Leah's story

Before I forget the details, and while things are quiet here at the hospital (Daddy's getting some sweet cuddles from his littlest girl), I thought I would tell Leah's birth story.

Not that my preferences matter really, but I wanted to avoid Pitocin and go into labor on my own. As I mentioned before, I was in no real particular hurry, but I wanted to avoid a (chemical) induction. I wanted to feel real labor, like my body was made to do. But I also very much wanted to maintain the possibility of epidural, and I knew ultimately I would probably end up there.

On Thursday 1/27 I saw the doctor at 3:00. We had already planned for her to strip my membranes if I made it to that point, and I had completely packed our bags that morning just in case something crazy happened. The doctor told me that I was quite dilated - it turned out I was already 4-5 cm - so if I started having uncomfortable or painful contractions every 10 minutes or less we needed to get to the hospital, and just call them on the way. And if my water broke, we needed to hightail it.

After the doctor's office we went to Costco (Bryan's typical Thursday trip for the church) and I started having mildly uncomfortable contractions that I needed to stop and breathe through. They weren't consistent or regular, but they were stronger than the contractions I'd had for the last few months, so I thought maybe something might be starting. We dropped the food off at the church, went to pick up Eden, and by 6:00 or so we were at home and I was leaning over the countertops breathing through contractions, and they were coming more frequently, about every 5-7 minutes.

Bryan got Eden to eat dinner, got the bags in the car, and we dropped Eden off at John & Kelli's. Brandy followed us and dropped off her kids there too, and then followed us to the hospital. The roads were slushy and slippery because of the storm the night before, and when we got to Storrow Drive I was quite uncomfortable and just wanted OUT OF THE CAR. Bryan threw on the flashers, I held on for dear life.

We got to the hospital (safely) a little past 7 (I think), and headed to triage. At 9:00 they checked me and I was still 4-5, so we were told to walk for 2 hours. We roamed the hospital, grabbed sandwiches from the cafe, and stopped every 2-3 minutes for contractions. I was feeling the contractions a lot in my back, and the only comfortable position was leaning my head against Bryan's chest, my hands at his elbows, with him supporting my weight, and both of us rocking gently back and forth.

At 11:00, back at triage, they hooked me back up to the monitors and then after a bit checked me again. I was only 5-6, but they decided to admit me anyway. I was so relieved because I knew if they sent me home Brandy and Bryan would be delivering Leah at home (actually, just Brandy because Bryan would probably be passed out...).

We got to the delivery room shortly after midnight or so, got settled in, and Brandy left to go home and change clothes. I mentioned the back pain to the nurse and she got me a birthing ball. It made the contractions feel a little better but I wanted to relax and try to rest. I got into the bed, Bryan climbed in with me, and I started having to work harder through contractions. Then, in the middle of one, I thought I felt a pop. I told the nurse (who had just come in to listen to Leah's heart) and she checked to see if my water had broken (it hadn't).

The next contraction was WICKED INTENSE. I knew right away I was in the transition phase. I was screaming and I felt like there was no way in you-know-where that I was going to be able to do this. I worked through three or four contractions and then was begging for an epidural. Like, right now. Actually, five minutes ago would be even better.

The anesthesiologist attending and resident came in and attempted to get the epidural in. It took a while - they had to try a couple of times to get it in, and I was screaming and shaking and having an incredibly difficult time sitting still. Things were moving fast now, and I knew that, but at the same time it was all taking so long. Every contraction felt like torture. (Sorry, just being honest!!) I was not the nicest to the poor resident trying to get that needle in my back. I apologized between contractions, but I kept yelling at her to GET IT IN ALREADY. Poor girl!

FINALLY they got the epidural in, and I had to get back into the bed. Yikes, that was hard too - I didn't want to lie down, I wanted to get back to putting my head in my husband's chest. But I was repeatedly reassured that the pain would stop soon, just a few more, just a few more. They were pumping up the levels of the medication every minute or so.

Everything happened very quickly at this point, but I think this is how the last bit went down:

Brandy got back just as the doctors were coming in. They checked me, I was 9+ but not quite 10, and the bag of waters was "bulging" (as in, (this is gross) visible but not yet broken). The epidural was still not able to catch up, and I wanted to wait to artificially break the water until the pain had subsided at least a little. The pain with contractions started to shorten in length (but not decrease in intensity). Then, all of a sudden, Leah's heart rate slowed and everyone was telling me we needed to get her out right away.

They broke my water, I gave three big pushes, and felt her slide out. She cried once and then got quiet. I was worried about her, relieved that the pain was mostly over (and the epidural was finally kicking in), confused about what was happening (there were people and voices everywhere), distracted by delivering the placenta, etc., and completely overwhelmed.

