants someone to stay with her. It doesn't even work to let her come down with us, because she doesn't sleep and consequently neither do I. So now she has moved her bed in with her younger brother who barring illness has been a great sleeper recently. Can you see where I am going with this? My biggest fear being that this will also drag him down a poor sleep path. Anyhow, my daughter swears that if she is with him she won't be so lonely at night. Well, last night was night #6 and 4 of the nights have been perfect. Two of the nights have not been so. One night she woke up at 4:30 yelling about a dream which woke up her brother. I went up and told her to go down and wait on my bed while I trired to get him back to sleep (unsucessfully). I finally left him in his crib to talk to her and convinced her to go back to bed after using the toilet. She went back to bed, my son decided it was morning and wanted breakfast. Yay! The second bad night, I heard yelling at 2:30 a.m. and thought it was her again, went up there to find her bed empty and my son crying in his crib. I got him up to rock him (deciding that 2:30 was definitely too early for breakfast) and she finally came back in from using the bathroom. The door handle and door are so loud in that room that I truly believe that there is no way for her to exit the room without waking him up. Anyway, she got back in bed and after a few minutes stated "mom, I have to puke". I sent her to the bathroom, put my son down (thankfully asleep at this point), and went to help her finish being sick. We then brushed teeth, rocked for a few minutes and she went back to bed, thankfully until morning. So I guess things have not been too bad, the downside is that when he wakes up in the morning, so does she which earlier than she used to and if one is up at night they both are up. I don't like having to tell her she has to wait because she understands. So, for anyone with room sharing, night waking experience, do they eventually learn to sleep through the other's commotion? Is there a different way to counteract the "I'm lonely" thus scared complaint? I think it would be hard to get my daughter to not share with him anymore, but if she manages to bring his sleep down too, she might be evicted. I feel like the last 4 1/2 years it has been the same story different rendition, time after time. And here we are about to add a third factor, just shoot me now...

Yeah, well...

In this case you can assume, no news is good news. Things have finally settled back into some semblance of normal in these parts. Aside from my 16th month old NOT SLEEPING! I've been rationalizing it away for several weeks, I mean he has been cutting his canine teeth FOREVER (and a day). His little hands are shoved in his mouth constantly. Three are finally through and that fourth one looks close. Plus, he just got his shots on Monday so of course he's a bit unhappy. Someone less in denial would have to admit manipulation. After trying to get him down for two hours last night, he finally screamed it out in his jail (I mean crib) and fell blissfully asleep until morning. I even trialed him in a toddler bed thinking it was his crib that was upsetting him, but I think his whole stubborn little being was just focused on one thing, my bed where three would rest and only one would sleep blissfully. I apparently do not have the skills, patience, or genetic make-up to develop good sleepers; bring on June and the loony bin...

In less upbeat news the old dog is in his finally days (squeamish readers may want to skip this paragraph). He managed to originally rub a sore on the growth on his leg thus causing an infection that we were sure would ultimately be the end of him. However, miraculously after lots of careful wound care I left for Illinois believing this sore was almost healed and he might yet live to fight on. However I returned to find that he had done lots of damage to the spot in my absence rendering it mostly skinless with no hope of healing. I have been trying to keep the area clean and protected from his brutal mouth but one night he got all the bandages off and it bled out what looked like nearly a half pint of blood. I was surprised that didn't do him in. There is now no way to protect him from infection and the site looks horrible. It is the most awful thing to watch his body fail him as his spirit lives on strong. He exhibits no pain, he still manages to drag himself up to graze under the table whenever the kids are eating and he is still eating and drinking fine. He even seems to have gotten over his incontinence problems. I think things will go south quickly though, probably before the weekend. He smells horrible and did I mention the wound, ugh. Anyway, that was a much longer description than I intended, sorry for anyone who was forced to read. It has just been a really sad, unpredictable experience.

