29 on the 29th

Its my "golden birthday" having a birthday the same age as the day of the month! When I was a kid I thought it would be much cooler, but its just the same as any other birthday. :) Vanessa gave me a great birthday gift. She fell asleep around 9:30 pm last night, woke up at 4 am to eat, then fell back asleep til 8 am. I feel rested and it was wonderful to sleep that long!! The other kids slept in too, and I got to shower by myself. We have started bringing up the swing to our bedroom at night. I put her in the swing after nursing her and she goes back to sleep much easier. She really fights going back to sleep after waking up in the middle of the night, so the swing was the trick. We're considering buying a 2nd swing just for the upstairs, its a pain to haul that thing upstairs every night. I should say its a pain for Dave, I haven't done it yet. But its really helping! Dave surprised me with "breakfast in bed"! He made me some scrambled eggs, and had picked up some "birthday cake" donuts and a mocha for me at Starbucks, and also a glass of orange juice. It was a fun morning. The rest of the day was also quite pleasant. A friend of mine (Kelly Fischer, she started the local ICAN chapter in Cedar Falls and also assisted with Vanessa's birth!) offered to watch the kids for me this morning, so Violet and Calvin went to her house at 10 am. They had TONS of fun with her! I went to Kohls and Target to spend some gift card money that was given to me after Vanessa was born, and spent some lazy time perusing the aisles at those stores. Dave and I got to have a little "date" for lunch before we picked up the kids. They slept well for their naps, so all in all, its been a resful, relaxing day for me. Soooooo thankful!! Thank you Lord! Moments to be refreshed and get a break really help me to take a look at the bigger picture, appreciate my kids so much more, and be thankful for all the blessings in my life.

Vanessa is 3 weeks old

It was actually three days ago, but that's ok...I'm feeling quite behind on almost everything lately! Vanessa is still a great little baby and mostly calm if all her needs are met. She loves to be held and snuggled close. She's started the "night time" fussiness, which was typical of all my kids. The hours between 6 and 9 pm she nurses like crazy (cluster feeding) and isn't really happy until she knocks out for bed around 10 pm. Makes for a difficult time getting supper on the table and the older two kids in bed...but if Dave is home and available to help, he is a huge help getting them taken care of. Vanessa is getting much stronger. She is lifting up her head much more and gaining more control, and has more awake time during the day. She still naps a lot but her awake time is longer and she seems to be focusing on faces and objects more. The baby acne that developed around 2 weeks of age is slowly fading and her complexion is clearing up. Violet and Calvin still are interested in everything "baby". They still take turns holding her (Calvin needs constant supervision, I trust Violet more with Vanessa but still not 100%) and snuggling with her. They like to stick their faces right in her face when she's swinging in her swing. She continues to sleep right through the loud chaos the older kids create in the house when she takes naps...I wonder how long that will last. Vanessa's nights are still hit-and-miss with long stretches of sleep. She is awake at least twice during the night time to eat or poop. It is absolutely necessary that she gets burped after each feeding ~ she belches 99.9% of the time after each nursing session. Including night time. What I end up doing is nursing her while laying down, then putting her body across my stomach and patting her back with my hand as I lay down waiting for that burp so I can put her back down to sleep in the middle of the night. The burp always comes, and its always a big one. Not a drop of spit up, just a big ol' burp. I can't imagine leaving such a huge air bubble in her stomach ~ and if I forget to burp her, she definitely lets me know with lots of uncomfortable crying after a feeding!

Calvin's first hair cut

His curls aren't completely gone, but his hair looks very different! Dave and I came to the realization that his crazy hair was totally out of control, even if we tried to wet it down and let it be curly. It stuck out on the sides really far and some pieces were getting way too long in the back. So we squeezed in a hair cut for him in the middle of a few errands this morning. We took him to Jiva on Main St. We brought the whole family in, and Dave focused his attention on keeping Calvin still enough for the lady to do a decent job. He wasn't scared at all, he sat mostly still, but moved around a lot. Violet stood by his chair and said "Calvin, isn't this FUN?" Dave bribed him with a sucker and he seemed to be motivated to sit still enough for one of those sweet treats afterwards! I'm glad we got it done, even though it was hard to see the crazy curls go. He was starting to look Albert Einstein-ish. :P Before: After:

A little scare

Its a good thing God is watching over our kids when we can't keep our eyes on them all the time. A couple days ago I was in the kitchen loading the dishwasher. Dave was reading a story to Violet in the recliner in the living room. Vanessa was on the couch, had started fussing a little, so Calvin thought he would be a big helper. A few moments later, I hear Calvin behind me in the kitchen saying "Here mom!" and I turn around to find him holding Vanessa with all his might. He carried her over to me from the couch in the living room to the kitchen, across the hard tile floor!!! My immediate reaction was to freak out but I tried to shove that reaction far away...and knelt down very quickly and took Vanessa from his grip and let out a huge sigh of relief. I told him thanks for helping, but please do not pick up the baby by yourself!! He hasn't done it since, but wow. If he had dropped her on the way it could have been really bad. Little guy was just trying to help! He brought the fussy baby to her mommy. :) But whoa! Dave was shocked too, he isn't really sure how he missed that whole scene, since it happened right in front of him.

