Jinxing It

Okay.
Deep breath.

I think I have a perfect baby.

Crap. I probably just jinxed myself.

But seriously. Lena is an angel. Being a mom of two has been an easy transition. I was expecting to feel the way I did after Charlotte arrived, and then have to take care of a toddler on top of it.
I know it's likely to get more challenging in the months to come...maybe? But for now, it's been nearly seamless.

The main difference I see in Charlotte is that she's more cuddly, but not in a needy way. She shows more affection and enjoys receiving it more too. Mornings are really sweet, because the three of us snuggle in bed, sometimes until 10:00. I felt embarrassed about that at first and then I was all, whatever screw you, productivity! I have a newborn!

Lena is a great eater and sleeper and pooper. And since those are the only things newborns do, she's pretty much acing the course. There are a few schools of thought when it comes to waking babies to eat, and my ped says no longer than 4 hours at night until back to birth weight. I've also heard no longer than 6 hours until they reach 10 lbs. And then there's the generation of our parents who think we're insane for waking sleeping babies to eat. I set an alarm at night but for some reason I never, ever hear it. So Lena has had a few nice stretches of 4-5 hours where either I wake up or she does. With Charlotte, I did what I was told and woke her frequently to eat so her jaundice would subside, and I honestly think that caused the sleeping and feeding problems we experienced. So since Lena is healthy, a good weight, and poops a ton, I let her do her thing at night. During the day, I feed her every 2-3 hours and hope for a good night. We've had a handful of nights where I'm up with her until 2 or 2:30, but she's not crying, just grunty.

I recognize this is probably a boring read, but I do love to go back and read about what our little ones were like. I honestly feel so much happier than I thought I would. I thought I'd be overwhelmed and exhausted. I'm beginning to realize that having your first child is the overwhelming part, and adding to the clan is the fun part. Haha, pretty sure people are glaring at me through the computer right now.
Sorry. It's how I feel today. Story may change.

So now I leave you with some pictures taken over the last 11 days.

She's nice.

First bath! Her chubbiness is going away - check out that double chin!

So fascinated

okay I lied. Still chubby. 

Our first walk - it was cut short. I felt great, but stopped feeling great about a quarter of the way in.

This is what our mornings are like. I get Lena up, and Charlotte thinks she gets to hold her first.  I let her. :) 

Lena Ballerina - The Beginning

So here it is! The story of little Eleanor's arrival!

On Friday, September 14, after weeks of false labor, I felt like crap. It shouldn't be isolated to Friday, because I had several days within a 3 week period that I was a miserable person to be around. I had a solid two weeks of regular uncomfortable contractions that were deemed false labor because I never actually progressed into the real deal. People told me that I would know when it was real. I was getting very frustrated because they felt real, but out of nowhere, the contractions would just stop.
But back to that Friday. I was crabby. I was tired. I was so, so moody. Around noon I started having some mild contractions about 6 minutes apart. They felt like everything else I was experiencing, and knowing that they weren't real, I just ignored them.
Marcus, Charlotte and I went to Panera for dinner and saw a couple of friends and I was trying to hide my misery, but I was pretty transparent. I apologized for my attitude, and hoped they didn't think I was being rude. We came home and watched the movie Bernie. It was interesting.

It was probably 11:30 that we went to bed. I felt fine. I didn't really think anything was happening. Marcus had plans to go to our cottage the next morning with his dad and brothers to take the boats and docks out of the water for the season. I didn't really want him to go just in case I went into labor, but at the same time, the cottage is only like an hour away.

(I forgot to mention that my goal was to have the baby on Saturday. I was determined to get it done. If it didn't happen that Saturday, it would have to wait until the following. Marcus travels to Traverse City for work every Thursday and coordinating childcare for Charlotte would just be easiest on the weekend. I'm not sure why I thought I needed to have the baby nearly 2 weeks early, but I just knew if it was going to happen soon, it would be Saturday.)

Around 1:40am, I woke up. I didn't know why. I felt a contraction, but it was just like every other one. Maybe a little bit more in my back. I got up to go to the bathroom, and I had another one. I tried to go back to sleep, but realized they were pretty close together. I've had this before though. They weren't real. Or were they? I waited a little while. They were 3 minutes apart. I woke up Marcus to tell him and waited a few more minutes. Even though they were very similar to what I had been experiencing, I called the on call OB anyway. She told me to head to the hospital, so I called my mom around 2:30 so she could come stay with Charlotte. Right after that, my water broke and I was thrilled to know this was the real thing!!
I was not thrilled about how holy crap crazy the contractions immediately got.

