In which I realize just how bad I am at updating . . .

Lydia is 4 months old. I had meant to update when she turned 3 months old. I had meant to update when Greta turned 2.5 years old . . . these things did not happen.

Moving on, I am amazed by how big my kids seem to be. Not necessarily in physical size, but in their behavior. Lydia is holding up her head like a champ, can sit and stand with support, and is very chatty in a "squawking" phase. She can roll onto her side from her back, but she can't roll all the way over yet. None of these things are unusual. I think Greta did the same at around the same age, but they still are wonderous to me. She laughs readily and her laughter is sweet and joyful and I just LOVE it. She also still loves baths, which amazes me. I think she has cried in the bath only one time -- ever. Most of the time when I put her in, she looks at me with a shocked expression for a moment, but then she starts smiling.

Lydia is still not a fan of bottles. I can get her to take maybe half an ounce at a time, but that's it. I wouldn't mind it at all if I weren't going back to work . . . but because I'm going back to work, it's a huge stressor.

Greta and I raised Monarchs last summer and she is pretty well obsessed with butterflies and nature. We play games that involve butterflies, and she enjoys telling me all about the life cycle of a Monarch. She often wants to see video of the transformations -- caterpillar to chrysalis, butterfly emerging from chrysalis. Unfortunately, we were out of the house both times our butterflies emerged, and the chrysalis transformations both happened when she was asleep. Bless you, YouTube, for providing me an easy way to share these experiences with my daughter even though our Monarchs didn't cooperate.

Greta is actually a big fan of nature all around. Her favorite book is one called Tracks, Scats and Signs (which she calls her "nature book"). She enjoys being outside and using her new binoculars. Quite frankly, she doesn't really need the binoculars, though, because she has killer vision. She can spot a bird or a nest or a pine cone at a great distance. She enjoys comparing different types of pine needles and examining mushrooms.

She enjoys using pens and scribbling on paper (and, ahem, sometimes other surfaces as well . . . we are working on this), but if you have an opportunity, she is even more eager to draw with someone -- usually instructing an adult to draw a heart and then fill it with the names of various people she knows. The other day, she asked me to draw a Coyote and I made my best attempt. She then asked me to draw its tracks and I hesitated, because I didn't know what they looked like. Seeing my hesitation, she said, "An oval with four toes and two claw points." Thanks, kid.

One of my favorite things about Greta is that, if you have the time to devote to doing things at her speed, she is pretty content to help you with just about anything. Sometimes she just wants to play with her toys, but most of the time, she prefers the company, even if that means helping to unload the dishwasher. Yesterday, we were unloading the dishwasher together when it became apparent that Lydia needed to nurse. I told Greta that we'd have to take a pause because I needed to nurse the baby. I picked up the baby and brought her into the other room to nurse, but Greta didn't follow and I could hear her quietly continuing to empty the dishwasher. This made me exceedingly nervous, but when I got Lydia settled and went back into the kitchen, I found that everything was okay. At first I thought that she had just been rattling things around and not actually attempting to empty it, but then I noticed that the sippy cup parts that had been in the dishwasher basket were gone and that she had placed them on the towel on the counter -- which is where they finish drying. I was impressed! Not only that she was able to unlatch the basket and get out the parts on her own, but also that she was able to reach the kitchen counter! This girl is growin'!

I'm just so happy to have these girls in my life.

Sibling Adjustment

NOTE: This post was made about 3 weeks ago. I keep thinking I've published it, but then it doesn't save. Anyway, there haven't been huge changes to the sibling adjustment in the last 3 weeks, although everyday Greta's pronunciation of Lydia's name sounds like a closer and closer approximation of "Lydia." 

Overall, Greta is adjusting well to being a big sister. She is testing boundaries more often, and she is struggling a bit with the division of our time and attention, but she seems to love her sister and is excited to see her. At first she seemed hesitant about the baby -- she didn't want to touch her or hold her and she would get quiet when asked what the baby's name is. Now she proudly declares that the baby's name is "wih-uh," and is much more interested in engaging with the baby.

Her voice goes up an octave when she is talking to Lydia and gets softer (although when she is talking in vicinity of the sleeping baby, but not directly to her, she tends to get very loud). A favorite activity is to crouch down next to Lydia's bouncer and get REALLY close to her face and talk to her, saying, "Don't cry, baby. Your big sister is right here!" She has asked to hold Lydia a few times, but it's more like me holding her on Greta's lap for a few seconds before she gently pushes Lydia back towards me and says, "Now YOU take her." I had always wanted to recreate a certain photo of my sister holding me on her lap when I was a newborn . . .

Baby Arden and her big sister Michelle

. . . but to recreate such a photo, I'd have to back up enough to hold up a camera -- and so far that would almost certainly result in Greta pushing Lydia onto the floor.

But she is really an awesome big helper most of the time. When it is time to change Lyddie's diaper, she says, "I will get the supplies!" and takes out a diaper and usually several types of diaper cream and arranges them next to the changing mat. She is relentlessly looking for Lydia's pacifier and bringing it to us, even if it was less than six-inches away at the time. She also considers herself an expert on whether or not Lydia wants the pacifier or not -- "Oh no, she doesn't want it," or "She wants her pa!" -- before we've even tried it. If I ask Greta to go ask Ben to bring me a fresh burp cloth, she runs from the room, calling, "Papa! Papa! Mama needs your help!" and then bounces back a minute later, practically dancing with excitement, triumphantly holding a burp cloth with both hands.

In fact, Greta is so helpful that I often forget that she's still a toddler. I have caught myself on several occasions starting to ask Greta to help me with a task that is not age-appropriate.

"Greta, could you get me a glass of icewater while I'm nursing? Oh wait . . . never mind."
"Greta, could you go upstairs to Lydia's dresser and pick out an outfit for her? Oh wait . . . never mind."
"Greta, could you be a big helper and go assemble my manual breastpump and . . . oh wait, never mind."
"Greta, Mama needs to take a shower. Could you take the baby for a moment while I . . . oh wait . . . never mind."

Thankfully, I usually think before I speak and so I get to the "never mind" part before actually making the request aloud.

Overall, she's gotten a crash-course in what it's like to be around a baby and she understands more about breastfeeding than I'd expected. She went through a period of narrating what was happening when I would nurse Lydia: "She is drinking milk. She is drinking milk from your breast. I have milk in a cup, but she is drinking milk from your breast." Holding out my nursing pads, she'd say, "You need these. You need these for your nipples. They will keep you safe."

One time when I was nursing Lydia, Greta was having a hard time not having my attention. She said that she wanted to give her baby doll a bottle, but her baby doll was upstairs. Ben was busy and so I said, "Why don't you find the bottle and get it ready while you wait for Papa to help you get the baby doll?" She paused and then said, "No, I'm going to get the bottle ready, but first I'm going to pump!"

She hasn't attempted to use my Medela, thank goodness. But she has used my breastfeeding pillow to nurse her dolls.

Not having had a younger sibling, I wasn't really sure what to expect. But if things continue along this trajectory, I think we'll be okay!

Lydia's 1 Month Old!

Yesterday Lydia turned 1 month old. I can't believe how fast the time is already flying. When I say that she's 4 weeks old (she turned 4 weeks on Friday), it feels like I still have this tiny little newborn. Now when I say that she is 1 month old, it feels like MY BABY IS GROWING UP TOO FAST.

Aside from losing her umbilical cord stump, growing a slight double chin, and being awake a little more often, the last month hasn't resulted in any extreme changes for her. She is doing the usual eating, sleeping, and pooping. She has some bad gassiness (both farting and burping) which can make her absolutely miserable some of the time. But most of the time, unless she is hungry (she often "goes to eleven" quite fast when she wakes up and realizes she is hungry) or getting a diaper change, she doesn't cry all that much. (I suppose I've just listed all the reasons for young babies to cry -- diaper changes, hunger, gassiness . . . so maybe she cries pretty frequently . . .)

But overall, she's a very sweet baby -- especially from my vantage point when she is lying on my lap after she has just nursed.

Is that not the sweetest post-nursing face? 

She reminds me so much of Greta as a baby. I had really expected to have a completely different experience. I feel like most parents talk about how different their two babies were and so I thought I would always be contrasting the two of them as babies. So far, though, it has felt like a total déjà vu of newborn Greta. The circumstances are different, of course -- different birth, different postpartum experience (I still need to update on that), and of course, different family circumstances, since Lydia has a big sister at home and Greta didn't. And I know that they will become more different from each other as they get older -- or will they become more similar, since Lydia will be raised, in part, by Greta? So I am excited to see how Lydia's personality unfolds and how her babyhood will be different from Greta's. 

Poorly-lit selfie with Lydia.

Poorly-lit selfie with Greta. 

One thing she does besides eating, sleeping and pooping is that she has just become a little more alert during the day. I am borrowing a bouncer and she has begun taking a more active interest in looking at the toys and reacting when she accidentally makes one of them move. 

