Noah's Arrival - Part 1

Never pictured having a water birth until that moment!

I first noticed the contractions Sunday night when some reflux woke me up coughing. I had a contraction while still in that half-awake, half-asleep state and it was not comfortable and woke me up all the way I decided to use the bathroom since I was awake and ended up having like 2 more contractions in the process (it takes so long to do anything at 40 weeks pregnant). Joey was asleep but Dan was watching TV so I stayed up for a bit with him to see what happened. I kept having random, uncomfortable contractions but nothing I couldn’t talk through or sit through, and they didn’t really get any more regular or intense, so after an hour or so I went back to bed. Managed to sleep pretty well considering the contractions, woke up once or twice but overall I got some decent sleep. Monday morning I get up with Joey and let Dan sleep. I make us some breakfast, while still having random, uncomfortable contractions. Some of them are getting intense, while others are just like “meh, here I am”. Dan calls work and says he’s not going to be in at all this week and I let my mom know that she’s probably going to get Joey from us some time later.

Daddy finally gets to hold his new baby!

Mid-afternoon, Dan takes Joey outside to play so I can get a few things done around the house (mostly baby-related!) and lie down for an attempted nap. I lie down with my iPod and try to listen to my relaxation tracks which usually knock me right out, but every time I’m close to falling asleep, a really intense contraction hits that forces me to get up and move through it. For the next hour or so, these intense contractions come every fifteen minutes. Eventually, I decide to get up and see if moving around and eating dinner to anything (either make them stop or get stronger) and since the timing worked out well with her getting off work, I asked my mom to come get Joey. From there the whole thing is a blur! I had started timing the contractions when I went to lie down for my nap, they started were regular but far apart. Around 3:30 they started getting closer together, but only closer by a minute or two (15, then 13, then 11 minutes apart, etc), that was still enough for me to ask my mom to come get Joey since it seemed like things were progressing well. She came and got him a little after 4:30, at which point the contractions had started to come less than 7 minutes apart. I tracked for another half hour, then called the midwives because they didn’t go back up to more than 7 minutes apart and this was baby #2 so things could go much faster. Plus the contractions were VERY intense, even more so than I remembered having with Joey. David, the midwife on duty, said I better head on down to the birth center because it sounded like I was ready! Dan and I got our last minute stuff together and hit the road!

Happy family getting ready to go home!

I had at least 5 major contractions in the car on our way there, all very intense like the others. I remember telling Dan that if I was only dilated to 4cm when we got there, then we were going to the hospital and I was getting an epidural! We arrive around 6 and as soon as I walk in I ask David (my extremely awesome, male midwife) when I can get in the tub. He says that he needs to check me first but he can start the tub and get it filled while we do that. We head into my room and I get onto the wonderfully normal bed (not hospital bed) for my check. 7cm, holy cow! I was exceptionally happy to hear that, with Joey I was only 4cm after more than an hour of regular contractions. The crazy intense contractions I was having this time were certainly doing their job! The nurse comes up to help with the tub and make sure everything is in place, meanwhile I change into my bathing suit (which consisted of a normal bathing suit top and an old knit skirt I didn’t care about, I didn’t know how long I was going to be in the tub but I’m not one to just walk around without anything on at all).

Buckled and checked!

The tub is finally ready and I’m excited to get in! The water is warm and there are a few jets to circulate the water and they feel good on my sore back. I ended up getting in the tub around 6:15 (I could see the clock in my room from my position in the tub). I have one contraction that’s not so bad, but I quickly realize the water only takes a small edge off the pain and it’s mostly just keeping me relaxed between contractions. The next contraction I was sitting where I could apply counter-pressure on myself and that felt better than nothing. When that contraction subsided, I sat up and showed Dan how to apply counter-pressure on both sides, we didn’t have long to wait before another intense contraction came. I looked up after it was over and saw David and the nurse had come back into the room, I had apparently made enough noise for them to realize that it wasn’t going be long before I was pushing. David checked me again and I was at 9.5cm!! He said that if I felt like it I could start pushing with the next contraction! I asked if I had to get out of the tub and he said I could push wherever I wanted, yay! The next couple of contractions I push but they’re not intense like some of the other ones so I save my strength. Then the big contractions hit and I start pushing for real, and it HURTS! The contractions aren’t right on top of each other like I had been afraid of, so I am able to catch my breath in between, but they all stayed intense so when they came they came HARD. I was able to deliver his head in the next couple pushes, though to keep from tearing and delivering too fast I had to stop pushing so hard and wait through a contraction or two which was not easy. When his head finally came out there was sweet relief from most of the pain, and his body came out easily and within minutes he was up on my chest wailing away!

Family of Four finally together.

