We're Moving

I've been hemming and hawing for a couple of months now about making this blog space private so I don't have to worry so much about content and so I can really chronicle my true feelings about our lives.  Now that Addie has joined the family, its time for a new blog name anyway, so now seems like a good time to make the move. 

I have set up a new blog, which is private, where I will be writing from now on.  All of the posts from here have been moved over there to streamline things.  I'll leave this space as is for a month or so until I really get situated over in my new writing space.  If you want to continue to read about our goings on, feel free to drop me an email and I can send you an invitation to read the new blog, which incidentally will be at the following address:

www.ourcomplicatedlife.blogspot.com

I hope to see you all over there real soon!

Christina, Tim, Noah & Addie

Introducing....

Whew!  I can't believe its been almost a month since this news actually happened, but what they say about a second child joining your family is correct!  Chaos has come to stay for a bit.  I'll go back and update a few more things as I have time, but for now, here is Addie's birth story finally!

Miss Adeline Paige joined the family on Thursday, July 21st at 6:48am.  Coincidentally, July 21st was her estimated due date!  Even more shocking is the fact that the second it hit midnight (and I mean exactly) my contractions started at 6-8 minutes apart and ended at 6:48am when she was born...less than 7 hours later!!  It was a very intense and fast process, but there was very little drama and she did beautifully through the whole thing.  It was a long and drawn out story that started Wednesday morning at 6:45am when I woke up to get showered and ready to bring Noah over to Miss Nancy's house for the day.  The second I got up out of bed, I felt a little gush and as I ran to the bathroom, there were a couple of more little ones that followed.  This was a repeat performance from when Noah was born.  I KNEW my water had broken, but was told to call the doctor's office to go in for confirmation.  Wouldn't you know that once I got to the office, I couldn't turn any of their test papers blue, they couldn't see the ferning pattern of amniotic fluid on the slides, and when I had an ultrasound of my amniotic fluid levels, there was no significant drop from normal levels.  Of course when they tested my fluid levels, it was almost 6 hours after my water broke, which is plenty of time for the fluid to replenish itself.  I spent the entire morning in the office with nothing to show for it.  By 5pm, I received a call from the office to head over to labor and delivery to repeat all of the tests that I had already done earlier in the day.  After about 5 hours in triage at Labor and Delivery, still not turning test strips blue, walking the halls, and a couple of additional hours of listening to a little baby's heartbeat on the monitors, the residents discharged me saying that they could neither confirm nor deny that my water broke and that I was showing no imminent signs of delivering.  I can't remember a time when I have been that discouraged and angry.  Keep in mind that I have called my parents to drive in from Maine (a 7 hour drive) and have pulled Tim out of work for the day all for people to tell me that I perhaps don't know what I am talking about and that I should go home and wait for something more interesting to happen.

Flash forward a couple of hours, we were back at home and getting ready for bed.  No sooner did I lay down in bed when I had a really strong and painful contraction.  Tim was trying to read me some of Harry Potter series.  A couple more contractions later and I decided that perhaps we should time the contractions.  I hadn't right away because I had been having really irregular contractions since the previous Tuesday.  Over a week of false labor mind you got me really hesitant to time anything, never mind call back and report anything.  After 2 straight hours of contractions 6-8 minutes apart, I finally called into the after hours line and got ahold of my favorite midwife, Janet.  She urged me strongly to go back in.  By the time we got back in at 3am, I was sent directly into a labor and delivery room (at least a step up from the trip earlier).  At 3:30, I was checked and was 4 cm dilated, 80% effaced and -2 station (earlier in the day at the doctor's office I was 2 cm dilated, 50% effaced and -3 station) and I earned an admittance to stay...we were finally going to have a baby!  I was hoping to see how far I could go without an epidural, but with very few expectations.  I had to be monitored for contractions and the little lady's heart rate in order to earn my way off of continuous monitoring, which wasn't an issue at all.  About an hour later, I had my choice of places to labor.  I headed into the whirlpool tub and turned on the jets.  While the water did ease some of the tension, the pain was still there in a significant way and after about an hour or so of contractions in the tub, I headed back to the room in hopes of getting some epidural relief.  Sadly, by that time I was 8-9 cm dilated.  The midwife suggested we finish breaking my bag of water in the hopes that it was the bag of water pushing on my cervix and without it there labor would slow down enough to get the epidural in.  Unfortunately, once she broke my bag of water instead of slowing down, I dilated completely and was ready to push with no time for an epidural!!  I asked for some IV medication to help through the pushing and ended up with a blown IV access point and a bit of Stadol under my skin and that is all.  Twenty minutes of pushing later, and an epic amount of pain I cannot possibly describe and Adeline was born at an amazing 8 lbs, 12 oz, 20 and half inches in length, with a 36cm head, much bigger than we were expecting and almost a pound more than Noah at birth.  

babywearing so I can still get things done around the house and play with Noah while keeping Addie close, but for now, we are thoroughly enjoying our new addition to the family!
    