OMG, Hedgehog! Did you see the raccoon move? Did you do that? 

The bouncer also provides her with a safe place from which to interact with her big sister.

It's hard to see here, but Lydia was watching Greta make faces at her. 

Overall, Lydia is "waking up" a little from her newborn stage. Thankfully, though, she still sleeps quite a bit. Last night, she only had one middle-of-the-night feeding. I can't remember whether that is "okay" now at this stage, or if it's an indicator that she's not eating often enough. We'll be heading in to her one-month check-up on Wednesday, so we can find out then. Overall, I'm much less worried about what is "okay" this time -- I guess that's the advantage of being a second-timer. 

Actually, not so far at all . . .

It was nearly a month after Greta was born that I updated with her birth story. My goal this time around
is to get this birth story up before Piccola turns 2 weeks old.

When last I updated on June 25, I was growing convinced that I was going to be doomed to two or three more weeks of prodromal labor. I had woken up in pain the previous evening and was taking the day to rest. 

At the end of that day, Ben picked me up from home and we went down to his parents' house to have dinner and pick up Greta. On the way there, we talked about how frustrated I was with all the prodromal labor, and how I just wished I knew if all these contractions were doing anything productive. I decided that I would believe that they were -- that the fact that I had that horrible pain the previous night meant that maybe I'd have just a little less pain during labor. He picked me up at 4pm and we arrived at Ben's parents' house around 4:45.Just as we were pulling up into the driveway, I felt a strong contraction that took my breath away. Ben went into the house while I took a moment to breathe. 

I hadn't been inside the house for long before I felt another strong contraction and felt a small gush. I abruptly left the room and waddled to the restroom, concerned that my water was leaking or that I was bleeding. Upon inspection, it was just watery mucus, so I put on a pad and didn't think much of it. 

Throughout the rest of the evening, I continued to have sporadic contractions. I didn't think much of them for awhile, though. I asked Ben to warm up a heating pad for me. I took an opportunity while Greta was getting a bath to take one of my own and timed my contractions as being about 10 minutes apart. I crouched on all fours and rested my head on the couch. By the time I was having a little dessert and found myself doubling over the kitchen counter and swaying, I was starting to wonder if this was the real deal. Greta was scheduled to go to her occasional daycare program the next day, though, and so although it would have made a lot of sense to leave her in the care of Ben's parents for the night, we figured even if it was real labor, it would still be a long time before we went to the hospital. We'd labor throughout the night and drop her off at daycare in the morning. 

We left around 8pm and on the way home, my contractions continued to get stronger. I was wiggling my toes and having a hard time breathing through them. Construction made the trip home extra long and so when we arrived home Ben transferred Greta to her crib and I called the midwife right away at 8:40. I described the strength of the contractions and explained that most of them were around 3 minutes apart, but that some of them were still more like 6 or more minutes apart at that point. She said I should wait to come in to the hospital until they had all been 5 minutes apart for at least an hour. I felt a little skeptical, but, armed with my trusty contraction app, I worked on timing them. 

Ben was making preparations for finding someone who could come stay with Greta for the night and take her to daycare in the morning while I timed my contractions and waited. Sure enough, I had been right to be skeptical -- two hours later, my contractions were getting more and more intense and while they were almost all less than 5 minutes apart, every time I started to come up on one hour of all contractions less than 5 minutes apart, I would get one that would be six minutes or so past the previous one, causing me to restart the clock. Finally, at 10:30, I called the midwife back and said that, although the contractions were still not all 5 min or less apart, I was coming in. I needed support. 

By this time, our friend Flannery had come over to watch Greta. After a few more contractions, I made it down the stairs and out the door. Contractions were stopping me in my tracks on the way to the car, some of them quite long -- what the midwife had termed "coupled" contractions that had no break in-between. Finally, we got in the car and headed out into the night, leaving the driveway at 10:40pm. 

I'm not positive about what time we arrived at the hospital. I would estimate that it was sometime between 11pm and 11:15pm. I was leaning against the doorway of the emergency room entrance having a contraction when someone at the desk noticed me and asked me if I needed a wheelchair. They wheeled me up to labor and delivery and I checked in. At first, the nurse came and took me to triage, which was strange to me because I had bypassed triage when I arrived in labor with Greta. But I suppose since my contractions weren't consistent when I had been on the phone with the midwife, she probably wasn't positive that I would be staying. The nurse went to peek in the room she was supposed to take me to and as she did, a really intense contraction hit. As I was panting and moaning, she whisked me away down another hallway and into a labor room. I asked her later if it was because I was making too much noise (the triage rooms are small and don't really have real doors) and she said it wasn't because of me at all -- there had been another patient in the triage room she'd been directed to take me to! The upshot is that I bypassed triage and was now in a labor and delivery room. As we arrived in the room, I was still timing all my contractions on my phone. The last contraction that I timed (before being hooked up to the monitors) was at 11:25pm. 

The midwife came in and began talking to me about some of my birth wishes. She asked me when I was ready to be checked to let her know. I'm not sure what time she checked me -- probably 10 minutes or so after we arrived in the room and I was hooked up to the monitors. It was a difficult check -- not only did she have me stack my fists, but I had to lift my hips up into the air for her to reach my cervix. I was 3-4 cm, 80% effaced, and the baby's head was at 0 station. My cervix was still very posterior. So barely active labor. After a 28-hour labor with Greta in which my cervix stayed posterior until the very end, this was really bad news to me. Going into this birth, I had already had in the back of my mind that I'd want an epidural if my cervix was still posterior when I arrived at the hospital  -- just because the cervical checks were so awful last time. But at the same time, I hadn't labored at home for very long this time. Last time, I labored at home for hours and hours and arrived at 5 cm dilated. This time, I was in so much more pain that I had come to the hospital much earlier -- maybe my cervix would move soon, I thought. 

Looking at the monitors, the midwife was concerned because the baby's heart rate was decelerating every time I had a contraction. For being only 3-4 cm dilated, this was particularly concerning. She told me that she felt she should warn me now that some of the things I was hoping to avoid (IV, continuous monitoring, pitocin, even cesarean) might be unavoidable. She was very concerned about a potential cord issue. 

There's nothing like the words "cord issue" to bring up my absolute worst birth fears. I tried to process this as quickly as possible and come to terms with how my labor was going to change from my ideal. I asked if this meant I couldn't try for a waterbirth, expecting a brisk confirmation. However, she provided me with many more details about why a waterbirth would be off the table -- that they'd potentially have to get me out of the tub in a hurry, etc. I remember being in so much pain and thinking that I just needed less information from her -- I wanted "just the facts." For me to want a medical professional to be "brisk" means that I must be really out of control of my pain. Normally, I want all the details. The fact that she was giving me all the details (using phrases like "if the baby's heartrate is still decelerating at the time of birth . . .") was an indication to me that she didn't expect me to give birth for awhile and I was starting to wonder if my instincts (which were saying that this baby was coming fast) were wrong and it really was going to be this excruciating for a long, long time. 

Now that I knew that a waterbirth was unlikely I asked if getting an epidural might help the baby by allowing me to relax. I will be honest, I was in a lot of pain. I was ready for some pain relief at this point. But I also was getting frustrated with them telling me to "Breathe! You need to breathe to help your baby's heartrate stay up," during my intense contractions and I was starting to panic that I was going to hurt my baby by not being able to relax. The midwife said it might help, but she couldn't say for sure. 

She suggested the possibility of an IV of fluids to see if that helped support the cord and prevent the baby's heartrate from decelerating. Our conversations at this point were really choppy because I was stopping to have intense contractions. I don't know if I'd agreed to the IV or if we didn't confirm. It was hard to communicate at that point. I asked if I could use the restroom and they unhooked me from the monitors so that I could go. I asked if I could get in the tub and see if that helped me relax. The midwife brought up the IV of fluids again and I remember being very confused because I thought I had already agreed to that. She also asked about keeping up with the continuous monitoring. I asked if I could do these things while in the tub and she said I could. I said, "Yes, yes, yes. Whatever gets me in the tub!" She started to explain that I could get in the tub even if I refused these things, but I think I interrupted and said that I was fine with whatever she thought might help the baby. Again, this was one of those situations were I could feel myself growing impatient -- why not start running the bath while we're chatting about IV fluids and continuous monitoring? I just remember being so confused because I thought I had already agreed to these things. 

(Thinking about it later, I think she was just being really careful to be respectful of my birth plan, which had included requests for intermittent monitoring, no IV placement, and time to process and discuss when changes to the plan became necessary. She probably felt that by leaving the room and coming back and asking again, she was following my requests. I feel bad that I felt so frustrated with her when I'm fairly certain she was trying to do what she thought would make me most comfortable.)

