The Birth Story

By far Ethan's birth has been the most relaxing birth I've had.  A big part of that is due to having a home birth.  Another part is that this is the first baby I've had during the night, so I slept through part of labor, which makes everything go so much faster.

Well Friday night was the same as every other night.  Luckily my midwife came over earlier that day and dropped off all of the birth stuff.  I didn't eat anything special or go running, even though I told Josh I was going to run if the baby didn't get here soon.  We stayed up late watching TV and headed to bed at 11.  I was having contractions, but I've been having them for 2 months.

I tried to sleep for a few hours but found myself waking up to have a contraction and then falling back asleep.  After this happened a few times I finally got up and got in the bath.  A couple more contractions later I knew I needed Josh to start timing them.  I called his name for a good 5 minutes, even though he was sleeping twenty feet away.  He very clumsily came into the bathroom and asked if I had been calling for him and told me it was 3am.  He timed my contractions for about twenty minutes and called my midwife.

When I first got into the tub I was having contractions about two minutes apart.  When Josh started timing them they had spread to roughly 5 minutes apart, then went back to three minutes apart.  While Josh talked to my midwife the actual contraction went from 30 to 60-90 seconds long.  My midwife had us time contractions for another ten minutes and call her back.  My contractions were now only two minutes apart.  When Josh called her back she could hear me in the background and knew I was in labor without a doubt.

Josh started blowing up the tub and I attempted to put my contacts back in.  I ended up sitting on the bathroom floor for a good half hour waiting for the tub to be blown up and filled with water.  Josh had me time my own contractions and they were a minute apart and at least a minute long.  At some point during this we had to sit down and decide what we were going to name this baby if it was a boy.  We had a girls name, but hadn't decided on a boys name.

My midwife showed up when the tub was almost full of water.  She checked me really fast and said I was already 8cm dilated.  I got in the tub and started to really want this baby out!  My midwife told me to try and break my water, which was a really cool, but weird experience.  I tried but could not break it, she tried and couldn't, so we ended up using a little hook that got it right out.

During the next few contractions I would take a breath and then push, and I repeated that throughout the whole contraction.  I had a lot of back pressure and knew I was almost done.  After about ten minutes of this there was a baby head out.  Josh describes this as the really weird part.  The baby head was out and he moved it around a little.  After thirty seconds my midwife told me baby had turned its body and I could push the rest out.  One little push and I had a baby.

At this point we still didn't know if we had a little girl or boy.  My midwife grabbed the baby and put it in my arms.  Baby had made a couple of small noises but wasn't breathing that great.  After five minutes and a few puffs of oxygen everything was just fine, and we found out we had a little boy!

The rest is what normally happens.  A placenta, cutting the cord, breastfeeding, both of us getting checked out, a shower, a diaper, and getting peed on.  You know you have a little boy when you get peed on.

Everything has been great so far!  We're doing okay with little sleep for now.  Poor Josh started his new job today and hasn't had much sleep.  We've worried a little bit about him (Ethan, not Josh) eating enough and pooping enough, but things are working themselves out almost perfectly.  If we're not functioning well for a few weeks you know why!  

Welcome to the world

Ethan was born this morning weighing 5 lbs 3 oz and 18.25" long!

Put me in Summer and I'll be a...happy snowman!

Okay, yes I'm totally quoting Frozen.  I'm still making sure Michael only watches it once every other day.  Since he saw it twice on Sunday he has to take a break from it until Thursday.  He normally watches it every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday.  You can imagine how frustrated he was this morning, luckily his days are a little confused since yesterday was a holiday, but tomorrow might be a nightmare.

So I've taken some ridiculously adorable pictures of my kids lately, but I haven't uploaded them.  I could right now, and leave you with some fun, cute posts, but the thought of getting up right now and moving away from my fan is killing me.

Like most of my neighbors, my AC is not currently working, and won't be until Friday.  You can imagine how joyful I am about this when it's over 90 degrees outside.  Seriously, I'm about ready to punch our contractor.  Mostly because there was enough coolant in the AC for it to work until Saturday.  Of course no one responds to anything that happens on a Saturday, or on a holiday weekend.  So now we have to wait until Friday.

Seriously though, put a 9 month pregnant me in summer and I'll be a puddle.  I never want to be pregnant in the summer again.  Josh once said we can't have all of our kids birthdays in the winter, imagine how expensive that would be with Christmas.  I just don't care anymore, I never want to be more than 5 months pregnant in May ever again.

I'll stop my rant now.

