September 2007 Mamas - Lovin' our Toddlers (February) - Page 9

[SweetTexasgal]

Caroline



My Lucyism of the day:

Lucy: Mama I'm a "Princerina"

Me: Huh?

Lucy: wearing a tutu and a crown. Mama!! "a princerina"

Me: "oh you are a princess ballerina.

Lucy: Looks at me like....duh...Mama.

[leanbh]

Originally Posted by KatieJD

I can't believe you're already at 20 weeks! Any guesses on boy or girl yet? Sometimes I have a really strong feeling that you're having a boy....

i've been feeling boy boy boy, but i reserve the right to change my mind at any point, especially once the baby is born...then i'll have known it was a boy or a girl ALL ALONG.

this pregnancy is going by super fast.

i'm so frikkin' tired. moving all week and trev's in work, so i'm handling all the logistics along with selling stuff on craigslist and trying to buy new furniture on craigslist. ugh. that, and i work 7 days a week from home. so when trev gets home, and ro's in bed, i get to work.

ro's doing great though. she's working hard to get through this transition without too much 'being bold' (which is what we call misbehaving). we went to target the other day, and she got to pick out super big girl panties. elmo and zoe and minnie mouse. the training underwear had been giving her two lines of rash right where the seams are down her bum. accidents are maybe once a week, if that, so we've upgraded to super big girl panties. she was so happy this morning when she got to pick out her new underwear that she woke me up to tell me that she was wearing elmo and zoe today.

other than that, we're trying to find a preschool for her for a few days a week in the fall. i'd like some montessori, but they're all so expensive because they have the categorization attached to them. i would really like to be able to afford food and preschool. that would be ideal. i don't think all 3 year olds benefit from outside schooling, but i really think ro would. she's learning so quickly that i have a hard time keeping up with her sometimes. that, and i'm really really not cut out to be a homeschooler. oh my, no. i wish i were, but it's just not in my skill set.

time to finish my work, and then get packing... oh, and entertain the two and a half year old all day.

[mommajb]

I feel so left behind!

I am planning to encourage potty learning next week but I am still looking for a potty. I should have several in the garage but it has been so cold I haven't wanted to look for them and the kids can't find them when I send them out to look. Oh my, that sounds bad when I say I send the kids out in the cold I don't want to venture out in.

I looked into preschools before all the snow, set up visits and then, Whamo! Snow! Everything closed for two weeks. In the time that allowed me I had more time to think about it and we are going to wait one more year. There were 2 programs I was still interested in after talking to the ladies that run them. One was my first choice going in and the other was a surprise to me. Given that the other 4 will be in school (and I am losing my built in babysitter) I thought it would be nice to have the regular time w/o having to work out an unreliable swapping system with another mom. I just came around to thinking I was doing it for me, not him, and I should enjoy some time with just him. I don't know. It is so confusing.

I hope you get some rest soon Linsay!
Katie, how is your sleep situation?
Michelle, Lucy sounds so precocious and precious.
Check FB for updates on Caroline. She needs our .

As soon as I win the lottery and find a 'wife' to help me out here I'll post about my bfp.

[~Katie~]

Hehe, love the princerina!

Lindsay - It really does go by so much faster with number 2. It gives you even more of a reason to try and enjoy it as much as possible because it's over so fast. Good luck with your move!

Sleep - Still not good. Last night was miserable. Liam stayed up until almost 10, then came in my room at 2 and again about an hour later. He ended up going to sleep in my bed, and then Laine was up so she came in the bed. They ended up sleeping to about 7 (but I stayed in bed until 8:30 while they played in my room). I swear I'm going to sleep for a week straight when Andrew gets back. Liam is going nap free from now on I think.

We did our grocery shopping this morning. The electricians showed up to put in a new light in my bedroom since the old one was not CF bulb compatible. Also had a bunch of wiring issues with the bathrooms upstairs that caused other circuit breakers to trip, so half the lights in my house were out for a while. I managed to get some of the lights on but they had to fix wiring in some junction boxes upstairs yesterday. One of the downsides to living in a new house is discovering all the things done wrong when building it.

The ball is supposed to be the day before block leave starts (May 27 I think) but Andrew is going to try and take his 10 days of paternity leave prior to that. I think we're going to go to the outer banks for a week during his block leave (and probably Maine and NY but we'll see). My BIL is heading back out to the desert in March, sad that he and Andrew will just miss each other. Still haven't found a dress, but he'll be back before 15 April so that gives me plenty of time to look. I have 9 pounds to go as of this morning!

