It's the middle of the night. Guess who's sleeping? Everybody but me. Of course. I deleted Facebook from my phone so I'd spend less time on it, but now I have nowhere to go and randomly chit chat to "imaginary people" as Nale calls them. I totally forgot I had this thing until the other day so I might as well use it, eh?

So, anyway... I've been working on a playlist on my Spotify for running. It's pretty much the greatest running list of all time. I'm also pretty sure I'm the only person who would think that hahaha! Mostly well known and not so well known 90s alternative and hip hop and a few random current-ish songs I like that I've heard on the radio.

What is it about 90s music that just gets you excited? Or, at least me... Even songs I hated back in the day are fun to hear now. I must be getting old or something... Probably nostalgia I guess. I do love (usually) being the target audience in the grocery store and pretty much anywhere else. Nale and I like to compete to see who can name the band playing the fastest.

It's fun to put a 90s playlist on in the car too to make a trip go by faster. Plus, it's a game he doesn't always beat me in. That and Scrabble are pretty much the only games I stand a chance to win against him... Why's he gotta be so good at freaking every game ever?

But yeah, anyway, back to laying in bed pretending to sleep I guess now that I've rambled somewhere about something.

We started back to school recently. Baby Girl is a couple months old now so I've been feeling pretty ready to get at it. Pregnancy kills any and all motivation and productivity for me so I've got things a little more together now which makes me happy.

I got the book Story of the World to try for history, so far the boys seem to like it. The Doctor loves history so he's pretty happy to listen to the stories. Noley has a pretty short attention span but does okay. They both loved or first activity though.

One of the chapters was about ancient Egypt and the Nile River so we made our own Nile River and grew "reeds" (grass) around it. They love taking turns "flooding the river." It's growing really well, even with the cats nibbling on the grass :) I found the project here originally.

Two Weeks of Growth

We did some crayon resist art and learned a little bit about Degas, too. I found a really cool book on Amazon called Discovering Great Artists that introduces lots of artists and art styles and gives projects you can do for each.

The Doctor's Tardis art

Mine

Noley's hearts

Goob's

For science the boys watched some Magic School Bus that talked about muscles. We did some experiments with our own muscles to see what happened when we flex and relax them, and when they get tired or cold.

My Second Birth

Stormy's Birth! 

My last delivery is still a blur in my mind but this time around I actually remember very vividly. It was so different from last time and I feel so much better already after, and it was much more "pleasurable" (as much as delivery can be )

Tuesday night my mom stayed over and all night I was having contractions about ten minutes apart, but nothing major they were pretty mild. They got to where they were about 8 minutes apart, but I didn't really feel them much when I was up and moving around doing stuff so I just went about my day. I had an appointment for an NST and AFI and a check with the doctor at 3:30, went in and everything looked good. The NST showed me having contractions about every 8 mins and Stormy's heart rates were great. The doctor checked me and I was dilated to a 3 (the previous week I had only been a fingertip) so I was excited that something was actually going on. Last time I didn't dilate until they forced it when they induced me pretty much. He stripped my membrane for me and had me make an appt. for Friday for if I was still pregnant. I was 40 weeks and 6 days at that point.

My mom and I left and went to have dinner at Fresh Choice with my sister, her husband and my nephew. After that we went to the mall and walked around a bit and I was feeling pretty wretched which in it's own way made me happy because I felt like maybe that meant things were moving along. There was bleeding any time I went I just figured it was from the membrane stripping, it was probably more than would have been from that though maybe. I think now maybe it was bloody show? I don't know for sure.

We got home and I was having contractions that were getting a bit stronger so I started to time them. I told my husband I may call him soon but wasn't sure, but to be ready and go to bed early to try to rest some just in case. My contractions were still about 8 minutes apart but pretty quickly they were all under 6 minutes (I started tracking at about 930 and this was within an hour they got to that). I decided if things kept progressing that way I would call my husband at midnight to come home. He was out of town since Monday for work for the week and was  about 2.5 hours away driving. I was having to breathe through contractions and I made the decision at 11 to just call him to come home. I knew he wouldn't make it in to work the next day and would have to come home and I didn't want him in a rush, and figured he could rest at home before we left. I was counting on a very long labor like the first time... I was soooo wrong! It's a REALLY good thing I listened to that feeling and called earlier than I had planned.

My husband got home a little after 1:30am and we finally got a hold of his dad to come over and watch our son. Easy job, the kid was out cold all night apparently  We got our stuff together and headed out and got to the hospital about a quarter to 3am. I had planned on going for a natural birth but was in so much pain I decided I wanted the epidural... I got there and was trying to hard to get them to at least give me SOMETHING but they wouldn't until they decided whether or not to admit me...

