Welcome to the World Baby Girl

As of March 25, 2017, our family of three became a family of four. Baby girl (P) joined the outside world at 6:53 p.m. She weighed 6 pounds and measured 19 inches long. Her head was 32.5 cm, half a centimeter bigger than E's.

Birth Story

Despite having a scheduled induction for March 25, P was almost born on the 23rd. I am apparently incapable of having an uneventful OB appointment. My mom flew in on the 22nd, so she had E and hubs went with me to my NST appointment. Baby girl failed it spectacularly. Every time I contracted, her heart rate decelerated. My midwife said it was 50/50 whether I had a baby that day or not. 

I was a hot mess. This was my limit. We were scheduled to take family photos that very evening. I was so upset that we might not be able to take them. I'm not sure why this was the event that pushed me over the edge. I guess all of the issues coalesced and peaked at this moment. I was not ready to have the baby. I wasn't fully prepared for Saturday; I was not ready at all for Thursday. 

My midwife called my OB, and I was sent to L&D for more monitoring. P started to behave, and, after five hours of monitoring, L&D let me go home. As I mentioned in my last blog post, we did get our family photos done by Jackie Jane Studios. I absolutely love them. Here is my favorite:

The day before the induction, I called the charge nurse at the suggestion of my doula and OB. I asked about their wireless fetal monitor and if I could request it. I also asked that they charge it so it wouldn't run out of juice during labor. My OB told me to mention I wanted another unmedicated labor and to request a nurse who prefers that kind of labor. 

I set my alarm for 6:00 a.m. on the 25th and called the charge nurse to see when I should arrive for the induction. She told me to arrive between 7:30-8:00. I couldn't sleep anymore, so I got up to eat and get ready to go. At 7:00, the nurse called me back and told me they had a lot of people come in and they weren't sure if they would be staying or not. She told me to call back at 8:00, and hopefully they could get me in by 9:00. I was already anxious (knowing when you're going to have a baby is the weird), so this just added to my nervous energy. I ate some breakfast and called back at 8:00. They told me to come in at 9:00. 

I said goodbye to E and my mom. Hubs and I checked in, but that took a lot longer than I expected. My nurse checked me and said I was a solid 4 cm dilated, 70-80% effaced, and P was at -3/-2 station. I gave my nurse a goodie bag at this point with a thank you note. I filled the bag with candy, cookies, and crackers with various filling (cheese, peanut butter, etc.). The thank you note thanked my nurse and OB for the care they were about to provide. I also apologized for any mean things I may say during labor, haha. This is an obvious bribe, but it works really well. The nurses don't get normal lunch breaks, so easy to grab snacks are always popular.

The nurse hooked me up to a wireless monitor (this is money, every pregnant woman should investigate if her hospital has a wireless monitor) and set my heplock. My OB stripped my membranes at 11:30 a.m. I got a breast pump at noon and used it for five minutes on, five minutes off until 1:15 p.m. That got rid of my irritability contractions and started up some stronger contractions. However, it was not causing regular contractions. The nurse checked me again and I dilated to 5cm and baby girl dropped to -2/-1 station. Progress, but I was not in active labor yet. 

At 1:30 p.m., my nurse hooked up my IV and started Pitocin at a 1. She put it on the slowest drip possible because I was concerned about the constant IV drip. My concern was if I had multiple bags of saline pumped into me, it would artificially bloat baby P. When she dropped the water weight, it would seem as if she was losing absurd amounts of weight. My nurse was phenomenal and worked with my requests. We quickly bumped the Pitocin up to a 2 then a 3. The 3 established active labor. By 3:00p.m. I was contracting every 2-3 minutes and they were noticeably different in character. Before, the contractions just felt like tightening. With Pitocin at a 3, they felt a little bit crampy like right before starting a period. This was the point where my nurse said we had labor started now. 

We called my doula and let her know now would be a good time to arrive. She arrived around 3:45. I could still talk through contractions with no issue, but they were uncomfortable. We turned the Pitocin up to a 4 because I was still sitting at 5cmdilated. By 4:30, I no longer talked during contractions. I could if I had to respond to a question, but I preferred not to. I was also no longer sitting on my birthing ball, I wanted to stand. My doula suggested I get on hands and knees. We lowered the bed and put my birthing ball in the bed. I draped over and rocked slightly back and forth. Hubs did hip squeezes and counter pressure on my lower back while my doula rubbed a pressure point in the center of my feet with an oil. I also had a citrus-scented essential oil on a hand towel near my face. 