As they started to fill the tub, I gripped the side of the hospital bed as I stood next to it. I started having painful, intense contractions that were piled on top of one another. I was shaking. My moans were turning into screams -- something I hadn't expected to hear coming out of my mouth. When a particularly screamy contraction had ended, I laid down in the bed and said I wanted an epidural. They said okay and said that the first step was to get that IV placed. It was torturous to hold still for the IV, but I knew I could do it, having held still for the epidural while involuntarily pushing during Greta's labor. Once the IV was in, I rolled onto my side and continued to moan and scream through contractions. I started feeling an intense urge to push and I repeated that I wanted the epidural. The midwife said that it was okay to feel that urge to push and that I was probably close to having the baby, that there might not be time for an epidural. 

At this point, I noticed that a lot more people were in the room and the midwife said that they were getting ready for the baby. I remember that moment so clearly, as I realized that I was about to have this baby soon and that everybody knew it. This was no longer just a gut feeling on my part, but that even the midwife, who had seemed to think we had hours and hours ahead of us, was preparing for my baby to be born. I started involuntarily pushing and said, "I'm pushing. My body is pushing." The midwife said, "That's okay. It probably means you are close to having your baby." 

I felt liquid between my legs and said that there was "something" between my legs. The midwife asked, "What do you mean by 'something,' Arden? Did your water break?" I suppose I could have meant a crowning head or something, but I remember being frustrated, once again. How was I to know whether it was my water breaking or not? I've got my eyes closed! (In my labor with Greta, I had thought that my water had broken when, in fact, it was blood. Later on, when my water actually did break, they weren't positive that it broke because it broke while I was on the toilet and then didn't leak anymore. So between those two experiences, I wasn't about to declare that my water had broken with absolute certainty, knowing that all kinds of liquids can come spilling out of a laboring woman.) In any case, I said, "I don't know. Liquid. Maybe my water. Maybe blood." I asked what time it was and was told it was ten minutes to 1am. 

The midwife checked me and said my water had broken, I was complete and that I was going to have the baby now. She flipped me onto my back from how I had been lying on my side, and pushed my legs up. It felt good to be able to push, but it was also very confusing. There were a lot of people in the room, or so it seemed, and they were all telling me to do various things. I felt like people were pulling my legs in all kinds of directions and yelling and me to hold my thighs back. This was a very different experience from pushing with Greta -- in which other people were holding my legs and I just focused on pushing. I was shaking way too much and asked if someone else could hold my legs and they said no, that I needed to hold my own legs for leverage. I'm not sure what the rush was -- whether they were concerned about the baby's heart decelerations, or whether they were trying to spare me more pain or tearing, or whether there was something else going on, but I felt like they wanted this baby out fast. At one point they were asking me to look at something -- one of them, perhaps, or maybe down to see how close I was to having the baby? But I couldn't open my eyes. I was completely out of control of my body. Finally, I felt someone lifting my legs up high and then, in what felt like I had a million body parts flying out of me, she was born at 12:57am. It's still amazing to me that I only pushed for 6 minutes. With Greta, I had pushed for probably about 2 hours.

They put her on my chest right away and I felt instant joy and relief. As soon as she was out, the contractions stopped and I hugged my slippery little baby to my body. She was tiny and wet and looked so much like Greta. I couldn't believe she was there -- it had all that had happened so fast. It was only 90 minutes since I had first arrived in the labor and delivery room and even less time since my first cervical check in which I had been declared to be "barely in active labor." I still wonder what would have happened if I had been a stickler for the 5-1-1 rule and waited until I had more regular contractions before coming to the hospital. Especially since I was experiencing so many long contractions and coupled contractions, all the way up until the very end, I can't imagine how challenging it would have been to try to get an accurate read on what was happening using my timer alone. As it was, the only good indication of how close I was to birthing was the intensity, and so I am glad that I followed that as my guide. 

Lydia turns 2 weeks old today. There is more to this story, but it relates more to postpartum recovery and breastfeeding and sibling adjustment, so I'm going to wrap this up here and get it posted. As hard as things have been, we are totally in love with our girls.

So Close and Yet So Far

The hardest part of the end of pregnancy is not so much the waiting, but the wondering. It feels like just about every day, I experience some kind of "Is this it?" feelings. The truth of the matter is, I wouldn't mind waiting awhile. I'd actually prefer it if this baby waited another week or so. But instead, I find myself unable to relax and just have fun and wait because I'm always in a state of pre-labor.

Monday evening, I felt very ill. Almost like a hangover, or the beginning of the flu. Nausea, headache, general body aches. By the evening, it had developed into contractions, but ones that I could distract myself from. That evening, I woke up with contractions several times, but by the time I woke up I mostly just felt sick again.

During the day on Tuesday, I expected throughout much of the day that I would go into labor. In fact, I never even left the house because I was so certain that labor was going to start at any moment. I was actually quite surprised when evening came and it hadn't developed into anything exciting.

Wednesday morning, I woke up with a headache and sore muscles but I forced myself to get up and install the car seat base while the weather was still cool. After that, I went for a long walk with Greta and we got some breakfast. On the walk back, I was getting very sore and crampy. I was actually kind of grateful that Greta wanted to push her stroller because it forced us to walk at a slow pace on the way home. Unfortunately, it didn't tire her out as much as it tired me out, and so Ben (who is sick with some kind of cold/sinus problem) and I had to struggle with getting her down for a nap before we could get some rest ourselves. (Thankfully, she did sleep and so did we!) That evening after she went to bed, I had really bad cramps and pulling sensations down in my lower abdomen and cervix. It was very unpleasant, but I managed to breathe through them and distracted myself with Netflix before falling asleep.

That brings us to last night. I woke up at 2am with INTENSE pain. It was like the worst period cramps of my life. Radiating all around my back and abdomen and down my legs (in particular, my right leg). It reminded me of when I woke up in labor with Greta -- just intense pain, with no discernible starting and stopping. I had told myself that this time, if something happened in the middle of the night, I would be better about letting Ben sleep as much as possible and deal with it on my own so that at least one of us could be well-rested. But I was in so much pain.

This sucks. Here I'd thought I was going to be so much better at handling contractions this time because I was going to get a break in-between them this time unlike with Greta. All of those "practice contractions" convinced me that I was going to have an easier labor and that I wouldn't have to deal with the overwhelming non-stop pain this time. And here I am, 2am and I'm waking up with non-stop pain just like last time. My body just doesn't know what early labor is supposed to be like. It's like it never read the manual. 

I needed to heat up my heating pad and eat something so that I could take Tylenol, but I couldn't fathom making it down the stairs because I could barely stand up without the pain causing me to double over. I felt awful about waking up my sick husband, but I couldn't manage on my own. I woke Ben and he got the heating pad which helped tremendously. He made me a multigrain waffle and I ate it and took some Tylenol while he went back to sleep. I watched more Netflix until the pain faded enough that I could fall asleep again.

This is it. I know this feeling exactly. This is labor, or at least how my body "does" labor. I need to sleep now because I'm not going to get any more sleep for the next 28 hours (or maybe even more this time). Let's see if I can do it. 

This morning when I woke up, I felt okay. Not great, but definitely nothing like what I'd experienced at 2am. I was afraid to move. When I'd move even just a little bit, I'd be hit by a cramp. I decided that, since my position was making a significant difference in how my cramps felt, it was probably not "real" labor. I forced myself to get out of bed, to eat some food, to drink some fluids, and to move around. With a little more time, I felt better.

And that brings me to now. Feeling utterly confused. What's it going to be like this time? Is it going to be a more "normal" process? Or was last night an indicator that it's going to be just like last time? Why did I have to go through that horrible pain if I wasn't going to have a baby today? Is my body just confused? On June 12 when I was convinced that I was in labor, the timing was indicative of active labor, but the intensity was not. This time, the intensity was there, but the timing was not.

I feel sore and the baby feels, perhaps, a bit lower. But other than that, I'm pretty sure nothing is going to come of last night's events. I'd really appreciate it if we could have a quiet and restful few days, followed by an actual labor and delivery. C'mon Piccola! You can do it!

10 Days!

10 days left until my due date. No promises that there will be a baby at that point, but it's nice to know I'll be in the single digits of the daily countdown soon. Feels a little like New Year's Eve.

Things are much more ready. Furniture is moved. The swing is set up. Hospital bags are packed. I need to install the car seat base, but I'm hoping to do that early in the morning when it's not so hot out. I'm having a hard time dealing with the heat. The A/C has been on all day, and I'm still fanning myself.

Greta is getting more excited. She understands that there's a baby in my belly, that the baby will come out and be her little sister, and that the baby is "cozy" in there. She has a small baby doll that was mine when I was a child and another one at her grandparents' house. Greta frequently makes noises akin to a gentle ambulance siren and then narrates that her baby is crying. Most of the time she then announces, "She needs a bottle," but today she began saying, "She needs her big sister. " YES, this freakin' melted my heart, and caused me to run inside to get the little doll so that Greta could hold her on our way to Menards.