Several minutes later, I finally got to meet my little girl. And it was amazing. She latched on just fine and nursed for quite a while, like a great little champ. We looked at each other, both stunned at the events of the past several hours. I saw those adorable chubby cheeks and I knew that even though it was a traumatic experience, even though it was incredibly hard, it was worth every.single.minute. Cliche, yes, but no less true because of it.

World, meet Leah

Our sweet baby was born at 2:45 am today, 8 lb 15 oz and perfect. We are head over heels already.

Week off work!

My first week of leave was pretty awesome. It was so chock-full of awesome that this post should probably in fact be several posts. But I'm too lazy to break it up, so just bear with me. Skip it if you'd like. :) I seem to be making up for not posting regularly before my leave started...

On Tuesday I got a mani/pedi as I intended, despite a snowstorm which dropped "1-3 inches" (bwahaha - it was more like 5-6 inches) of snow on our area. We've gotten a lot of snow, in fact, this week, to add to our already-piled snow banks. Here's my two favorite people playing in it:




And here's the snow bank right in front of our house, with Eden for reference, as of Friday (it's taller than our SUV):

And the sidewalk:

Also this week I finished the last few projects I wanted to do for Leah's bedding (the mobile and the crib rail pads) so it is officially done:

Leah's finished crib - I pulled it out of the room so I could get some decent natural light to take a non-shadowy picture:


Close up of the mobile, which I made from Eden's old mobile. I essentially recovered the hoops and crocheted some elephants. I ran out of the pink yarn after 3, and the place I bought the yarn (apparently the only place to buy that particular yarn in this town) is downtown, so I made two out of some cheap white that I'd had for years, but I think it turned out well anyway:

Wall decor, made from the banner at the sprinkle:


Here's the picture frame Kelli made, hanging above the extra pink elephant I crocheted (I couldn't very well just get rid of it - those things took about 4 hours each to make!)


Here's Leah's "room" all put together (it is actually one corner of our bedroom):

The only things we're still missing are a glider/rocker (which we'll get on Craigslist, but which may require recovering, yet another sewing project! Not that I mind...) and a laundry basket. Both of which we should be getting tomorrow or early this week. And then we'll be really ready.

I spent a lot of time coloring and playing with Play-Doh with my girlie, who is so ridiculously big it is insane. That kid is so awesome in so many ways. There is a blog post there, and it's developing in my head. I won't add it to this one, don't worry! I also spent a lot of time snuggling and hanging out around town with my sweet husband, including lunch and a trip to the office to return the firm's loaner laptop and printer after our weekly doctor's appointment.

At the doctor's office on Thursday the doctor said she didn't expect to see me next week. Things are still progressing, and my contractions are getting stronger. In fact last night I got about 2.5 hours of sleep because they were keeping me up. Thankfully said sweet husband took said girlie to church this morning so I could take a nap while they were gone, and then I took another nap while she napped. Things are moving - but who knows when Miss Leah will make an appearance!

We got to have dinners with friends this week and realized we have a lot of Dans and Johns in our lives. Eden was getting confused. Good thing she calls one of the Dans "Mr. Panther" (hehe).

We were hoping Leah would wait to make her debut until after last night, mostly because we had a surprise 80s-themed birthday party to attend for our pastor. I'm so glad we made it! Bryan and "Uncle" John got to DJ with our other friend John (of "John & Jeni" - see what I mean?). But the best part was getting dressed up and seeing all of our friends dressed up. Even Eden got in on the action, rocking some sweet legwarmers and a crimped side ponytail. I think the awesomeness of the night is best told in pictures:

Bryan, his faux-hawk, a Phil Collins t-shirt, and my skinny jeans:

Family portrait in front of the "Rad" sign:
Eden and one of her absolute favorite people, "An-ja":
Kelli, Brandy, Connie, & some huge preggo girl (BTW I bought that shirt and the earrings off the rack at Forever 21. Kids these days...):
Eden & another one of her favorite little people:
John & Jeni (Jeni won the costume contest for the ladies, and I love that she's proudly sporting the baby bump):
Not sure what Eden's thinking here, but Hanna looked cute, so it makes the blog...
Kel and her sweet boy, with his homemade(!) acid-wash jeans:

WHEW! What a week!

Sprinkle!

I have amazing friends. Seriously. I am incredibly blessed by the people God has put in my life! As I've said a million times, being so far from family makes your friends like family. And that is so true. For example.

