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!!!