[mommajb]

Originally Posted by KatieJD

The ball is supposed to be the day before block leave starts (May 27 I think) but Andrew is going to try and take his 10 days of paternity leave prior to that. I think we're going to go to the outer banks for a week during his block leave (and probably Maine and NY but we'll see). My BIL is heading back out to the desert in March, sad that he and Andrew will just miss each other. Still haven't found a dress, but he'll be back before 15 April so that gives me plenty of time to look. I have 9 pounds to go as of this morning!

I sat here trying to figure out what soccer had to do with anything then I realized by ball you meant a dance.

on the weight loss

[ishyfishie]

Sabo, are you on Facebook?

Hi ladies, thanks for the congrats! I'm copying and pasting here, sorry for the length.

As of my home visit with the midwife last Friday, my blood pressure was beautifully low. On Saturday morning, I started having on and off contractions that came and went for 5 days. Wednesday was my next appointment with the midwife and my blood pressure was suddenly very high. We discussed the options but the basic gist of it was that we needed to check and see if it was stress-related or metabolic (pre-eclampsia), so after a quick trip home to pack up a bag, we met Eileen here at the hopsital for a non-stress test, bloodwork, and further blood pressure monitoring. The NST was perfect--I was contracting a ton (still not painful), baby was tolerating everything just right. Bloodwork was mostly good, but the final result came in not so great. The verdict was that even if we went home that night, we'd probably need to deliver with Eileen at the hospital instead of home because of those blood pressures. When my final blood pressure reading came back even higher than any of the others had been, it was clear that the problem wasn't just stress-related and baby's/my health required action.

So. We talked about starting Cervadil overnight so I could try to get some sleep (it was midnight by this point), but Eileen checked and I was already 3-4 centimeters and 70% effaced, so Cervadil was out. Since I knew I wouldn't sleep anyway, we decided to start Pitocin right away instead of waiting till morning. Eileen didn't think it would take much at all to get things going because of how regularly/closely/strongly I was contracting (even though it just felt like stronger-than-normal BH, not like "labor" to me), so at 1 am, we started it. It was pretty surreal--I sat on a chair first, then a birth ball, with the lights dimmed and we watched the monitor show each increment of Pitocin increasing the frequency and strength of the contractions, but I was barely feeling anything more than I had been! This kept up until they hit level 9 on the Pitocin (started at 1), then Eileen came in (she had been sleeping to make sure she was fully "on" whenever I wanted her there). This was about 4:30. We sat around and had just decided to do one more exam to check dilation when I felt/heard ("heard" internally, it seemed!) this weird crunching against my cervix. I said, "Um, the baby just did something...like broke my water?" It was funny because there was no fluid leaking out, but we did the exam and some trickled and I was at 6 cm. I got back onto the birth ball and holy amniotic fluid, Batman--it POURED out across the floor.

This was 4:45 am. I *finally* started feeling some degree of "pain" during contractions at this point, and got off the birth ball to find a more comfortable position during contractions. Standing and swaying worked for a bit, and then standing in between and squatting during contractions felt good (that's what I did with Lucy). We kept joking that I should deliver at 5:22 on 2-25 so I needed to hurry up, but I started pushing around 5:15 and missed my window! Eileen was awesome--the nurse told me not to push until we knew if I "could" and Eileen kind of said very gently that we'd trust my body to know what to do, so I had no further internal exams. When the nurse kind of wanted me to get up on the bed, Eileen said she was perfectly okay with me delivering off the bed if that's what I felt I needed to do, so I kept with the standing/squatting routine. My leg muscles were shaking like crazy so I finally said I'd try kneeling on the bed and holding onto the completely vertical side, which is how I stayed and continued to push. At one point, I wanted to try to turn around because my leg and arm muscles were turning into jelly, but the contractions were too close for me to get myself turned. I had kind of forgotten how intense pushing is!

So, at 5:47 am on 2/25/2010, Caroline Alison made her way out! I was not a happy camper from the time she was crowning until she was out, because I felt like I was tearing *upward* and that was freaking me out, but Eileen was using warm washcloths and compression to help me stretch and I asked her to shift them to where the pain was. After half an hour of pushing, it was suddenly just...done!

She weighed 10 lbs 6.5 oz, 20.75" long with a 14.25" head circumference (Lucy was 9 lbs 13.3 oz, 20.5" long and 14" head)--and I didn't tear *at all.* I didn't get my homebirth, but I seized the "biggest baby on both sides of the family for at least 3 generations" title without any pain medication, tearing, or episiotomy. The nurses were (surprisingly!) very easy to dub her a "non-sep baby" (non-separation) and she remained naked on my bare chest until we were ready to check for tears, then they weighed her and gave her back! She nursed like a champ and stayed with us every minute until last night. She's currently in the NICU with an IV for blood sugar issues but is still nursing wonderfully, her blood sugars have been perfect (since she was first admitted, even before the IV!).