There are many aspects of Greta's treatment of her baby doll that will be very different from her treatment of the actual live little sister that will be coming to live with us. For starters, Greta will not be able to hold the real baby in her lap while we are in the car. Also, when Greta tucks her baby doll into the swing, she frequently places a large toy car at the baby's feet  and a bottle near the baby's face before asking me to turn the swing on. That will most definitely be changing when it's a real newborn in the swing. She does however, know that she has to step away from the swing while it is on, and that if she hears the noise that means it is on, she can't get close to it until Mama has turned it off and it has stopped moving on its own.

Greta's baby doll (which I named "Yellow Baby" as a child).

We are trying, in these small ways, to introduce Greta to some of the realities of life with a baby. Yesterday, when she asked me to give the baby a bottle (a little Medela pumping vial with a nipple on top), I explained that while Papa and other relatives and friends will use a bottle to feed the baby, most of the time Mama is going to nurse the baby. We chatted about what this meant for a few minutes and I didn't think she'd really internalized what it meant (it's hard for me to know for sure whether she remembers nursing . . . she says she does, but it was 9 months ago that she last nursed). A few hours later, she asked me to nurse the baby and then when I cradled the doll to my chest she announced, "She gets milk from the breast!" So she at least understands the concept.

With other things, however, there aren't as many easy opportunities for teachable moments. We don't have a pretend carseat, for example, and so for right now either the baby doll is going to be in Greta's arms during a car ride, or she'll be face down on the back seat (which often results in Greta stepping on her head as she climbs into her car seat). I suppose we could at least put the baby doll in a seatbelt, but I am not comfortable pretending that this 8-inch plush doll can 5-step before Greta can.

So those lessons will have to wait until there's an actual baby that will fit in an actual car seat. It will be interesting to see how the adjustment to a real baby goes. For the most part, Greta is pretty good at understanding what's pretend and what isn't. She puts her face all over the burners on her toy stove, for example, but when we demand that she stand clear of the big oven in the kitchen, she tends to listen. So will Greta try to pick up her baby sister by the neck or the hair? I kind of doubt that. I think she'll understand that real babies have to be treated more carefully.

And even if she doesn't right away, that is a lesson we will be working on very quickly!

Who's feeling lucky?

The drama of our false labor reminded me that there was something else I needed to do, which is to start a baby pool. Feel free to add your guesses here:

http://www.untilithappens.com/piccola/

False Labor

I'm hoping that the title of this post makes it very clear that the events that I'm about to relay have not resulted in the birth of a baby. Just want to put that out there before you continue reading so that nobody gets too excited . . . Also, upon re-reading it, I think I should also take a moment now to reassure you, the reader, that the baby and I are fine.

On Friday morning, I woke up at 2:30am with some painful contractions. This isn't too unusual for me. I tried the usual tactics -- emptying my bladder, lying on my left side, drinking water, pooping, taking a shower, etc. Nothing was helping. I started timing them and they were fairly irregular -- most of them coming every 3-6 minutes, but a few were more like 6-9 minutes apart and some were as close as 2.5 minutes apart. Most of them were lasting about a minute. If they had felt more intense and been more regular, then the alarm of "5-1-1! 5 minutes or less apart! Lasting 1 minute! For one hour!" would have been going off in my head. But although they were painful and I had to stop and breathe to get through them, they just didn't feel like real labor to me.

Eventually, around 6am, I stopped timing them and decided to try to just get some rest. They were spacing out a bit by then, and so I figured this was my chance to see if I could sleep them off. I wrote a note to Ben to update him on what was going on and then got back in bed. I dozed a bit between contractions, but didn't really sleep much.

They weren't stopping. At 9am, Ben and I dropped Greta off at her drop-in daycare. As he went to take her inside, I gave her a kiss on the cheek and then, as I watched them walk off, I started crying, wondering if this was the last time I'd see her before she became a big sister.

We came back home and I sat on the yoga ball while Ben packed our bags for the hospital -- a task which we'd prepared for, but not yet actually accomplished (it had been on my to-do list for that day while Greta was at drop-in daycare). When we were done, I tried to distract myself for awhile and began to notice that the contractions were slowing to about 7-13 minutes apart. I felt fairly confident that things were chilling out.

By about 1pm, though, they were back to 2-5 minutes apart, and more intense. Ben arranged for his parents to pick up Greta from drop-in daycare and left for a nearby meeting. I called the midwife on call to check in and ask what she'd recommend. She asked whether my water had broken or if I'd had any bleeding. No. She asked what my GBS status was. Negative. She asked if I had been dilated at my last appointment and I sheepishly admitted that I had declined to be checked. She asked if I could talk through my contractions and, as I had one, I breathlessly said that I could, but that I didn't enjoy it. She said I sounded like I was in labor, warned me that second labors can be very different from first labors (I had protested that I hadn't had any bloody show or mucus plug loss), and reminded me that now might be a good time to come to the hospital because during the middle of the day we wouldn't have to worry about highway rush hour traffic. But my contractions still felt really manageable and lying down in my own bed was where I wanted to be. I said that I would try to stick it out at home for a little while longer and see what happened and she said that if I decided to come in, I should just call and have them page her that I was on my way rather than waiting for a call-back.

Ben and I chatted about it a few times. I now was convinced that this was the real deal. With each contraction, I could feel that my breathing was changing about 5 seconds before the actual contraction hit, it was rising to a peak that I could feel externally on my abdomen and that radiated down into my legs, and then gradually fading away after about a minute. Between Greta's pregnancy and this one, I had had plenty of contractions that didn't result in any cervical changes or baby births -- these ones felt legit.

But I still didn't want to be at the hospital yet. I wasn't panicked enough. I wasn't experiencing enough outward signs of labor. Heck, I was only 37 weeks --  the baby hadn't even dropped yet! It just didn't seem plausible that my baby was ready to be born.

This is the problem with having a first labor that has such a distinct starting point. With Greta, I had bloody mucus and almost immediately I was having time-able contractions. So when I couldn't sleep through them anymore and woke up in blinding pain, it felt reasonable to assume that I was in labor. This was so different. It felt like what I expect early labor to feel like, but the timing was more closely matched to active labor. I didn't want to be at the hospital if I was in early labor, but I didn't want to be at home if I was about to hit transition and give birth.

We operated off of instincts, which were telling us that this was the real deal, but that it might be awhile still and that we'd wait for things to get more intense before making the call to go to the hospital. The midwife called me back at 5:30pm towards the end of her on-call shift to check in and I asked whether I should keep trying to rest and lie down, or whether I should be up and moving around to get things progressing. She told me to do whatever felt best -- and that if I could rest, that was a good thing.

By around 8pm, things were slowing down again. The contractions were still coming about as frequently, but feeling even more manageable as far as intensity, and seemed to be shortening up to about 40 seconds instead of a minute in duration. I was feeling exhausted, so I took my usual half-tab of Unisom and tried going to sleep around 9pm.

In the night, I woke up and noticed that my contractions were gone. Completely gone. In fact, my uterus felt more relaxed than it had in months. I felt a flood of emotions -- relief that the pains had stopped; sadness that I wouldn't be meeting my baby soon; confusion as to what all that had been for! Having had so many contractions, it was eerie to not have any.

I woke again at 3:30 and went to use the restroom. Not a single contraction -- not even when I was sitting on the toilet (a position which often causes contractions for me during the third trimester). I tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't and so I ended up going downstairs and eating a bowl of cereal.

As I sat at the dining table with my cereal, I shook my head, thinking how bizarre it felt to go from 60 to zero. To go to sleep with contractions 3 minutes apart and wake up with none. I rubbed my belly and thought about how calm my uterus felt. That I didn't even feel pregnant.

Then I froze. I didn't even feel pregnant. I realized that I hadn't felt a single movement from the baby since waking up, despite the fact that 3am-5am is usually a busy time for her. I started panicking and crying as I poured myself a tall glass of ice and apple juice and downed it. I lay down on my left side and turned on my kick count app. Within a couple minutes, I got two tiny movements, which was very relieving -- but they were tiny little flickers and not like her usual morning kicks. I started periodically poking my belly, shaking it this way and that. Lately, it has felt like every time I even lightly touched my belly, she'd roll around and move. Not now, though. Shaking my belly and poking and prodding did nothing. While I eventually got to 10 movements, it took awhile and I could barely stay awake to record the tenth movement. I fell back asleep, still a little worried.

When I woke again a few hours later, though, I still was feeling barely any movements. I was starting to panic. Only baby knows when she's ready, is a common phrase amongst childbirth experts. There is increasing evidence that there's something in the baby's brain -- rather than the mother's body -- which triggers the start of labor. Here my baby had been trying to get me into labor for 17 hours without success . . . and now she wasn't moving. Was something wrong? Was she in danger and needed to get out?

I called the midwife who was currently on-call and explained that my contractions had stopped, but that I now was worried about a decrease in fetal movement. She asked a few questions and then had me come in to be monitored.

The ride to the hospital was so long. Resting my hands on my motionless belly, I felt more scared than I ever have before. The hormonal drop from the previous day's excitement mixed with flashbacks to emptiness I felt on the day that we lost Sparkie. I found myself crying. I don't even feel pregnant. My own words kept ringing in my ears.

