Are You Kidding Me?!?...Again?!?

Time is always moving forward...Evan is no longer a tiny newborn who needs to sleep with Mommy in bed each night. He's a roly-poly infant, sitting up on his own and even starting to crawl when one day I'm watching that horrible reality show, I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant. It occurs to me that one of the situations in the story is oddly similar to my own and I get a nagging thought in my head that I just can't shake. I convince hubby that I need to take another pregnancy test and though we both sort of think I'm being silly, he buys one for me.

After Evan was born, hubby and I were in complete agreement that three children was the limit for us. This is not because we don't love having children, but for all the other "real world" reasons that people limit family size. The cost of raising children is immense and when we're busy raising the funds to do so, it limits the amount of time that we have to dedicate to enjoying our kids and making life enjoyable for them.

So I'm kind of freaking out taking this test and I'm so nervous that I can't even bring myself to stick around for the results. Thankfully my brave hubby once again steps in to save the day and reads the test for me. At first, he's certain it's negative, but then reconsiders and realizes that it seems to be a positive test after all. By now, I'm learning to trust my women's/mommy intuition when it comes to these odd notions...

Eventually, I confirm the test with a digital result and now we're wrapping our heads around the idea of having yet another baby. It's tough to analyze all the the plans that will need to be altered and ways in which life might be different than we planned. But sooner rather than later, I'm able to put my faith in knowing that somehow this was meant to be for us and realize that this unexpected child will bring even more love to our family.

The months pass and the anticipation grows about who this new little person is going to be. I have my anatomy scan in February and we once again have the ultrasound technician write down the sex of the baby and seal it in an envelope. This time, our plan is to have Katelyn and Trevor open the envelope and find out (at the same time as us) whether they're getting a little sister or little brother. I'm super excited and rooting for Team Pink, when Katelyn reveals that it is, in fact, another little boy! I almost expected as much, despite my desire to even out the ranks, and poor Katelyn starts to cry. We console her by reminding her that she holds the special place of being our only little girl and that she'll have three brothers to protect her and stand up with her in the future. Eventually, she gets over the shock of being the only girl and seems to enjoy the thought of a new little one on the way.

It's at this time that I transfer my care from my regular obstetrician office, which has seen me through all my prior pregnancies, to a homebirth nurse midwife. It's such a wonderful experience, having her come to see me for the appointments and talking to her for an hour at each appointment instead of feeling rushed to get in and get out!

As I finish the 8th month of my pregnancy, I make sure that all my supplies are together. I've decided that I want to use a birthing pool to deliver the baby and I choose all the people whom I'd like to invite to the birth. I want someone dedicated to taking pictures and video. I want my mom there to watch the other kids and I have a friend who is training to be a doula who volunteers to be present to do whatever I need her to do. This will allow my husband to focus on this experience with me and see me through it.

Everything is in order and now we're just waiting. Finally I reach full-term at 37 weeks. My midwife comes to see me on that day and because I have a history of being dilated early on, she offered to do a pelvic exam to see what my starting point is (if I do go in to labor between now and the next appointment). She says I'm not dilated, but I am about 50% effaced and the baby is quite low. Essentially, whenever he decides he's ready, the stage is set for labor! How exciting!! 

About an hour after she leaves, I start getting some cramping. I know this is normal following an exam and so I don't worry about it. It goes on all day and gets to the point where I can feel the contractions pulling on my pelvis (a very weird sensation). I'm not really in pain and although the contractions are at times only about 5 minutes apart, they don't get stronger or closer together, so again, I try to ignore them.

I go to bed and throughout the course of the night, I am awakened several times by contractions. Obviously they are strong enough to wake me up, but they're not so bad that I really think something major is going on. I do begin to wonder how long contractions typically last when they're triggered by an exam and I decide I should call the midwife at a decent hour in the morning. I plan to ask if she wants to come back to see if I've dilated at all.

Sometime mid-morning, I call her and find out she's going to be in my area around 3:00 pm that day. I don't want to inconvenience her for what is likely a non-urgent issue and so I tell her that should be fine to come and check me at that point. Hubby is at work and is convinced that these contractions are insignificant. Throughout the morning, I do my normal stuff with the kids and the house and notice that the contractions are a little bit more intense and are varying from 3 minutes to 10 minutes apart. When I lie down on the couch and rest for about an hour and a half, they slow down to about 20 minutes apart. Finally, Evan goes to bed for the afternoon and I relax again, but now the contractions are distracting to me. I've been timing them all morning, but now I really feel like they've got my attention. By the time Evan gets up from his nap at about 2:30, I realize I'm probably not going to be able to handle my parenting duties while feeling this way.