To cool off yesterday we took the kids to 7 peaks.  Michael loved the water slides just as much as he did last year.  Elli probably would have done better but the water in the kiddie area was freezing.  We ended up sitting in the wave pool for a good hour.  No complaints here!  Michael was asking to go to the pool today, so being the clever mom I am I filled up the tub with cold water and let them go to town.  I read out loud to them as they splashed each other and got all wrinkly.  It was so relaxing for all of us I think we'll do it again tomorrow.  Then probably the next day and the next.  At least until Friday when the AC works again!

Random Tidbits

So there are a lot of things going on in our lives that just don't seem like enough to write a whole post about.  Actually, I'm just being lazy.

Josh graduated last Friday!  Instead of walking we decided to go to Tucano's, and he loved it!  Then we went and saw the new Captain America.  People keep asking if he's sad he didn't walk, and I don't think he is.  Honestly, he just wanted to be done and not think about it.  On top of that he's been so busy lately with his senior project that he didn't have much time to think about ordering anything.  We're so glad he's done!

Instead of homework we spend our nights doing yard work.  We have a lot to do.  We're really annoyed at our builder right now because they did a horrible final grade on our yard and then they took down our stake, so we have no idea where our property line is.  We have to fill out warranty stuff to get them to come put a stake up....when they are building 4 houses down the street and are here every day.

We attempted potty training Michael again, but it didn't work.  He would hold it on the potty and then as soon as we put his underwear back on he would pee.  We bribed him with everything imaginable.  Including Grandpas truck, a trip to Lowe's, a candy cane, and his Easter candy.  All at once, and nothing worked.  After a few major meltdowns we decided maybe it isn't quite time.  He also seems to be scared of the potty, or at least he is now.

Elli is finally done teething for now, meaning she has been the happiest little thing ever!  We've missed her happy little self.  She has a doctors appointment this week, so we'll see if she's growing.  I weighed her on our scale a couple of weeks ago and she finally hit 20lbs, but now she's running everywhere and burning everything off.  We finally put her in 12-18 month clothes.  She's finally growing!  She's started saying more and more little words, like milk and Michael.

I'm 33 weeks pregnant!  All I can think is 4 more weeks and then I can go running and get this baby out.  I've had a lot of contractions lately.  Sunday night I had them consistently for a few hours.  I'm so excited to have another baby!  Or maybe I'm excited to not be pregnant anymore.  Either way, I'm happy we're getting there!  I have an appointment with my midwife on Friday, the last one at her clinic.  After that it's one home appointment and then I just wait for the baby.  Can you tell I'm getting excited?

4 years later...

This is very long, like most of my posts :P, so skip through if you want to.

A lot of my facebook friends that I went to high school with are all posting about graduating.  Some are married, most aren't, and none of the others that have a kid are graduating.  It's bittersweet for me.

I never pictured myself getting married young.  For one reason or another I always thought I'd get married when I was around 30.  Of course that dream of mine involved me going to Medical School so it made a lot more sense.

When I did get married at 18 I rethought my plan a little.  We would both go to school and graduate, then think about having kids.  I even researched the easiest years in Medical School and found that between first and second year was probably the easiest time (not that it would be easy in any way) to have a child.  Right before your first year you could be moving across the country, and I had to think about Josh getting a job.

Well, Josh and I both had a really strong impression we were meant to have a child.  In fact, it was more of a slap in the face.  So six months after being married we really discussed it and what it would mean for our plans for the future.

I should add a little about Josh here.  Josh knew exactly what I planned for my life when we got married.  He knew I wanted to wait five years to have a baby, and he was fine with that, especially since I would only be 23, and he would only be 27.  As far as me working though, we never saw eye-to-eye on this.  We both knew we wanted someone home with the kids, but didn't know how we would make that work.  He always wanted a large family, but knew that I never planned on one.  Somehow we both got married knowing we could possibly spend years and years fighting over this.

After a month or two of discussing the logistics, especially financially, we dived in.  It took a whole day for me to get pregnant.  When we did the math we knew this wasn't just a fluke, we were meant to have a baby.

Well we had Michael.  A mixture of postpartum and looking at our future plans again led us to having another baby.  Five months later we were pregnant again.  Elli was born and we examined our plans again.  At this point we still felt it was possible for me to be a doctor.  We saw that I could stay home with the kids until Josh was done with school then I could finish, just a few years behind schedule.