Another pregnancy update - 38 weeks

Amazingly, two weeks have passed since the last time I updated about my pregnancy progress.  I can't say very much of anything interesting has happened in the last two weeks unless you count the amount of swelling going on in my ankles and feet!  I found out I was group B strep negative, which is a little relief since I won't have to run off to the hospital early to ensure that I get all of the doses of antibiotics, leaving my mom (and hopefully dad) a bit of extra time to make the 6-7 hour drive here.  I'd love to have mom in the delivery room with me again, its just nice to have some trusted female support, but obviously my first concern is to make sure that Noah is being looked after and is happy.  Depending on when the little one decides to come and what my dad's work schedule is like, we may have Pepere here on Noah duty and Memere in the delivery room.  If Pepere's work is too busy though, then we'll have Memere at home with Noah and just Tim and I in the delivery room.  I am really fine with either plan.  Thankfully, we even have an eager backup/emergency person to look after Noah, Miss Nancy is so sweet and since Noah never wants to leave her place in the afternoons, I can't imagine he'll be all that upset to stay with her for a few hours while Memere & Pepere finish driving if that is the case.

In terms of how the baby is doing...she is great and seems super happy in there.  I am obviously anxious for her arrival so I can as the OB nurse put it last week "finally put down the baby for a few minutes."  We are all packed and ready to go, her room is ready and we even have last minute details taken care of.  The little lady just need to arrive and take up residence in the spot beneath her name on the wall!!  Like last time, we are letting the name "cat" out of the bag after she arrives, but its been decided upon for months now...not that it wasn't a long discussed and hard fought battle between Tim and I!!!


I am trying to hang in for the last couple of weeks without losing my mind.  I am just about done with all of my online course prep work for the fall, perhaps just a couple more days worth of work and then I am putting myself on vacation.  Both of my feet have officially swollen to the point of  no longer fitting into any shoes comfortably.  By the end of the day, I end up feeling like I have elastic bands across the tops of my feet.  The heat can't be helping, but sitting at the desk all day working on my course preps seems to be assisting in the swelling as well.  I've still been gaining weight at more than the typical 1-2 pounds per week, which is all excess water weight that I will at least not have to burn off at the gym once I am done being pregnant, but it is making for some sad trips to the doctor's office scale in the meantime.  Just in the last week, my blood pressure seems to be going up a bit, meaning I am now just slightly into the prehypertensive levels, but not enough to warrant an early delivery or a great deal of concern.  Time will tell if she is kind to me and decides to arrive before her official due date in just under 2 weeks or if she will have to be forcibly evicted.  Until then, let the waddling, excessive trips to the bathroom, Braxton Hicks contractions, and foot swelling continue!

Strawberry season

A couple of weeks ago, we found an adorable local farm right up the road from us.  Not only do they have awesome ice cream, but they sell farm raised, grass-fed beef and a ton of local seasonal vegetables.  We hit them up on a Sunday for some strawberry picking.  The strawberries weren't huge, but they were by far the sweetest, best tasting berries I have ever had.  Noah had a great time picking, but even more fun eating of course!  If you look behind Noah in the first picture, you can see a glimpse of my enormous baby belly.  Its bigger now, but since I don't much like being pregnant or having my picture taken, this will have to suffice.  Happy summer and here's to fresh strawberry shortcake!

You play socca?

In an attempt to find Noah an outside activity where he could run and burn off some energy, I found an outdoor soccer program through the local YMCA.  It was the only activity that would allow 3 year olds to participate.  We have been talking up the soccer since we signed him up back in May.  It didn't start until the last week of June, so we thought we had done a good deal of prep work.  Unfortunately for us, all that talking up of soccer didn't mean a thing when it came time to actually go out on the field and play with the other kids and interact with the coach.  Now in the little dude's defense, the coach was clearly not used to 3 year olds in the least.  She never introduced herself, just started off telling them to line up and start dribbling the ball.  Noah didn't know what dribbling was (and neither did most of the other kids there either).  She, unlike the coach the next net over, didn't invite the parents to join in to break the ice, but instead set the little ones up to play a complicated set of rules that involved stealing other people's ball (which is going to go over really well on Day 1 with 3 year olds) and jumping jacks (again, something none of the kids were familiar with and she didn't explain).  Tim ended up having to go out on the field with Noah for half of the practice to get him to even consider participation, but once he finally did get over the initial shyness, the little man actually got into it.  He's by far the shyest little guy out there, but as a consolation, he certainly isn't the worst soccer player!  Let's hope on Friday when we go back, we have less of a "warm up" period and more play time for Noah.  Game 1 is on Monday!!!

