Katie's Kardashian-style birth story

2:30AM on February 19 my water breaks. And it wasn't like an Am I sure that just happened? event, my water leaked all night long. But I had zero contractions and so the doctor on call said try to go back to sleep and wait to go into labor and call the office in the morning if nothing changes. Sean and I sat in the living room watching mindless television until about 5:30AM when I decided to crawl into bed with Dylan while I waited for active labor. He was already awake when I entered his room and I scooped him up and told him that Baby Katie was going to be born today. Dylan smiled the hugest smile and hugged me. And then we both fell asleep again until 7:30ish. Sean had been asleep on the couch and when we all woke up I noticed that his face was grey. As I prepared to hop in the shower and call the doctor Sean said that he wasn't feeling well.

Sean hasn't gotten sick--except maybe once or twice due to a few too many drinks back in our younger days--in the seven years we've been together. I've never known anyone else with a stronger stomach. So for him to say that he wasn't feeling well was serious business. Before we left for the hospital he had gotten sick four times. Perfect timing.



My father in law showed up to stay with Dylan and I still had zero contractions as we arrived to the hospital at 9:30AM and were quickly checked into the same room where I delivered Dylan! My midwife Jenny showed up and checked me. It turns out that my water had broken but only my outer water (there are two water bags?) and the baby was still in the inner water which is why I had zero contractions. So Jenny broke my water for me to kick start labor. I was already dilated to 4cm. When she checked me an hour later I was already 5cm. I felt great for a while and was progressing so quickly that I suddenly doubted whether or not I needed an epidural at all. I waited until about 3:30PM when the pain was so unbearable that I told the nurse to call the anesthesiologist. Poor sickly Sean had been sleeping on the uncomfortable pull out couch trying not to get sick as I labored on a birthing ball while watching the news. The pain was so bad by the end that I could barely read the scroll at the bottom of the TV screen, life just wasn't making sense.

The nurse called for the epidural and checked me again. I was 6cm. Within minutes my legs were numb from the pain and I went from a very sweary sailor to a happily drugged woman. Sean and I turned on Better Connecticut and I tried to take a nap. At 4:15 I suddenly felt like I had to poop. I called the nurse because I was surprised I was feeling anything at all and she said the pressure was the baby ready to come out. I had gone from a 6 to a 10 in forty minutes.

My midwife showed up ready to have a baby and within minutes Katie was born.

But this is my favorite part of her labor: I delivered my own baby Kourtney Kardashian style. Jenny told me to reach down and grab her as she was being born, so I pulled her onto my chest. I delivered my own baby. Our 8 pounds 2 ounces baby.



This labor was so easy compared to Dylan's birth. His lasted 21 hours with 2 hours of pushing. I was only in active labor with Kathleen for seven hours with 15 minutes of pushing. And by day two I was in almost no pain at all.



So far Katie has been a very easy baby, sleeps all day and rarely cries. We are so in love and can't imagine how we lived without her.

I'll be posting daily photos of her over HERE. Welcome, little one.

Wood N Tap

We went out to dinner tonight to the same restaurant we visited on the night before Dylan was born. Here's hoping it has the same effect.

Today

My life just grew so much more awesome with this morning's mail delivery. For months now every time the little magnetic charging plug fell out of my Mac--which is constantly with a toddler and three dogs crawling all over me--the computer would instantly shut off. This means that if I was 25 minutes deep into editing a photo or writing a blog entry I would instantly lose those 25 minutes as my computer screen turned black. And I would see it happening. The dog would step on the cord and I would watch it slip out of the computer port but I rarely was able to put it back in before the computer shut down. I bought a new charging cable a while back thinking that this would solve the problem but apparently what I really needed was a new battery. And one finally came in the mail this morning. I am currently typing using only battery power. No plug, no deafening fear that this computer will suddenly shut down. It feels amazing.

Here are a few cruddy cell phone pics from our day. I was up all night with what felt like a continuous contraction, my stomach stayed hard and painful and never relaxed, I was so sure I would go into labor at any second. But alas, 39 weeks 1 day along today.

Notice I took that screen shot from my phone at 2:42AM. Sleeping is for the birds when you're up all night Googling constant stomach hardness pregnancy labor contraction to make sure a phone call to Labor and Delivery is unnecessary.

I was dead to the world snoring on the couch when the boys came downstairs at six thirty, Sean flashed me a silly look because I had been watching the channel that airs government hearings--there really is nothing on in the middle of the night--and I wiped the drool from my face as I felt my belly. Still hard, still painful, still pregnant.

We made biscuits and Dylan shared his last piece with all three dogs, which always makes me melt a little. He's such a good boy.

