My birth story

I never did share my labor and delivery story here, and in order for future posts to make sense, I need to get this experience captured:

I was due on 12/10/09 and by 12/18 I hadn't dilated to even 1cm on my own. So my doctor scheduled me for an induction on 12/20. I was active in wanting that induction, I was anxious to meet Kaleb and I wanted the labor, delivery, and hospital stay over with in time for me to still make the rounds for Christmas. On 12/20 I was supposed to report to the hospital at 7pm for my induction. Kyle and I went to walk around at the mall that afternoon, and at 3pm I started having mild contractions. We finished buying a couple cute sleepers and onesies and came home.

Contractions continued and we ordered Chinese takeout for dinner, since I knew I wouldn't be allowed to eat at the hospital. We reported for the induction at 7, they got me checked in and set up in the hospital bed, then put Cervidil in which was going to help soften and "ripen" my cervix in an effort to help labor progress. With the Cervidil in, I had to stay laying down so it didn't fall out. I laid there all night, and contractions started coming more regularly. I had sent Kyle home because of the dogs and because I didn't think anything was going to happen and wanted him rested for the next day when they predicted real labor would get rolling.

Throughout the night the contractions were building in intensity and I really wanted to be able to get up and walk around, to try other positions to help labor progress. But, because of the Cervidil I had to stay laying down. At about 5am I had reached my breaking point, having spent all night laying on my back watching the clock tick down the minutes until my next contraction. I couldn't be alone anymore so I called Kyle and asked him to come back. Labor continued slowly progressing, I was dilated to 2 or 3 cm by 9am on 12/21. The nurse took the cervidil out and cleared me to try walking around or using any other positions I wanted to try to move things along. Contractions were still coming regularly and I dilated to 5cm by 2:00 that day, with ability to walk around, sit in a chair (ouch!) and move freely. By 2:00 I was in pain and I requested my epidural, which worked almost immediately and had me back in bed. I was able to rest for an hour and dilate to 6cm by 3:30. I never pushed the button on the epidural and by 4:00 I started feeling pain again on the right side of my body. I had also stopped dilating. We tried adding more good stuff to the epidural, the pain kept coming and the dilation was still only 6cm. They had put me on pitocin at some point during the day, I forget when.

By 8pm I hadn't dilated any more and I was tired and the epidural wasn't taking away the pain like it had been when it was first put in. I was feeling each contraction and it was exhausting and painful. I was feeling frustrated because I wasn't making progress. The doctor was concerned because my cervix had been 60% effaced and was now back to 50%, which is opposite of the way it is supposed to go. He was worried it meant Kaleb wouldn't be able to come out, something was happening to make my cervix swell. So at 8:30 he came in and explained to an exhausted, frustrated, and in major pain laboring me that he thought a c-section was something to consider. I said okay, because I was just so tired and couldn't imagine this pain continuing through another night, and I knew it was going to get worse because I was only at 6cm at this point and to get further those contractions were going to have get a lot harder.

My mom came in and held one hand while Kyle held the other and I just bawled for about 5 minutes. I was so tired, and I was scared of a c-section. This wasn't the birth I had imagined, I wasn't going to get to push, I wasn't going to have that moment I'd dreamed of when Kaleb came out and was put on my chest right away. When I'd finished processing all of this, the doctor was back to facilitate my move to surgery. Kyle got prepped, I got prepped, and then they started the process of numbing me. Only it never worked. They kept adding more and more drugs to the IV but I could still feel the needle pricks on the right side of my body. And I could feel when they made the incision. The anesthesiologist finally had to dose me with some drug that would produce amnesia, and I remember laying on the table with my vision going to tunnel vision, as they pulled Kaleb out. Something about how he was in there was making it hard for them to get him out, so they had to wrench and pull all while I was able to feel this going on. I was blacking out, to the point where I had just a pinpoint of vision still left. Then I heard my baby cry for the first time and I was back. He was here and he was healthy and everything was okay. He did manage to pee into my wound, and in the way only a mother can, I find it endearing and precious :)

They took Kaleb and got him cleaned up and gave him to Kyle while I went into shock. My entire body just shaking violently on the table. I guess this is normal, I was too drugged and to delirious to really care at this point, I just wanted my baby. Finally the shaking stopped and I was wheeled into the room where they were giving Kaleb a bath. The nurse had to push down on my stomach to get make sure all the afterbirth was out. That hurt like all hell, and I slapped her away at one point. Then they put my baby in my arms (while all standing around me because I was on sooo many drugs at this point so they needed to be there in case my body gave out) and they helped me try to nurse him for the first time. Then, while I was holding Kaleb, the nurse went back to pressing my stomach, and I didn't care one bit. I had my baby!! It was a beautiful moment after a nightmare of a day.

