Pregnancy

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Birth Story Part II - Active Labor/Birth

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Despite willing it to be true, I didn’t have a baby by morning. Both E & G were born on a Sunday at 2am, but this baby decided to be different. I also didn’t get a ton of sleep either. I wasn’t feeling painful contractions, but lying down was uncomfortable. Unless I was sitting up or walking around, I’d get a little crampy, just enough that I couldn’t fall asleep. I think I managed to sleep from 11:30 - 1 am and again from 3:45 - 4:30 am when contractions slowed down a bit. Because they slowed down, I got a second dose of medication at that time.

I was feeling a bit frustrated and impatient (as was everyone who knew I was at the hospital waiting for updates!) but I managed to eat a granola bar and some apple juice and started to get my mind around the fact I might be here for a while.

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Birth Story Part I - Early Labor

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I was rereading G’s birth story, and laughed that I said the labor went too fast. I guess I had it coming then. Third babies have a reputation for being tricky. First babies take a while, second babies are quick, and third babies do what they want. They’ve got extra room and can flip all over, and apparently are in no rush to be born. This one wasn’t, anyway. Just absolutely did not want to be born. Usually leading up to your due date there will be some sign that labor is approaching, but not with this one. Usually at some point during labor the nurses will let you know that the baby isn’t happy and we either need to move positions or work towards a quicker delivery. Not this one - every time they checked her she was perfectly happy.

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Not Quite Perfect Storm

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We had a rare hurricane headed our way recently, which caused a small bit of worry. Hurricanes aren’t a normal thing around here, and we mostly just worry about flooding and power outages (neither of which are really a problem at our house fortunately), but with the added stress of being pregnant, we worried slightly more. Or got excited - there was a bit of joking that the hurricane might send me into labor. Not that it would have been ideal, but when you get towards the end any thought of it being over can be exciting.

It didn’t happen though, and mostly the hurricane was nothing. Hardly any rain and it wasn’t really windy except for ONE single gust that caused some damage to our patio.

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Belly Art

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A few years and pregnancies ago, a friend gifted me a copy of The Belly Art Project book - signed and personalized, no less! It’s full of super cool pictures of women with their pregnant bellies painted with all sorts of creative ideas. It’s super cute, and something I always wanted to do, but a few things were holding me back.

First, I wasn’t sure who would do it. Could I paint my own belly? Talk a friend into it? And then if I did, I wasn’t sure what I should paint. So many of the ones in the book are either super personalized or very clever, and I was having a hard time coming up with something that wouldn’t be completely random.

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The End is (Not so) Near

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So the good news is that I’m recovered from my cold and feeling much better. Iron has kicked in, so I’m not living in a fog anymore either. The bad news is that I’m just done. I never understood needing to go on maternity leave early, but I think I might need to this time. I’m big and slow, yes, but mentally I’m just at the end of what I’m able to do. My feet have also reached that point - I can’t stand for very long before they start hurting either.

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Vacation Week

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So our lovely daycare decided to close for a week, with not a ton of notice, which meant there weren’t a lot of options for us. All vacation homes within a few hour drive were booked or too expensive or missing something essential. So instead of meeting my parents at the beach somewhere, we decided to just head to Vermont. Honestly the kids probably enjoy Vermont better than the beach anyway. There are tractors and land to run around on, and they can eat all my dad’s peas from his garden.

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Let's Do an Update

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So here’s what I’ve learned about iron infusions (which I’m still in the middle of - not done yet!). They’re amazing and have given me a lot of energy back. I can actually stay awake for most of the day now, which I couldn’t say before them. They’re also super weird, and do things like make my limbs heavy and feel odd as the iron flows through my body - and yes you can feel it. My arm was getting uncomfortably heavy and feeling a lot of pressure when the nurse was inserting the iron one day, and she flushed the IV with saline and I could feel the iron leaving my arm.

The iron also sucks all the water from your body, dehydrating you like crazy. (Which is also what the baby is doing). Knowing this, I drank about 60oz of water before my appointment, and still needed to drink another 60oz after until I finally felt hydrated again. It’s a lot of water.

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Sugar Sugar

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Anyone who’s been around for my previous pregnancies knows my history with the glucose tests - as in I’ve never passed the 1 hour test and have had to take the 3 hour test each pregnancy (which I passed for both E and G!)

So this time I talked to one of the doctors about my history and whether jumping to the 3 hour test would make sense. She agreed, and so it was scheduled during a time I needed labs drawn anyway. So that’s how I found myself enjoying my day off in the lab of the local hospital.