The nurse took FOREVER asking all those stupid questions they ask (do you smoke, do you feel safe at home, blah blah blah) and then check me and said I was a 3+ and would come back and recheck in 30 mins. Well, about 15 mins later my body was pushing. Seriously I had no control over it and could not freaking stop it from happening it was the craziest thing ever. My mom went to get the nurse and told her I was feeling like I needed to push, the nurse gives her a look like yeah ok, puts down her chips and comes in and checks me and I was a SIX so they told me there was a room ready, in between contractions I bolted to the room and jumped into the bed in time for another contraction and was begging for drugs. They tried to get an IV in but the first try she couldn't thread it, and then it was too late. No IV for me! The doctor check me and said I was a 9 with just a lip and she was going to break my water and I was going to need to start pushing. I yelled "No that means I don't get to have an epidural!" ha ha ha! She told me I could do it and would be fine and I didn't really have a choice basically. 

Well, just after she had said that a contraction started and my water broke and Stormy started coming out. I couldn't stop pushing, the doctor and everyone else kept telling me to push with the contractions but it was hard to stop, even during the very short "breaks" of contractions in between... I'm not gonna lie it hurt freaking bad but once he was out it was the most incredible thing I have ever experienced. I can't even describe the way I felt. There was still some pain but it was so minimal and they had put Stormy right on me. 

He was born at 3:33am, October  21st, so not even an hour after we got to the hospital  He started trying to open his eyes almost immediately and was actually pushing himself up a bit not long after birth too. The kid is STRONG. I tried nursing but he wasn't interested then, a bit later he was sucking on his hand and I tried then and he was so great at it! Nursed both sides for quite a while. He never left our sight our whole stay at the hospital and was sooo good for us! Love him! 

Recovery was so much better, I feel amazing already (as much as one could at least) and so much more relaxed, rested and at ease. I got my natural birth in spite of myself and I am so glad that I did. It was an amazing experience.

My First Birth

Little Knight's Birth Story

Long... heh. Little Knight was born February 25th, 2009 at 3:06am and was 8lbs 11oz, 21 inches long.

Sunday night I couldn't sleep at all, I was too awake for some reason so I went on the computer (like an idiot) and around 1:30am I started feeling tired so I went to bed. I had been feeling pains but didn't relate it to being contractions at the time. The pains weren't really bad but they were annoying and kept me from sleeping. My husband woke up at 4:15 for work and by that time I had thought maybe I was having contractions as they kept happening. I told him and he got really excited, asked if he should stay home from work and how regular they were. I told him I didn't know (I didn't think to pay that close attention... ha ha ha) and started asking if he should call in to work or go. I told him it was up to him. Who knew how long it would take to get somewhere I figured, and it wasn't really feeling that intense. He ended up going to work but had me start timing the contractions. This was about 5am when I started to do that.

After about an hour or so it looked like they were consistently 6.5 mins apart and about 30 seconds long, and they were getting stronger and after a while started to get closer together. My husband called after about an hour or so and after talking to me decided to come back home just in case. I had a doctor's appointment at 9:15 for an NST and an AFI so I figured I would see what they said then. My sister came out just in case (she was my doula and lives about an hour away) and my mom because they thought it would be coming and wanted to make sure they were close. At my appointment they monitored everything and it showed me having regular pretty strong contractions and also the baby was doing really well. When they checked my cervix I wasn't dilated at all... and he was at a -3 station... Basically the same as the Thursday before. I was really upset as I was due the previous Tuesday so I was already 6 days over my due date... The doctor said if the contractions get to be 4-5 minutes apart and over a minute long for a while then to consider going to labor and delivery.

We kept timing contractions at home and by 11pm my contractions were 4.5 mins apart and lasted about a minute each and were very strong for a couple of hours so we decided to leave for labor and delivery at 1am, got to labor and delivery at 2am (it was now Tuesday). When they checked me, I was still NOT dilated. AT ALL. I was in pain though... They gave me morphine to help my relax between contractions. The doctor eventually gave me the option to either try to help me dilate with a Foley catheter (a balloon they insert and fill up to stretch out the walls of the cervix). Or I could go home, they said they wouldn't let me go more than 5 days longer... I don't think so! I opted for the catheter. Then the doctor came back and said she couldn't do it as she was off in 30 mins and they were super busy (an emergency c-section for triplets was in and lots of other people) so I could either go home or wait and hope the next doctor could do something. It was 8am by this time, I was still in triage.

