My Stroller Obsession (or how my husband is awesome!)

Strollers are big in our little world.

I don't go anywhere in the car with the kids by myself.  The possibility of Mae eloping while I'm trying to get Patrick into his car seat, at least while Patrick is too little to stay put himself, is too great.

As a result, when there isn't a foot of snow on the ground, we walk a lot.  During the last year it wasn't unusual for us to walk three miles one direction and then three miles home to go to a place we wanted to visit.  We went on these same walks throughout my pregnancy with Patch (at least when I wasn't on at-home-bed-rest for that month) and I'm hoping to pick them up again as soon as the snow melts and the temperature decides to rise above freezing.

It's good for the kids to get out of the house and they even take turns walking.  I'll bring the monkey leash for Mae and a carrier for Patrick when he needs a change in location (or a nap) and Sadie would usually walk three or four miles before becoming so tired she'd perch by her sister's feet while Mae would try to dislodge her every chance she got.

Maggie was not impressed
with the sit and stand.

But with two toddlers who will definitely need a place to ride for long walks, and another on the way, I began to dream of a new stroller.  As the dream (and online dream shopping) went on I imagined a quad stroller, where a tired Sadie could join her siblings instead of complaining that she was exhausted for the final mile of the walk, stretching out the last steps with sighs and claims that she can't go another step.

Yet the market for quad strollers is somewhat lacking.  Most of the strollers have itty bitty wheels and weigh a little over 60 lbs.  While I can imagine a 60 lb stroller with great big wheels (tires) it was hard to imagine how the little plastic ones would hold up, especially in our pot holed city where many of the sidewalks (like the one we live on) have roots pushing up through the pavement that I was somewhat skeptical those wheels could overcome.  Plus, I'd be adding at least 110 lbs of kid to the mix (adding up their combined weights from their last doctors appointments).  That's 170 lbs of kid and stroller.

I needed tires.

And then someone on the blog Facebook page suggested the Runabout (thank you, thank you, thank you!) and provided a link to a review.

This one tried to tip over
if the ground wasn't
perfectly level (side to side).

I'd seen them before in stroller search results, but I didn't usually pause to look at them more closely.  They aren't cute.  They aren't pretty.  They're about as practical and utilitarian looking as a stroller can be.

Then I read the review.  The stroller was ten years old, held 4 kids, was easy to push and could turn with one hand.

I had to have it.

For about ten seconds.  Then reality sunk in. I knew that I'd raised my eyebrows over the cost of those strollers in the past when I'd breezed past them on Amazon and they are not cheap.  They are most definitely not in price range, or even in my dream-maybe-I-can-convince-Paul-if-we-sell-our-double-BOB-on-facebook price range.

Today we walked and walked and walked around a local mall after Mass but before the stores opened, to keep the kids from going stir crazy.  They enjoyed the malls stroller cars and as we walked back out to our car I suggested to Paul that we drive by the local second hand baby shop.  I remembered they'd had a big not-cute stroller and I knew that it hadn't been twelve hundred plus dollars.

I popped out, raced up to the window and stared.  There it was.  A three seat Runabout.

Of course the single BOB was a favorite...

We could do three seat, I quickly justified the idea to myself.  The baby will be in a carrier for month anyway.  And we'd use it this summer.  And by the time the baby is riding in it Sadie will be able to walk even further and Mae will probably be wanting to walk even more too.  They can take turns!  And the baby will obviously be in the carrier a lot for the entire first year!

My plan was perfect.  I returned to the car and told Paul that I needed the stroller.  I could not live without it.  It would be a literal "push" present.

He saw the crazy look in my eyes and told me to stay in the car while he went in and bought it, but told me we wouldn't be hauling it home today with all the kids and that he'd come back later in the week to pick it up.  I hemmed and hawed over going in and finally sank back in the seat to wait for him to return.

He was gone for a long, long time.  Much longer than it takes to purchase a stroller in a not all that busy shop.  I waited.  And waited. What was going on?  Had he gotten lost in there.

And it'll be nice only packing
along one stroller for outings!

A while later he returned and proudly handed me the receipt.  "You got it!"  I said with relief.

"Do you see the price?"  He asked.  I had.  It was a fraction of the price that it retails at.  It was $100 less than the original second hand list price in the window.

"You negotiated?"  He answered happily that he had.  Negotiations has to be one of the most valuable classes that he's taken in law school (at least from the point of view of his wife). "That's why you didn't want me to come in? Because you knew I'd be like 'my dream stroller' and ruin your plans?"

And that is how the perfect stroller at the perfect price become our new mode of getting around town when the snow finally melts this spring.  I can hardly wait now!  The babies will be stir crazy no more!

Can I Survive Being a Mom to More than One?

Still a year away from sleeping through the night...

I've heard a lot of people say that having three kids is the absolute hardest number and that it gets easier from there.  I've heard it from everyone from the mechanic that fixed our car when I was pregnant with Sadie to quite a few bloggers, so a lot of people do seem to experience three as the most difficult number to juggle.

But for me the magic number that had me completely and utterly overwhelmed was 1.  Nothing has ever come close to that life jarring switch from zero to one.

I remember those first eighteen months (yes, eighteen!) through a blurry haze of exhaustion.  I stumbled through them hardly sleeping, wondering how on earth I would ever have more than one because really?  Really?  Was I just expected not to sleep for more than sixty minutes for the next couple decades of my life?  Was this just how it was?