Sean read the morning paper as Dylan watched his favorite movie Cars and Grampy came over for breakfast.

While the boys took their weekly boy trip to the dump I sorted through some of Katie's three tons of clothes. These are mostly her 0-3 month outfits. That girl has more clothes than all of us combined and she isn't even born yet.

After lunch, Sean and I settled in for a movie while Dylan napped but once it ended I was feeling antsy and took a trip to the store. Well, three stores. I bought rain boots for Dylan, groceries, and a much-needed step stool for our upstairs bathroom. We had a bit of an episode with Dylan today because he is determined to use the big boy potty, even though I'm not actually potty training him, and he refuses all help. But since I hadn't purchased a stool for the boys' bathroom he couldn't climb up on the toilet on his own today and had a complete meltdown. Huge crocodile tears. "I can't do it!" he sobbed into Sean's shoulder, and refused all help from us. He wants to be so independent and we totally failed him by getting him a potty seat but not a step stool to access it. So I went shopping. I figured maybe the walking would convince Katie to come out, too. Win-win.

When I came home, Dylan and I had a little art session. I was surprised with how much he loved to draw with markers, he usually gets very bored with crayons. He's a musical boy, but not an artist. But being Mr Independent Dylan was thrilled at the opportunity to open each of the markers and replace the caps when he was done with them. We sat on the living room floor drawing for quite a while. This is his picture of a bus using every marker in the box.

The rest of our day was priceless, as weekend's are. Sean and Dylan chased each other around the house laughing hysterically. Dylan ended up wearing only a shirt and fireman boots with his little tiny bum hanging out as they played hide and seek. My face hurt from smiling. We cooked dinner together, listened to our usual classical music while we ate, Dylan played in the bath, and then we spent time in our new basement playroom and had a dance party in our bedroom before putting Dylan to sleep.

Here's hoping tomorrow brings our daughter.

maternity photos

26 weeks






27 weeks



28 weeks



29 weeks



30 weeks



31 weeks




32 weeks




33 weeks



34 weeks





35 weeks




36 weeks



37 weeks




38 weeks






39 weeks

Time to evacuate my womb, please

"It's the weekend, Muggy, that means Daddy will be home with you for two days! And maybe I'll even get a half day today if your mama stops dragging her feet and decides to have a baby." -Sean



I am 39 weeks pregnant today. I don't consider myself a superstitious person but as I was lounging in a hot bubble bath just now, eating a handful of dark cocoa cookies [my third package this week], I contemplated the reasons I am still pregnant and waiting endlessly for this little girl to be born.

I must be doing something very wrong, I thought, or very right for her to want to cozy up for so long in my uterus. Maybe this little girl has an inkling that once she is born she will no longer be enjoying dark cocoa cookies. Maybe the warmth of the bath makes her want to retreat farther into my ribcage.  Perhaps I haven't done enough squats or eaten enough balsamic vinegar or pineapple. Maybe I've been too comfortable on the couch when I should've been out walking. What if she's stuck in my pelvis? What could I possibly be doing wrong?

I keep thinking of that 'days of the week' poem my mother always used to recite to me, the one that goes:

Monday's child is fair of face
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living,
But the child who is born on the Sabbath Day
Is bonny and blithe and good and gay.

I think about this rhyme more than may be healthy. Am I unknowingly sending signals to my baby to stay put on Wednesdays because I don't want a woeful daughter and encouraging her to strive for a Friday like her mama?

Superstition.

She will come on the third Saturday of the month when the cock crows twice and the moon is waning and all toilets suddenly flush counterclockwise.



I assume every mother feels this way so far into her pregnancy.  No one wants to wait for the rest of her life to begin.  I can't imagine waiting two years--as elephants do--to meet my baby.  Forty weeks is pure torture.

I'm off to go walk around in circles while eating spicy food and hopping on one foot with my left toe touching my ear.

My heart soars like a hawk

After a trying day yesterday I was determined to make it up today. I hadn't thought much about it being Valentine's Day until Sean's alarm clock buzzed us awake this morning. I should probably make today special for Dylan, I told him, kicking myself for not thinking about this ahead of time. Sean and I don't care much about the holiday this year but Dylan loves candy and he's quite a little lover so this holiday was made for him.

I hopped out of bed and found us red outfits and as he rubbed his sleepy little eyes I told him our plan for the morning: out for breakfast, a stop to buy candy, and trip to his favorite store Home Depot!