They hooked me up to the monitors at the hospital and began tracking the baby's heartbeat. The heartbeat wasn't all that reassuring -- after all, I knew that she had a heartbeat because I had felt a handful of movements. What worried me more was that she wasn't moving as much, and she wasn't responding to external stimuli (food, cold drinks, me poking at her) the way she normally did. I was worried that something was wrong and that she was in danger.

The midwife, nurse, and student midwife explained that the limited movements that I was feeling were correlated with excellent heart accelerations and that her heartbeat sounded "perfect." What's more, even when I couldn't feel the movement, they could tell that she was moving fairly frequently by the other sounds that the heartbeat monitor was picking up. I wanted to see her and see that everything was okay, but they don't send you for an ultrasound when they can confirm that everything's okay with the other monitors. So after some more anxious crying and the reassurance of a few more kicks-associated-with-accelerations, we headed out.

For what it's worth, she's been moving more normally since then. Things are looking good for both of us. I'm a complete emotional mess, but that's just par for the course with me.

The take-home message? False labor is insane. It is a total head trip. I had heard of it, of course. I knew it was possible to have contractions that really do feel just like real labor without being in labor. I had heard of people arriving at the hospital, only to be sent home. But after my experience with Greta -- in which I had had plenty of contractions, but felt distinctly different when it was "the real thing" -- I had thought for sure that I would know the difference. Now I don't know what to think. Yesterday I felt progressively more convinced that there was no turning back, that no matter how long it took, I was on my way to having a baby. Today, I have no fecking clue. Is labor going to pick up again in a couple days? In a couple weeks? Will I go overdue?

Although I had intended to decline pre-labor cervical checks unless I went overdue, I am now wondering whether I should get myself checked out at my next appointment -- if only to satisfy my curiosity and to make it easier to answer the, "And what were the results of your most recent cervical check?" question by midwives and nurses. As much as I know that it's my right to decide whether to get checked, I felt bad for not having an answer to a routine question.

On the other hand, if I am still not dilated at all, I will feel angry at my body for not knowing how to properly dilate a cervix. I will feel like my 17 hours of "labor" are all for nought.

Except that we got those bags packed. That is definitely worth something.

Baby Names

We've been playing the "Should we name the baby _______?" game with Greta. So far, she's offered her approval ("Yeah!") of several lovely and normal names, as well as some unusual choices such as Truck, Cookie, and Stalin. We've decided that we shouldn't rely on her guidance for naming this baby.

Interestingly, despite her general approval of virtually any name or word that we suggest, when asked directly, "What should we name the baby?" she has steadfastly replied with only one suggestion: Pie.

Or is it π?

With our first two pregnancies, my due date was within 2 days of March 14 (Pi Day).  Greta was due March 16, but born March 18. The baby boy that we lost would have been due March 12. In both cases, my initial excitement over discovering that I was pregnant involved mentally marking my due date and noting its proximity to Pi Day. I hoped and hoped that I would be lucky enough to have a "Pi Baby."

So imagine my surprise when Greta announced that the baby should be named Pi. We don't eat a lot of pie in our household. She's familiar with the word from books, of course, but there are many words that she is much more familiar with -- like "milk" or "puppy." Why she has decided that the baby should be named Pi(e) has mystified us. Perhaps she has a distant memory of me expressing my hopes that Sparkie would be a "Pi Baby" -- but if that's the reason, the would be remembering comments from last summer.

For awhile, when she would suggest Pi(e), she would laugh like it was our inside joke. She then began to chuckle and say, "Pi(e)!" even when we were laughing about something else -- as if to say, "It's fun to laugh -- remember when we laughed and laughed about the word Pi(e), Mama?"

Now, though, she takes it so seriously and almost seems confused as to why we haven't simply taken her at her word. The other day when I asked for her name recommendations, she didn't miss a beat -- "Pi(e)," she said, as though she was puzzled by my lack of memory.

I am starting to wonder whether Greta is going to call the baby Pi(e), no matter what. It might be a cute nickname for her to give the baby. A funny story about how I finally got my Pi Baby.

5-4-3-2-1

Today I am 35 weeks pregnant exactly. This also means that I have 35 days left of pregnancy (well, 35 days until my due date . . . so take that with a grain of salt).

But still . . . Days. I've gotten to the point where I am counting down days.

A few days ago, I found a handout called "40 Reasons to go the Full 40." It's a list of reasons to aim for a 40 week pregnancy, instead of trying to induce early. I figured it would be neat to read one reason every day for the last 40-ish days of pregnancy. Unfortunately, because each one was short, it was difficult to resist reading the whole thing in one sitting. It's probably best that I did, though, because trying to space them out one at a time would have likely been anti-climatic.  Although some of them are good reminders of why it's good to still be pregnant (like "Relish parenting . . . right now you know exactly where baby is and what he's doing,") many others were just repetitive ("Ignore people who say an induction is more convenient . . . there's nothing convenient about a longer labor and increasing your risk of cesarean," right next to "Respond to requests to speed baby's birth with the facts that inductions often create more painful labors and can lead to cesarean,"*) and others ("Splurge on pedicures") just didn't interest me. The last one was "Write your own healthy reason," which I think would have pissed me off if I had read it on my due date.

I'm feeling very hopeful that this baby will stay put, although I must admit that the little lingering thoughts of "I'm 35 weeks today -- that's the same day as my mom was when she had my sister!" are starting to get to me. I remember that starting at 35 weeks when I was pregnant with Greta too. And although I assume I will go all the way to 40 weeks again, it's impossible to resist that panicked-excited voice that says, "It could be any day now!"

Even though I hope it's not.

My own reasons to go the Full 40:

1. The birth experience I am hoping for does not involve the extra monitoring and potentially-challenging breastfeeding experience that would come from a labor and delivery prior to 37 weeks. Plus, it would be stressful to go into labor before I've finished up the workyear -- entered grades, cleaned my classroom . . . all that.

2. Well, once I get to 37 weeks, I'd kind of like to enjoy a little of my vacation before giving birth. And since I turn 37 weeks on the last day of work, I'd like to wait at least a little while before going into labor.

3. Yeah, in fact, I think I'd enjoy as much vacation as possible before I have to start the new-parent haze.

Yes, of course, I have reasons like "So the baby will be healthier," and "So I get to spend more one-on-one time with Greta," and "So we feel more prepared to welcome a new baby into our lives." But, quite frankly, when the "BUT IT COULD BE TOMORROW!" bug starts to get under my skin, it's the hope of a stress-free and option-full labor and delivery, and the promise of vacation that keeps me sane.

*Note: My midwives won't do an elective induction before 41 weeks anyway. So the "Inductions are a PITA!" types of reasons aren't relevant to me and only make me more nervous that I'm going to end up having to be induced at 41w5d. What I need are reminders about why I shouldn't HOPE for a spontaneous early labor, not reminders about why inductions and c-sections can be problematic.

Things are Getting Real

My belly hurts. Not like a stomach-ache (although I get that too), but the muscles and skin and whole abdominal area just hurts. I think I had thought that I couldn't get much bigger, and I don't take weekly photos, so it's hard to tell for sure . . . but I think I can safely say that I am still growing quite a bit based on how my belly feels. It feels heavy and taut. It's harder to take deep breaths and I'm easily made breathless by activities that shouldn't make me feel breathless.

I'm amazed by my pregnant body. It feels so different than just the extra weight. I have been heavier than my current weight even when not pregnant, and so I have a certain appreciation for how different it feels to be pregnant. Despite the fact that it's still me, it feels so foreign and bizarre and out-of-control when one gets to this stage. Coughing feels uncomfortable in so many places that aren't just my chest. Turning over in bed is a very . . . real struggle. I often wish that I had long ropes attached to each side of the bed so that I could use them to help me rotate. The emergency room visit a few weeks ago due to severe abdominal pain caused by either a gallbladder attack or some kind of insane muscle spasm has made me terrified of both high-fat foods (gallbladder attack?) and sitting up in bed (muscle spasm?). In particular, I hate turning over or sitting up in bed. I always now feel like it is somehow an extremely risky experience. I can't handle the idea of the pain of that evening again . . . and then when I freak out over the memories of my gallbladder/muscle spasm pain, I worry that I've forgotten too much of what labor is like and I am woefully unprepared to go through it again.

I've had labor and birth on my mind a great deal. We've registered for labor/birth classes and I am in the process of writing a birth plan. I feel comfortable and confident some days, and completely terrified at others. I think it will help when we have the house more prepared, but I'm too exhausted to get excited about any nesting projects right now.

I've added a weekly countdown to my due date to the whiteboard in my classroom. I am surprised by which students seem to take an active interest in it. Sometimes I wonder whether they are just eager for me to have my baby and leave them in the care of a substitute (despite the fact that I've told them they should expect me to be with them all the way until the end of the schoolyear, since there are only 3 weeks left of school, but 6 weeks left until my due date). But I know that some of them are genuinely interested in the fact that we are getting closer to the big day.