The unborn baby seems to be doing fine. I am currently 15 weeks. I had an appointment on Monday, heartbeat was in the 130-140s, I think I had gained .4 kg in five weeks so at least I'm not losing. Not that I won't make up for it in the long run. I'm starting to feel more regular movement so that is also reassuring. My husband got my a gift card to Motherhood Maternity for Christmas, so I hit their sales and got some long sleeve maternity shirts. I despise spending money on maternity wear, but I had no choice. It is nice to have some shirts that fit. I'm getting my energy back too so time to tackle some desperately needed cleaning.

Finally, my daughter has her first dance show on Sunday. I watched the dress rehearsal last week and they were too cute. I can't wait to see it. She is growing up way too fast...

Never Easy

Maybe I just let things stress me out too much but the first few months of pregnancy just suck! Not in the traditional sense, I don't have morning sickness or any of those traditional ailments, but I bleed. And it sucks. Every time it happens I try to not let it bother me, but it does. This time I thought I might have gotten away without it since I went 9 1/2 weeks without bleeding but then I had that bleed and now I've been having spotting, not a lot but enough to stress me out. I have been going back and forth about whether to rent a doppler again. I did with my son and I found it very reassuring following the spotting episodes, but what if I couldn't find the heartbeat? That would stress me out even more! After yesterday though I ordered one. I think everything is still okay. I think the bleeding had to do with some sugar I ate (yeah, can you believe it?, a bite of my daughter's birthday cake) or maybe all the laundry I had to haul to the basement the day before or who knows. Both times I've spotted I've had a lot of cramping too which is much more scary than the bleeding. Yesterday actually I was having what felt like cervical pain (the kind you get when you are starting to dilate) can you tell why that might have unnverved me? But for now it seems to have stopped and I'm hoping that when I get the doppler in the mail next week I'll find the little heartbeat and be reassured. I am still really hesitant about sharing my news, but since I finally had to break out the maternity pants, I don't think I will be able to slip under the radar much longer. If I go by the u/s I will be 13 weeks tomorrow, which is the end of the 1st trimester! Bring on the 2nd tri!
In other news, my daughter's 4th birthday went fab. She had a wonderful time at the bouncy house with some of her friends. We had homemade banana cupcakes with strawberry frosting (her choice and I hear they were pretty good) then all went out for yummy pizza after. Then we had more cupcakes and icecream with just the four of us later and opened presents. She told me at one point, "Mom, I'm shaking because I'm so happy"! The next day she got to bring treats to her preschool class so the fun continued. The high temperature on her birthday was -5 degrees Fahrenheit and a windchill approaching -30, but we are from Minnesota and since it wasn't snowing we ventured out. I'm glad we did, it was really a good time.
Pierce is teething again, he's cutting his eyeteeth and also seems to have picked up a cold. So after almost a week of sleeping through the night we are back to crap sleep, argh! This too shall pass, right?

Where have you been hiding?

Ha! Who would have thought I am incredibility superstitious? For some reason in my mind if you don't talk about something, or let yourself hope, you won't jinx it. Probably silly, but who needs reason? Well, I guess what I haven't been talking about is that baring the unexpected, we are going to have another (surprise) baby the end of June. We had our first appointments last week and the baby looks healthy and according to them (I know otherwise) I am now about 11 1/2 weeks along. My son had been nursing through all of this since I was unwilling to wean him in case things didn't work out, but my milk basically dried up and it was so uncomfortable it just seemed like the right time to be done. He does not seem the worse for wear, I'm a little sad as we cut those last strings to babyhood. The horribly sad thing is that he would have happily nursed along so I feel like it was largely my choice not his. Anyway, getting past that the kids are doing well. My daughter was very unhappy with the news of a new baby, she said her brother was enough but seems to have somewhat warmed to the idea. I on the other hand still have lots of anxiety that I hope will clear up in the next couple of months. Given all the troubles we had trying to have our first two children, it is very strange to enter a pregnancy from this mindset, just not feeling ready. But children are a blessing and wonderful, and I'm sure the new baby will fit right in to the madness.