Photo by my other Valentine

We had our milk and watched the news with Sean until he left for work and I introduced Dylan to an awesome version of We Are Young performed by Pentatonix [you know, I've never actually heard the original version of this song] which of course in true Dylan fashion had to be played about a hundred times so that he could learn the words and dance a bunch.


We went to our favorite diner and Dylan enjoyed a sip or few of some decaf tea ("It's coffee, Mama!"), ate most of my pancake plus half of his breakfast, watched for trucks out the window, and imitated the group of men in the booth next to us under his breath. He was fascinated by all of their reflective vests and loud voices but intimidated each time they came over to chat with him about how polite he was acting or compliment him on his cool snowman hat.

After breakfast and a quick candy stop we were off to Home Depot.

We didn't need anything at Home Depot--although we picked up a new toilet seat for Sean's bathroom [Happy Valentine's Day, sweetheart!]--so I found myself just enjoying Dylan's company instead of paying attention to things that needed to be done. I let him pick the cart, he chose the biggest one he could find, and I asked him which aisles he wanted to see next. We found ourselves listening for the beeps of the machines backing up and then hunting them down. That giant cart was quite noisy so any time Dylan heard a beep he'd say, "Mama! Stop walking! Do you hear dat!?" and I'd freeze in the aisle as we listened. It was seriously the best time I've had with him a store. He is slowly outgrowing the horribleness that began the minute he turned two in which he suddenly hated everything about shopping and needed to be bribed with lollipops and animal crackers just to sit still in a carriage for five minutes. Suddenly he asks to go to the store and behaves like an angel.

He enjoyed another piece of candy once we left the store. This overly satisfied laugh cracks me up!


We sang all the way home and he immediately went upstairs for a nap. Hallelujah. I'd say today has been pretty perfect. What a difference from the mental cacophony of yesterday's hormones. Today I haven't stopped smiling. A Hallmark holiday? Maybe. A day I'll not soon forget? Absolutely.

Happy Valentine's Day to you and your loves!

Upheaval at 38 weeks 5 days pregnant

I am not doing well mentally. This seems to happen to me during the last few weeks of pregnancy, I was just as much of a wreck when I was about to have Dylan. I'm one of those people who NEEDS to have a concrete plan. I need to acclimate myself to the plan and I need to know all of the details on how it will play out or else I stress like crazy over all of the what ifs, over things beyond my control that could go wrong, over the unknown. Obviously, I have zero control over when this baby decides she would like to show up and therefore my whole life gets turned upside down. For an entire month.

At my 35-week appointment my midwife mentioned that I just had to keep this baby in for one more week and then she would most likely be absolutely fine to be born. At that point I had my mind set on delivering this baby on her due date and I still had five weeks left to prepare for her arrival. Suddenly I realized that she could be here any day!! and my world turned once again. I prepared myself mentally that she could be born within a matter of days. Although Friday came and went, 36 weeks came and went, but I didn't go into labor.

Then there is the logistics of making sure someone can take care of Dylan and the dogs. My father-in-law lives about two minutes away and en route to the hospital so he is our first phone call when I go into labor. We talked about how he would happily come to our house--if I feel I have enough time--especially if Katie decides to come in the middle of the night, and that way Dylan won't even know we are gone. But my father-in-law is also the father to two young boys, Sean's little brothers, and they had been staying at his house for the last few days. So then I worried, well, what would happen if I go into labor and have to wake Dylan up in the middle of the night to take him to his grandpa's house and then he doesn't go back to sleep and my poor father-in-law gets stuck with a wide awake toddler who may or may not wake the other kids? So I tried my hardest not to go into labor then. Both Sean and his dad said, Don't worry! We'll make it work! but I worried. I didn't want to inconvenience anyone. If I woke up in the middle of the night feeling crampy, I wished hard that I wasn't in labor. But I didn't go into labor.

And then came the blizzard. Two feet of snow! What would happen if I went into labor then? Sean had cleared our driveway a bunch of times, dug out my car, and should we have had to make a trip to the hospital then how would we make it? Would I give birth in the car? How would we get up that hill on the way to my father-in-law's house? More worry. But I didn't go into labor.

For the past two weeks I have been feeling like I am in early labor. My braxton hicks contractions are constant and achy, I've had endless rounds of high energy followed by extreme exhaustion, and there are a bunch more signs that are gross that I will not go into, so I keep thinking tonight is the night! Kathleen is so low in my pelvis that it feels like she may fall out any second and yet she is so high in my ribs that they feel broken. At the end of the day I find myself on the couch breathing deeply and massaging my ribs because I am in such ridiculous pain that I am involuntarily laboring my breath. Sean wakes up every morning and goes to bed every night saying, "I cannot wait to meet my daughter, and I cannot wait to have a whole week of vacation with my family." Trust me, I tell him, I want her out just as much if not more than you do, Love.