No sleep... for a long, long time.

In hindsight there are many, many things I would do differently.  I thought that babies were fussy and spit up a lot and my doctor agreed and seemed to think that never sleeping was perfectly normal.  I guess our doctor now thinks the same thing, since they're always shocked when I refer to Patrick as an easy baby because babies aren't easy.  Ever.  At least that's what I heard at those early appointments with him.

But the truth is that Sadie is the baby that I measure all other baby difficulties from and no one has come close to matching her in terms of sleepless discomfort.  When she was a month old she nursed for seven consecutive hours, screaming in rage every time I tried to put her down.  She was still waking every hour to nurse at eighteen months old.  By then we were co-sleeping so I was finally getting some rest, but still... it was exhausting.

Having had Maggie and Patrick and seen babies with reflux and allergies I can say that I'm fairly certain that Sadie had both and that that was the reason for those first long months.  Since removing dairy from our lives and seeing changes in the girls, I'm actually pretty sure that both our girls have the same allergy as their brother, and that it's just better for milk to stay outside the door of our house.  But I was a first time mom who'd never even changed a diaper before and I didn't know enough to know that the fussiness was more than an average baby's would be.

Save me, Mom!
She's making me dance!

And that is one thing that does come with experience.  I trust my instincts much more these days.  I know when somethings wrong.  When I pushed for Patrick's allergy testing everyone from nurses to doctors repeatedly said: "So this is your first?" after I'd tell them his symptoms.  What does that have to do with him breaking out in hives and throwing up and crying for hours I would think to myself.  The question was asked in a skeptical sort of way that dismissed the possibility of anything being wrong.  "He's actually my third." I'd say and they'd look surprised, because the statement seemed to be an attempt to dismiss my worries as anything other than first baby jitters.

Even with my assertions that something was wrong, it took two doctor's appointments talking about allergies to get referred for testing and the referral was given with a comment about how "we don't even really know if the proteins that he'd be allergic to can be passed through our milk.  A lot of doctors believe they can't."

Well, I would think to myself, since I've seen him break out in hives every time he nurses, I'd like to say that reality has shown me that it can.  Interestingly enough, through the use of my senses (and common sense) I've deduced that I don't need a double blind study to tell me that it's possible.  I've seen it happen.  You don't have to believe me, but please give me that referral slip, so I can talk to someone who specializes in this (and by the way, the allergist didn't seem at all skeptical that it could happen because he frequently sees babies who do have allergies).  Please.

Although I can't guarantee that
your easiest baby won't grow up
to be your wildest toddler...

As a result of those tests, and the steps we've taken to eliminate allergens, Patrick is as laid back as Maggie was (my baby that had me panicked because she was such a good sleeper at three days old).  Any exposure to milk and the nightmare that were the sleepless nights of 2008-2010 return with a vengeance.

And while I certainly have my hands full with three, in a literal sort of way (I don't have enough hands to hold on to everyone as we make our way through the parking lot!), it doesn't even vaguely compare to those first months (all eighteen of them...).  It's not unusual in the house for everyone to sleep through the night.  And I didn't even have to wait decades for it to happen.

Recently I read a post by a mom with one who was struggling with sleepless nights and wondering how she'd ever do it.  I read the words and saw my own experience in them (right down to allergies that she was certain of that her doctor didn't believe) and wanted to hug her.  It does get easier, I wrote. Trust your gut.  Find a doctor that will run those tests.  Because if it is allergies, identifying them can truly be life changing.

And if you're like me, one just might be the hardest number to survive.  Barely surviving that first baby doesn't mean it will be as impossibly hard with each subsequent one.  It actually can get easier.  And you'll know what you're doing.  While I can't peer into the future (although I do imagine there are plenty of sleepless nights out there waiting for me to catch up to them) I can be sure of one thing... I'm far more prepared to trust that little nagging voice that tells me when something isn't quite right, and to advocate for answers rather than blindly accepting answers from someone who's likely tired and busy and who doesn't actually know my child and won't likely see what I'm seeing after spending five minutes with him.

So hang in there.  I know it doesn't feel like it sometimes, but those sleepless nights will come to an end and it really will be worth it.  

The Baby Comments

I read a very good post yesterday that I saw on many friend's pages, fluttering around the internet, about an expecting mom and the negative comments she's gotten about her first pregnancy.  It begins by talking about how 9 out of 10 people who approach the happily pregnant mom have something negative to say.  As I read the post by Courtney, at Women Living Well, I found myself reflecting on my experience over the course of my four pregnancies, both the experiences while pregnant and while braving the supermarket and streets with little ones in tow.

To be honest, I don't remember getting negative comments when I was expecting Sadie.  Sure I was ready to be done hearing "you're about to pop!" when I was around six months along, but it was just before the recession and the economy was still booming along on those creaky, about to collapse sub-prime mortgages, so the tone of society in general seemed a bit more optimistic back then.  Besides, I was living in a place where 26 wasn't young to be pregnant, although when we visited the city to do some shopping before Christmas, I realized that I basically looked like a teenager when my age was compared with the average ages of the stylish pregnant women I ran into at the stores.

The really odious comments started when I was pregnant with Christian.  We had passed the socially acceptable "two child" mark.  Three was apparently distasteful.  I was asked if my husband would get snipped in the grocery line by someone I'd never spoken to before.  People wished me luck on having that boy so that we could "finally" stop "trying."  They inquired as to whether we would "try again" if this was another little girl.