Months passed and we didn't look at our plans again.  In fact, we avoided that discussion completely.  One day I joked that we should just get off birth control for a month and see if we got pregnant.  If we did it was meant to be, if not we were done.  We both realized that we had been thinking the same thing, we weren't done, but we didn't know what to do.  Without thinking about future plans, we decided to have another baby.

When I got a positive pregnancy test Josh didn't know how to respond.  He was happy, but scared that I would be upset about our future plans not working out.  To his surprise I was very excited.

That positive sign has changed a lot for me.  I've given up my dream of being a doctor.  All of my future plans are gone.  Who knows when I'll go back to school.

When I see a new post related to graduation I'm not jealous anymore, I'm not sitting around thinking about when it will be my turn.  Lately every graduation post has made me happy that I'm a mom.  I could have put off having kids, but what would I have gained?  Eventually I'll get a degree, so I don't really see that counting against me.  I could have maybe gone to Europe.  I'd probably own nice clothes and a new car.  I possibly could have been the same size I was in High School.  But what would I have lost?

I would lose Michael running into my room every morning with a wet kiss and telling me to wake up.  I would lose Elli's cute giggles every time she pulls a sock out of a drawer.  I would lose feeling this third baby move around every time Michael and Elli attempt to sing 3 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed.  I'd lose Michael telling me every letter he recognizes on every sign.  I'd lose laughing every night at the crazy position Elli decides to sleep in.  I'd lose a million little things that mean a lot more to me than any future plans.

So four year later I can honestly say I'm glad I'm not graduating.  I'm glad we chose the path we did.  What would I do without these cute kids?

Bunk bed builder

With baby #3 on the way there are very few things we need.  When Elli turned one we bought another forward facing car seat, so that is taken care of.  The only thing we had left was a bed for the baby to sleep in.  Well, we needed to get a bed for Michael so we could bump everyone up a bed.  We decided to go the bunk bed route because we figure with three kids two of them will share a room.  For a while we've been looking at bunk beds and trying to decide what we wanted to do.  We finally decided to go with an IKEA bunk bed that was unpainted/unstained wood.  We then stained it a very light grey color.  Last Sunday we finally put it together, and Michael enjoyed helping

He kept putting the long screws into random holes and using his toy hammer to hammer the bed.  He also has a toy drill he kept trying to use.  Needless to say whenever we needed another screw we played a game of I-Spy.  

We bought a dresser and nightstand that we still need to stain and put together, so when the room is done I'll post a picture of that.  Last week we had some friends staying with us and we gave up staining anything.  This week Josh has to finish up his senior project so I doubt we'll do any work on it unless I decide to tackle that as part of my nesting (which started a few days ago).  

The only downfall about the bed is that it doesn't seperate.  We can make it work because we'll always have two kids of the same gender, but it would be nice to seperate them if we needed too.  We were able to put it up without the rungs on the ladder so Michael can't climb up anything.  Even though it doesn't come apart, you can't beat spending less than $500 on a bunk bed, dresser, nightstand, and mattress!

First, last, third trimester running

Does that make any sense?  And no, still no pictures, I'm lame.

Yesterday I hit my third trimester.  To celebrate I sent for a run.  I went about a half mile and realized that this was my last run.  I walked home slowly feeling a mix of emotions.

Yay! for running until my third trimester!  Especially when I took a month and a half off in-between the first and second trimester when I couldn't keep anything down.  At the time being I didn't think it wise to keep exercising when I was losing weight anyways.

Boo! for not making it closer to the end of this pregnancy.  While I'm becoming physically exhausted, I mentally needed to run.  Pregnancy makes me get cabin fever being trapped inside my own body.  Especially when I lose the ability to bend over.  I've already lost the ability to see my feet.  So running will be very missed.

Only 128 days until I can run again!  Okay, trying to make that sound like a happy thing is even more depressing than just being upset about it.

Michael's Baby

Last month at my appointment with my midwife she measured my stomach.  Michael looked at the measuring tape in wonder.  So much so that my midwife gave Michael a measuring tape of his own (which surprisingly just broke a couple of days ago, I've been waiting for that thing to get broken for weeks now)  Michael instantly started measuring his belly.

At this point Michael made a mental connection, he must be having a baby too.

Ever since then he has been showing us his baby.  He lifts up his shirt when we ask where his baby is.  When I had my ultrasound he lifted up his shirt the whole time waiting for his baby to be looked at.  It's all cute and funny.

The only problem is I can't get him to show his baby for a picture.  This is me trying to force him to do it.  He wasn't very happy afterwards.  