I'd be excited too, if I weren't so gosh darn terrified.

30 Weeks! Let the countdown begin!

I'm currently 30 weeks pregnant and getting excited for the home stretch. I remember getting to the last 10 weeks with Greta and feeling like every week was this huge chip away at the remaining time.

30 weeks pregnant means that there are 7 weeks left in the schoolyear. This is both exciting and terrifying. I'm looking forward to the last 7 weeks going by quickly (please! please!), and hoping that the last three weeks of pregnancy will go by nice and slowly (so long as I'm still relatively comfortable and healthy, of course). I fully expect Piccola to wait until her due date to arrive, although I must admit I am hoping that she doesn't come much later than that. I am really, really hoping that she doesn't arrive on July 4. July 4 was the day that we found out we were pregnant with Sparkie last year. I'm sure, if it happens, with time it will simply become Piccola's birthday and I won't have such strong associations with Sparkie. But I'd just rather not go there at all. I'm just really hoping that Piccola makes her appearance before that anniversary.

In pregnancy news, I'm feeling her kicking around quite often now. These are the days when I'm actually glad that I have an anterior placenta -- Piccola's kicks are consistent, but still mostly pleasant and fun. It is rare that she delivers a jab that is truly painful -- and usually when it happens it is to the cervix, which makes sense because it is (thankfully) not covered with placenta.

I still sometimes have to stop myself and recognize that we are going to have a baby in 10 weeks or so. A baby. What should I be doing? How should I be preparing? I feel weirdly even more clueless than with my first baby. I think it's because, ultimately, a newborn doesn't need all that much and can't get into all that much trouble. The rest of us adults can adapt to the newborn and we can decide as we go how we're going to do that. But a newborn entering a home with a toddler? That's a whole different picture. I have no clue what that's going to look like to get Greta on board with our adaptations.

Today I took Greta out for a walk and she was very upset that I made her ride in the stroller when she wouldn't listen to directions about holding my hand. I thought about how grateful I am that we have a double stroller so that I can have both kids buckled in at the same time. I also thought about how scary it would be if the single stroller had had a little baby in it when I was reaching for my disobedient toddler.

The biggest worries that I have right now are around whether to speed up or slow down Greta's transition from babyhood to childhood. She's in a crib right now -- do we transition her to a toddler bed before or after the baby's arrival? She's in diapers -- do we potty train now or after the baby arrives. With 10 weeks left to go, I feel like we have to fish or cut bait. Either we can make these transitions now and have enough time that she might not regress when the baby arrives, or we have to wait until after we've settled in with our new arrival. I feel like waiting until the last couple weeks of pregnancy to make big changes is a bad idea. It's just darn awkward timing.

And then, besides the baby's arrival, there's the worries about the actual birth. At this point, I'm sort of in la-la land about that. I'm just kind of assuming things will go however they're going to go and there's not much I can do to prepare. Which is probably mostly accurate. But I'd like to be somewhat prepared. Maybe have a few breathing techniques in my back pocket. Certainly have a bag packed. Perhaps have purchased some supplies for taking care of myself during and after labor.

There's a lot to do in these last 10 weeks. It's hard to focus on anything except surviving the last 7 weeks of school, though. Head down, power through.

The Rough Days of Pregnancy

We're in the third trimester. And things are getting tough.

Last week I had a cold/hot/clammy dizzy spell and ended up having some food and lying down for about a half hour in the nurse's office at school before continuing with my day. That evening, I had seven hours of painful, semi-regular contractions. They eventually spaced out and I was seen in clinic the next day and there hadn't been any cervical changes, so we just sat down and made a plan of action for finding opportunities to drink more water and empty my bladder more frequently throughout the day.

Then yesterday I actually fainted. During 2nd block, in front of my students. I felt embarrassed and frustrated. It was likely just due to a bad combination of  low blood sugar and not drinking enough. (My co-teacher was unavailable because he was filling in for another staff member and so I wasn't taking care of myself the way I usually do.) I left work early, moved up my midwife appointment, and made another plan -- this time to eat more frequently to keep my blood sugar up.

That afternoon, Ben and I went to get some food and then headed home so I could rest. I was lying down and then got up to use the restroom. As I was sitting up, I suddenly felt a bad pain in my upper abdomen. I gasped and held my belly and stumbled to the bathroom, hoping it would improve after emptying my bladder. The pain continued and, in fact, got considerably worse. I called out to Ben in a panic. I was pushing on the top of my abdomen because it felt like my belly was about to explode outward. It felt like a combination of an uncontrollable pushing contraction, mixed with the baby lodging a foot behind my placenta. I don't know that that makes much sense, but that was the only thing that came to mind.

I asked Ben to get me a hot pack and to Google whether it was okay to use one on my belly. When he brought it back, I was standing in the doorway, swaying and holding my belly. I put it on my belly a few times, but the pain was the same or worse and so I took it off. I was moaning and pushing on my belly, which felt hard and like it was bulging. I was gasping and having a hard time breathing in and I told Ben I thought I should call the midwife on-call line. I called and the midwife on-call directed me to go to the ER immediately, and to go to the ER at the hospital where they could deliver a 28-weeker, if necessary.

By the time we got to the hospital, the pain had subsided considerably. It felt more like just gas pain or heartburn or a muscle ache. After several tests and some monitoring of the baby's heartrate, the midwife who saw me felt convinced that it was probably due to a muscle spasm of the thinned walls of my abdomen where the muscles separate -- perhaps compounded by the baby pushing on the muscles as they spasmed, and perhaps also compounded by gas or heartburn pain.

As happy as I was that the baby was okay and that nothing that I was experiencing was putting either of us at considerable risk, it was also very scary to know that there was virtually nothing I could do to prevent this kind of pain from happening again. I am hoping it was a fluke accident and I am thinking I should do more to strengthen my core as much as possible . . . but I'm also afraid of straining those muscles at all now. I stayed home from work to recuperate and even talking has been difficult.

I'm also nervous because the midwife mentioned my gallbladder several times while I was there (although at the time I had no idea what she was talking about and so I wasn't really paying attention), and today I looked up what a "gallbladder attack" is like and realized that it sounded exactly like what I experienced. But without knowing if that's what it was, I'm not sure what, if anything, I should be doing.

I think that this is my modus operandi during pregnancy. I seem to have a lot of frustrating, painful, uncomfortable stuff happen to me (like fainting, dizzy spells, braxton hicks contractions, sciatica, food poisoning, this weird muscle spasm/gallbladder attack, anemia, nosebleeds -- oh yeah, more on that in a bit...), some of it very scary, and then it turns out to be relatively normal and without much that can be done for treatment (except the anemia, for which I take iron and then suffer the side effects of that). Am I a wimp? Or just super unlucky?

Speaking of unlucky . . . the nosebleeds. Holy moly, this is a new thing with this pregnancy. I don't remember having any trouble with nosebleeds when I was pregnant with Greta. I have been having bad nosebleeds from my right nostril for a few weeks now. At least a couple a week, and sometimes more than one in a day. They got worse last week after I began having a bad cold and needing to blow my nose more frequently. No matter how gentle I am about blowing my nose (or even if I am only blowing the side that doesn't bleed), I run the risk of starting a gushing stream of blood. The morning that I fainted, I had been awakened at 3am with a nosebleed, which took a long time to stop and then didn't allow me to get back to sleep because I couldn't lie in a good position. At other times, I have had one start just as I am getting ready to go out the door -- necessitating a prolonged period of management and then clean-up, followed by a complete change of clothes.

Yeah, the third trimester is rough. I am so grateful that the baby is doing so well (the nurses and midwives commented that her heart accelerations were particularly good for a 28-week fetus), but I am really hoping I can get a few weeks of just blissful pregnant-lady normalcy before the summer heat sets in and we get to those last few weeks where I know I'll be especially uncomfortable.

C'mon, Piccola! Just one or two weeks to enjoy my pregnancy? Pretty please?

Two Years of Awesome

Greta turned two last week and today we had her 2 year old appointment. She's about 23 lbs and 33 inches. It's harder and harder to describe what she's up to these days. There aren't big, momentous changes the way that there were in that first year or so. Now the changes are more subtle.

She's talking more everyday, and it's fun to see her mind work. Yesterday, she had gone to the zoo with Ben's parents and sister and I'd been made aware of the fact that she might be chattering about bears and penguins as a result. So while she was eating dinner, I asked her if she had gone to the zoo, did she see bears, etc. What intrigued me was that she not only confirmed that she had seen these animals, but she elaborated that the bears had been sleeping and the penguins had been swimming, and that the penguins had also eaten fish ("Bite! Fish!" along with illustrative gestures). What surprised me most was that when I asked her about other possible animals that she may have seen ("Did you see any tigers at the zoo?") she paused, thought, and then said, "No." I had kind of suspected that when she was prompted, "Did you do x, y, and z today?" that she was always saying "yes" just to please us because of the way she was being asked the question. But it became clear from the conversation that she was truly thinking about whether she had seen each animal and answering to the best of her memory. It was kind of awesome to actually carry on a conversation with my child.