Sleep!

Vanessa slept her longest stretch yet last night, from 10 pm to 6:30 am. I could hardly believe it when I heard her crying. I grabbed my cell phone next to me and looked at the time, and realized Dave was getting up for work at the same time she woke up. That means mommy got eight hours of sleep!!

Pics of Vanessa

One of her first baths at home: Snuggling with daddy: Her first bottle!

Almost 2 weeks

Vanessa will be 2 weeks old tomorrow. I can tell she is already getting much stronger! I find myself picking her up by under the arms and allowing herself to hold her own head up. She does a good job! I put her tummy down on the boppy pillow and last week she just laid there limp, this week she lifted up her head and looked both directions. She is an excellent burper after feedings (usually its a big belch!) and hasn't really developed her own sleeping schedule yet. Each night is different. Some nights she is awake every 1.5 hours to eat or poop, other nights she sleeps a good 4 hour stretch. I hope we gain some predictability soon!

Stump came off

Vanessa now has a real belly button. :) Her stump came off some time this morning when I was carrying her around in the infantino wrap. We took the kids strawberry picking this morning and she slept the whole time. I changed her diaper after wards and found it in the back of her outfit. Same thing happened to Calvin, I think. But hers came off really quick, she's only 12 days old! I think Violet's came off around 3 weeks. The nurses said the "rules" changed recently about babies being able to take baths in water (not just a sponge-off bath) immediately after birth so Vanessa's umbilical stump got soaked a few times in the last 12 days, I think that aided in how quickly it came off.

A first for Vanessa

Today turned out to be a very sleepy day for Vanessa. She slept most of the entire day (from 9 am to 5 pm) with enough awake time to squeeze in three feedings. She slept through her fourth so I pumped 5 oz and Dave gave it to her in a bottle. She took it like a champ!! We used the playtex drop-in liner style bottle and I think I'll stick with it for next time she might need one. This might mean a kid-free date night! Violet and Calvin were NOT fans of the bottles. Maybe we waited too long to introduce them to the other kids, or maybe Vanessa is just my easiest baby yet. :)

Weight check for the other kiddos

As long as I was thinking about Vanessa's weight, I decided to put the older two on the scale to see how much they weighed. Violet was 41.5 lbs and 41" tall (79th percentile for weight and 52nd percentile for height) and Calvin was 32 lbs (between 50 and 75th percentile). I'm not sure exactly how tall Calvin is, maybe I'll measure him when he wakes up from his nap.

Weight check for Vanessa

I had my 1 week PPD check up - and I opted to see the midwife Sandy who had taken care of me during my previous two pregnancies. She was more than happy to do my check for me so I didn't have to drive to IA City. We went over the birth story with her. She was so happy for me that I got to experience almost the full experience of labor and delivery, and knows that she could not have allowed me that opportunity. She removed the steri-strips from my incision, said everything looked really good and is healing well. Dave and all 3 kids came along with me for the appointment so we really packed that little exam room. She asked us what our plans would be for baby #4!! Um...we both really didn't even know what to say. Dave is considering the possibility of trying for a vaginal delivery again IF, and IF we have another baby, but really, neither of us can really think much about it. Dave would LOVE to have another baby, especially if we could have another boy for a brother for Calvin, but I'm not exactly sure I can think that far ahead. I asked the office if I could use their baby scale to weigh Vanessa and check if she had gained in the last week. They said I could use their scale ~ a nurse helped me weigh her and she has successfully passed her birth weight of 10 lbs 3 oz...she is now 10 lbs 11 oz! So that is great. I know she would be doing well...she has been a little eating and pooping machine since my milk fully came in on Sunday. Yay!

Vanessa's first week

The first three days were spent in the hospital, where I was barely successful in getting her to wake up enough to nurse. The last day I got her to latch on really well so that was good. She left the hospital weighing 9 lbs 6 oz. The nurses were so paranoid about her not eating so they had me pump and feed her what I pumped through a syringe. She didn't like it much, choking every time I'd squirt a little near the back of her cheek. She's really turned into a pro nurser though, since waking up more and more. I am not taking vicodin anymore, which makes a difference. I'm still taking 800 mg ibuprofen every 6 hrs for pain so I'm thinking that makes her sleepy, but overall, she's a GREAT baby! She sleeps well, and sleeps at night for me. She knocks out around 10:30 and sleeps til 3:30 am, I feed her, burp her, and put her back to sleep. She then sleeps til about 7:30 for another feeding, and usually a diaper change. I guess I can't complain at all about her. She's a sweet snuggler, loves to be near us, and eats and sleeps well. A new thing for Dave and I: She's sleeping in our bed! It started the first two nights she was home. I tried getting her to sleep in the pack and play in our bedroom, but every time she would get put there, she'd wake up and scream. I could tell she just felt more comfortable really close to people. We got one of those little co-sleeper tiny fold-up cribs that let her sleep safely between our pillows, and she's slept awesome since. It is MUCH easier for me to feed her in bed this way in the middle of the night with out having to get up, since its so painful for me to sit up still. I don't see the co-sleeping thing lasting more than a couple months though...she'll be on her own soon enough! I am still in "recovery mode" so keeping her near me is so much easier.