That's my birth story with Kaleb, 30 hours of labor with a spotty epidural, ending a c-section where I was able to feel what was going on.

I share this because I now need to decide with this pregnancy if I'm going to schedule an elective c-section or go for a trial of labor for a vaginal birth after cesarean, VBAC. More to come on this decision.

A Change in Seasons

I used to dread winter, to hate it with a passion. I've always enjoyed fall, but in the past the fact that it signaled the approach of the snow and the cold made it impossible for me to count it my favorite season. This year I am finding myself excited for all the things winter brings. The Christmas tree in the living room, the weekend mornings with coffee and snuggles with Kaleb while we watch the birds at the feeder while the snow falls outside and we are warm and cozy inside. Reading books about Thanksgiving, baking and decorating cookies together, singing Christmas songs together, the excitement of watching Kaleb stare in awe as we put the Christmas tree up as a family. All of these things have me super excited about the fact that this cool fall weather means that winter is on its way. If you've knew me before I had Kaleb, you understand that excitement and anticipation about winter is a crazy shift for me!

There is also the forever nostalgia of the winter of 2009, when I was at the end of my pregnancy with Kaleb and filled with anticipation of meeting him. Those amazing first few days in the hospital after he was born, where it was just our new little family. Coming home from the hospital and getting to take our son to Christmas celebrations to meet his family. Then the weeks of snuggling up in the warm house, just me and Kaleb while Kyle was at work all day, with the snow outside and my perfect new baby safe and happy and cuddled with me inside. Yeah, I've completely romanticized winter now :)

Flash Flood (of emotions) Warning!

Today when I was picking Kaleb up at day care I told him it was time to put on his coat and he vehemently objected to that idea. I told him that it was time to go home and that meant we had to go outside to get to the car, so he needed his coat because it was cold and raining. Yeah, logic and toddlers don't really get along all that well. So, I wrestled him into this coat and he started carrying on and yelling that he didn't want his coat. When I had the coat fastened he ran away from me, crying (no tears, just angry), to the other side of the play room. From there he stood in the corner continuing to cry and looking from me to Miss Megan. I did my normal thing of keeping eye contact but letting him have his space. Miss Megan commented on how he does this during the day and other people look at her like she is so mean for giving him space, letting him cry and not going and trying to hug him or something. She said she doesn't ignore him, just keeps an eye on him and let's him do his thing until he either calls for her, comes to her, or comes out of it on his own. She then said that he typically only does this for a minute or two and then he's fine, completely moves on to some other activity.

There are two things about this experience that I want to capture:

1. I reeeeally like Miss Megan, she totally 'gets' my son! Because if you go over and try to hug Kaleb when he is venting like this it just pisses him off even more. I also really love that she is open with me about Kaleb's day, sharing with me that this happens but doing it in a positive way, not implying that he is a problem child, rather sharing that this has happened before and letting me know how she handled it. I'm going to be very sad when Miss Megan gets to move up to the 4 year old room!

2. Kaleb is SO my baby! His response to frustration or anger is the same as mine, I just have to find different ways to express it since I don't think my co-workers would appreciate if I started hollering like a wounded dinosaur and running around the office when I'm angry...although it would be entertaining ;) Kaleb and I have flash expressions of our emotions, and then we are done and on to the next thing. When he is mad about something he just has this intense outburst and then it is over, rarely does he pout or dwell on whatever it was that made him mad. Typically, once the outburst expression of emotion is done, he picks himself off and moves on.

For example, after a minute in the corner today, Kaleb walked over to the slide in the room (still crying so we were sure to know how mad he was at me!)and climbed up to the top. He sat on the top of the slide and carried on a little more, then he slid down. He laughed when he got to the bottom and that was that.

It's pretty cool to me to see my kid displaying traits like my own. And, after typing that thought, pretty scary, too!

I'd know that feeling anywhere...right?