There were people that said:  "Oh I'm so sorry!" when they heard the news delivered in an obviously over joyed tone.

When we lost Christian in the second trimester all those comments continued to ring bitterly in my ears. They, along with the ever so common "well it was probably for the best... there was probably something wrong with the baby..." comments seemed to swirl around in my thoughts at random times, mixed in with the sadness and sickness of those days, which were already difficult to bear.

And yet lately I've found my reaction changing in a way that surprises me at times.

It began near the end of my pregnancy with Patrick.  It was after I'd spent those four days at the end of my pregnancy at the hospital, and so Nani was out visiting and for the first time in over a year I found myself out occasionally by myself or with Paul, unaccompanied by the princesses while we ran quick errands.

This time I did experience the negativity apparently directed at first time moms.  People would gleefully tell me in the check out line about the horrors of baby-hood that I was about to experience.  I would find myself smiling though as they spoke of the long sleepless months ahead, until they'd say: "this is you first, isn't it?" and I would say those shocking words: "Oh no, I have two at home who are two and four" which to me didn't seem all that mind blowing at all, but which, from the reactions I received, apparently was (sometimes I'd throw in "yup, my hands are full!" just for good measure).  "We've been lucky though."  I'd say.  "Our girls go in their rooms at bedtime and sleep all night.  I used to have to wake up our second to eat when she was a newborn.  But who knows if this one will be a good sleeper or not.  We'll have to wait and see."

This response seemed to shock and astound.  It was followed by silence.  I was supposed to be horrified and dreading sleepless nights.  Often times people even seemed a little disappointed.

When I went into the doctors office for Patrick's appointments once he arrived, I found myself greeted with disbelief.  "Having a new baby is hard."  They would tell me.  "Oh he's an easy baby."  I would say and eyes would widen in disbelief.  "He sleeps and eats and hardly ever cries.  He's just as snuggly as can be."  No one really seemed to believe me.  "My first was hard."  I would assure them.  They'd look at me as if watching for signs that I was about to crack and burst into tears.

I've wondered myself if Patrick and Mae's baby-hood was easy because they were easy babies or because I was a much more relaxed as a mother.  I have no idea what the answer is (Sadie had reflux... and reflux was not easy... although it would have been much easier I imagine if we'd figured out what it was much earlier...).  Sometimes I imagine it's a little of both.

For me at least, there's been a learning curve to motherhood.  Putting someone else first all the time wasn't an easy adjustment.  I'd never changed a diaper before I had Sadie.  I hadn't held a baby for more than a minute or so.  I'd read a lot of books but that was pretty much it.  If the doctor had said "having a baby is hard" when Sadie was six months old I would have nodded with sleep blurred eyes in agreement as if it were the set in stone truth for every single baby.

Sometimes I feel like having a toddler puts it in perspective.  Mae is a mischievous whirlwind of wonderfulness.  Making sure she survives the day and doesn't free climb the mantle to base jump off of it, is my challenge.  Patrick?  He's can't crawl yet.  He stays where I put him.  Every time I look at him he smiles at me like I'm  the greatest mom ever.  He's a piece of cake.

Maybe someday we will be blessed with another baby who needs to nurse every hour, never sleeps, and screams like a banshee with colic for no apparent reason.  It happens.  We lived through it once and it was so incredibly worth it for our beautiful laughing girl.  However I would be much more proactive since I now know that isn't just "how all babies are" at trying to find out why our little one is so uncomfortable.  After all, Patrick is that baby if I have anything dairy.

As for the comments?  They're trickling off.  In part because I'm not pregnant and maybe in part because Mae Bae has a sort of feral look to her, with her perpetually disheveled hair and wild laughing eyes, and so people give us a wide berth even when she's quiet and still.

And to all you mom's enduring those comments in the supermarket check out line or at the bank tellers window at the bank... hang in there.  Whatever the world tells you I can promise you this:  It's worth it. It's so, so worth it.  It isn't what the world calls "easy."  But most things worth having aren't.

Our Big Boy

When I married Paul I apparently signed up for having babies that are just way to big for my frame.  Since he was a seven pounder and I was a seven pounder I initially had hope... but he's a twin.  And after Sadie I began to suspect that seven pound babies just weren't in the cards for us.  Case in point:

That would be my insta-pregnant bump at like 4 1/2 weeks along... which is why we just gave up and told everyone about Patrick right away.  Because there was just no keeping that secret for 12 weeks.  Or even 6 weeks.

Of course that insta-bump turns into a beach ball bump very quickly:

This would be the smallest of the babies... feeling not so small.

And the reason this was on my mind tonight while I was pinning snoods, was because I thought that Patrick was so teeny tiny compared to his sisters.  I mean, I know he's growing fast, because I'm struggling to wrestle him into his 9 month sleepers, but still he seems so teeny...

I went back and looked at pictures of Mae, in her rolly polly cuddliness and my assessment of Patrick as small was confirmed:

Mae in her rolly polly wonderfulness

So... he looks little to me!

When I was too tired to sew any longer I decided to lean back and search the blog for baby weights to see how much smaller he was.

