And Since We've No Place to Go

 

 

 Our backyard

 

 On the deck

 

Even though the snow was deep, M enjoyed our little walk. We went in and out of the house several times to keep warm.

 

Every time I brought her inside she asked again for "snowy."

Introducing her to snowballs

The view from my favorite place (on earth).

Do you remember our little snow bunny last year?

Baby Love

  

Happy 2nd Birthday to Our Little Girl!

It was delightful to spend M's second birthday surrounded by both sets of her grandparents and all her aunts and uncles for the extended Thanksgiving weekend at our home. My has she grown up much in one year! She is a joy to our hearts.

Her birthday dinner was a feast worthy of Thanksgiving, and Grandma made her a delicious coconut cake. As we encircled the dining room table and started to sing to her she broke down in tears. Apparently we don't sing very well. We started over and tried again which ended in the same result. Having kids is so healthy for the heart because they are always making you smile and laugh. You just never know how they will react sometimes.

For birthdays and gifts in general, we prefer to give fewer nicer gifts that are made well and should last many years. This year the "fewer" meant one gift. I spent her birthday eve (our 4th wedding anniversary!) surrounded by our families constructing her present.  Between nursing the baby and eating meals (prepared by our mothers), it took me all day. Can you tell what I'm building?

 A few hours later

 

She thought I was making a chair. 

Our little chef at her kitchen with her Plan Toy veggies. I had been searching for a while to find a solid wood kitchen rather than the "wood" you see in most stores today. So far I have been very pleased with this kitchen set, and I am hoping that it will bring hours and hours of imaginative play for many years and for many kids to come. 

 

As you can see the kitchen is too tall for our little girl. I was pleased that this kitchen was built tall so that she still has room to grown into it.  As I was debating between this set and the smaller version I decided to go with this one because it boasted more counter space. What cook doesn't wish for more counter space! Its oval design is to facilitate play among children. Little baby E are you ready to cook yet?

Sometimes we let her play on a stool.

If you haven't heard me mention it before, I love Plan Toys!

 

Meeting Baby Sister

As our first born was about to go through the momentous occasion of becoming a sister, I desired to transition her as smoothly as possible into this new role. Before baby E was born, I had decided that when M came to visit us at the hospital I wanted to have some time together with M before she met E. N phoned me when M, my mother, and he arrived to give me time to stash away little E.  I rolled E into the large bathroom and waited by the door with great anticipation until I heard the sweet sounds of my M coming around the hallway. I sprang through the door like a little child- How I had missed my dear baby! I took the time to change her, and then we read a story together.

Our story time together took a hilarious turn when the pediatrician came to give E an examination. I can barely stop laughing remembering the face she gave us when we told her where the baby was and asked that she conduct her exam in there as well. She acquiesced to our request after she deemed the lighting sufficient, and M and I kept on reading.

After months and months of telling M we were getting a baby, we finally delivered on our promise. This video is precious to me.

It was love at first sight! M squealed with delight over her sister.

Baby kisses delight my heart

Daddy's girls

Our family

We pray that M's delight in her sister will never fade and that throughout both their lifetimes they will share a deep friendship.

Our Little Girl's Birth Story

The tiny toes I was dreaming of these last nine months. 

   Littlest baby girl and I started our morning out on her due date just as we had for the past several weeks~ with a wee morning snack. Around 2 am I woke up, toasted a bagel, and reclined on the couch browsing the internet. By the time I went back upstairs, I realized that my usual Braxton Hicks felt different. They were lower, stronger, and continuous. "Was this labor?" The thought of naturally going into labor was such a joyous feeling as I never did it before and doubted my ability to do it. Yes I can go into labor!  I went back upstairs to bed and started to count. They were coming at a pace of about 15 minutes apart. "Could this really be labor?! Was our baby girl coming?!  Would I be holding her in my arms in a few hours?!" I felt so unsure as I had never felt natural contractions (M's water broke 15 days prematurely, and I was then oxytocin induced.) Lying next to my soundly slumbering husband while counting the time between each contraction,  I remember ecstatically thinking, "I've never had to breathe through my Hicks like this!" I was then able to fall back asleep hours after I woke for my snack. I would awake for some contractions and then fall back asleep between them.  When N woke at 6:30 to get ready for work, I told him that I might be in labor and that he should just go into work for a few hours. Half of me was thinking, "Just commit to this! Just tell him to stay," and the other half of me was thinking, "This could be false labor, even true labor can stop, I could be in labor for hours and hours, he is only 30 minutes away, and my mom could drive me in if needed." I was relived that my mom had arrived the evening before and was there when I needed her to care for M. By 8 am, I was downstairs reclining on the couch waiting for my mom and M to wake up.  When my mom came down the stairs a few minutes past 8 am, I held a breath and tried my best to gently break the news that I was in labor and had been since the early morning.  I was about 12 minutes between contractions. On the couch I rested and kept on counting. I called N at 9 am, told him that the contractions were still regular and inquired when would be best for him to come home. By the time he came home at 11:30, I was varying from 9-12 minutes apart. The November weather was really pretty and my mom even gave N a haircut outside on the deck. After resting for an hour, I was consistently 9 minutes apart and thought that we should get ready to leave so that we could walk around the hospital until I got to the recommend 5 minutes apart for admission and in plenty of time for an epidural. I then took a leisurely bath.  It was interesting to feel how the water helped to alleviate the pain as I have often thought that our soaking tub would be a good place to labor. N and I shared a sweet moment watching our little girl kick away from the inside for the last time. As I was taking my sweet time, it suddenly dawned upon me that my 9 minutes between contractions felt much shorter. "Could that really have been just three minutes?! I had better get moving." While I rinsed off in the shower, they kept on coming really quickly. I found that bending over and holding on to my knees helped me breathe through the pain. The pain only lasted for 30 seconds, and I was able to get through them well. At 1:30 pm, N's timing confirmed that they were only 2.5 minutes apart!