Violet's reactions to holding Vanessa the first time in the hospital:

"Violet was absolutely enthralled with her new baby sister. She said she knew it was a girl the whole time and told daddy she was right and he was wrong. She held Vanessa for a long time, calmed her down if she fussed, and was very proud that she got her to go to sleep."

Baby Vanessa is here!

I have been procrastinating blogging about Vanessa's birth simply because I don't know what to write. Dave is working on documenting the entire birth story but he using a word document and on page 7 and isn't done yet...so I'm not really sure that is all going to fit on one blog post. Anyway, I felt I should at least update on here some of the latest...and keep the story more condensed. The stats: Vanessa Jo LaMarche was born June 2nd, 2010, at 6:58 pm, weighing 10 lbs, 3 oz, and 22 1/2 in long via c-section delivery. I went into labor on Friday the 28th. I had contractions start about every 15 minutes, they lasted all night and through the night. The next morning on Saturday, they just kept coming, and they got closer and closer together, and the whole day the contractions came about every 8 minutes, and lasted anywhere between 45-60 seconds. I took many walks to encourage labor to continue and increase. Labor continued like that through Sunday and Monday, and didn't really pick up quick enough for me to drop everything and run to the hospital...so it was A VERRRY long three days dealing with horrible sleep from trying to get through a night in early labor. Finally at 2:30 am on Tues morning we headed to the hospital because I was so uncomfortable and sick to death of dealing with contractions at home with the kids running around. My mom was there helping but I felt helpless and couldn't do much other than walk which made me really tired. Anyway, got to the hospital, and kept walking around to try speed things up. When I got there, they checked my cervix and I was dilated to about 3 cm. I was encouraged by the progress, which kept me going! Contractions did pick up, and got going about every 5 minutes, lasting for about a minute. I kept walking the hospital hallways and leaning against the hall or leaned against Dave to get through each one. Got checked, I had dilated to almost 5 cm. I was so encouraged by progress, so I had enough in me to keep going. My water broke in a HUGE gush when I was in the room recovering from a contraction sitting on the couch, and that is when we discovered lots of meconium in the water. I was a little concerned but nobody indicated it could a big problem, so I labored on. I was getting SO exhausted. The pain of the contractions picked up big time when my water broke so it got really tough. I got dilated to about 6 when I asked for an epi so I could get some rest. I was sleeping between contractions, that is how tired I was. So I got the epi, slept in bed for a couple hours, and when I woke up, the nurse checked again and I was dilated to 10 cm! We were all so excited, because I was closer to birthing this baby! The docs/nurses let me "labor down" which means letting the strength of my contractions help bring the baby lower while I rested up to start the pushing phase. A few hours later, I started to push, and I worked HARD pushing the baby down. She was moving down, I was working, and three hours later, we could see the head peeking through. Dave told me the baby had a head full of dark hair! I was getting extremely tired from pushing. The docs were concerned about baby being too big so they refused to even use instruments to deliver the baby, they said you either push this baby out or you need a c-section. I rested for awhile so we could really think this through and make a decision. The doctors felt me pushing and could tell the baby was making progress with each push, but her head slipped right back to where she started after each contraction was over. It was so incredibly frustrating. They got an ultrasound out to determine the position of the baby. and the news was very discouraging. Baby was face up (should have been face down) and her head was tilted crooked in my pelvis, meaning the back flat side of her head was wedged in the birth canal and couldn't budge past my pubic bone. The nurses/docs tried positioning my body in such a way to encourage baby to flip, but after many attempts, baby just didn't budge. Such effort pushing got her head really stuck and she just wouldn't move. Docs determined she was too big to fit the way she was laying (I posted on my FB wall about the position being Asynclitic)....and ultimately a c-section was done to get the baby out. There was a huge swell on the back side of her head that was trying to get pushed out of me, and seeing that was very telling, as I could physically see how her head would not have fit through my pelvis. That's the majority of the story. I had some horrible, awful, and way-too-memorable effects from the drugs they used during the c-section since my epidural had worn off so much. Hallucinations, horrible memories, dreams during the surgery I'll never forget. I refused to see the baby for the first time until I knew I had snapped out of it and would remember seeing her for the first time. At least I was still with it during the time she came out of me and Dave announced "Its a GIRL!" I clapped I was so excited!!! The anesthesiologist gave me the drug because I kept complaining about a severe pain near the top of my abdomen while they were sewing me up. The epidural had worn off, the lidocaine they injected into the epidural was wearing off, and I was really scared. That's why they gave me another drug...and it was the better of two alternatives because the other option was to knock me out under general anesthesia, which I'm glad they didn't do. In the end, I am SO glad I got almost the ENTIRETY of the labor experience and made it to 10 cm and even got to almost push a baby out of me, but it was a huge blow and a big disappointment to get so far and have it not work out. Its going to be a long healing process as many of you know I've wanted a VBAC for so long. Anyway, that's the story!! I hope you enjoyed it. I am just so glad mommy and baby are healthy. And Vanessa was worth it!