Until he broke that measuring tape he would pull it out and measure my stomach, then he would put it against his stomach.  Every day I would say "your baby is 4 inches!"  He would smile, giggle, and run away with his measuring tape.  Then I'd find him trying to measure Elli's head, legs, arms, stomach, butt, you name it.  Elli wasn't fond of it, and I don't blame her.  I wonder if he will have a very rude awakening in a few months when I have a baby and he doesn't.

20 week ultrasound

Just like everything else this pregnancy the 20 week ultrasound happened when I was 23 weeks.  I'm starting to wonder if this is a sign that I will be a week or more late.

The baby looks great!  The only thing that could eventually become a problems is that this baby likes to chew on it's toes, so it constantly has it's feet up by it's head and not folded underneath it.  It also likes to sit like a football in me.  Surprisingly I don't look bigger from the back.  We got some good pictures even though the baby was moving like crazy and kicking every second it could.

It's hard to see but the baby is going for it's toes 

This was during a kick, usually the feet are closer to the mouth

This baby looks just like my others.  I think I should scan in Michael's and Elli's and do comparison shots

We didn't find out what the baby was.  Even though I avoided looking when something could have been seen, Josh looked the whole time.  Thankfully the only angles we happened to see make it impossible to tell the difference between a boy and the umbilical cord.  So I'm now convinced this baby is a girl, while Josh is now leaning towards a boy.  4 more months until we know!

Half-way there!

I feel for this poor elephant.  Roughly half-way through it's pregnancy it is trying to be optimistic, but we all know that's a lie.  In reality this elephant is screaming GET THIS THING OUTTA ME!  Just like the rest of us are when we are half-way there.

Wednesday marked 21 weeks for me.  I'm so on top of things this pregnancy aren't I? :P

Overall things have been going well.  I'm not sick anymore, the baby decided it only needed to lay on my kidney for one day, and I'm still sleeping well.  

There has been only one problem this pregnancy, what do we call the baby?  We find ourselves referring to he or she, even though we have no idea what it is.  Of course I call it he, and Josh calls it she.  Calling it "baby" really bugs Josh.  I've been trying to come up with nicknames but haven't found anything I like.  

Since we aren't finding out the gender I haven't bought a cute baby book.  I figured this blog was as good as place as any to record some of the most often asked questions in baby books.  One day I want this 3rd child to think it wasn't completely forgotten. 

Cravings:  tamales, and really only tamales, but I don't care if I don't have them

Aversions:  hamburgers

Weight gain:  Me-8 lbs  Josh-2 lbs

Sleeping:  I can never get enough

Maternity clothes:  Half the time.  I need maternity pants, but I can still wear about half of my non-maternity shirts.  I wear my maxi's just fine, although I got them a little big.

Exercise:  I was doing well until the baby laid on my kidney last week.  Since then I took it easy, and have since been too busy to do much.  Running still happens even though it is really just jogging.  Josh laughs at me when I do pilates or yoga because my belly is so big.

Movement:  The baby kicks and punches a lot.  Josh finally felt it last night for the first time.  For the third time I have an anterior placenta.  

Hormones:  I should let Josh answer this.  He knows when it's coming and he just looks at me with these big eyes as if to say "okay, you can stop having your tantrum now".  The thing is I know when hormones are taking over too, sometimes I just choose to ignore it and be hormonal anyways.  

Health:  Overall I'm doing great.  My blood pressure is still around 95/60.  I partially get out of the glucose test.  Instead of taking the drink I just have to eat a meal 2 hours before and have my blood drawn.

Belly button:  Still exists.  I don't get an outie,  it just disappears completely.  For now the bottom of it still exists, the top doesn't anymore.  

Stretch marks:  I can't tell what baby has done what at this point.  I don't think any new ones have developed, but we'll wait two more months and see

Best thing about this pregnancy:  Feeling like I'm not pregnant.  Instead of letting pregnancy hold me back I'm finally comfortable enough with pregnancy to do whatever I want to do.

Worst thing about this pregnancy:  Carrying two other kids around.  It's not always bad, but every once in a while I have Elli on one hip and Michael on the other while trying to push a grocery cart with my stomach.  It's just a pathetic sight.

I can't think of any other questions that might be in the baby book, but let me know if I missed any!

16 weeks and counting...

Wednesday I was officially 16 weeks pregnant.  I keep wondering where the time went, then I remember a good chunk of it was spent in the fetal position on the bathroom floor.  If this is the worst pregnancy maybe it will be the quickest delivery??  With my track record I'm going to shoot for 4 hours of labor and one push.

