Life Gets Even Better (And By That, I Mean Crazier!)

Katelyn's first birthday nears, but before that, we get to celebrate her first Christmas. As the celebrations wind down, I start to wonder if a home pregnancy test is in order. I take a test and get confirmation that Katelyn is going to be a big sister sometime in the summer! It's a surprise and I have to break the news to my husband. I know we wanted to have more children, but not quite so close together and so I'm worried how he's going to take the news.

New Years Eve 2005 finds us home alone and I choose to break the news then. I'm crying and upset because I'm so worried about finances and how my husband is going to react, but to my surprise, he is once again my rock to lean on. It's going to be fine; we'll be fine... we'll figure out what we need to do to get us through. I realize just how much this man means to me and how lucky I am to have him!

Fast forward to April 2006 and my second-trimester ultrasound. We've decided we do want to find out the sex of the baby, but ask the technician to write it down on a piece of paper in an envelope for us so that we can open it after dinner with our daughter and find out as a family whether Katelyn is getting a little sister or brother. We pick Katelyn up from daycare after the ultrasound and go to dinner at an Italian restaurant. We planned to open the envelope at dessert, but Katelyn's allergies foil our plan and she projectile vomits all over our table. We exit stage left and after getting her secured in her carseat, we open the envelope together while sitting in the car.

We are both certain it's going to be a girl because my pregnancy (thus far) has been identical to my first. We open the envelope and we see a checkmark next to "True Blue, I'm a Boy!". My exact words are, "Holy Sh_t!" and I look at hubby and started to tear up. What was I going to do with a boy?!? I know nothing about boys! Thank goodness I have a few more months to get used to the idea; I'm certainly going to need the time to adjust...

38 weeks and look at those battle scars!! (ignore the frumpy houseclothes)

Fast forward again to August. I'm huge, I'm swollen and I'm SO ready to get this baby out!! Thankfully he has the same idea and when I go to the doctor at 11:00 am for my 38 week appointment, she informs me that I'm dilated 4 cm as the result of prodromal labor contractions that I've been having for 2 weeks. Hooray!! I ask about getting induced if I'm still pregnant next week and the midwife says that yes, that could be a consideration (if I make it that far). Thankfully, baby has other ideas and around 5:00 pm, contractions begin at about 8 minutes apart. They make me uncomfortable, but I'm not in nearly enough pain to head to the hospital yet, so I try to relax and wait. At 7:30, I call the doctor (hey, this sounds familiar) and I'm told to head to the hospital. Somehow, it takes us another hour to get out

of the house, but we arrive at the hospital shortly after 9:00 pm and head right to L&D.

I had hoped to try to labor without pain medication this time since I'm thinking maybe my epidural during my first labor had something to do with Katelyn's breathing issues after birth. But by the time I'm checked in and being examined, I'm rather convinced I'm actually dying and will not survive unless I get that darn epidural! So I cave and ask for the pain meds and spend the next hour begging the nurses to tell me where the anesthesiologist is and why he's not shooting me up with the good
stuff!!

Finally I get the epidural, only to find out that I was actually in transistion and I'm gonna feel this whole delivery anyway since the medication had only been working for a few minutes. It's just a few minutes past 11:00 pm and the doctor says he'll be right back. Hubby warns him not to go far; this part went quickly last time, but doctor doesn't heed the warning and suddenly the nurse is delivering this baby on her own!

She needs help from another nurse since she isn't able to reach the doctor and so she tells hubby to hit the button on the wall (to call the nurse's desk). The problem is that hubby misunderstands and grabs the self-administration trigger button for my epidural, which is located in the breast pocket of my hospital gown. He hits the button alright...quite a few times!! The nurse corrects him and finally he hits the right button - only this time, I'm shouting quite loudly because I had expected not to be feeling this part of delivery and things weren't going as I planned! The nurse at the desk can't hear over all my shouting, so she heads straight to the room to see what's going on... mission accomplished! Our nurse ends up getting her much needed help to deliver our son. And all this time, the nurse in the room with us is telling me not to push and I'm yelling at her that I'm not...but Trevor Jacob decides that it's his time and so he arrives at 11:29 pm, weighing 8 lbs, 0.6 ounces and measuring 19 1/2 inches long. Surprise - it's another redhead!!

I'm so paranoid about my last experience in the hospital that I refuse to let Trevor out of my sight except for the required testing and procedures. Thankfully, all goes well and after Katelyn gets to meet her brother in the hospital, we are released to head home together in just two days!

Now we're a family of four and we quickly learn how challenging it is to go from taking care of one child to two. Anyone who says it's double the work is seriously mistaken! It's more like three or four times the work, at least, especially if you have two children under the age of two!

Thankfully, hubby and I work well together as a team; we really are equal partners in this adventure. It doesn't take long to see that to make things work, someone needs to stay home with the children and so I don't return to my full-time job. Well, at least not the one where I get paid in cash...I've accepted the best job in the world, but probably also the hardest. But I'll take my pay in kisses, snuggles and "I Love You's" instead and be completely satisfied!