At 5:30, my OB came back to the hospital (she was on call). The nurse was about to call her in because she felt things were picking up when my OB walked into the room. Apparently, the OBs can see the fetal monitor strip from their home computers. Pretty neat. She checked me, and I was 7cm dilated and baby girl was at +1 station. She asked if I wanted her to break my water at this point, but I asked her to come back in a little bit to check again. I felt certain breaking my water would send my labor into hyperdrive and I didn't want to blast through the last 3cm. At this point, my hands started shaking. Endorphin release, huzzah! My nurse turned the Pitocin down to a 2 because my contractions were coming in on top of each other. 

I could tell transition was just getting started. I could no longer be hands and knees. I stood at the foot of the bed and leaned over the ball while swaying. Hubs and my doula alternated applying counter pressure. I started making my goat noises (labor is beautiful, right?), which indicate transition is in full swing for me. I warned my doula ahead of time that my sarcasm gets intense when I'm in pain. I did not, however, think to forewarn the OB.

My OB came back at 6:15 p.m. to check me. I was in the middle of a contraction and not up to talking. When it ended someone commented to the OB that the contraction was over to which I responded, "adios, butthole." My OB lost it and was cracking up, "What did she just say?" and the nurse (or maybe my doula? I forget, I was in a lot of pain) responded, "I think she just called the contraction a butthole."

I was 8.5cm dilated at this point, so we decided to break my water. My OB got everything ready and broke my water at 6:48 p.m. I felt a tiny trickle of water (low fluid levels, boo) and I could also feel a contraction gearing up. I cannot labor on my back. I don't know of many women who want to labor unmedicated while flat on their back. This was the only contraction that got away from me. This may not be the case for all women, but, for me, if a contraction gets going and I'm not mentally prepared, I cannot catch up to it. It's something that is happening to me rather than me working through it. I felt frantic and told hubs to get me out of the bed. He lifted me up, but my legs couldn't support me anymore. Hubs basically held me up through that contractions and then my doula suggested I get into bed to prepare for pushing. 

I climbed into the bed and draped my arms over the head of the bed like I did with E. This would allow me to rest between pushes. That was my thought process anyway. I announced to the room at large that I felt pushy and I felt a burning sensation. I realize now this is the "ring of fire" part of labor. Hubs told me after the fact that he could see the baby's hair, so she was crowning. The OBand nurses were clearing away the pads and towels from breaking my water when another contraction hit, I felt an overwhelming urge to push. I couldn't verbalize this, so I opted to shout "Pushy, pushy, pushy!" instead.

Hubs told me to push if I needed to. I didn't think the OB was behind me, but I figured E took me 20 minutes of pushing to birth. Surely, one push wouldn't be an issue. 

Wrong. One push and her head was out. Hubs announced, "Um...there's a head." My OB came rushing over and told me not to push. She checked to see if there was a cord around P's neck. There wasn't, so she told me to push when I felt ready. The next contraction rolled in, and, with another push, she was born at 6:53 p.m. True labor lasted about four hours (my labor with E was 9 hours). Only five minutes passed from breaking my water to holding our sweet baby. She started crying immediately. This was music to my ears. We were worried about her lungs, but she put those fears to rest immediately. 

I had no tearing, which is great. I had a "skid mark" as my OB called it. I had the same thing with E (in the same place, no less). I didn't require stitches either time, which makes me one happy momma. 

I got to do skin to skin and delayed cord clamping. We weren't sure this would be possible with P being premature. I didn't get to do the first check with her on me, though. They started getting worried because, even though she was crying, she was still purple. At some point, a whole slew of people came into the room. In addition to my nurse and OB, there was a pediatric team and a NICU team. One of them tried to take P from me. I curled around her and told the person "She's still attached." Hubs got to cut the cord. The OB and nurse both proclaimed it was a "juicy" cord, haha. 

They took P and she got an 8 out of 10 for both her one minute and five minute APGAR scores. She just would not turn pink. Finally, at 7 minutes, her color started to change. Hubs was with her and the doctors and got to see her color change. One by one, the NICU and pediatric team doctors left. This was great news because it meant she did not need immediate NICU attention.

