Category Archives: Pregnancy

Lily’s babyisms

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Tonight just a couple of minutes after Lily laid down for the night she picked her head up and just about killed me with the sweetness that came out of her mouth.

“Sometimes at night when I crawl up into your bed I stop at your tummy and whisper really quietly ‘goodnight’ to the baby”

“Really, that is so very sweet. Do you want me to stand up so you can tell the baby goodnight right now”

Lily’s whole face lights up as she takes in my words. “Yes of course I want to”

I stand up on my knees so my belly is at the right height and she bends down and no matter how hard I strain I can’t hear what she says, but she whispers something to my belly for a moment or two and then lays back down.

With tears in my eyes I kiss her head and tell her that she is “the sweetest thing ever” and then I say “You already love our baby so much don’t you?”

“Yes of course I do and if it’s a girl I’ll really like her too.”

Lily’s babyisms

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Lily has been so excited, curious and excited about the baby and I just don’t want to forget a thing that she’s asked or said about her or him.

When we first told her she said that she was excited, but didn’t jump up and down or anything so I wasn’t too sure how she really felt. Later that day though she came up to me with a very serious look on her face and asked “Mom, how can you eat with a baby in your tummy?” I explained that the baby wasn’t in my stomach and then asked if she wanted to lean more and she lit up with excitement. We spent over an hour looking at pregnancy sites while I told her all about what a baby at 5 weeks was like and then she noticed a video and so we spent even more time watching videos of babys at 5, 6 and 7 weeks. She loved it all.

The day before we told her we were pregnant Lily informed me that when we finally did have a baby (because this has been a topic around here for a while) she would keep the baby entertained, most of the time. A few days after we told her she told her Daddy all about her plans to keep the baby entertain, most of the time.  She didn’t elaborate, but you can tell she has plans.

While we were watching more pregnancy videos the day after the big reveal she was sitting on my lap and had her leg right in front of my belly. After a minute she looked at me with shock in her eyes and said “if my leg is touching the baby and you need me to move it, I will. I don’t want to hurt the baby”. I told her that her leg was fine right then, but that I’d let her know if she ever needed to move it. She was so revealed.

Last weekend we went looking at king sized beds (because our queen is fine for the 3 of us, but there’s no way a 4th will fit) and Waldo and I decided that we’d also get Lil a twin sized bed because her crib mattress is getting too short. A few days later Lil asked when our new big bed was going to get here and I told her that we were going this weekend to buy it and then I mentioned getting her a new bed too and she said that she didn’t need one. I reminded her that when she’s on her bed she’s too long for it and she demonstrated that if she curls up she’s ‘too short for it’ and then in a move of utter sweetness she stretched out and scooted to the edge of her mattress and said “and look if I move over here, there’s plenty of room for the baby too”. Be still my heart.

Oh I almost forgot, I think this one was my favorite. The day after we told her we were pregnant, we were doing our morning routine laying in bed waiting for Kitty to come and wake us up (it’s a thing we do even though both of us are already awake, Kitty comes in and Lily tries hard to get Kitty to step on her, I don’t get it, but Lily loves it) anyway, Lily looked at me and laid it out. “You know Mom, the problem when a Mama has a baby in her belly but already has a Kiddo the Kiddo has to wake up a bunch all night long to make sure she’s not kicking the baby and waking her up.”  “Oh, is that right?, that’s very sweet of you to think of that”.

I mean really, this kid is so sweet. I can’t wait to see her with her baby sister or brother. By the way, we all hope that it’s a sister.

7 weeks pregnant

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I found out I was pregnant at 4 weeks which according to the internet is the earliest you can find out. For the first two weeks I felt fine, tired sometimes, really really tired, but fine. Then I hit 6 weeks and that’s where this pregnancy is so different from Lily’s. When Lily I felt tired, but never really sick. I only threw up two times and after tossing I felt great. Otherwise I don’t remember ever complaining that I was nauseous. This time it’s nausea-city, and that’s not a place I ever wanted to visit, much less live in. I’m not throwing up, and sometimes I wish I would because I think I might feel better after, but than again maybe not.  I’m figuring out how to get it under control, but it sucks. Crackers and other easy to eat things are stashed around the house for easy access.