She's also starting to move more quickly -- scurrying more quickly and having stronger opinions about where she wants to go when we are out walking. This is both fun and exhausting. A trip to Target can be a bit of an adventure when she's not in her best listening mood. But it's also lots of fun. When I took her to the park recently, she not only wanted to slide down the slide, but she also pushed herself off, without me having to coax her or help her scoot close enough to the edge.

She really is just getting more fun everyday. I can't think of much more to update on. I suppose I could go on for a paragraph or two about her picky eating habits, but . . . eh . . . it's not too interesting of a discussion topic. So here are some pictures.

This was an attempted reprise of last year's Pi Day photo op. 

She LOVES walking around with her hands in her pockets.  

Bittersweet Moments

This past week has been hard on us.

Thursday, March 12, is the day that we would have been due with Sparkie. I spent most of last summer thinking about what it would be like to have another March baby, how excited I was for the potential of another Pi Day birthday, and how wonderful it would be to have the rest of the year off after my due date.

So in the lead-up to March 12, I struggled. A lot. It doesn't help that this is a rough time of year at work. So every time I have a stressful moment during the workday, I cannot help but instantly think, "I should be on maternity leave right now." Which then brings stinging tears to my eyes.

For the last several days, I've been having flashbacks to the last days before Greta's birth. Wondering what it would have been like to be preparing for Sparkie's arrival. Remembering what I was doing the day before Greta's due date. The day of Greta's due date. Wondering if things will go the same with Piccola. Knowing that by this point we'd know if Sparkie's birth timeline would have been the same or different.

The weather also perfectly warmed up this week. I feel simultaneously ecstatically happy at the sudden onset of spring, and deeply depressed that I can't be bringing a new life into this world amidst all the freshness of the season. As I start putting away my maternity sweaters and digging around for t-shirts, I remember that if things had gone "as they should have" then I wouldn't have to worry about a change of maternity wardrobe at all. I would have given birth the same week as the onset of spring. I wouldn't have to buy maternity tank tops and shorts and prepare to be 9 months pregnant in the heat and humidity of June and July. At this very moment, I'd be wearing whatever postpartum nursing and loungewear I could dig up, hanging out with a newborn and enjoying a breeze through the open window.

I know that there are no guarantees in life. I know that I should be so grateful and happy for the all-signs-point-to-healthy baby that we are having, and that I should stop fretting over what "might have been." But it's hard. Unbelievably hard. Much harder than I had ever expected. It doesn't help that this is the most emotional part of pregnancy for me. At the beginning of pregnancy I am grumpy and perhaps a bit irrational, but it's the second half of pregnancy when I cry at everything.

Last Wednesday, I turned 24 weeks pregnant. This is a milestone that, if I'm remembering correctly, marks the start of when doctors would make every attempt to save the baby's life if she were born prematurely. This is a big milestone in my mind, and one that I'm grateful to have achieved. But at the same time, it has made all my "I should be going into labor right now" feelings even harder to deal with. I don't want to go into labor over three months early. I want this baby to be healthy and full-term. So to have these conflicting thoughts of "I wish I were going into labor right now" and "I don't want to give birth until June 10 at the earliest" is kind of a head trip.

At this point, I'm just really hoping that these strong emotions will pass. Ben said yesterday that he feels like part of the joy we've been feeling at the onset of spring is due to the fact that it makes Piccola feel that much closer to us. As long as we were in winter hibernation misery, Piccola's summer arrival was still "two seasons away."Now that spring is here, it feels like the 16 weeks until her expected arrival aren't such a drudgery to endure. We'll get there. One day at a time.

Second Trimester Updates Galore

I've written so many blog posts lately. What? You haven't read them? Oh, that's because I have been composing them in my head on the way to work and procrastinating on actually writing them.

So, backing up a few weeks . . .

The Big Ultrasound

On February 16 (President's Day), we had our big ultrasound. Our appointment was two-fold. First we met with a genetic counselor who seemed to find our family history quite boring in genetic counseling terms. Then we had the ultrasound and met with the perinatologist. Everything with Piccola looked great. I believe the words "perfect" were uttered more than once.

It was extremely emotional for me. I finally felt connected to this baby. A few weeks later, I have to remind myself of the thrilling moments when I stared at her little profile on the screen as we waited for the perinatologist to review our results. Unfortunately, I still rarely feel movement and so the ultrasound was a critical experience and one that, with time, has sadly faded in it's impact. I just have to keep reminding myself of how special that moment was.

At least we were able to determine the cause of the lack of feeling of movement -- and it's definitely not that Piccola isn't active. Quite the contrary, we saw her giving several swift kicks. Swift kicks to . . . the placenta. Yep, the placenta is covering the entire front of my abdomen. The perinatologist commented that it not only came down very low, but also extended up quite high in my uterus. Basically, as far as I could see, there wasn't a single part of Piccola that didn't have placenta in front of it. Sigh. It's hard enough to connect to a second baby, but much harder when you don't feel her very often. I guess I'll just continue going in to the midwife every two weeks for heartrate checks.

February 18

February 18 marked milestones for all. It was Ben's 32nd birthday. Greta turned 23 months old and the countdown to her 2nd birthday began. Piccola turned 21 weeks in gestation and I, consequently, turned 21 weeks pregnant. It felt like a big turning point for all of us -- to be so decidedly on our way to our family of four.

Nesting 

Nesting with a second child is still a completely bizarre experience for me. With Greta, we were mostly focused on making appropriate purchases. And then as those purchases were researched and made, we created space in our home for them, assembled them, read instruction booklets, etc.

With this new baby, especially after we found out that she would be a girl, we keep telling ourselves, "Well, we have everything we need!"

This is true and it isn't.

It is true in that we have everything that we used with Greta.

It isn't true in that Greta still uses some of those things. Like her crib. And her dresser. And her stroller. So while we have everything we would need if we were having another first child, we aren't having another first child, we're adding a second child to our family -- of which, Greta is still an active member.

It's also not true in that some items need replacement or re-purchasing. Like pacifiers. And likely bottles -- or at least nipples. And since we don't use cloth, of course we will need to buy new diapers in the appropriate size.

And the final point is that, even if we "have" everything we need (which we don't, as stated above), we still need to remember what needs to come out of storage and set it up.

I have a feeling that I'm going to keep saying, "Oh, I'll do that once school is out and I have more time," for the next several weeks. And then before I know it, I will be very uncomfortable, hot, and tired . . . and re-assembling a swing in a panic while I stress out about whether I'm having labor contractions or Braxton Hicks.

When does one get the house prepared for a second baby? Next week Piccola reaches viability. Is that the best time to start getting prepped for this baby's actual, you know, arrival?

Big Purchase

The biggest purchase we've made for Piccola's arrival is a double stroller. After stressing about it for weeks and freaking out over the expense, size, and functionality of every double stroller I searched for, I found a Craigslist post for one of my top picks at half the price of a new one. We checked it out yesterday and paid cash for it.

I'm insanely happy with the purchase. I feel like it's such a load off of my mind to have gotten a good deal on something I really wanted. I really wanted a full double stroller, even though I knew that it would be tough to predict how much Greta would be using the stroller by the time Piccola arrives and there were some potential advantages to a sit-and-stand. Ultimately, though, I knew that if I had a double stroller that was comfortable for the kids and that I found comfortable and enjoyable to use, I would be much more inclined to take the girls out and get some exercise in those early weeks when I need endorphins more than anything. Yes, I will admit it, this stroller is more for me than for Greta or Piccola. I want to be able to walk at my own pace and zone out a little on a nice walk. I don't want to have to chase after Greta when she refuses to hold my hand. I don't want to have to "wear the baby and push the toddler" in the hot and humid summer. I don't want to have to walk like a cowboy because my toddler is standing on a ride-along attachment between me and the handlebar. I want the possibility that the kids could nap while on the go. I just want a reliable method of transporting two kids comfortably and safely without having to load them into the car. Sitting in a stroller may no longer be Greta's favorite activity, but it's not like she hates the experience either.  I don't feel bad at all about making her do it now and then so that I can get in a nice walk.

Oh man, I am so ready for spring. I need a walk right now. The second trimester was really made for springtime.

Halfway Home

Today I'm 20 weeks pregnant. There's a certain thrill that comes from knowing that I can now start counting down instead of counting up. Not that I will, at least not just yet. Saying "20 weeks to go!" doesn't sound all that exciting. But 20 weeks is a definite milestone, and I'm excited about it.