Despite needing to induce early, I managed to achieve most of the things I wanted for labor and delivery. The wireless monitor was amazing. Even though I had to have constant fetal monitoring, it wasn't irritating because there were no wires. I had another unmedicated birth and got to labor/push in whatever positions felt most comfortable to me.

My nurse was really sweet and impressed with my labor. I remember saying at one point, "We should film this and show it to high schoolers to deter them from having babies." She laughed and said it would probably have the opposite effect and that I made labor look easy. My labor did go really well considering it was an induction. Inductions have a tendancy to be faster and way more painful than labor that starts on its own. My OB told me after watching my labor and delivery and seeing how well they went, she wants to try for an unmedicated birth with her next baby. 

Hubs called my mom and told her to bring E to meet her new little sister. E was initially interested but was quickly distracted by my lack of belly. She came over to prod at my stomach and ask, "Momma belly? Baby? Where'd it go?" She knew I was pregnant with a baby, but she did not understand the concept that the baby we were showing her was the same baby that had been in my belly.

We stayed the full 48 hours because P had to pass a lot of tests before they would let us go home. The first night she would not nurse. I could get her to latch, but she was so sleepy. I had some colostrum from pumping during labor and I pumped another 15 minutes that evening. I got 26ml in total, so they finger fed her 6ml at a time. She was riding the line for her blood sugar tests and ended up failing one of them by four points. They gave her some sugar gel and she started to wake up enough to nurse. Her scores improved dramatically, so they stopped pricking her before every nursing session. All that remained was the car seat test. She passed that with flying colors and we got to go home Monday around noon.

I wasn't sure how my body would respond after baby #2. I snapped back pretty fast with E, and I'm happy that the same is happening with P. Here is the belly four days postpartum.

Life adjusting to two littles has been a crazy ride so far. E is intensely jealous of P. She gives her kisses and loves on her, but then has epic tantrums over absolutely nothing. Her pediatrician told me it'll last for about two weeks. Then, it will be as if P has always been here.

P is doing great. She eats well and is gaining back some of the weight she lost. She dropped to 5lbs 8oz while in the hospital. She's up to 5lbs 10.5oz as of Friday. Her bilirubin levels are going down as well, so we don't have to go in every other day to get her foot pricked anymore. She's a tough little lady. 

Pregnancy Weeks 15 + 16: Doula Search and Gender

These last few weeks have gone by in a blur. I had a prenatal checkup at 14+4 and got to hear the heartbeat again. It was 152 :) My sciatica pain is starting to be constant. I have the name of a chiropractor who specializes in pregnant women, so hopefully I can get an appointment soon.

I'm also in the process of finding a doula. I asked around my neighborhood for some referrals. I'm meeting with those doulas in the next couple of weeks so I should have one soon. I wish I could use the same doula I had with my first, but we've both moved to opposite ends of the country, haha.

Here are my comparison pictures of 15 weeks with my daughter to this pregnancy.

Here is my 16 week comparison.

I shared the gender news on Facebook a week or so ago, but baby #2 is a girl! Getting our daughter to cooperate with the paint and handprints was a challenge. She did the right handprint no problem, but the left took a few tries.

I was hoping I was wrong, but it seems I have caught some kind of illness. I woke up the night before last with an uncontrollable cough, but it went away with a drink of water. I woke up yesterday morning feeling fine. However, last night I woke up in the middle of the night with a killer sore throat. I also have a runny nose and sneeze a lot, so I'm guessing a cold. Since I'm preggers, there are few medicines I can take.

On to much cuter news than my cold, E had a blast this Halloween. Here she is in her strawberry costume:

She calls it a straw-bee :) She loved knocking on doors and getting candy. She also wanted to follow all the people into their houses. I mean, they had candy after all.

Here are the instructions on how I made it.

One Year Old!

My baby is one year old! I can't believe how fast the time flew by. I know everyone says that, but holy moly it is true. So far in her little life, she has visited 10 states (NC, VA, WV, KY, IN, IL, MO, KS, CO, and UT), started walking, and can say a few words. She's a busy little bee that never stops moving and playing.

For her birthday, I made her a smash cake and we visited a children's museum.