Speaking of eating just like with Lily I can’t eat that much at one time. But unlike with Lil I need to eat more often. I’ll eat and be full and fine, nauseous but fine for a while and then a few hours later (give or take depending on what I last ate) suddenly I need to eat, no I take that back I MUST EAT something and quickly, don’t get in my way, give me food, just a few bites will do but I need it like 5 minutes ago.

Another difference is that my boobs are already filling out, which is nice because with the weight that I’ve lost this year my boobs had um…deflated and shrank a little so the fullness at this point is very much appreciated.  With Lily my boobs never changed, I know it’s weird, but they didn’t.

While I’m talking about my boobs, they have been sore. I know this is a normal thing, but I didn’t really have it with Lily either. My boobs being sore was the first thing I noticed and when it didn’t go away after a day or two and my period was MIA and my temp stayed high I took a test. At this point my boobs aren’t nearly as sore, but if I bump them hardish they still feel sore.

Since this is going to be our last baby I want to do my best to document this better than I did with Lily. Hopefully you’ll see at least a tiny blerb of a post each week. That’s my goal, we’ll see how I do. Keep me accountable please.

The story of my girl

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Again a lot has happened since I last posted. I truly intend to update this more often and now I have good reason to. I don’t want to forget a minute of Lily’s life.
On Saturday December 20, 2008 I woke up about 8 like normal and spent 30-45 minutes snuggling with Waldo.

During that time I kept feeling small gushes (for lack of a better word) from my girly area. When we finally got out of bed I went to investigate the gushes. I had soaked through the pad I was wearing. TMI alert: Pregnancy is full of fluids and its best to wear protection. I changed the pad and went into the living room and announced that we were on “fluid watch”. I wasn’t stressed out by the fluid, like I said pregnancy is full of it. But I had no clean baby clothes and our washer had finally defrosted so I went and started a load of baby clothes, just in case.

About 11:00 Waldo told me to make a decision about this fluid since we needed to start our normal Saturday chores. I did the smart thing and called the doctor’s office (which I had planned to do all along, I was just procrastinating) At this point I had soaked through 3 more pads, the doctor told me to go to the hospital and get it checked.

While Waldo took a shower I got my hospital bag ready, the whole time thinking that I was being silly and I didn’t need the bag yet. I was only 36 weeks 1 day along. I was going to get to the hospital and they were going to shake their heads at me and tell me to stop worrying.

Once we got to the hospital we left the bag in the car since we just knew we were going to be heading to Kalispell soon. Boy we were wrong.

all hooked up

being monitered

I was pre-registered so they put me in a bed and hooked me up to the monitors.
I wasn’t contracting, but when they checked the fluid it was in fact my amniotic water. I asked how long we were going to be there because we hadn’t eaten yet and we were hungry. It was about 11:45 or so. The nurse laughed and said that we weren’t going anywhere, we were having a baby within 24 hours. Waldo and I looked at each other and I think we both had that deer in the headlights look. OMG a baby now!

The nurse checked me and said that I was completely softened and what not and “wow your baby is so low” but not dilated at all. I still wasn’t having any contractions either.

She had us order lunch from the cafeteria, which was surprisingly good.

At about 2 they started pitocin. Since my bag of waters had ruptured there was a high chance of infection, so they had to get my labor going. For the first hour or two I didn’t feel anything, we could see the contractions on the monitor but I wasn’t feeling them. Then I felt one and that was the end of it. They were coming every 2-4 minutes and they hurt. After about an hour I was already ready for the epidural, but I’m a closet granola and I had ideas about how I wanted my daughters birth to be. Medical intervention was not on the list. I was already off to a bad start with the pitocin. I tried all of the pain management techniques we had learned at our child birth education class and the things that the nurses recommended. Nothing really helped. Sitting on anything just seemed to make it worse. Standing up and walking helped a little, but I couldn’t do that for too long. As much as I didn’t want to be in bed, that was the most comfortable place. Later I figured out this was because Lily was so far down (as everyone told me when they checked, EVERY TIME) I was sitting on her so the soft mattress was better then a hard chair, etc.

When they checked me I wasn’t really making much progress, it was very disheartening. They kept turning up the pitocin. In order to make it through the contractions I just kept telling myself it was all for Lily and thinking about her made it possible to endure another one and another one and another one.