My girlfriends up here decided that Miss Leah needed a celebration. Obviously, since this is Baby #2 (and especially since it is a girl) we didn't need a huge shower like we had last time. But they decided that we should have a "sprinkle" anyway. We had a cute get-together on the 8th. It was so girly and fun - our last shower was Jack and Jill, but this was all about the girls. Tea, goodies, loads of pink everywhere, and a whole lot of fun. :)

Kel has a post about it too (including a very awkward picture of me - thanks friend :)), but here's the highlights from my camera:

The spread (of course we start with FOOD!) included tea, sweet little appetizers, THE CAKE (courtesy of Kelli - I don't even know what it is actually called, we just call it THE CAKE because it is awesome. It was a huge sacrifice for Kelli to make it - she actually couldn't even eat it since she's dairy-free for the moment), and cute little baby cupcakes:




Meg couldn't make it but she sent some beautiful flowers, which made our house smell divine for a week:

There was a cute little banner for Leah, which apparently involved swiping some bedding fabric right from under my nose while I was working (oh, those elephants are adorable, I swear):


And I didn't get a picture of the sweet little picture frame also made from the fabric, but Kel's post leads off with it so take a peek.

Brea and I (the two preggo ladies at the sprinkle) took a belly-shot picture together. She's due in April and lookin' good:

We got fully stocked for Miss Leah's arrival, and her dresser is now busting at the seams (it was more than a sprinkle, people. It was more like a fire hydrant exploded or something). It was so overwhelming to feel so loved, to know that Leah, like Eden, will be surrounded by people who love her!

And these are the sweet ladies who put it all together. Thanks Connie, Kelli, and Brandy. I love you all more than I can express, and I am so glad that my girls have such great, Godly women to look up to. Thank you for being such a blessing to us.

On The End of Pregnancy

So. I'm pretty pregnant now.



Yep, that's me. (Well, my belly anyway). I'm 38 weeks today, people. I had two friends in two days say "Wow, you're huge" (or something of that sort) upon seeing me. Leah's left her marks on my belly, expanding the ones left there by her big sister into the shape of a heart, the top point of which is my decidedly-protruding belly button. (I suppose if I'm going to have stretch marks, at least they're in a sweet shape. I have pictures (black & white only) but I will not be sharing those with the Internet. I mean, they're still pretty ugly. Just sayin'. My bikini days are OVER.) Sleeping is becoming difficult as my lovely Braxton-Hicks contractions get stronger; they've now started waking me up at night. (But I can't complain because aside from the whole Eden not sleeping thing, I've been getting pretty great sleep up to now). My hips ache, walking is sometimes not so easy, and standing or sitting straight up for any extended period of time is pretty much out of the question.

But - here's the thing - I'm in no hurry for all of this to be over.

I'm actually not terribly uncomfortable. It is winter, and the cold helps offset my hormonal heat. The aches and pains and awkwardness of a huge basketball on my belly are slightly annoying, yes, and the not-sleeping thing is a little frustrating, but knowing that I am growing a life inside me, and every day she's in there is good for her, and knowing that I will almost certainly never feel another baby moving and kicking and hiccuping and all of that inside me again all adds up to make this whole thing very bearable. In fact, now that the contractions don't freak me out anymore (because if they turn into the real thing, that's totally OK), I'm sort of enjoying it. Weird, I know.

I do realize that any day could be Leah's birthday, and don't get me wrong, I am very excited to meet her and cuddle her and learn all of the intricacies of her face, her hands, her feet, her expressions. I am constantly imagining what life will be like with a snuggly little milky-smelling newborn and trying to envision what she will look like. But I'm pretty at peace. I realize that there is One who knows her birthday, and only One - and He is in control of far bigger things than even that. So why should I worry about it? I am just going to enjoy the next few minutes, hours, days, weeks and be patient. She'll be here soon, and our family will be four (plus Nino). But for now, we're just relaxing and enjoying life as it is today.

A few months ago I decided to memorize a Psalm, and ended up with Psalm 23, which has been playing itself over and over in my head since then and really has been a huge part of this peace:

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

Let's pray this peace lasts until Leah is born (and beyond!) and that Psalm 23 helps me navigate that whole "labor and delivery" thing. (Oh, yeah, I have to do that too...)

Maternity Leave

One of the things about this pregnancy that has been so incredibly different from the first is that I've been working. It made a huge difference, especially in the first trimester when all I wanted to do was sleep (which was compounded, of course, by the fact that my firstborn was not sleeping...).

As of Friday, though, that is history. No more working while pregnant for me! :)

A quick word about working from home: it was fantastic. I absolutely loved being home for lunch with my two favorite people on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays (they days they're home). I had a 5-second commute, which meant that even if I worked late-ish, I could still have dinner with my family! And I worked about 75% of the time in pajamas, people. Pajamas. If we didn't have anywhere to be that day (most days), I would take a shower and then put on clean PJs for the day. Let my hair air dry. Oh man. It rocked.