We took a parting picture, kissed M goodbye and put her down for her nap. My last words to my mother while we ran out the door were, "We will call you ~if~ we get admitted and then you can call the rest of the family to tell them I am in labor."

Taken at 1:29 pm

I remember distinctly one contraction I had in the garage surrounded by lawn equipment and another bent over in the street hanging onto the tailgate of our car. Those contractions were strong yet manageable. We moved M's carseat to my mom's car. I got into the passengers seat and we were on the road.  In the car I attempted to distract myself through the pain with my favorite station blaring above the noise from the rolled-down windows, yet it was not working.  I longed to be back in my garage all nicely bent over or in the street rather than in this car with a 30 minute stop and go ride. I then did the unthinkable~ took off my seatbelt~ (I am a stickler for car safety :). Rocking back and forth on my knees while holding on to the headrest confirmed that I was ~that woman~ being semi-furiously driven to the hospital~ "What had happened to the let's get to the hospital early and go for a nice long walk? What happened to getting there early for an epidural?" We drove into the parking lot at 2:09 pm. As soon as the car rounded the entrance, N listened to my "Stop the car!"  There was no time to park and grab a wheelchair in my mind. Walking made so much more sense than waiting one more minute. I walked through one contraction on my way and thought that the freedom felt so much better than the confinement of the car. When I reached the desk I was less than compassionately handed paperwork as I muttered, "Two minutes apart." From the look on the clerk's face apparently having contractions two minutes apart is zero reason to murmur. Who knew that the preadmission paperwork that everyone insists you get over with weeks before the birth would have less questions than this sheet. As N arrived I was elegantly sprawled out on the waiting room floor~ that's normal isn't it? I went to the restroom and with a failed attempt to empty my bladder realized that the sensations I felt were rather an attempt to empty my belly of our baby. By 2:20 pm, we were admitted to triage. (My mother never did get the call I promised her, and our family never got news of my being in labor at all.) While they examined me in triage, I was thinking, "Please be high, please be high." And at 9 cm high it was!! While I less than graciously rode through another contraction, the nurses lifted up the sidebars and rushed me to a delivery room. As an epidural at 9 cm made little sense, I went with a pudendal block along with the doctor's promise that if she broke my water baby girl would be here very shortly. Thankfully she held true to that promise. Through some contractions I screamed like a baby, breathed through others, and used a focusing point to get through others.  Afterward my lovely nurse mentioned that the noise did not bother her but that I gave her a fright when I "focused through" as if she was losing me to a seizure. While screaming like a baby, I remember thinking, "Honey I am so sorry to put you through this" while feeling that it felt so good to let the energy of the pain pass through my lungs. When baby girl's heart beat dropped to 60 (with 120 being on the lowest end of the healthy range), the head pediatrician was called in to be there at her birth, and I was told they would intervene with what I affectionately have dubbed the salad tongs.  Certainly such an intervention was far from ideal and I do second guess their necessity, yet I try to focus on her healthy birth. (Maybe the third time will be our charm without odd medical interventions). This pushing experience was very different from M's leisurely pushing hour.  There were no, "She's crowning," "She's coming," "She is almost here," "Here she is."  There was no time to feel her head, see my progress with a mirror, or snap a photo of my ridiculously red face. All I heard was "Push!", all I saw was the inside of my eyelids, and all I did was push. At 2:54 pm baby sister made her arrival!  Her cord was wrapped twice around her neck which might have been the reason for her sudden heart rate deceleration, and thankfully she only had very minimal bruising from the forceps.  

My first time meeting her at 3:17pm

Daddy's helping hands

Yummy fingers

So much hair

Looks just like daddy

Wearing the same going home outfit as M

After writing such a detailed birth story, I decided to go back and fill in some details about M's arrival.

Introducing Our Daughter

With joy we announce the birth of our sweet girl!

 

Born on November 5th, 2010 at 2:54pm

She was 7 lbs 3 oz and 20 in long.

Enjoying Autumn at the Pumpkin Patch

 As we enjoyed our time at this sweet pumpkin patch with the horse drawn hayrides last year, we knew that we would be revisiting the same farm this year and ended up going two weeks in a row. 

Our Family of Four

  Last year with 11 month old M

Yay! The horses are coming!

 Enjoying being with daddy, watching the horses pull, and feeling the wind in her hair.

  One year ago

 It made me smile to see her at peace petting such a huge animal.

This picture makes me laugh because of how it reveals the belly bump popping out of my coat.

  Playing with an "apple"

 This candid one makes me laugh

 37 weeks- it is interesting to see how different my belly looks from the side and from the front.

 Daddy can make her give the biggest smiles

 My dear girls I cherish you!

 Last year with our only lil' pumpkin

 

37 weeks and extremely excited to see baby sister in a few weeks