Waldo was great, he did what ever I asked him to. Rub my back, walk with me and rub my back, hold my hand while I was in the tub, remind me that it won’t last forever and stand by my decision to go without pain meds and then again stand behind me when I decided to take something.

Finally about 2 in the morning, the nurse offered something I think was called stadol, she said it would just take the edge off and only lasted about 1 hour. I needed a break, the contractions were back to back and really bad. They told me that I had a few things going on that were making the contraction bad, Lily was really low, the pitocin, and the lack of amniotic fluid to soften them. I agreed to a half dose of the stadol. I call total bullshit on “it takes the edge off”. It made me very sleepy, but I felt each and every contraction just like I did before. I would breath through a contraction and then fall asleep and then wake up for the next one. Waldo was sitting in a chair next to my bed, holding my hand and watching the monitor. He knew when I was going to wake up again and felt so bad for me. I would ask him almost every other time “did I sleep through some” and he would tell me no, but I was dreaming about having contractions so it was very depressing.

At about 8:30 am on 12/21/08 after being awake for 24 hours I asked for the epidural, I didn’t want it though. But neither Waldo or I had slept and I knew we would need our strength. It took about 2 hours for the anesthesiologists to get there and get it in. That had to be the longest 2 hours of my life. Once it was in, we both slept for hours. Well except the nurses kept coming in to take my blood pressure and check on me. This went on all day. My doctor was great, she knew how much I didn’t want a c-section so she kept upping the pitocin to try to encourage my cervix to dilate. Finally at 11:00 pm I was at 10 and ready to go. I pushed and pushed, staring into Waldo’s eyes while he held my left leg and helped me count. I couldn’t have done any of it without him. After 3 hours my doctor said that Lily was wonky and we had to do a c-section. I asked if there was any other way and said said no. For the first time I cried, and boy did I cry. I had worked so had to get to this point and now I had to have the major surgery that I never wanted. But it was all about getting Lily out and into my arms.

They brought Waldo some scrubs and I got a really cool hair net thing. He and I talked about it all and knew that this was for the best and how funny it was that everything thing that could go wrong with how I wanted this to go had. I calmed down and stopped crying.

After what seemed like forever (probably more like 45 very long minutes) someone came to get me and told Waldo what he was going to do. They wheeled me into a very cold, white room that made me cry harder then ever. Everyone was really nice and tried to tell me it was all going to be fine. I knew that, I was crying over the loss of my vision, my ideal birth. For 8 months (or my whole life) I had planned this birth in my head and now it was all different and essentially wrong. But being the logical person I try to be most of the time I calmed down and knew that it was best for Lily. The little sucked was trying to come out sideways and that wouldn’t work.

They gave me more drugs and explained how it was going to work. Waldo came in and was holding my hand, the next thing I know I felt them rubbing my stomach and then they were holding a slimy baby over the drape.

right after birth

seconds old

finally

meeting Mom (sort of)

They put her in the warming bed and Waldo went over the be with her. I cried as I watched them rubbing her. She was crying and I couldn’t be with her, which just made me cry harder, but I was glad Waldo was there. He was taking pictures of her, just like I told him to.
After what seemed like hours they wrapped her up and brought her to me. .
To be continued when I can see through my tears again….

Child birth education

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Yesterday Waldo and I attended our child birth education class. It was a 6 hour class. It was a long day. But we both enjoyed the class and came out of it with a much better idea of what to expect when I go into labor. I’m really glad we went to it, we had thought about not worrying about it because the baby’s going to come when she’s ready weather we are educated or not. I think that’s the lazy but also laid back side of us.

The hospital here in Whitefish is the only certified water birthing hospital in the state. I thought that was pretty cool. They had the water birth tub all set out so we could look at it. Its in interesting idea, but I don’t think I want to give birth in a tub. The hospital is very new (maybe 2 years old now) and very set up for a nice birthing experience. Two of the labor/birthing rooms have jacuzzi tubs and I thought about maybe laboring in there for a while. It looked relaxing in the videos. We’ll see how I feel when its actually time.

We are slowly getting the house ready for Lily. Since she’s going to sleep in our room we aren’t really worrying about making a nursery. But we have to get the extra bedroom cleaned out and organized. We don’t feel like we procrastinated on purpose, but we do feel that all the sudden in a couple of weeks (give or take) she’ll be here and we are no where near ready. I never really got a nesting urge and that would have helped us a lot.

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