And I was actually quite productive. It's amazing how much distraction there is at the office - people stopping by to chat, etc. And while there are two pretty adorable distractions here, I still managed to bill at least 5 hours a day, and even up to 8-8.5, which is pretty good considering the timing of it all (the holidays, TWO snowstorms, etc). If I thought it was actually feasible in a big firm environment, I might try to do it longer term, at least part time. But there are a million reasons why I don't think that would work (and that topic is a whole post in itself).

Anyway, I'm officially on maternity leave, so no working is allowed, and I am ecstatic about that. I have big plans for the next week: hanging with my family on Monday, mani/pedi with a friend on Tuesday, finishing my last few projects for Miss Leah (still finalizing her mobile - I'm crocheting stuffed elephants to hang from it - and still need to make crib rail covers so her crib doesn't get dinged by our bedroom door every time we open it).

And there's that whole, oh yeah, we could have a BABY anytime thing. But I'm not in a hurry for that. I'd like at least a few days where I have no responsible things to do first. :)

Holidays 2010

I've been meaning to post on a bunch of topics for a couple of weeks, so I thought while I'm waiting for my incredibly slow loaner laptop from the firm to boot up, I'd knock one out. (And, also, I must say I LOVE our MacBook so much).

Ahem. OK.

Holidays:

We had an extremely relaxing Christmas and New Year's Eve. Again, we didn't go anywhere, and I think it makes a huge difference not having to spend 2 days traveling and worrying about traveling and making sure we see everyone. Although we still miss seeing everyone and getting all together, we're just so much more relaxed.

Christmas Eve, we went to our church's first-ever Christmas Eve service. It was really nice. Our neighbors came with us and it was a nice time to be surrounded by our Boston "family." Eden didn't nap that day but she was so good during the service - I had to take her out a couple of times (once in particular because she wanted to hold the lit candle all by herself - um, no thank you) but after a brief discussion about how that was not proper behavior she straightened up and we returned to the service. (Note we had a serious mother/daughter bonding moment prior to the service - I was putting hot rollers in my hair and she said "Mommy I want some too!" so I curled her hair for the first time ever - the whole process was adorable and made me just flash forward so much):


After the service we came home and - per our tradition - opened one present each. SURPRISE! Everyone got jammies! We changed into our new jammies, sang Happy Birthday to Jesus (which she's been singing over and over ever since) and Eden went to bed excited for Santa to come.


Christmas Day, we woke up to a tree full of presents which I, of course, failed to get a picture of. But here are some highlights:

Santa brought a table and chairs for Miss Eden (so excited because now there are places in her room for Mommy & Daddy to SIT other than the floor!):


Grandma and Grandpa sent her a ladybug "Pillow Pat" which she loves (and apparently it tastes good as well?):


Poor Nino, who didn't get anything under the tree this year (yeah, sorry kitty, you're slowly making your way further down the proverbial totem pole), got serious enjoyment from the boxes:


My highlight? Hiding in my stocking was a cute little silver and bronze clamshell necklace from Etsy with two tiny pearls inside. I can't find a picture and I'm too lazy to run upstairs and take one, but the bronze part on the back looks like a nest and so the two little pearls look like eggs. I love it so much. Santa did a great job!


We had a lot of fun opening our presents, then talking to Grandpa and Grandma by Skype, and then we just played for a few hours. We headed over to J&K's place after Eden's nap to hang out and have early Christmas dinner with them and her family. Loved it, as always. They are all some of our absolute favorite people in the world, and J&K are family to us. I can't imagine Boston without them! But I'm not going to right now. Moving on!

The huge snowstorm in the Northeast meant that my brother (who lives in NY) couldn't come up to visit as planned, since we were both basically snowed in, so we just had a very very low-key week after Christmas.

New Year's Eve showed us just how old and boring we are - but we loved it anyway! We were perfectly content to have dinner with some good friends of ours (who have 3 kids that Eden adores) and then head over to J&K's, put the kids to bed (nice trial run for Miss Eden, who will probably be staying over there in their spare room when Miss Leah is making her arrival) and then played 1/4 of a game of Cranium while watching the festivities at Times Square on TV (Hello? Backstreet Boys and NKOTB? It was a little weird for me, I must admit, and made me feel quite old...). Midnight came, kisses from my love and a champagne toast came (only a couple of sips for me, I promise), and then Bryan and John somehow ended up laying on the kitchen floor while we were all just talking,


and Bryan promptly passed out.


By 1:30 I was driving two sleepyheads back to our house, and by 2:00 everyone was asleep.

Boring, maybe to some, but to us it doesn't really get any better. We were extremely blessed in 2010, and look forward to 2011 bringing even more joy, including the arrival of our sweet little Leah! And just in case you didn't get it, here's our Christmas card photo (an appropriate way to wrap up, I think?):