We are also officially done with the helmet! When she started with it, there was an 11mm difference between the sides of her head. Now it is down to a 3mm difference! We are super pumped to not have to deal with the helmet anymore and that E's head is round again 😂.

It's starting to warm up here, so we go to the park a lot. E likes to walk there and back on her own while holding our hands. Her little legs tire out pretty quickly, so she gets to ride on her daddy's shoulders the rest of the way. She loves the slide and the big, grassy field. She likes to run down the hill and usually face plants half way down. Apparently, it is hilarious because she giggles the whole time.

She also had her one year checkup. She's a tall, slender girl. She weighs 20 pounds and 5 ounces, which is the 34th percentile. She is 30.25 inches tall, which is the 84th percentile. Her pediatrician says she's doing great and is right on track developmentally.

We had a funny moment at the checkup. E's pediatrician was asking us questions about her eating habits (girl eats like food is going extinct), walking, talking, etc and then she asked if E claps her hands. The hubbinator and I couldn't remember, but as the doctor asked the question, she clapped her own hands. In the middle of our explaining that we didn't know if she could or not, E starts clapping her hands imitating the doctor. Guess she answered that question for us. Now we clap like morons all the time around her so she will do it right back. Sometimes she will high five if hubs and I do it first, She's an amusing little girl.

I went through all of the pictures from my phone that I saved to my computer over the course of her first year of life. I had over 650 pictures of E, which I whittled down to a mere 391. I ordered 4X6 of them, which should arrive today! I may have been a liiiiittle over zealous, but I refuse to be one of those people who only has pictures on Facebook, Instagram, whatever. I have picture walls in the house from our professional shoots, but I want memorabilia of actual day to day life as well.

I also have three picture frames I need to fill. Two of them look like windows, which I love. The other one is a window frame as well, but a different style. It doesn't have all the window panes. Instead, it has wires with clasps to hang pictures or whatever you want. I'll post pictures of them once I have them finished.

Update:

The pictures are all in photo albums and the wall art is complete and up on the walls :)

The pictures took up three albums.

Here is a close up of the window picture frames. Don't mind the sun glare.

It's so hard to get a shot during the daytime, and I always forget at night.
Oh well, bright light it is. 

My mom made that wine cork wreath. It's awesome. 

7 Months Old—World Peace Declared: Tea Party Wins

Wait, what?

Not that kind of Tea Party. The more fun kind with actual tea cups instead of crack pots. Tea parties will most definitely save the world from destruction. Who can be angry when there are sweet baby smiles and tiny tea cups?

She had to get dressed up first

She had to taste the tea cups before she could be certain about her feelings toward them

After much consideration, baby E decided she likes tea parties 

All in all, a successful tea party

Also, baby E is seven months old! She's getting so big :( Why do babies grow up so fast?

Some updates on baby girl:

Food Likes: Sweet potatoes, prunes, squash, chicken and rice
Food Dislikes: Peas, bananas
New Activities: Drinking from a sippy cup, scooting around the house backwards on her tummy, trying to crawl, trying to feed herself

She is a little chatter box now too. Always babbling away about (I assume) her grand adventures. She says mama when she is upset and wants to be held/fed and she said dada once.

She's been teething for months, but it has kicked into overdrive. Excessive drooling, biting, gumming of anything she can get her hands on, etc. It gives her some super grumps by the end of the day. Poor baby :(

We also got her ears pierced (as you can see in the tea party pictures). She did not like that one little bit, but now she doesn't notice they exist.

She's recently discovered the cat. I'm pleasantly surprised by how well behaved Nona is with her. Nona is a giant scaredy cat and usually hisses and runs away when she gets scared. Nona made the mistake of wandering up to E and sticking her butt in her face (how nice, Nona). E immediately grabbed a fistfull of fur in one hand and Nona's tail in her other. It only took a few seconds for me to disentngle the two, but Nona sat calm as could be through the whole thing.

Speaking of cats, there is a stray orange cat that wanders the neighborhood. It's very friendly and comes up to the house when I call Nona in at night. It tries to come in our house actually, it's cute and kind of sad. I asked around assuming someone owned it, but I was told it's a stray. I haven't seen it in a few days, so I'm hoping somebody took him in.