The next doctor came in and said he could do the catheter but he was going to send me home after, I started freaking out and losing it (I hadn't slept since Saturday night and couldn't keep on going how I was going) so he said he could have me stay as I obviously had a lot of anxiety. He put in the catheter (he checked me before and I was barely maybe a 1...) and they moved me into a room. After about an hour or so I was dying... I don't know when they checked me next but when they did I was finally a 2-3. They took out the catheter and soon after they really suggested I get an epidural so I could get some kind of rest, so they gave me that and then started pitocin. After the epi I felt no contractions or anything. I got some short naps in and it was awesome. The next time they checked me they asked if they could break my water, but I told them I would rather wait on that (I didn't want to do it too soon if I was going to be in labor longer and have those risks involved) so they checked me and I was at a 6 and my water broke while she was checking me. 

Finally at maybe 2:15am (Wednesday), they checked me again and I was fully dilated and ready to go, so I started pushing. It was my sister, my husband, and my mom. When the baby was coming out there was only a nurse with us and she started paging frantically for a doctor to get in, it took about 45 minutes of pushing. My husband after a while of pushing had to sit down as he was about to pass out... ha ha ha! When his head came out his cord was wrapped around his neck and he was blue and wasn't making any sound. The nurse quickly cut the cord and once he was all the way out there were finally more people in the room, they quickly took him and swarmed him and I heard someone say really loud "floppy baby" (couldn't they have a code word or something that wouldn't freak me the frick out?) They had to put him on oxygen for a bit and suck stuff out and finally he started to cry. I don't know how long it took. It just seemed like forever. 

Once he was doing ok they let me hold him for maybe a minute... then they took him away to the nursery... I had gotten a fever of 103 during labor so they wanted to monitor him and give him antibiotics just in case I had an infection and he had one too. They also put me on antibiotics and made sure my fever went down (it was gone after the birth). It was really hard. They wouldn't even let me try to feed him or anything. They fed him formula for his first feeding and I wasn't there and didn't even have any control over any of it. He was totally fine in the nursery the whole time and I would go to the nursery to feed him. After about 24 hours they started bringing him to me to eat and then would take him back, then finally we were able to keep him in our room with us.

Friday morning they told us we would probably get to go home with Little Knight. My husband was having problems breathing (he was sick and hadn't slept much, and he has asthma... bad combination) so he went to minor injuries and had an asthma attack while there and was transferred to the ER. That was definitely very interesting trying to keep in contact... Just as Little Knight and I were being discharged he was finally discharged too and he came up and we got to leave. When we got home that night I started getting chills and feeling really awful. I had a fever and it kept going up. I started taking Motrin but I couldn't seem to break my fever. Still, no sleep for me  All Saturday I kept trying to break my fever by taking Motrin and Tylenol. Saturday night my fever hit 104.1 and my husband called the  advice nurse who told us to go to the ER (waste of time to me) by the time we got there my fever had gotten to 99.something when they did an initial evaluation, and they took some blood and sent me back out to wait. By 2:30am Sunday I was still waiting and check myself out and my temp. had gone down to 97.something. We had to be back at the hospital at 9am for an appointment for Little Knight and we NEEDED to sleep. 

I am still sick now but I am feeling a lot better and hoping that things start to go better now which is good as my husband had to go back to work this Monday  This is the short version... heh. This last week was the worst week I have ever had. Nothing seemed to go right for us... but we have our son and he is healthy, he seems happy, he has been very calm and pretty easy on us so we are very fortunate. We love him so much ♡

My Home Birth

Baby Bear's Birth Story

My due date was May 26 so I was "late" as per my usual. As I had expected to be. On the morning of June 1st I woke up a bit before 6am and I was feeling some pretty decent contractions. I laid in bed a while and they kept coming and seemed fairly regular so I started timing them with my handy little phone contraction timer :) The duration started a bit over 30 seconds and were consistently anywhere from 4.5-5 minutes apart. Over time they started to get closer to a minute long. I was getting pretty excited at that point. Texted my midwife to let her know what was going on. We decided to wait things out a bit and see what happened.

Around 11, they started to get further apart. Around noon they had all but stopped. Super! My mom had come over and we were walking around outside trying to keep them going but it wasn't really working. It was ridiculously hot outside, our air conditioner was broken and it was a pretty big bummer. My mom had some stuff she needed to go take care of so I told her to go ahead and go, and I would let her know if anything changed.

Around 7pm I started having contractions again. This time they were about a minute long and 8-9 minutes apart. Fairly strong. Then they got closer together, but shorter in duration. My midwife was going to be driving by where I lived so said she would come by to check me out. When she got here, of course, the contractions had lessened and spaced out. She checked me and said I was about 2-3 cms dilated and she could feel his head but he was still a little high. She also said I had lost my plug already. She asked if we wanted her to stick around or what we wanted to do. We figured she might as well go home and sleep and we would try to also. She left around 9pm.