My midwife happens to call to tell me she's running a little behind and won't be arriving until about 4:15. I explained to her that I am beginning to think that maybe I am actually in labor but that I think I'll be okay until she gets here. I mention that I am going to call hubby and ask him to come home from work just a little early to help me out with the kids. She says she'll see me soon. I text my doula friend to let her know that I am having contractions, but that I don't know for sure if I'm in labor. I just want to give her a heads-up on the situation. I then call hubby and ask him to come home a little early and he says he'll be home as soon as he can.

Hubby gets home around 3:30 and because I've been busy contracting all day, the house is a mess. He proceeds to start cleaning while I stand around timing contractions. The kids are all still doing their normal stuff around me. At one point, I'm kneeling on the floor in front of the couch on which Katelyn is sitting. I'm swaying back and forth, waiting out the contraction and she leans over and tells me it's gonna be okay and rubs my back a little. If I hadn't been in pain in that moment, I would've liked to have given her a hug right then; she was so sweet!

About 10 minutes after 4:00, I text my doula friend to let her know that I think she ought to come over. Yes, I'd finally reached the point where I was sure I was in labor! I have hubby call the midwife again, because where the hell is she? and why is she not here with me? (I'm starting to get a wee bit emotional)... As it turns out, because it is Friday afternoon and the beginning of rush hour, she is stuck in traffic on the highway. She says she'll be there soon.

I tell hubby that he'd better put some water in the bathtub for me as it dawns on me there's not a chance I'm going to be able to use the birth pool in this situation! I change into my bathing suit top and he helps me into the tub. I haven't yet sat down in the water (I'm standing there sort of awkwardly trying to figure out how I'm going to get my belly under the water in a regular-sized bathtub when I haven't been able to do anything but stand or kneel during contractions...) because I hear the doorbell ring. I wonder if it's the doula or the midwife. I'm shouting, "Who is it? Who's here?" while waiting in the tub, but I get no answer. So I continue to stand there. In another minute, I hear the door open again and I also hear hubby say that I'm in the bathroom, so I deduce that the midwife has finally arrived at 4:30!

She comes into the bathroom, where I'm still standing in the tub. Somehow it never occurs to me that perhaps I should've opted for a shower instead of filling the tub, but I've got other things to consider now. She listens to the baby's heartrate with her doppler and pronounces him healthy. Then she checks me to see how far I've progressed and she informs me that I'm completely dilated. In a way, I'm shocked that the hard part is already over...yet another part of me already knew this to be true.

She calls for hubby who turns the childcare over to the doula and he joins us in the bathroom. The midwife asks him if he'd like to catch the baby and though we hadn't discussed it previously, he agreed to do it immediately! So she sat back and let us go to work.

Before I started to push, I had a few last-minute thoughts pass through my mind. The first was that I hadn't yet gotten my maternity photos taken; they were scheduled for the next week. The second was whether or not the bathtub had been cleaned recently - hubby assures me he's done a decent job of cleaning it in the last few days.

Out loud, but speaking to myself, I say, "Okay, well then I guess there's nothing left to do here but have this baby." The midwife asked if I wanted to feel the baby's head - I reached down and indeed, his head was right there, but a soft bubble was in front of it because my bag of waters had not yet broken. With the first push, my water broke. With my second push, his head was delivered and hubby removed the nuchal cord which was wrapped around his neck once. With my final push, the rest of his body was delivered and hubby pulled him out of the water and was holding him. He placed our baby on my chest for me to hold and I was amazed that he was finally here, though it all went so quickly!  Levi Jacob arrives at 37 weeks and 1 day gestation. It is 4:53 pm on June 24, 2011. He has red hair, blue eyes and weighs 6 lbs, 8 1/2 ounces and is 19 1/2 inches long. I am SO in love with this baby!

After hubby cut the cord, the midwife took over while hubby held little Levi. Once we finished in the bathtub, she helped me to my bed and hubby brought the baby back to me once I was settled. This was such a calm and intimate experience compared to my previous births. If I could go back in time, I'd deliver all of my babies at home!

A New Decade Brings Great Change and Another Prince

As I approach my 30th birthday, I know that something must change. I'm a stay-at-home mom trying to balance being a student in nursing school with working part-time in the evenings and making sure I'm really there for my kids during my "on" hours at home. It's hard because I feel like I'm having issues with side effects from some medications I've been using for a long time. I'm frustrated because it seems like I'm taking meds to deal with the side effects of other meds and I'm just sick of it. I announce to my husband that I'm done with it all. I stop taking everything except my required thyroid medicine and I feel super! It was a great change for me and I feel like I'm finally more aligned with the me I'm meant to be.