This morning as I was laying in bed after my alarm went off, I felt some fluttering movements. It seemed a bit early but I definitely felt something like a little flutter. Tonight after work as I was sitting on the couch with Kaleb I felt some much more pronounced little jabs about an inch above and to the right of my belly button. A few flips and maybe some tiny kicks and punches. I'm just a couple days shy of 14 weeks.

According the books my uterus should be just reaching my belly button by now. But, for weeks now I've had a hard bump beneath my ribs and above my belly button. Also, in the past week my belly button has started to "hood" on the top, something that happens during pregnancy, but with Kaleb didn't happen until a few months down the road from now. I haven't gained any weight. Seems odd and I know it isn't what the books say is supposed to be the case right now. But, anecdotal evidence (aka google searching) does say it is possible to have a higher bump and to feel movements this early with second pregnancies.

Another reason I am leaning towards these being first movements is that today was a busy day at work, where I was in training all over the building. So I moved all day long and didn't really rest until I got home and put my feet up. With Kaleb I would get all kinds of movement under those circumstances.

Feeling these movements is amaaaazing. I forgot just how awesome this is. And, just in case these really are the first movements I felt with this little one, I wanted to capture it here :)

(as I was typing this Kyle decided to share with me that he types 102 words per minute...then clarified that it was in his own language. He then gave me clearance to "use" this in my blog. Thanks, honey!)

Smart. Cookie.

I got a report from day care today that Kaleb spelled his name all by himself. Whaaaa?!?! Seriously, is that normal? Is that possible? He is just a baby, right?? I feel super out of the loop on what to expect cognitively at this age, because I feel like that is kinda early for spelling your name. But, I totally believe the teachers and I know they work on this stuff every day, I just can't believe he's already old enough for that. Miss Megan said that up to today he has always responded to "How do you spell your name, Kaleb?" with "uhhmmm R ah uh ah uh" which makes sense because R seems to be his favorite letter

He has been counting to 10 for a couple weeks now. It is common for him to skip either 2 or 3, but once we get to 4 he is golden up to 10.

He has also been helping me read his Scoop the Digger book every night, and he is adding more and more lines to the "his part" collection. As of tonight he is making all the sound effects on every page, saying the "What a mess there was!" line, the "He was stuck!" line, and the "they all laughed" line along with laughing. He also loves to point out the silly bird in the bucket.

I'm so unbelievably proud of him. I have no idea if these accomplishments are ahead of a curve, right on schedule, or developmentally delayed. What I do know is that he amazes me every day!

Okay, that takes care of the "Smart" part of the title. Now for the "Cookie" part. I got some new baking sheets, desperately overdue and necessary! To test them out I baked a couple of the fund raiser cookie dough balls tonight. Kaleb and I then shared cookies and milk while we watched his evening episode of Bubble Guppies. It was the first time we've snuggled over cookies and milk, and it was perfect!

Cutest book worm I ever saw!

We hit a milestone this morning that isn't on any of the official charts, but it is a big deal to me. Kaleb read a book by himself for the first time :)

He woke up earlier than usual and I wasn't ready for him to get out of bed yet. I brought him his juice, turned on the lamp in his room, and gave him a couple of our bedtime stories to "read to Elmo" while I got ready. As I was putting on my makeup I heard him 'reading' the stories. He had Dinosaur's Blanket by Sandra Boynton and a book about dinosaurs going on a train ride.

The Dino's Blanket book is a lift the flap about Dinosaur looking for his blankie. When I read it to him I do fun voices for the characters, and Kaleb was mimicking those voices this morning. The part that always makes him laugh when we read it together is where Dinosaur keeps saying "I want my blankie!" and I say it in different dino voices...what's a 'dino voice' you ask? I didn't know either until I started reading kids books :)

The other book about dinosaurs going on a train ride has certain lines that I could hear him repeating. He is especially fond of the page where the train conductor says "All Aboard!" and he read that page a couple times this morning. Just sitting in his crib, reading his books out loud.

Obviously he wasn't actually reading it, but he remembered enough of the stories from reading them every night that he was able to put together the story again well enough for me to know which book he was reading and what parts he was on. It was a beautiful thing to be able to listen to and I never want to forget just how sweet his voice sounded as he read those books all by himself.