And then there are the text messages and phone calls. Everyone is excited to meet her. Is she here? Are you still pregnant? I think she will be born on ________. After weeks of hearing these things over and over, I find myself not wanting to talk to anyone. Anyone. I don't even want to play with Dylan--I want to go off and be alone--and then I feel guilty because this could be our last memory together before I leave him for who knows how long. And a part of me loves these messages. It's all so exciting. [AKA: Don't stop sending them just because I'm having a crappy day, I do appreciate hearing from everyone.] But then there are the days where I could cry if someone else points out that I am still pregnant.

Today was one of them. I woke up this morning feeling so very down in the dumps. It's only Wednesday. I am still pregnant. I cannot believe I have three more ten-hour days with Dylan, stuck indoors because of the snow, before Sean comes home for the weekend. And why am I still freaking pregnant? This morning I laid on the floor in front of the fireplace in a lump. How will I make it through the day? Through the hour, even? I let Dylan watch Cars, twice, and tried to smile when he looked over at me. I was beyond useless. And most of today continued like this until I tried to snap out of my funk. We made muffins, read books, played trucks, checked the mail, ate some snow, etc. And I put Dylan down for his nap at noon and immediately found myself trying to catch my mental breath. I was alone. I needed to be alone.

And then about fifteen minutes after I was sure Dylan had fallen asleep Sam decided to lose. his. shit.



I'm sure a neighbor dog barked or he saw a squirrel or a bird or a falling leaf, and he began barking hysterically at the window. The other two dogs followed suit and suddenly our house was filled with screaming dogs. I rushed after them grabbing them by the collars and trying to drag them away from the window and they continued to bark loudly as I moved them into the living room and threw up a gate to keep them out of the den. Thirty seconds later I heard Dylan crying from his room.

Of course. Of course the dogs had to wake him.

So I curled myself into a ball and proceeded to lose my shit. I bawled into a couch pillow feeling ever so sorry for myself. And with Jasmine being Jasmine she felt the need to jump on me and lick the tears off of my face to comfort me. Dylan continued to yell, "Mama! I'm awake! Are you there?! Downstairs! Mama!" and I continued to cry, stopping only to yell up to him occasionally that it was still nap time and he should be in bed.

Twenty minutes later he yelled, "Mama!"..."Mama!"..."Mama!"..."Mama!"...and even when I responded to him he continued to simply yell Mama. I couldn't take it. I kept yelling, "What is it?", pleading with him to say anything but Mama. Finally I stomped upstairs, my face soaked in tears, scooped him up and held him close to me in his bed.

He noticed I was crying immediately.

"Mama? Don't cry! Don't cry, Mama! It's OKay, Mama!"

I could've died I felt so terrible. How sad that my tiny two year old was comforting me.

"I'm not crying, sweetheart, I have something in my eyes. They are just watery."

He put his little arms around me and gave me a huge squeeze and then traced my neck scar several times.

"Are you crying because of your boo boo, Mama? Watery eyes?"

I reassured him that I was just fine, not crying, and that my boo boo doesn't hurt, remember? He then asked if we could go to Home Depot. And then he asked if we could take pictures.




And I didn't feel like crying anymore, although I probably will later tonight.

These are my hormones talking. I could've predicted this the second that second line appeared on our home pregnancy test. This is how I handle the last few weeks of being pregnant. But seriously, I can't take another day of Dylan not napping. I can't take another day of not having our little girl in my arms. I can't take this rib pain or feeling like I'm carrying a bowling ball in my pelvis. I can't take any more of these when is she coming questions. I am not at all afraid of labor; I can take the pain. The uncertainty and the waiting is the worst part.

Tomorrow will be better.

Snow pictures: part two [and 38 weeks pregnant]

I'm thrilled that I did not go into labor last night but I am quite ready for her to come out now. Hopefully there won't be any 39th week photos. I am no longer a graceful pregnant woman.

I have to give a disclosure: I didn't edit any of these photos aside from turning them into collages. This drives me absolutely batty because I know these photos could be so much better if only I had the patience to open them up in Photoshop but I just don't have time tonight.

So here I am at 38 weeks, 1 day pregnant:







And after I photographed my Katie bump in the backyard I convinced Sean and Dylan to come out to play. Sean actually posed for pictures and even Dylan cooperated. Is it a blue moon or something?





We then played in the snow until our cheeks turned purple and we could no longer feel our fingers.















We came inside to thaw off, drink hot apple cider, and make brownies. So far this blizzard has been simply awesome.