Perfectly Poe

The Stats

Pattern: Umaro

Designer: Jared Flood

Yarn: Cascade Lana Grande

Colorway: Wild Orchid

Yardage: 13 balls = 1,131yds = 3,393ft

Needles: US 15 

CO: 127sts

Start Date: June 29, 2012

Finish Date: Sept 30, 2012

Made For: Matt and Jenny's wedding present

I think I've given the newlyweds enough time to open presents and see it, so here's a post I've been hanging onto since September! Say hello to my largest knitting project to date, both in yardage and actual finished size! I am so immensely pleased with the way it turned out and with the fact that I was able to be finished a whole month before the wedding! The pattern was a lot of fun to work, despite the mind-blowing amount of seed stitch! I will admit to being pretty tired of the pattern after 6 repeats PLUS another 1-14 rows worked of the chart before finishing (I actually worked 1-12 then only had enough yarn left for 3 rows of seed stitch border and had to BO). Initially I had planned to modify the pattern to fit two other presents for people for Christmas, but now I'm only using it for one person's present and chose something different for person #2. I will definitely be knitting the pattern again, it's simple and gorgeous, just after I take a little break and knit some smaller, instant-gratification projects first.

The most complicated part of the pattern (besides keeping track of where you are in a row) is the cables. There aren't many of them in the chart, but the two rows they do show up on are more tedious than the others because they take a bit longer to work through. You have to slip the first two stitches onto a cable needle, then slip a third stitch and keep it separate, knit the next two, grab the single stitch that was slipped and purl it, then finally bring back the first two slipped stitches and knit those. On one row you only do one cable per horizontal repeat and on the other row where you do this, there's an extra cable before the horizontal repeats. That's only 2 rows out of the 28 in the chart, so not too bad, the rest of the chart is pretty basic (K, P, SSK, YO, and K2TOG). I did use stitch markers to keep track of my horizontal repeats and I definitely would have been lost without them!

40 Weeks Today!

Joey liked the pretend turtles in the kid's area.

I hit all of my goal dates! First was Nov 1 because that pay day was the final check I needed to have enough for savings while I'm on maternity leave. Second was Nov 10, Matt and Jenny's wedding! The wedding was amazing and beautiful and I loved being able to spend the night with Dan and friends from school! I even had a glass of wine and got up and danced for Cupid Shuffle ;) Next was Nov 12, we had plans with Diana to go to the National Aquarium since it was Veteran's Day and I had off work. Last was Nov 16 since that was both the end of a week and a day into a new pay period. I got to finish out a pay period which means my next check will be normal, then I'll get to spread my PTO out over the next several weeks so that every pay period I'll be getting something. The extra day, yesterday, is 8 less hours from PTO I'll have to use in this pay period, yay!

This week at work has been hard though not because I've been feeling bad. I've been tired, but that's about it and pretty typical for my pregnancies apparently. I was looking forward to going on maternity leave and being able to take mid-day naps! I can never predict if I'm going to sleep well at night, so the fact that I can now take naps when I need to makes me feel a whole lot better when I wake up at 0300. I was a little sad leaving work yesterday because I love all my co-workers and I am going to miss them! I'm definitely glad to finally be on leave though, and I think with the next baby I won't wait so long to go on leave. I've had no indications of labor being close so far, but with a second baby that means nothing. I could go into labor 10 minutes from now or a week from now regardless of what "symptoms" pop up, so I'm trying to relax as much as possible. Though now that I'm off work, I keep making lists of things that need to be done and I'm not sure if it's nesting or my perfectionist-self that wants everything to be done before the baby gets here so that all we have to do when we bring him home is snuggle :)

Carrying BOTH my boys on our Aquarium trip!

I'm officially 1 week and 1 day farther along than I was when I had Joey. On the one hand, it doesn't really feel different because I was so large and uncomfortable with Joey (because of Mega Cyst) that this time around everything has seemed easy in comparison. I'm more sick of comments from other people than anything else. Not that I mind when people ask "When are you due?" in the store or at work (I had a lot of fun telling people "Saturday" all this week and watching their eyes get big!), it's more the stuff like people trying to be subtle when I know all they really want to know is if I'm in labor yet ("Oh just calling to check in"). At least I've had some people who are honest about it, "Think today's the day?". I love you all, I really do, I appreciate the support and prayers from our friends/family, and it may seem harmless enough to say "how are you doing?" but when you're the 5th person to ask me the same (or similar) question in a day, it gets a little tedious. I know I'm still pregnant, I know I'm not in labor yet, reminders really aren't terribly helpful at this point ;)