Thursday I had an appointment with my midwife and everything looked great.  I'm still losing weight, I'm down a pound from a month ago, but it's no longer a dramatic loss.  Absolutely no sugar in my urine (which is always a plus because no way am I going to starve myself and take a gross sugary drink if I don't have to!) and my blood pressure was 96/60, lower then it has been through my other pregnancies.

I'm left to wonder, what is so different about this pregnancy?  Is it because I have two kids to chase around already?  Is it because I was running and working out a decent amount before getting pregnant?  Maybe my vow to never weigh more than 160 ever again is really working?  The whole thing baffles me.

Josh still thinks the baby is a girl, I still think it's a boy.  I found a place to do my 20 week ultrasound and will schedule an appointment soon, but I still don't want to find out.  Josh does.  I keep telling him that not knowing may be exactly what I need to get through labor if it isn't as quick and easy as past ones. We'll see what happens in a few weeks.

For now everything is going well.  Michael understands there is a baby in my tummy and he gives it hugs and kisses a lot.  Elli seems to understand that when I refer to "the baby" I don't mean her anymore.  She used to look at me and get excited when I would ask Michael where the baby was, like we were going to play peek-a-boo, but she's stopped doing that.  Hopefully they like this baby as much as they like each other.

Baby, oh baby

I'm sure most of you already know this, but we are expecting baby #3!  I wanted to announce it in some cute way...but let's face it, I still haven't uploaded the pictures from Michael's birthday a month ago, so there is no hope for me to do it in some cute way.  I'm just too exhausted.

Anyways...I've gotten a lot of questions about this pregnancy and about other things in our life that I thought I'd address (now I can just refer people to the blog instead of answering the same questions!).

• When am I due?  I do not have a due date yet.  I will find out next Monday.  Some time at the very end of June, maybe beginning of July.
• Am I having twins?  Okay, I ask this, no one else does.  I'm huge.  Yes, huge!!!  I look like I'm 20 weeks pregnant instead of the ~10 weeks I am.  I can also feel my uterus...it's slightly above my belly button, which is quite big.  So no, I will just assume no twins.  I'm just huge. 
• How much have I gained?  To go along with being huge.  I've gained 4 pounds this far.  Not much, and most of that is probably because of 1) the holidays 2) I'm working less 3) I don't go to the gym much anymore because I'm too busy sleeping.  
• Where are we having this baby?  At home.  I've found a midwife who works with my insurance and I'm seeing her.  We're planning a home water-birth in a blow-up tub.  Josh wasn't exactly on board with it at first.  He wanted us to try a midwife, but didn't know about having it at home.  He's decided that I get to win this battle (smart man) as long as I promise to not get anything on the carpet.  
• Was this baby planned?  Yes, and no.  To me trying for a baby involves counting days and maybe taking temperatures.  I didn't have any day to go off of.  But we weren't preventing.  I was almost finished breastfeeding and was about to get on birth control when I decided to take a pregnancy test just in case.  I was surprised when it came back positive, but not shocked.
• How can we afford this baby?  You'd be surprised how often I get asked this question.  It might be mostly because all of our kids are close together.  Maybe because Josh is still in school?  No idea, but I'll enlighten you a little.  First off, we are building a house and paying the down payment right now, but our apartment is fairly cheap.  Second, we no longer have a car payment (even though we might need a new car sooner than later thanks to a little accident last night).  Third, we haven't had a vacation in almost 3 years.  Where do you go with babies??  When we first found out I was pregnant with Michael Josh found a full-time job with insurance.  He's worked full-time ever since.  His job pays well right now, even though he doesn't have a degree yet.  It helps that he chose engineering.  I've been working a little bit to get some bills paid off and have some extra spending money.  We are also going with a midwife for a reason.  Our deductable is very, very high, and a midwife is very, very cheap.  
• Can we take care of another baby?  Well we seem to do fine now with 2.  I manage when Josh is at work and class.  He manages when I'm working.  We are used to being outnumbered.  Sure, it will take adjusting, it always does, but we will figure it out.
• Is Josh living up to his new nickname, Josh Duggar?  No.  I'm thinking 3 is my number.  Josh is thinking 4.  I told him if I do have twins then we are officially done.  We both love babies, but I get very sick and unable to function.  
• Girl or boy?  I'm leaning towards boy, Josh towards girl.  Either way, we are not finding out.  I want a surprise this time.  Plus, we already have everything for either one so why bother?