Last Sunday, I felt some weird cramping that was timeable and contraction-like. I called the midwife on-call, expecting her to say that I should come to the hospital, that they'd monitor the contractions, that there would be a multitude of miracle drugs that they could give me to stop the contractions and make sure that my baby stayed put. In our discussion, I was surprised to learn that they couldn't have women come to labor and delivery at all until they were 20 weeks along and that, if I needed to be seen, it would be in the ER. Furthermore, I learned that the only benefit to going in to the hospital at all would be to test if I had bacterial vaginosis that was causing the contractions, and to perhaps be reassured (through doppler or ultrasound) that the baby was still alive. This also surprised me, since it hadn't even occurred to me that the reason for the contractions might be that the baby was no longer alive. I had heard the heartbeat at a midwife appointment only two days earlier and so the notion of a second trimester miscarriage wasn't even in my head.

So twenty weeks marks an important milestone for me. For one thing, it means that from this point forward if I ever need to be seen in the hospital for something that might be pregnancy-related (or even not pregnancy-related, but something that could affect the pregnancy, such as the food poisoning incident that I had while pregnancy with Greta), I can go to L&D instead of to the ER. This is hugely reassuring, since it is particularly strange to experience pregnancy-related symptoms that might be worth checking out, but not be able to see my midwives.

It also is somehow, perhaps in a way that is more macabre than most of my thoughts, reassuring to have passed the point at which a pregnancy loss would no longer be called a miscarriage, but instead a stillbirth. It's not a thought that I like to dwell on, but it's there. I have a particular dislike of the term "miscarriage" to begin with, and the thought that I could be 19 weeks and 4 days pregnant (as I was on Sunday) and still suffer the same "category" of loss as I did at 11 weeks and 1 day pregnant was rather disturbing, especially since the same loss, experienced only 3 days later, would carry a completely different term.

So yes, while I am excited to be at the 20 week mark for all kinds of normal pregnant-lady reasons, I'm also feeling reassured by this milestone on a strange and different level. It's important to pass these milestones, especially when -- pregnancy-wise -- very little is changing in a positive way from day to day.

Unfortunately, although it is getting harder to sleep and I am getting sudden and horrible sciatica this week, little Piccola isn't giving me many reasons to feel confident in this pregnancy's progression. Mainly, she is being very cryptic in her movements. While we can hear plenty of movement on the doppler, I am feeling almost none of it. I had been under the impression, around 11 weeks, that I was feeling flutters. But since then those flutters haven't developed into anything more pronounced and, in fact, have become less frequent. This is a scary thing and, as a result, I am still going to the midwives for reassurance appointments and heartbeat checks every two weeks. With Greta, I was feeling pronounced kicks and jabs at this point. But with Piccola, I am still not convinced that I have experienced a true "quickening" yet. I am eager to find out the location of my placenta at my ultrasound on Monday. I am assuming that it is anterior this time around, and hoping that this doesn't mean I will have to wait another month or so before I feel distinct movement. I am definitely ready for this baby to make her presence known.

A Little Update on our Original Bambina

So what's Greta up to these days? A lot.

I keep forgetting that the new baby won't be like Greta. Not only will the new baby have a personality of her own, of course, but the new baby will also be, well, a newborn. Greta is definitely my baby, but in all other respects, she is a kid. A talking, walking, exploring kid.

Talking
I still can't understand most kids her age when I try talking to them, but I'm continually surprised by how much Greta can communicate with me. I find this fascinating -- how parents and caregivers can understand their own children so much more clearly than any passerby. And that even when I feel like I have an "ear for toddler-speak," in fact, it's still just an ear for my toddler's speech.

 Not only does she still cry when she's annoyed and shake her hands when she wants to say "a hard no," she also is saying words pretty well and often putting two-to-three words together. Some words, of course, don't sound the same when she says them versus when I say them (for example, she says "pahs" for both pacifier and puzzle -- the context is critical), but she clearly means what she's saying and speaks with purpose frequently. She still babbles to herself while hanging out in the carseat, of course, but even then, she seems to be deliberately practicing new sounds to try out on us later.

A smattering of words that she currently uses at 22 months (these are just off the top of my head, not even necessarily the ones she uses most often, it's just hard to keep up):

No (*shocker*)
Mama ("Ma")
Papa ("Pa")
Sit
Down
Cook
Pour
Else (in the context of "something else")
Books
More
Hey Hey (she says this when she sees other children)
Honk (she says this in the context of blowing one's nose, which we've been doing a lot recently)
Beep Beep
Car
Truck
Kiss
Hug
Chair
Up
Down
Outside
Box
Cracker
Couch
Bath
Uh-Oh
Crayons
Food
Eat

She also enjoys counting, although she's still struggling to keep the numbers in order. She rarely says "one" because usually we're the ones who start counting and so she chimes in on "two." As a result, she will often count starting from two, which then gets a little jumbled. She also definitely prefers the numbers that she knows how to say well. For example, "seven" gets very little love from her. On the other hand, she proudly said, "Two, Four, Six, Eight!" the other day, which startled me a little. I don't think it was intentional, though. She often also says other combinations of four numbers (usually ending in eight, which I think is her favorite number) that are more random.

It's SO nice to be able to talk to our little girl. I think I'm going to be in for a rude shock when I have a newborn whose communication skills are back down to the bare minimum again.

Walking

Greta at open gym, a winter necessity. 

Speaking of things that newborns can't do, I'm also a little worried about having a child who can't walk on her own again. It's so nice to be able to hold Greta's hand and walk around at a store or out in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, while she's really good at walking and can keep up pretty well, she's also a bit willful and doesn't always want to hold my hand. The other day, I was in a fit of round ligament pain that made it painful to carry her. Of course, it was decently okay if she held my hand and walked, but she was losing her patience with holding my hand. She'd stay within eyesight, but if she ran off suddenly, it was very painful to keep up after her. Argh. Definitely a downside to pregnancy with a toddler.

Exploring
It's so much fun to do things with her now. Last weekend we went to the Children's Museum and it was just so much fun to play with her in all the exhibits. She was legitimately excited by the things that we did and there were so many opportunities for us to talk to her about the world around her. I love Children's Museums!

The Children's Museum was also an interesting opportunity for us to see Greta's personality. She is a lot like me. She kept wanting to watch the children playing at the water table (shown above), but she was afraid to actually put on the apron (also shown above) to go join in. When we asked her if she wanted to play, she would nod, but when we told her she'd need to wear an apron, she'd panic and pretend that she just wanted to watch. This went on for awhile -- we distracted her with other things a bit, but she kept eying the water table area. Finally, we just made the parental decision that we'd get the apron on her. Sure enough, once it was on, she had a fantastic time experimenting with all the different fountains and cups and tubes. I'm beginning to understand my own parents' frustration with my shy stubbornness.

Flirting? 

It's hard to tell what is an actual preference, what's just mimicry, and what's just in our imaginations, but Greta has seemed to be flirting with a few boys. I first noticed this around New Years when a boy about 2 years older than her was visiting. Greta did a good job of sharing her toys and tried to engage the older boy in various activities. I was surprised, though, to see her chase after him, blowing kisses at him. The boy was not at all interested in this game and responded by making one of the stuffed toys "growl" in Greta's face, which initially didn't deter her, but eventually scared her and she came running to my lap for protection. It was such a classic scene of gender-typical behavior -- but was that more in my imagination than in reality? After all, there were other factors at play -- for example, the difference in their ages also made them susceptible to differing styles of play.

A few weeks later, we were out at a restaurant and I saw Greta saying, "Boy! Kiss!" and blowing kisses at someone over my shoulder. I turned to follow her gaze and saw a little boy of about 4 years old, looking a little embarrassed. I tried to explain that perhaps she shouldn't blow kisses at strangers, but she still maintained eye contact with him as she coquettishly ate her noodles.

But again, is this an actual preference on her part? Or is it perhaps just that she's acting out the behavior that she sees between her opposite-sex parents?

Uh . . . Pill Popping? 

Just this last week, Greta started taking her meds without us crushing them up first! It was a huge milestone! We still put her in her high chair, but we're getting closer and closer to the day when she can just wake up, take the pill with a gulp of water, and then go back to sleep for an hour. It's still hard to insist that she wait for awhile before she can eat anything, but at least the time it takes to get the meds ready is shorter.

The first time I did it -- last Monday or Tuesday, I think -- I strapped her into the high chair and asked if she wanted a little sip of juice (it's mostly water -- we water it down pretty significantly). She nodded and I gave her a sip through the straw. Then I gave her the pill and said "today we're going to take your meds a little differently." And I held out the pill. "Can you eat this pill?" She smiled at me like I was joking and said no. I said, "Can you try it? You can have more juice if you try the pill." She took the pill out of my hand and popped it in her mouth. I gave her a sip of juice. She swallowed, but had a weird, focused, look on her face. I asked "did you swallow it?" She nodded, but it was really clear that it was still in her mouth. She started chewing and I said "are you chewing it?" She nodded and I encouraged her ("Yum yum. Chew and swallow!" etc.) I watched her really carefully until I could tell she'd swallowed it all down and then gave her a little more juice. Then got her out of her high chair to play. It was awesome.