A little more than two months later and I start feeling ill. At first, I'm not sure what's going on because I've been feeling so good emotionally and physically since my big pharmaceutical change up. Then it occurs to me that a pregnancy test might be in order. Lo and behold it's a big, fat positive and next thing I know, we're gearing up to welcome baby number three at the same time that I'm beginning my clinicals for nursing school. Oy!

Thankfully the morning sickness abates within a week of the beginning of the semester. If you're going to pick a time during pregnancy to be putting in 40 hours a week for school, I'm going to say that the second trimester is the time for it. I can't imagine dragging myself through all of that during the first or third trimesters when I was truly exhausted! I finish up in December and get to enjoy a relaxing last three months before things get hectic again.

One thing we choose to do differently this time around is NOT finding out the sex of the baby. We reason that because we already have a boy and a girl, this is a prime opportunity to be surprised. We have a girl name prepared (well, sort of...) and a boy name that we agree on. We are all set, except that we still have to wait for baby to make it's appearance. Something I forget every time is how hard it is to wait through those last few weeks when every twinge or flicker of pain makes you wonder if labor is just around the corner!

Katelyn was born at 39 weeks and Trevor at 38 weeks, so by the time I get to 37 weeks, which is medically considered full-term, I am convinced that baby is coming any day. Starting at around 36 weeks, I get to track contractions for about six hours on most days and still no baby! Friends and family are on pins and needles, waiting for news but I've got nothing to share... Finally I make it to 39 weeks and I'm wondering if this baby is going to share it's birthday with someone we already know. From the 13th of March to the 18th, every day (except one) is claimed as a birthday by someone dear to us. 

I know that I'm already dilated to 4 cm and so I'm considering things like castor oil or bumpy car rides to try to move things along. I told myself that if I made it to my due date, I'd have to take matters into my own hands! As luck would have it, March 15th rolls around and labor starts on it's own at 1:00 in the afternoon. By 7:00, the contractions are substantially worse, but I'm still not in horrible pain. We leave at 10:00 pm and for the first time, it's a calm ride to the hospital. We snag the last spot in the parking lot for the emergency room and we walk up to labor and delivery. (no wheelchair for me this time!)

I get checked in and when I find out that I'm still only at about 5 cm, I start walking the halls. I have hubby sneak a chocolate milk for me out of the pantry and by midnight, I'm still not in nearly as much pain as I was the last time I did this and so I begin to worry that I might be up all night, running out of energy just as it's time to deliver...

I ask my nurse if the doctor might consider breaking my water for me so we can just go ahead and check this little task off my to-do list. The doctor comes to the room and takes care of this item for me and when the flood ends, I can tell that things are going to ramp up quite quickly. I try to get in the tub, but the heat is too much and I start to feel like I'm hyperventilating. So I head back out to the room and I decide to finish laboring standing up.

Oddly, it feels like just five, but I'm told it's about 30 minutes of swaying through contractions before this baby is ready to make it's appearance. I tell the nurse I must push and she has me lie down and she calls for the doctor, who is sleeping in the on-call room at the other end of the hall. I can't wait and I tell her as much. She tells my hubby to open the door and call for help from the nurses at the desk. They rush into the room to provide assistance and I hear my nurse say something about only having one glove on! The next thing I know, my body takes over and my third child comes into this world and I hear hubby say, "It's a boy!" Evan Jacob is born on March 16th at 2:13 am. He weighs 7 lbs, 13 oz and is 20 inches long. It's the one day of the week for which we don't already have a known birthday ~ hooray! Unlike his siblings, this little guy has a head of thick, dark brown hair ~ what a surprise!

This time around, I'm bored in the hospital. Hubby is home the majority of the time with the other kids and it's kind of lonely with no visitors... Thankfully, we're discharged in two days and our family is all together again. This time, instead of hiding inside and waiting to adapt to this new version of parenthood, we head to the playground the next day and enjoy watching our kids run around and have fun. What a great start to this fourth decade of my life! 

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!

The Princess Arrives

The first 2 months of our marriage pass uneventfully and we enjoyed our first Christmas together as husband and wife and our last Christmas as just a couple. My due date for this first pregnancy is January 16th and I'm super nervous about the weather. There is a local event which occurs in our area every year in the same week, the Pennsylvania Farm Show. The weather has a reputation for being troublesome during this week and of course, it's the very same week we're expecting our little girl to make her appearance!