The first weights are the ones I know by heart.  Sadie was 9 lbs 4 oz when she was born.  Mae was 9 lbs 1.3 oz.  Patrick was 8 lbs 12.6 oz.  And they were 22, 21 and 22 inches respectively.  So each one's been smaller (at least weight-wise).

I finally found the information I was looking for back in August 2010.  At Sadie's two month appointment she was 12 lbs 3 oz.  At Mae's she was 14 lbs and 23 inches long.  And at Patrick's he was 14 lbs 6 oz and 25 inches.

So I guess his little-ness has more to do with his big sisters being so much bigger now.  No wonder I'm struggling to fit him into his 9 month outfits.  It's his little (or not so little) shoulders that just won't fit.

On the 15th we have our next checkup and I'm impatient to see how big he is now, two months later.

That's enough blog baby book gazing for me for the moment (it's a good thing I blog, because that's pretty much where all our baby book information is).  Now to get the babies ready to go on a hey-it's-not-freezing-right-now walk!  Yay for March!

Sleeping Through the Night!!!

I'm really proud of our big one month old (as of today at 11:10 pm!) at the moment!  These past few nights I've been putting him down in his bassinet in the kitchen at 7:30 while I work in the living room on orders.  Most nights this week I would finish the orders sometime between 11 and midnight and go in and get him to take upstairs.  He would wake up because he was already dozing rather lightly by that point, and I would change him and feed him and take him upstairs.

Last night I finished up work a little after midnight and peeked my head in to look at him.  He was out cold.  And I was curious.  How long would he sleep if I didn't take him upstairs?

I grabbed a blanket and laid down on the couch and fell asleep with the lights on, waiting for the sound of stirring in the kitchen that would tell me that he was up and ready to eat.

At 2 am the alarm beeped as Paul walked through the door and came into the living room, surprised to find me still downstairs (our alarm beeps whenever a door opens and says something like "back door open" depending on what door a person is coming through).  And Patrick was still asleep.

That meant that he'd been asleep for more than six hours.  And five hours is technically what experts call: "sleeping through the night."  (Let us ignore, for the moment, the fact that an infant can wake up at 11 pm and have slept long enough to constitute this achievement.)

Paul changed him, which woke him up, and we took him upstairs where he ate and woke up one more time before seven when the alarm went off to wake us all up to get ready for swim lessons.

I think I'm going to have to get the baby monitor set up so he can sleep in the upstairs bassinet and I can see how long he'd actually sleep without being woken up to come upstairs when I'm done with work each night.  I'm wondering if the gradual increase in how much I've been able to work, waking him up a tiny bit later each night, has unintentionally (but fantastically!) sleep trained him.

Either way I'm pretty excited and surprisingly well rested for having a one month old!

Oh and here's another goal for today (a Mommy goal).  Today I will get my camera out and get pictures of Patrick.  I've realized why this baby hasn't been photographed and it has something to do with being the third born, although not in the way most people would think.  The thing is, Patrick is almost always in a wrap, being kept away from less than gentle, although quite loving, toddler hands.  And it's really hard to sit and snap cute pictures when the person you're photographing is strapped to your chest.  With Sadie I could arrange blankets and prop her up on her little vibrating chair and take 300 pictures to capture that cute moment when she yawned or made a face or smiled.  It's much harder to do that when the baby's cute little yawn is practically smushed against your collar bone (because smushing their face into your chest so that you have to make sure they're breathing and try to reposition them every five minutes is just how some babies insist on being held).  And that is my goal for Patrick's one month birthday... now the question is... will I succeed?  I may have to wait until after toddler bedtime to start snapping pictures of the cuteness...

Patrick Loses the Title "Easiest Baby"

Patrick, upon entering his second week, lost his title of "easiest baby in the world."  Mae Bae will hold onto that crown for a while longer.

It began when he started deciding that when he was hungry at night he would just roll onto his stomach and try to come find me.  He'd been able to move himself onto his side to eat pretty much since he arrived home from the hospital.  Two nights ago he realized that if he just leaned a little bit more he'd roll right over onto his tummy where he could hysterically realize that he was stuck.

I wasn't exactly excited about this development and began forcing the issue of using the co-sleeper that Nani and Grumpa gave us during their trip to Michigan (I wrote about my thoughts on the whole cosleeping/crib sleeping thing here... and I have to say... it's pretty clear that Patrick isn't following Mae Bae as one who loves being in his own little area from the get go...).

Using the co-sleeper, however, meant actually waking up a bit more to nurse and so I decided, on the first night of our co-sleeper adventure, to glance at my phone each time Patrick woke up to nurse.  And the stats proved that he was up quite a bit more than I would have thought when I was just barely waking up to feed him.  Because our night looked something like this:

8 pm- Patrick eats and goes to sleep while I work downstairs.  He sleeps in a bassinet next to me.
11 pm- Patrick wakes up when we go upstairs and eats again.  I put him down in the co-sleeper and after a week of realizing he likes the bassinet downstairs, he only grumbles about it a bit.
2 am- He's starving and I think 3 hours.... that's pretty good!
3 am-  One hour later we're starving again.  I'm less impressed this time.
5 am- I hurry to feed him before his frantic yells, which seem to translate into "milk!  now!" wake his sisters.
6 am- The girls are awake.  And crying.  I sneak out of the room and go into their room where they both sound raspy and sick.  They both pile into the same bed with me.  Sadie announces that she's freezing despite a fleece footed sleeper and 20 (I'm actually serious... and they feel incredibly heavy... but she keeps saying she's cold...) blankets.  Mae is hot and keeps trying to put the blankets off.  It's a long hour until...
7 am- Patrick wakes up.  It's go time... the day has begun.