I have to say our experience at this hospital has been LIGHTYEARS different from when Lucy was born. The nurses have been fantastic, everyone has been great about pretty much everything. My blood pressure is still wacky so they're ordering an EKG for me now, but everything seems to be fine. I'm hoping we can get home tomorrow (nice birthday gift!).

Unfortunately, her urine output has been "low" so they want formula supplements after I nurse...and at this point, my goal is to get us out of here as quick as possible. At the rate she's been decreasing on the IV, it'd be Sunday before she's discharged, but if we can up her blood sugar just a few points each check and get her urine output up, it'd be more like noon tomorrow, so I'm pumping after each session in hopes that my milk will come in faster, but allowing the formula feeds to try to get her out of there. It's not ideal, but we're working with what we've got so we can go home. I miss Lucy like crazy!

[Plaid Leopard]

Great birth story Rachel.
I hope Caroline is home soon.

[~Katie~]

Rachel, thank you for sharing your story. You are one tough mama! I'm sure the stress isn't helping with your milk coming in, I hope you can relax as much as you can. I'm crossing my fingers that she's home with you quickly!

[mommajb]

Rachel, thank you for sharing such a personal time with us. I hope she is back in your arms and you are both home with Lucy as quickly as possible.

[Plaid Leopard]

This morning when Yann woke up, he sat straight up with a panicked look in his eyes and sat "Chihuahua lost his ear!"
Chihuahua is his favorite stuffed animal. He had a dream that his ear came off and wouldn't believe it wasn't true until we found two-eared Chihuahua downstairs.

Looks like Caroline is doing well and will be home soon.

[~Katie~]

I think it's really funny how they dream and remember it now to tell you later. I do not enjoy the nightmares though, which Liam seems to have often.

Last night was the best night of sleep ever. I slept 7 hours with only 3 night wakings. How did I do it? I put her co-sleeper playpen in the room across the hall It's pretty obvious that my moving around in the bed wakes her up at night, I have to be totally silent (can't even use my bathroom anymore) otherwise she wakes up. So Instead of her waking at midnight when I go to bed, she woke up 2 hours later. She has NEVER done that. And it actually seemed like when I went in to her she had fallen into a deep sleep because she wasn't WIDE awake like she normally is. I feel very non-AP about it but I suppose we focus on other AP-ness, it's what works for her. I feel bad because co-sleeping worked so well with Liam and she's deprived of it. If that isn't bad enough I even ordered a crib last night.

I thought I had replied about the pre-school stuff but must not have. We've been doing activities from first-school.ws. They have a lot of printable crafts and coloring pages and activity sheets. We can't be part of the CDC here because we don't vaccinate, lots of moving is a given so it kind of makes school in general difficult, particularly when you change curriculum every few years.

[mommajb]

Katie, AP is about meeting needs and fostering security in one's child, not about prescribed actions that may or may not help. For the longest time I couldn't check on my kids at night and steal kisses when they looked so angelic because that would wake them up in a state of terror. A good goal is healthy sleep, not co-sleep no matter what.

[~Katie~]

Originally Posted by mommajb

Katie, AP is about meeting needs and fostering security in one's child, not about prescribed actions that may or may not help. For the longest time I couldn't check on my kids at night and steal kisses when they looked so angelic because that would wake them up in a state of terror. A good goal is healthy sleep, not co-sleep no matter what.

And I know you are right as usual I just feel guilty because I want that to be a part of our relationship like it was with Liam. I've honestly never known two children to be such polar opposites. He loves to cuddle and could sleep through anything. She is a lot like me with her sleep habits, though. So I know that you are right, the goal isn't to co-sleep if it clearly isn't working. If we can both get sleep we will both be better people for it. It was kind of funny this morning because Liam is used to hearing Laine and waking up, but he didn't hear her because she was still asleep. He came out in the hall calling "Mama, are you here?" That woke her up of course

[mommajb]

I just talk a good game. My life and head are as big a mess as anybody's right now.

[Faliciagayle]

Originally Posted by mommajb

I just talk a good game. My life and head are as big a mess as anybody's right now.

Rachel, congratulations! thank you for sharing I hope you are cuddling both your baby girls.


Michelle, I love your Lucyism

[~Katie~]

You avatar makes me smile every time I look at it, JB

Yesterday instead of feeling sorry for myself I decided to get to work on Laine's room. I have to admit that it's kind of fun decorating a girly room. Liam is trying every ounce of my patience today, and head-butted me in the nose earlier. I'm really looking forward to bed time.

Can't believe that March is already here. It feels like February was the longest month yet. It's such a relief to know this is our last full month. Here's hoping that March is quick!

[mommajb]

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