Weekend Recap

We had a really rare weekend last weekend where Tim actually had 3 days off in a row by coincidence.  I am pretty sure this hasn't happened since we have moved to this part of the country.  We tried to take advantage of it as much as possible by of course getting things done around the house.  We finally found some time to do a good cleaning, which was badly needed and of course we spent the day Saturday testing out potty training boot camp, which I must say was an abysmal failure of epic proportions.  What we have on our hands is a little dude who operates with a severe case of "My way or the highway."  While his persistence and conviction that his way is right may well serve him well later in life, until he gets the finer points of what is and is not socially acceptable, we'll have to keep fighting the battles that need to be fought and letting him figure out the rest.   So with his little "my way or the highway" thing going on, you can imagine that our potty training boot camp was an epic failure (or did I already say that part?).  I have read message boards that simply letting your non-interested potty trainee run around with out anything on from the waist down...that lasted 15 minutes, then "my way or the highway" man started complaining that he was naked and needed clothes on and that his rumpus was cold.  So I told him that he could have some big boy underwear, but he would need to keep them dry and to let us know when he felt like he had to go and we would help him out.  He lasted 6 hours of holding the pee, including through a 3 hour nap!!!  He is a stubborn one!  Just as we got out some games to play to pass the time, he forgot to hold it and then announced halfway through that he was going.  We comforted him, told him that everyone has accidents, and cleaned him up.  Half and hour later, he was outside grilling with Daddy and had a repeat performance.  After another clean up and some dinner, we headed upstairs for some potty sitting, where he proceeded to sit and fidget on the potty for almost 45 minutes.  He produced nothing, was too distracted to actually do anything and then when we finally cut him off and told him it was time for pajamas and bed, he screamed that he had to go.  Sound like manipulation much???  Oh yeah, we were seeing ourselves becoming huge victims here.  So we did the next step in our boot camp plan.  In the event o epic failure, bail out and run the other way.  I have actually read and heard from a couple of sources that the absolute best thing to do with a potty resistant little person is to stop caring, stop bringing it up, stop pressuring, and let them have control and tell you when they want to start the process.  So we packed up all the potty paraphrenalia, made a big production of putting it in the shed and told him he would have to tell us when he wanted to use the potty.  And that was that.  Incidentally, Wednesday night he randomly announced that he really needed to go right before his bath, forcing Tim to run to the shed to retrieve a potty chair.  He managed to hold it until the potty arrive and as soon as he sat down he peed in the potty like he had been doing it for years.  We've seen no repeat performances since, but at least we know he can physically do it now.

After such a failed day Saturday, we decided that out of the house was a better idea for Sunday, so we headed to one of the local beaches.  Now, keep in mind that a beach around here is lake shore, not ocean front property, so that is something to get used to for us.  Sylvan beach is perhaps not one of the first choice places to make a first impression of the lakes and the beach scene around the area.  Its not one of the nicer beaches we have been to, but perhaps my expectations are too high having grown up in Maine near the Atlantic.  Noah did have a great time playing in the sand and getting dirty.  We were all fine until a 4 foot long dead fish carcass washed up on the beach just down the beach from us!  Um, disgusting!!!  Thankfully, it was getting close to Noah's naptime, so we packed up and headed for home.  We'll have to do more research next time on where to find a clean, family-friendly beach around here.

I have to say at least we enjoyed each other's company and the down time we had for a change.   We all know down time is going to be a hot commodity soon!

36 weeks...A month to go!

I had my 36 week appointment with one of the midwives yesterday.  Janet is one of my favorite in the office, you can just tell she's been there and sympathizes.  We talked about how close I am to the end and she checked out the swelling I have been having...with just one foot (no both would make too much sense).  My right foot is easily twice the size of my left most days now and it of course seems to get worse throughout the day.  Chances are only the right foot is swelling because of the way the little one in there is laying, usually with her back on my right side.  It may just be that the extra pressure of her on that side isn't allowing the fluids to move as freely.  I was told to try and lay on my right side more often to see if that would help any since I already prefer laying on my left side.  I can also try to keep the foot elevated as much as possible or stick it in some cool water (hello kiddie pool!).  If none of those attempts work over the next few days, then it appears as though I will be relegated to one freakishly swollen foot until princess pea makes her grand entrance.  In other news, I have also developed a pretty annoying case of pregnancy induced carpal tunnel, which had started waking me up in the night and preventing me from getting back to sleep.  While there isn't an easy fix for this one until delivery, I have started wearing wrist braces as much as possible, including while sleeping and I actually slept pretty decently last night (aside from the multiple trips to the bathroom). 

Other than my discomforts, the baby is doing really well, she's head down and has started to drop a bit.  Her heart rate was right on track as is her growth (based on my belly size).  Right now, they are estimating her to weigh in around 5 to 5.5 pounds, and growing beautifully.  I had my Group B Strep test and will find out whether I need IV antibiotics for the delivery or not next week.  For now, I am on prescription anti-viral medication until the delivery to prevent the little lady from getting passed the cold sore virus that I got handed down from my mom (and I of course handed down to poor Noah...before they did routine anti-virals).  Her days in there are numbered and am I ever glad about that fact.  Let's just hope that they pass by quickly!