So that would be 7 feedings in a 11 hour period.  That makes him a better sleeper than big sister Sadie by quite a bit, but can't really compare with Mae's four hour stretches of sleep from day one.

Still, I'm feeling pretty rested with the way things have worked out (it's four o'clock in the afternoon, when both girls go completely insane, that is exhausting!).  After all, that is roughly seven hours of kind of unbroken sleep.

But then last night arrived and Patrick started to cry.  And cry.  And cry.  He solidly refused to eat.  I walked him and got him to burp five times and he stopped for a while and then... more crying.  Colic?  Reflux?  I know I just read somewhere that babies start crying a lot more at around two weeks and that this phase generally lasts through three months.

I try different baby holds.  He seems happiest laid face down across my forearm while I pat is back... However I can't walk with him in that position for more than five minutes because while he's little those ten lbs add up pretty quickly, and when I sit down he goes back to screaming.  The other holds, he lets me know, are not acceptable.

And did I mention that, earlier this week, at two and a half weeks old, Patrick and I spent our Saturday at the ER, for reasons that will remain undisclosed to protect the not-so-innocent and that he had his first cat-scan, while the pediatric ER nurses assured me that "this sort of thing happens all the time" (and by the way the pediatric ER at that hospital is spectacular... there are huge touch screen computers built into the walls for the kids to play in... if Sadie saw it she'd ask to go back just to visit and play...).

I think I can honestly say that that might have been my worst Mom moment ever.  I can definitely say that it was up there...

Anyways... I digress...

Finally I call Paul and while he can't actually hear my voice over the screaming he gets the idea that he is needed at home and heads back from the library.  It's 11 pm when he arrives.  I hand him Patrick and tell him that I just need to get ready for bed.  "Let me go up to the bathroom and then I'll take him back and you can study..." I say.

And then Patrick... well... Patrick does something that makes me a bit suspicious.  He's in Daddy's arms now and he's suddenly completely quiet.  Paul has done absolutely nothing to earn this quietness.  He's holding him just like I was... but is Patrick screaming?  Nope.  He snuggles into Daddy's chest and closes his eyes.  He may even sigh contently as I head up the stairs.

Paul carries him up five minutes later and places him in the co-sleeper where he dozes peacefully for three hours.  He wakes up and starts to cry at 4... and then settles back in after Daddy burps him.

Daddy is apparently his person.

I think he really, really enjoyed that week off when Paul was home, and he's apparently not all that thrilled that his Dad is back at school with regular classes for one week, one week of crazy studying and then, finally, finals.  And the week before Christmas when the break finally begins?  It still feels pretty far off.

And me?  I'm just really hoping this screaming isn't a nightly thing.  Because I have some major sewing to do now, both for the shop and to get ready for Christmas.  And three nightly hours of screaming doesn't really fit into that schedule...  So here's hoping it was a one night screaming event.

At least now I know who to call to get him to settle down...

Patrick's First Doctor's Appointment

The discovery of the morning was that facebook as an "other" folder in the message section that has apparently been receiving email messages from people, mainly from the blogging world, that I never saw!  So if you emailed me on facebook and we weren't already friends there's a good chance that I just got the email this morning.  Sigh.  Sorry about that!

Last Years Turkey...

Is anyone else slightly shocked that tomorrow is Thanksgiving?  I feel like the entire month of October disappeared (it could be those 10 days in the hospital over the past month).  Today we'll be treking back over to the store to get all the things that I forgot when we were rushing out of the store to get to Patrick's first doctor's appointment.  And that is actually a post-worthy subject:

On Monday we took Patrick to his first doctor's appointment.  I had kind of begged to get in at this practice, which like my OB is associated with Paul's school, since they were the doctors who we saw in the hospital.  Apparently they usually don't take families whose older children are being seen somewhere else, and while the girls haven't been seen somewhere else since we moved here, this practice doesn't have room for all three and so that counts as "somewhere else."  But I did get Patrick in, with hopes that the girls might get in sometime after February.

I arrived at the appointment with Patrick sound asleep in his Moby wrap.  I covered him up and tried to feed him in the waiting room, since he had insisted he was ravenous in the car on the way over, but the happy warmth of the wrap had him too sleepy to wake up to eat and so I finally slipped him back into the wrap while we waited for our turn.

When our turn came we discovered that Patrick had already had quite the little growth spurt.  At 11 days old he was weighing in at 9 lbs 10 oz (he was 8 lbs 12 oz when he was born, he dropped to 8 lbs 4 oz on the second day, but was nearly back up to his birth weight on day 3).  We weighed him twice since the nurse wondered if there was something wrong with the scale, but the numbers went right back up to 9 lbs 10 oz a second time.  His not so little head measured in at 14 3/4 inches, which was 1/2 an inch more than the measurement taken when he was born.  He's certainly growing and filling out!

After more time in the Moby wrap, calming down after protesting about having to be undressed for the measurements, a medical student came in and did an exam, followed by the doctor who checked him again and went over the medical students chart.