Six days before my due date, a Monday, I start noticing some cramping and contractions around 10 am. Prior to this, I haven't had any practice contractions or any signs of impending labor, so these definitely get my attention. With excitement, I begin to wonder if this really might be it. Of course, I'm new to the whole experience, so I try not to get too worked up because I have no idea if this is the real thing. Around noon, my husband calls to check in on me and I tell him that I think I might be in early labor. He offered to come home early from work, but I tell him I'm fine and that I'll let him know if I need him.

This is 2005 and before the days of Facebook, so I sit around the house being excited about maybe being in labor and wondering if I should start making phone calls to tell our family. In the end, I opt to wait until my husband gets home from work before doing anything to spread the news. We eat dinner and by then, my contractions are starting to get a whole lot closer together and make me much more uncomfortable.

By 7:00 or so, I'm trying to decide if it's time to call the doctor. I make the call and I'm told to head to the hospital, which is thankfully only about 10 minutes away. At this point, my contractions are causing so much pain in my back that I feel I can hardly breathe through them. Needless to say, it felt like a very long ride to the hospital anyway.

Once we arrive, I find out that I'm not dilated enough to be admitted, but I'm clearly in a lot of pain and definitely in early labor, so they let me stay for a few hours (in the shower with nice hot water for my back) and then check me again around midnight. At that point, I'm dilated to about 4 cm and so I can be admitted and (hallelujah) get my epidural! My poor husband has been working so hard to ease my back labor that he's feeling pretty tired as well.

By 2:00 am, I'm finally feeling comfortable and we attempt to turn the lights down and get some rest, but what seems like just a few minutes later, I feel my water break and I call for the nurse. She comes in and confirms that we're ready to deliver our baby girl. Because it's the middle of the night, no one from my OB office is on call, so the nurse-midwife from another practice joins us and gets everything ready. As it turns out, I was somehow already an expert in pushing and with just a few tries, our little princess, Katelyn Mae, slips into the world at 3:25 am! She weighs in at 6 lbs, 14.9 oz and was 19.75 inches long. The biggest surprise - red hair! In all the times I imagined her pretty little face, I never pictured her with red hair... I am instantly in love!

We get to spend an hour or so together and then head up to the postpartum unit. Katelyn is taken to the nursery for a bath and whatever they do in those first few hours. I am told she'll be brought back to my room by around 7:00 am. I take advantage of the break and try to get a little bit of sleep. I wake up around 8:30 am and realize my little girl hasn't returned. I make my way down to the nursery and see her in all her beauty in her bed, but notice that unlike the other babies, she's hooked up to some extra equipment. I ask the nurse what's going on and I'm told that Katelyn was having some episodes where she would stop breathing long enough to start turning blue. They were keeping her on a special monitor to keep an eye on her oxygen level. I am told not to worry and to go back to my room, that the pediatrician will come and speak with us.

So I go back to the room and tell my husband what's going on. We wait for a bit, but no doctor comes to see us, so he heads home quickly to take care of the dog and get a shower. He tells me he will return shortly. Less than an hour later, the pediatrician finally arrives and apologizes; apparently he was under the impression that someone had already spoken with us about Katelyn's condition. He explains that she is being transferred to the NICU for further care because of the problems with her breathing. I manage to keep it together long enough to call my husband and tell him that he must come back right away, but then I fall apart.

The rest of that day is just a blur to me. I remember riding the elevator down to the NICU and I remember scrubbing in with that awful pink soap they have. Standing by the side of her isolette, the doctor explains to us about her episodes of apnea and what they think may be causing them. But I don't really hear him - all I see is the IV coming out of her scalp and the oxygen tube taped to her face. My perfect little baby now looks even more fragile then she did when she was born. Tears stream down my face and I become overwhelmed with fear and wish that this never happened. Thankfully my husband is my rock and after a short time, he convinces me that everything will be okay and that we just need to stay strong for our baby.

Time passes and they rule out brain dysfunction, infection and heart problems. She is almost a week old before someone decides to test to see if acid reflux is causing her to hold her breath until she turns blue. This turns out to be exactly what is going on and it's a simple fix ~ hooray! She is put on two medications to prevent the reflux and she is monitored until she's 9 days old. She is finally released to come home with us and I'm so relieved to have her home with us, I don't care that she's on a special monitor to watch her breathing. All the days of traveling to the hospital by myself to feed her every 4 hours is finally over! We get to be parents in our home!

So we load this tiny package into her car seat, which makes her look even smaller, and off we go....