House Update

This last month has been insane and it is finally winding down. Hubs got home in mid July and then we went on vacation and visited family for the last half of August. Then we sold our car, got a rental, moved across the country, bought a new car, found a house, and moved in over the course of a week.

E did about as well as could be expected on a cross-country journey. Nona hated it and let us know her feelings the entire journey.

The house is unpacked, but we still need to hang up photos and curtains in some rooms. It is a 5 bedroom 3 bathroom house, so we have plenty of room for visitors. Here are some pictures supplied by the realty company.

Front of the house

Main living area upstairs. 

Kitchen

Dining area in kitchen.

Stairs down to basement.

Basement living area.

Different view of basement living area.

This is a picture I took from the backdoor in the kitchen.

It's so nice to finally live in civilization again. Camp Lejeune was a hole. In our new home we are three miles from a major shopping center, 8 miles from another ridiculously oversized shopping center, and fifteen minutes from hiking trails. This location is a vast improvement over our last, but it has the major drawback of being on the other side of the country from the bulk of our family.

6 Months Old: Sitting up Like a Boss

Baby girl turned 6 months old on Thursday! We've tried some solids and she scarfs them down. My squee pig pig. It certainly makes for some interesting diapers (more on that below).

Around 5.5 months, baby E started rolling over from back to front. She's been doing front to back rolls since she was 5.5 weeks old (hmmm 5.5 theme going on here), but back to front is a lot harder for babies.

She also sits up without support now! She's been doing that for about a week :) She is so much happier now that she can sit up and play with her toys.

Baby girls weighs about 18 pounds. That puts her in the 82nd percentile for weight. So chubbers. I love me a chunky baby ^_^ She also did some serious growing length wise, but I haven't been able to measure that yet (a wiggly baby is also an uncooperative baby).

Beach Babe

Baby girl had her first trip to the beach last week :) She didn't seem too thrilled with the ocean, but she greatly enjoyed splashing in her baby pool. She did great on the beach though. She loves to people watch (who doesn't?) and was content to hang out in her bouncy chair with her new favorite toy: an empty water bottle. Hahaha.

Hanging out in the baby pool with grandpa

Learning to drive at the OBX.

We found some hilarious sunglasses.

We climbed the dunes (I love my ErgoBaby carrier).

Little shade roof  for the sweaty baby.

My mom and dad were on vacation too, so they helped us with baby girl. The hubs and I got to go on a couple of baby-free dates, which was awesome :D We also ran into a teacher both hubs and I had in high school. Such a small world.

And now for some new mom survival tips.

More New Mom Survival Tips

1. You will lose all the hairs. 

All of them. It started to happen to me around 4 months post partum and has just started to slow down a bit. Now I have a billion little tiny baby hairs growing in their place.I have a weird frizzy halo all around my scalp. So strange looking. Oh well. Try not to panic, you aren't balding.

2. Starting solids means disgusting diapers. 

My daughter was EBF until we started letting her try solids. Within a matter of days her poops began reflecting this change in diet. Breastfed babies tend to have yellow, mustardy poops. They don't have as foul of an odor as regular poop and it's way easier to clean.

Now with the solids we have epic blow outs and baby clothes soaking in the sink to avoid horrendous yellow stains. She also grunts when pooping since it's much more solid now. It's kind of hilarious to look over at my baby and see her get this serious look of concentration and then suddenly let out a weird grunt. It's probably not as funny for her though since her digestive system is getting used to solids.

Regardless, brace yourself. Gross poop is coming.

I-I-I I Workout

Hubs got super into lifting while deployed, so naturally he wants to make me do it too haha. Basically, I'm super weak sauce. My max bench press is 70lbs and my max deadlift is 120lbs. At least I can deadlift more than my weight?

Anyway, we ultimately ended up doing leg day. I just used the bar for this (45 pounds) because I can't figure out the hang clean thing to save my life hahaha. Hubs didn't want to add more weight until I can figure that out.

5 sets of 5 front squats with 10 burpees in between each set

Repeat 3X (first round I held a 22 lb weight, then dropped to an 11lb weight for the last two):
30 lunges (15 each leg)
15 sumo squats
25 tuck jumps

2mile run

That workout took about 46 minutes and burned 506 calories, haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. My legs were a wee bit dead