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Pregnancy is so Fun

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How about a random pregnancy facts and symptoms post?

We all know the fun fact that blood volumes increases in pregnancy, right? Up to 50% more than a woman usually has in her body, which can lead to some weird symptoms. Like pulsatile tinnitus. The current bane of my existence. All day long, instead of hearing co-workers, my children, or the TV, I hear “Woosh woosh woosh woosh.” And if I dare bend over, walk up the stairs or do, well, anything.. it gets louder and appears in both ears instead of just one.

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Oh Right, I'm Pregnant

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Second trimester - the small window of time where I can go moments or hours where I feel normal and forget I’m pregnant. Which I realize sounds crazy because there’s also some baby doing cannonballs in my belly, but it’s easy to be distracted when you’re chasing a 2 and 3 year old around.

Sure there are symptoms - pains here and there, I’m bigger and slower and quickly out of breath. Heartburn is returning, it’s harder to eat big meals - all things I’ve dealt with before. Maybe that’s why I can still feel “normal.” Although the tinnitus is new, and one symptom I definitely would be okay with going away…

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St. Patrick's Day

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Someone clued E in that leprechauns are supposed to hide treats or something all over the house on St. Patrick’s day, so he ran around looking and was quite disappointed to learn that his parents had no clue, because I’m pretty sure that wasn’t a thing when we were growing up.

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Pregnant in a Pandemic

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Time seems to be moving quickly so far, which I think is a good thing. I’m starting to pull out maternity clothes (not so much a bump yet, but definitely bigger), and trying to wean down on how much nausea medication I’m taking daily.

E & G have started to talk daily about the new baby, which is interesting to watch. We never sat them down to say that a baby is coming or that things will change, we just sort of keep it as part of the conversation. When E is passing out things (something he manages to do almost daily), he often will name family members. “This one is for Mama, this one is for me, this one is for G…” and he’ll often name one for Maia, our kitty who died almost a year ago. So it’s not that weird to suddenly be naming one for “baby.” A sort of hypothetical entity that can be named.

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Pandemic Life

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It’s an old joke at this point in the pandemic, but it’s definitely groundhog day over here. It’s hard to write about anything new, because there’s really nothing new. As our risks increase and the virus has gotten more contagious, we’re leaving the house even less than before. We’re now ordering groceries online and having them delivered to the house, we haven’t seen anyone in months, and while we might have braved a trip to Target occasionally before (okay I’ve gone twice in this pandemic), we’re no longer doing that.

And while I’m cheering everyone I see get the vaccine, since they’re little bits of hope to hold on to, it’s hard too. We know it’s going to be months and months before we’re offered it, and it’s not easy to watch others move on with their life and get to see people and do things that we can’t. And won’t be able to do.

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Again With the Snow

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Snow, snow, so much snow.

The most in the state, to be exact. I’m not sure how that happened. We were right on the edge of predictions of “a lot” and “not a lot” of snow, and we ended up with 5” more than the upper limit of predictions. Towns next to us got half as much as we did. Apparently we live in a snow pocket. A wonderful place to be when you have a broken snow blower, and a driveway that a plow truck can’t clear.

Is This Your First or Second?

I think we surprised a few people with our decision to have more than two kids (although I think those who know us the best saw it coming), because I’m definitely realizing that most people expect you to stop at one or two. Two is normal, one is understood, but and more than that and you start getting questions and looks.

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We Have Kittens!

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Oh hey, a lot’s happened this week. Let me try and catch you up.

You may remember we had a pregnant cat. A pregnant cat who was overdue, according to my calculations. It was getting to the point that it was almost comical. I was posting daily updates to let everyone know she was still pregnant, because I would get so many messages every morning asking. At work, too. I have a co-worker who got some chickens at the beginning of quarantine as her project, but they hadn’t laid any eggs yet. So every time we’d have a team meeting, our boss would ask: “Are there any kittens? Are there any eggs?” Always no.

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Birth Story Part I - Leading up to Labor

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I’m having a hard time putting into words G’s birth story, partly because I’m still not sure how I feel about it. It seems like it went by almost too quickly? Is that possible in labor? After 9 months of building up to it, it was over so fast, and looking back, I feel like I could have done it so much better! It’s almost like I want a second chance to see if I could have… I’m not even sure. Enjoyed it more? Savored each contraction? It’s really an odd feeling.