Then a rather funny conversation followed in which the doctor talked with me about how tired I must be and about how if I felt depressed help was available.  There was something about three hours of sleep being pretty good at this point and I laughed and assured him that Patrick's a pretty easy baby and that I've been getting plenty of sleep (certainly more than I was in the months before he was born when I couldn't breathe!).  Later in the appointment it came up again and I repeated that he's an easy baby and the doctor looked surprised and finally said that he really doesn't hear that often at all.

I was kind of surprised that the statement that he was an "easy baby" seemed so shocking as to be almost unbelievable.  I did get the impression that he wasn't sure that I wasn't just putting on a brave face, which definitely isn't the case because when I'm sleep deprived I'm not very good at hiding it!  I am glad that they definitely seem to be on the lookout for postpartum depression and are encouraging about getting help however!

The conversation does have me wondering if Patrick's easiness is just part of his nature or if it was the result of having an increasing idea of how to care for a newborn each time we go through this whole newborn phase.  My guess is that it's 90% Patrick's personality and 5% me not stressing because we have some idea of what to expect (because Mae was pretty easy, but I still stressed about her relaxed personality and wondered if it meant something was wrong and fretted over why she wasn't eating more frequently!).  The other 5% could be attributed to the fact that I now own a Moby wrap and know that if I put him in said wrap he's pretty much quiet and happy as long as he's in there (maybe that 5% is shared with the swaddle wraps too, which keep him quietly happy at night!).

At this point we've already had one very easy baby and one very fussy refluxy baby.  I think Patrick actually falls somewhere in the middle between the two (he has Sadie's super sensitive skin and I'm watching him because he seems to have a fussy tummy too), although he's certainly more towards the "easy baby" side of the scale.  I wonder if that means he's going to grow into a wild and crazy toddler like our other "easy" newborn has?

Now to go get ready to go finish the shopping and get the kitchen back into cooking shape today...  Patrick may be an easy baby, but the house is definitely showing that there's a new baby in the house and there's work to be done before tomorrow!  Paul's been an awesome help, but I'm impatient to be back up and about like I was before this last surgery (although I know being back to normal is still quite a ways off...).  Today will be a day of balancing "taking it easy" with "getting things done!"

I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving!

The Birth Story: Making Peace with My C-Sections

I've been thinking about writing Patrick's birth story down every day for the past week and a half, before it begins to fade into the forgetfulness that already seems to be accompanying this past labor.

I'll start by saying that this labor was the longest.  I was at the hospital for 34 hours before he was delivered, but it is also the delivery that I feel the most at peace with, knowing that we truly did everything that we could do... especially considering the surprise position he was in when he was finally delivered!

Many of you already know the beginning of the story, since I blogged while I was bored and Paul was napping in the hospital, as the many hours slipped by and the idea that we would need another c-section loomed larger and larger, until the doctors could talk of nothing else and we bargained for a few more hours, finally admitting that they were in fact right and that the VBAC simply wasn't going to happen.  But I'm getting ahead of myself:

The end of this pregnancy was a balancing act.  You see, I wanted a hospital birth with an OB, after the drama of Sadie's birth with five hours of pushing, and the failed miscarriage with a D&C three months later.  I was incredibly fortunate to find a doctor who agreed to let me try a VBA2C, since the common answer to that question is an adamant "no."  But there were compromises to be made.  The first was that I wouldn't go past my due date if he was going to allow me to try, since we have had consistently large babies.  The second caveat was that I would go to the hospital as soon as the contractions started.

Quite a few people questioned the wisdom of agreeing to the second part of that deal, but after spending nearly a week at the hospital with our not so little mystery illness, I actually felt pretty good about going in at the beginning of my labor.  The nurses and doctors I'd met seemed incredibly supportive of their patients.  Besides, it was part of the deal, and since I had a doctor that was actually going to let me try a VBA2C I thought I'd at the very least keep my word and do the things that I'd committed to doing to make the practice feel slightly safer about agreeing to a trial of labor.

On Wednesday morning I was supposed to arrive at the hospital at 9 am to have my water broken.  At 8 am I called the hospital and found out that the induction had been cancelled, because labor and delivery was slammed.  I had mixed feeling about the cancellation.  You see, I'd been having pretty steady contractions if I was standing up... which pretty much meant contractions all day, on the previous day.  According to the deal mentioned above, I was supposed to go in, but since I was being induced and since they stopped when I laid down, I'd put it off.  Now I was up walking around and they were between a minute and a half and three minutes apart and were painfully strong.

After steady contractions all morning Paul and I decided to walk to the hospital, which is less than a mile from our house, and see if the contractions continued.  By the time I got to the hospital the contractions were a minute to a minute and a half apart and strong.

I went inside and was admitted to the L&D triage, where I was checked.  The Boy seemed to be in an odd position, they thought his arm was above his head, but after an ultrasound found that he was head down and ready to go.  I was having regular contractions, but at that point was only at 3 1/2 and so they decided to release me.  When Paul and I were in the room alone together I told him I thought that my OB would be mighty unhappy if he learned I'd been there and had been released.

A few moments later the door opened and another nurse appeared to tell me they'd gotten a hold of my doctor and I'd been admitted to labor and delivery.

Word came back almost immediately that whoever had told me that I'd passed the GBS test at the last appointment had been wrong, and not only had I not passed, but the strep was immune to pretty much every antibiotic available, and of the two that worked, one was penacillin, which I'm super allergic to.  The drip would be another two hours of the super antibiotic I'd been on for the mystery illness.  And they couldn't break my water until the medicine was in my system, so we were in for more waiting.