So Nale and I laid on the couch to try to sleep. It was cooler out there and we had a fan blowing on us. Our room and bed was way too uncomfortable. As I was laying there I couldn't sleep because I kept having contractions. I was messaging with a friend on Facebook, a little after midnight, as I started to time my contractions again. This time they were getting very intense. And getting closer together. They quickly went from 8 minutes apart to 5, then 4.5... Then I got up to go to the bathroom and when I got up, there was my show! Nale came walking down the hall as I came out and was going to get in the shower for a bit because I was starting to get really uncomfortable. I wanted to sit in there and time contractions and see what happened. He sat on the bathroom floor while I sat in the shower stream and timed for me. It didn't take long after I got in there though before I told him to just call the midwife to come out. I knew this was it and Baby Bear was going to be here SOON. I tried to convey a sense of urgency... I also told him to call my mom to come out. It was about 1:20am on June 2nd at this point.

My mom didn't answer so he left a message. I got out of the shower and laid on the bed in the room we set up to have the baby in. The contractions were becoming very intense and I was starting to feel pressure. I called my mom and she answered. She was on her way already. I told her she may have to fill in for my midwife because I just knew she wasn't going to make it. She asked if she should call my dad to be there also just in case so I told her to go ahead. My midwife lived just over an hour away. Nale was already looking pretty freaked out by the prospect of going it alone. I was telling him he was going to have to deliver Bear. He was not terribly excited by this prospect! Ha! I knew everything was going to be okay though. I felt very calm and I was ready.

I called the midwife and asked if I could get in the birth tub. I told her it was going to be very soon. I asked her to call the other midwife who was coming and have her come out. I was hoping that since she was a little closer she would get here sooner. She later told me that she had called her back and told her not to bother. She wasn't going to make it. I am actually really glad she really did that so we could save money which was nice. Nale started filling the birth pool and my mom got here. The pressure was building and I was feeling like I was probably going to start pushing soon. I remember thinking to myself that this was my last baby. I just couldn't do this again. It was too much to go through and I was done. In retrospect, this was a pretty clear signal the end was near!

I go into the pool and the water felt amazing. It really lessened the intensity of my contractions and I could relax between them a little. After not even 10 minutes Bear started coming. It's crazy how when you just kind of let go your body just takes over. It pushes on it's own. There is nothing you can do to stop it. I does what it wants! I told Nale he was coming. He called the midwife again and she helped over the phone. I leaned forward over the edge of the pool on my knees and Bear started coming. I put my hand down and could feel his head coming out which was very, very neat. It was very slippery. I pushed as I had my hand gently on him and in between pushes I would calmly tell my husband everything was fine. It was going to be okay. It was pretty surreal. Bear's head came out and I stopped pushing. They were telling me to push so I leaned back and pushed and out the rest of him came. My mom picked him up and put him on my chest. The midwife told us to rub his back and suction out his mouth. Nale and my mom frantically searched for the bulb and I rubbed his back and he started to cry a bit. We made sure everything was clear. Put some towels on him and kept him warm while I held him in the water. Sometime in that time frame my dad had shown up. He says that it looked like that was the way to give birth. It was pretty great and I totally agree :) We waited for our midwife to come to deliver and take care of the placenta. He was born at 2:27am June 2, 2013.

About 10-15 minutes after Baby Bear was born our midwife got here. We delivered the placenta and my mom cut the cord (Nale has never found this appealling :) ) They helped me out of the water and I sat on the bed. They pumped the water out of the pool and got everything cleaned up quickly and Bear latched on and nursed for quite a while. He was a great little nurser. It was so nice to sit with him and just be able to stare at him and be so close. He was a very sweet and calm little guy. 

Once he finished nursing he was measured and weighed. 7lbs 12.5oz and 19inches. He was big and healthy and perfect. I laid down and she checked me to see how I was looking. I had a very minor tear and she said she could stitch a little but it wasn't totally necessary. I opted to just let it heal on my own and just take it really easy. Baby Bear was passed around a little bit and some pictures were taken while I ate a banana and some almonds. After everything was said and done I laid down in bed with my newest little man and he went to sleep. Nale went to bed and I got to snuggle and nurse my little man all night. I had no desire to sleep for HOURS because I was on such an awesome high.

In the morning Little Knight woke up and came in and saw the pool was gone and there was a baby in bed with me. He was excited. His face lit up like it was Christmas morning. "Baby Bear!" he yelled. He was sooo excited! A little later Stormy came in and was just as excited. He walked over and the first thing out of his big smiley face was "He has ears!" "He has nose!" It was so special to watch. I love my boys <3