This is where it gets awesome.
I'm having the worst pain I've ever experienced in my life in waves coming every 2-3 minutes at home and in the car. I was not convinced I would deliver my baby in the hospital. It was so National Geographic it was embarrassing. We got to the hospital and I felt like I waited a lifetime to get to triage, and another lifetime to get to L&D. I seriously sounded like a wildebeest or some other Savannah dwelling creature. I kept on apologizing because I'm pretty sure the women who were walking the halls just waiting for their babies to be ready decided to hang on a little longer.

Anyway. It wasn't nearly the peaceful laboring experience I had with Charlotte. Even though that was really painful, I managed to hold off on an epidural for about 3 hours. I could barely last 30 minutes this time and there were so many people in and out of the room and I felt like I was making a scene. At one point I'm fairly certain I told the chief of anesthesiology to "just shut up for a minute". Yeah, I was real dignified.

My epidural was not great and he told me that 99% of them work better than mine and he couldn't redo it. So unfortunately my left side felt most of the action.  
By 6 am, it was time to get ready to deliver the baby, and after the opposite of rainbows, unicorns and fairies  occurred, my sweet chubby baby was born at 6:52.

It was a completely different experience from Charlotte's birth, in some good ways, and in some not as good ways. But I'm so pleased I was able to have a vbac, and the recovery has been much more manageable too.

Lena has been such a blessing. She's a great eater and sleeper, and an even better pooper. so.much.poop.
Life as we knew it has changed forever, but it's been changed for the better.

The Time I Had Another Baby

Hi!
Guess what? I had another baby!
I'm guessing most of you know this already because of real life, or facebook life.

The last time I sat down to blog was last Thursday. I was basically whining about how I was still pregnant, even though I still had 13 days to go.

Since I am sort of tired, I'll just keep it short.

Eleanor Ruth arrived on Saturday, September 15 at 6:52am. We call her Lena, and she's the bomb!
She was 11 days early (same as Charlotte) and 8 lbs 1oz, 20 in long! I grow em big!
I should also mention it was a successful VBAC. That, my friends, is the way to go. There was about 2 hours where I majorly regretted not scheduling a c-section because of the craziest amount of pain I've ever experienced in my life during labor, but I persevered and am SO glad I did.

The nicest little baby ever.

I'll be sure to update soon with the story and about life in general.

Just wanted to share the exciting news!

I Should Just Stay Home

After 6 nights of false labor and 5 days of exhaustion from it, I decided (after my dr. strongly suggested it) it would be best to stay home labor day weekend. I was really looking forward to heading up north for a few days and enjoying the completely awesomeness that is northern Michigan.

I went back and forth regretting it, but know it was the best decision, especially after last night, having some whopper "real" (?) (I don't even know what reality is anymore) contractions for about 40 minutes - and then they just stopped. tricky bastards.

Earlier in the day, I went to get a much needed pedicure. The polish was all chipped and my feet looked disgusting because I'm too lazy to put on shoes when I walk around outside. And since I can't reach them comfortably, I pay other people to do the dirty work.

I tried out a new nail salon that advertises like crazy on the radio, and when I walked in, it seemed like a great choice. It was really busy, but I only needed to wait about 5 minutes. The girl who did my nails seemed really sweet until she started sharing some really, really odd things.
Among those odd things were these little pearls:
"I mean sometimes...there's blood on the toilet paper."
"I get really nervous during this part!!!"
"There was literally throw up in her mouth!"
"Is your family crazy like mine?"
"What do you do for all of your stretch marks?" (I didn't even say I had any. She assumed because I'm ginormously pregnant.) (I chose not to answer with my original "kick nail techs in the face")

Everything else about it was really great. I just have thismuch patience right now, so that is why I should just stay home.

Today we took Darby to the dog park since it's been a while, and it's obviously good for her to get some zoomies out. She's such a snob. She has no interest in playing with other dogs, unless it's another ridgeback, and since there aren't very many around, she just doesn't play. She runs around and looks for squirrels outside the fence. Charlotte and I waited on the outside and just watched, since children under 10 aren't allowed on the inside. She is just as happy woofing and mooing at the dogs on the outside as she would be on the inside. There was one little dog that kept humping every other dog. (I didn't take a picture, but totally should have in retrospect) and I must have made some sort of disapproving click to myself because a woman sitting on a nearby bench looked at me and said "oh that one is mine." I said, "the humpy one?" And she didn't really answer, but said "they like to play rough." But then, she continued to ignore her horny dog and just stare at Charlotte and me. I mean, Charlotte was being adorable trying out all of her animal sounds and saying hiiii to the dogs as they ran by, but it was pretty weird. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised that she stares rudely at people since she allows her dog to strip other dogs of their innocence.

So now I feel like I owe Charlotte a trip to the park down the street since she was clearly ticked off that we brought Darby all the way down town to "play" and she just had to stand and watch.

She didn't even play with the other dogs.

You like her more than me, don't you? Her breath smells like a dirty aquarium.

Do you easily lose patience with the general public, or are you a real sweetheart that I'd like to punch?