The thing I'm most excited about right now though is the fact that I have a "birth companion" lined up! Johns Hopkins has this amazing, FREE, program within the nursing program where they provide birth companions for as many moms who ask for one. It gives the nursing students the ability to attend many more deliveries than they normally might AND it gives laboring moms a knowledgeable person to help give them comfort or even advocate for them in hospital settings. The people who run the program make every attempt to accommodate all the moms who call, but sometimes if you call late in your pregnancy (like me) you might end up having your baby before they can get back to you. I didn't have high expectations when I called, because the voice mail message said "Please give us up to a week to return your call", but I figured with a free program I wasn't losing anything. I got a call from a leader last Sunday evening, who sounded amazing, and she said that if I didn't hear from a student before going into labor then to just call her and she'd come to my delivery. I did hear from a student and we met with her today to go over plans and paperwork and just to meet. She's really nice and I'm excited to have somebody lined up to help since I will likely not be getting the good drugs at the birth center. The midwives and nurses will be there for me medically, a "birth companion" is more for comfort and coaching (she can give Dan ideas of things to do for me). My companion is also excited because all the deliveries she's attended so far have been in hospitals and mine will be her first in a birth center. She was really interested to hear about the center and how the midwives did things (like encouraging eating/drinking during labor, full kitchen, big tubs, etc.). I'm glad she's excited and open minded because it really is a wonderful center and, who knows, maybe she could end up working there one day!

Midwife appointment this week was good, probably the quickest ones I've had so far (usually we end up talking for the majority of the appointment) since I've run out of questions to ask and we're just playing the waiting game. Blood pressure, baby's heart rate, and my weight are all good. My next scheduled appointment is on Wednesday, but I'm hoping not to make it ;) Even if I do make it, and I have to schedule an appointment after that, I'm on leave now so I can go in pretty much whenever they have openings (the last several appointments I made more than a month ago so I could get them for the evening slots after work). I'm not going to try to predict when I think I'll go into labor or when I think the baby will be born (my one and only guess was yesterday because it was my last day at work and Joey started labor on my last day of work at the school!), but I'll be happy as long as I go before 42 weeks. That's when the midwives aren't allowed to handle my delivery anymore and I have to start seeing the OB, who delivers at the hospital. Ultimate Goal #1 is a healthy baby, so if it takes 42+ weeks and a hospital stay that's totally fine, because Ultimate Goal #2 is a regular delivery regardless of location (if a c-section becomes medically necessary see #1). My secondary goal is to stay at the birth center so I can eat/drink freely, hang out in the nice big tub (with water jets!), and recover in my own bed and have the midwives come to ME a couple days later for followup. The bed thing is very important. The quality of rest I will get will be much better in my own bed than in a hospital bed, I don't care how expensive those beds are, nothing is the same as my bed!

Baby Summit!

I love my face in this picture lol

 So the last time that Brittany, Lara, and I all tried to get ourselves and the babies together, the planned date ended up being after the super bad thunderstorm we got over the summer and Lara's house (the designated meeting place) had intermittent power. The time before that was when we planned to go to Ocean City and Hurricane Irene breezed through and caused the city to evacuate the day before we wanted to go (we had already decided to stay home). This time, our date ended up being the day before Hurricane Sandy was supposed to start making things difficult in Maryland. We all looked at the the weather projections and decided that since nothing was really supposed to happen until mid-to-late afternoon Monday, we'd still hang out and play. I was so glad we did, the boys all had so much fun and I know we (moms) enjoyed finally being all together again (something that hasn't happened since my baby shower with Joey!). The ages for the boys are: Joey 17mo, Desmond 12mo, Anders 9mo. They're not at the "play interactively" stage yet, that's a toddler thing that comes later, it's more "parallel play" where they play around each other. I know for Joey he liked playing with "new" toys that weren't his same old ones he sees every day. Anders and Des were more into looking at each other and seeing what the other one was doing, even if it was bugging a daddy trying to have personal time in the next room ;)

We survived the hurricane with very little damage, if any. Mostly just a lot of water everywhere, we didn't even have any leaks (although Dan hasn't been up in the attic to look for any there). We lost power for about ten minutes or so on Monday but that was it. We were very blessed and lucky because I know there are countless others who were not so fortunate. I also, thankfully, did not go into labor during the storm, which was a minor fear I had. I'm still pregnant, so yay for that. Initially, I had to come to terms with the fact that I'd have to use vacation time to make up for the work time missed caused by Sandy (half of Monday and all of Tuesday) because it was the end of the pay period, but I got a call from HR yesterday saying that we have all of next week to make up the time. After that, whatever time isn't made up will be replaced by PTO. SO HAPPY because that was 10.5 hours of leave I didn't want to use until after I had the baby, so I'll be working some 10-hour days to make up next week and pray the baby comes AFTER I've made up my time. Also praying the baby comes AFTER Matt and Jenny's wedding on Saturday because I very desperately want to be there :)