My Tap Dancing Babies

We had the ultrasound yesterday and little one is just fine! Baby's heart rate was at 167 and he/she was being very cooperative for the technician to capture all the necessary shots. She (the tech) commented on how well behaved both my children were (more on that in a minute) and of course, once she said that Baby started flipping and dancing and kicking all around in there, making it almost impossible for her to get any more shots. Hehe. That's right, my children are quite well behaved, until you point it out and then they will prove to you they can be just as rowdy as any other kid out there :)

We made it a family experience yesterday, I picked Kaleb up from day care and brought him with me to the appointment, Kyle left work early to meet us there. When we got back into the room and I was up on the table, Kaleb requested to sit in his own chair (which was actually a foot stool) and then he just watched the screen with this serious and solemn expression. I commented to Kyle afterward that you just know when a tech or nurse or doctor sees a toddler walking in to a parent's appointment they have to be internally cringing.

Kaleb was such a perfect gentleman, a big brother in training, sitting there quietly watching his baby sibling...until the tech commented on my children both being so well behaved. Kaleb didn't really start acting up by any means, but he did start practicing his tap dancing skills from his chair, tapping his feet fast and slow on the floor pretty loudly. And when he started doing that, Baby also started dancing around on the screen. In my pregnancy induced hormonally sentimental state I have decided it is the first moment my babies have danced together. It is a moment in my life I will take with me forever, a true heart smile!

When we came home I took a picture of Kaleb holding the ultrasound picture and was finally able to officially announce this news, a moment I've been waiting for since August 8th! What's most exciting is we can now start talking to Kaleb about all of this, or at least talking about it in front of him. We were holding off on talking about a new baby because we didn't want him spilling the beans before we were ready to do so. But now the news is out! My first order of business will be finding the best "new baby sibling" books out there for kids. I'm SO excited to be book shopping on this topic! :)

It is so beautiful to know that this new baby is in there right now swimming happily and healthily, such a weight of stress and worry off from this past week of worrying after Baby hid from the doppler last Friday. I am so blessed!

Deep end swimmer, songs, and The Enforcer

I went on Friday morning to my first OB appointment with Dr. Harro. My uterus is measuring on track for 11.5 weeks, so that was reassuring. But. He wasn't able to find my little bean's heartbeat. He was good to point out that it is only about a 20% success rate finding it this early, but I was kinda freaked out. Still am. After he finished the exam I pulled myself together and asked him "But, I'm for sure pregnant, right?" That's when he explained that my uterus is measuring where it should be for this pregnancy and that the tests have come back as positive. I will go this Friday for an early ultrasound. I'm working not to entertain visions of the u/s tech moving the wand all around and not finding what she is looking for. I'm sure that little bean was just, as Dr. Harro said, 'swimming in the deep end' last Friday and that at the u/s appt. we will see a healthy little one swimming around happily in there. Although I'm sure everything is just fine, I won't be officially announcing until after I get that confirmation next week.

Kaleb has been asking me to sing him songs a lot over the past few weeks, it is really sweet how he says "song?", especially when it is just before bed, after we've finished our prayers and I'm just rocking him a bit. Last night we were playing before bed time and he asked for the Itsy Bitsy Spider song. As I was singing it to him he was 'singing along'. Talk about melting my heart! His little voice singing, wow, he sooo has me wrapped around every single one of those precious little fingers of his!

Yesterday was a house cleaning day, you could say it was a seriously delayed spring cleaning around here. So Kyle and I were all over the house and Kaleb was just bouncing back and forth between us and his toys. At one point he was in his room playing and he called out 'Mommy!' so I said 'What, buddy?' and he said 'Whatcha doin'?' hahah! It was pretty cute and not at all what I expected to hear. He was saying it all day, "Whatcha doin', Mommy?!" with this excited tone in his voice.

I got reports this week that Kaleb has decided he is the teacher's aide in behavioral matters at day care. When the teacher tells another child not to do something, or to stop doing something, Kaleb then runs over to the child and repeats the instructions. If this was as far as it went it would be cute and silly. Unfortunately, he takes the Enforcer role to another level. A little boy was climbing on the book case and the teacher told him to get down. He didn't. Kaleb went over and told him to get down. He didn't. So, Kaleb removed him from the book case...I know this is not okay, but you can't fault me for having a smile over my Jr. Teacher now, can you? Not to worry, I won't be encouraging the behavior. But when Kaleb is in bed at night, I do indulge in a smirk over it. I'm pretty sure this is standard behavior for an oldest child.