As we finished the antibiotic and the nurse came in to stop the sounding alarm that told us that the drip was empty, I felt a strange almost-not-quite pressure and thought "I think that my water's about to break!"  About ten seconds later there was a pop and a rush, that was nothing like the movies, since it lasted for the rest of labor, anytime I moved or shifted and wasn't an-all-at-once sort of thing (my water broke at home with labor #1, but was only a few drops since the 9 lb baby's head was firmly in the way).

My OB appeared, about fifteen minutes later, to break my water and was happy to hear that it had happened on its own.  This was it.  It was time to have the baby.  And I was thrilled that it might happen naturally without any induction at all.

Except that it wasn't happening naturally.  The contractions, which had been fairly constant now even when I was laying down at around 5-8 minutes apart, tapered off to longer solid 10 to 12 minute periods.  I went to sleep hoping that things would pick up and that we would have made progress in the morning.

In the morning I was still a disappointing 4 cm.  But I was relieved that I'd slept through the night.  And with twelve hours of nothing happening I agreed to a slow, slow pitocin start.

I was surprised when this time around having a pitocin drip was nothing like being hit by a freight train.    With my first labor the pitocin was turned on, the epidural was turned off because of the decelerations in baby's heart, and the whole thing was incredibly horrible, really fast.

This time the contractions picked up slowly and were completely bearable.  My doctor told them to turn it up at about half the pace it would normally be turned up at, and then gradually it was turned up higher.  I spent the day walking and breathing and listening to my hypnosis tracks.  I strolled the halls and bounced on my birthing ball.  The contractions were less than three minutes apart but by using my hypnosis training from the past few months I was actually feeling pretty amazing.  I told Paul that the "happiness" part of the hypnosis instructions that followed each contraction were pretty amazing because I did feel incredibly elated after each one.

When they came in to check me that evening, after having powerful contractions regularly all day, I was ready to be told that I was at least 7.  I'd been 5 by late morning.  I was sure we were nearly there.  Maybe we'd even be 10.  First a nurse checked and the news wasn't good.  I was still 5.  Then another nurse checked because they were really hoping for some sort of change.  Still 5.

My doctor's office partner (one of the nice ones who I'd met during my last stay) came in and talked to me about an intrauterine catheter.  He said that at this point they were becoming increasingly uncomfortable about the level of pitocin I was on (10-something, which was now being referred to as a "high" level) and how long I'd been on it and the stress on the scars.  The catheter would measure the contractions and would let them know instantly if my uterus ruptured.  Reluctantly I agreed.

The catheter was placed and it was obvious that contractions were incredibly strong and then... things got crazy.

The contractions were suddenly completely beyond anything I could deal with.  The nurse who was in at the time thought it was likely a combination of the high levels of pitocin and the catheter irritating my uterus.  Even with the hypnosis tracks I couldn't relax at this point.

I'd been at the hospital for 32 hours.  I'd been having regular steady contractions for quite a bit longer.  And I was still at 5.

I looked over at Paul, in between one minute apart still not doing anything contractions, and asked him to get somebody for an epidural.

My doctor's office partner returned and told me he could administer morphine if I still wanted to avoid an epidural (I thought, in some vague, not pain wracked corner of my mind that this was kind of funny since my own OB had really, really wanted me to get an epidural at the start).  I shook my head and asked for the anesthesiologist.  The doctor asked me to explain my logic and I explained how with my first labor I'd been stuck around five and had had an epidural and had pretty quickly progressed to 10.  At this point natural wasn't working.  Pitocin wasn't working.  I thought that maybe, just maybe if I had an epidural I would be able to relax enough for things to begin to progress.

Three contractions later (which was actually a very short amount of time, but which felt like forever...) the anesthesiologist arrived.  After another contraction while sitting up, the epidural was in and slowly began to work, while I panicked on the inside, thinking that it wasn't working because when I had my epidural with labor #1 it was pretty much an instant sort of thing.

The new OB came in and talked with me about their concerns because nothing had happened.  She told me that she was praying for me and the baby that this would work out, but that we needed to start thinking of other options too.  I asked if we could give the epidural a few hours, and see if it would help me progress and she said yes.

I'd asked for the pitocin to be turned down while we waited for the epidural and it had been.  Now we slowly had to restart it from a low level.  Half way back up, baby started having decelerations and the pitocin had to be turned of completely for five minutes and then restarted again.  Things weren't looking good for my VBA2C as the contractions went back to 10 minutes apart on their own. Slowly we successfully reintroduced the pitocin.

A few hours later I was checked again and received the news that we were still at 5 cm.  I knew what that meant.  After 34 hours of labor we were going in for a c-section.

I think everyone there was ready for me to have some sort of a nervous breakdown at the point.  I'd been pretty adamant, throughout the majority of labor, about how I wanted to do this... and while I'd conceded to pitocin when nothing happened for so long after my water broke, I had hoped to go as natural as possible.  The thing is, I wasn't devastated.

Oddly enough, I felt content.

We'd done all we could do during this trial of labor.  I'd been up and about.  I'd refused pain killers for 32 hours.  There was really nothing else that we could do to make my uterus work.  I do think that after two c-sections and the mess up after the miscarriage that involved contractions for 3 solid month, my body just isn't quite what it was.  When I was having contractions the majority of the pain was right along my scar (although we'd soon find out that the scar tissue was thick and strong and that the doctors think I have another two c-sections in me).  And I find myself wondering if the retained placenta during the miscarriage (and the 3 months of contractions that didn't get rid of it) was a sign that not all was right with how my uterus works after so many surgeries.

The operating room was crowded during the c-section, with lots of people ready to take baby once he arrived (I think because it's a teaching hospital, so there are always plenty of doctors and students there learning).  The scar tissue was thick and I heard the discussion about widening the incision so that the baby could fit (sign #100 that baby wasn't small).  Then he was out and was being cleaned up right there in the room.

I loved that!  In California baby was taken away for over an hour both times just to be cleaned and bathed.  Here they offered to put him on my chest, although I did have to refuse that until after I'd been sewed up because I was feeling so nauseous.

He was our smallest baby at 8 lbs 12 oz, but he was 22 inches long, just like his biggest sister and his head was 14 1/4 inches around.

After the c-section the doctors told me that he was actually transverse.  Transverse babies that aren't turned are always c-sections.  Sometime after the ultrasound when I'd come into the hospital he had turned back (he was transverse for most of the second and third trimesters).  There was no way I could have delivered him naturally, even if my uterus was working properly.

Yesterday at his doctor's appointment a medical student asked me about the labor and I said that yes, it was a c-section after 34 hours of labor, but it really wasn't a bad labor at all.  I don't think she believed me.  But it's true.  I would count this labor the best of the ones I've gone through so far.  We did everything we could and things turned out the only way they really could have.  I'm at peace with that.

And next time... if we are ever blessed with a next time... I know it will be an automatic c-section.  And I'm at peace with that too.  It may not be the birth that I dreamed up or hoped for, but holding my healthy little guy in my arms is all that matters!

Patrick's Least Favorite Time...

Patrick is not yet a fan of bath time.  In fact, at the moment, it's the most upsetting thing that he can possibly imagine being forced to do:

Here he is wrapped in the bath time apron that I made.  He is okay with the apron... just not the bath time part of it:

Nope, even the snuggly apron doesn't make it better.

And no Mom, I won't be posing in this picture with you.

Mom putting lotion on was almost as bad as the bath... and then getting dressed?

Will the torture never end?

This picture was taken about ten seconds after the previous picture.

Even putting our feet into the swaddler solves every single problem:

He's instantly happy:

And instantly sleepy:

More posing with Mom:

And at least we're not crying this time!

Hopefully our next bath time goes a bit more smoothly!

Home Sweet Home

After another five nights in the hospital, it feels so strange to finally be home.  Today Nani and Grumpa head back to California and Paul goes back to his all day every day law school schedule, and I'll admit it's a tiny bit intimidating.  At the moment I feel like not leaving the house until... Christmas... although I know that with time that will pass.

We seem to have been blessed with the most laid back baby in the world right now.  We brought him home and the girls instantly surrounded him and began squealing and cooing.  He slept through it.  Grumpa repaired a small hole in the corner of our living room with a drill.  Patrick didn't bat an eye.  The girls repeatedly kissed him (Mae with a binkie in her mouth).  Patrick didn't stir.  All those months in the womb with his sisters shouting at my tummy so that he could hear them better have apparently made for a very good sleeper (since they did take him and do a hearing test at the hospital).

Sadie's most frequently used phrase is:  "I need to kiss my brother.  I just love him so much."  And she finally got to sit on the couch and hold him (and did a surprisingly good job of it!  She held him for about five minutes!).

The only thing I'm really dreading right now is not being able to pick up Mae for another six weeks...

Hopefully I'll have more time later.  I hear someone calling for food at the moment!  And he's hungry now!

Another Update from the Hospital

Today will hopefully be my last night in the hospital, as long as nothing more comes of the "crackling" sound that they could hear in my right lung this morning.  And I'm really, really hoping nothing comes of it, because I'm more than ready to go home!

Patrick is the quietest of our little ones so far (which is saying a lot, since Mae was really quiet too!).  Unlike our two girls he wants to be swaddled all the time, so he's pretty much living inside of his little monkey swaddler.  

Here are the latest pictures from the last two blessedly uneventful days:

Grumpa and Patrick hold hands.

A kiss from his adoring big sister.

Mae gets snuggles with Mommy.

Snuggles while Mommy works on being on her feet again.

Cuddles with both girls with lots of pillows to protect my stomach...
There was an unfortunate incident the day after the c-section involving my stapled stomach and a enthusiastically thrown bag of Huggies from one of my little helpers.  Let's just say that I managed to stop crying after a ridiculous amount of narcotics and several hours of wondering how that could possibly hurt as much as it did...
And so now... now I am surrounded by pillows.

The baby bump is slowly looking less baby-bumpish.
I made Paul snap a picture of the progress.
I still have a ways to go however since Sadie's first reaction, upon seeing me was to ask
if there was another baby in Mommy's tummy.
When she found out there wasn't she launched into a speech about how there should be.

Here's the Daddy bed.
This is where we've discovered that Daddy could easily sleep
18 hours a day if no one woke him.  

And here's the little guy, enjoying being swaddled.  I'm glad I learned how to sew swaddlers because I have a feeling we're going to need quite a few to keep up with Patrick's desire to be swaddled all the time!