So Long, Old Year!

The kids decided to make the last day of 2011 pooptastic. Elise had a fever yesterday and she was all whiny and grouchy today, even though her fever went down. Henry had a 30 minute temper tantrum this morning. Georgia's favorite form of communication today was spitting. And Clark had a little bit of blood in his poop this evening (just a teensy bit, but still...).

Ugh.

Also, Elise is back to threatening me. Not with biting this time, at least. But here's her new fun thing to talk about.

"Elisey pee pee in bed?"

"No. Don't pee in your bed."

"Pee pee on floor?"

"Pee in the potty, not on the floor, please."

And here's the latest addition: "Elisey pee pee on MOMMY!"

"You'd better not. Not funny, Elise."

Okay. Kind of funny. But I don't let HER see me smile about it.

10 to Go

125! Ten pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight! It only took me 12.5 weeks to get this far...

I once read somewhere that the average American woman gains a permanent 5 pounds for each pregnancy she has. In other words, she never loses the last 5 pounds of her pregnancy weight each time she has a baby. So if I don't lose another pound, at least I'll be average. Two babies, I've earned 10 pounds.

But I will lose it.

Eventually.

Night Travel

we drove to visit family for the recent christmas holiday. for the first time since we've started parenting, husband and i wised up to the best way to travel with little ones. we began our journey right around their bedtime. we hoped they would sleep and we could make fewer stops. and it worked! we drove straight there without a single stop. we shaved hours off our time. literally hours. even clark slept. we had a very successful trip on the way back, too. awesome. this is how we'll be travelling from now on: kids in jammies, snuggled down into their car seats with their blankies and teddies. night night! we'll wake you up when we get there!

Not ROWS, Exactly...

Well, I've been working on learning how to do cornrows in Georgia's hair. I've braided her hair probably 4 or 5 times now. I'm getting sliiiiiiiiiiightly better at it. On a scale of 1 to 10 I'm probably up to a 2 in overall presentation. Part of the problem is that her hair is really, really short. The other part is that she wont sit still for 10 seconds. I've even tried to do her hair while she's strapped into her highchair and eating dinner-- she still manages to swing her head around and mess me up.

I'm really trying, though.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

Elbows and a Big "What's Up?"

Clark decided today that tummy time should be had while resting on his elbows. No more lying on his tummy screaming and kicking his feet. He propped himself up on his elbows and was like, "Oh. This isn't so bad. What's up, Mommy? I kind of like tummy time now."

And speaking of "what's up," Elise has now adopted that phrase, but she only uses it on Georgia. Elise spent part of Christmas running through my mother-in-law's house yelling, "What's up, Gigi?!?! What's up, Gigi?!?!" It was weird.

Happy Holidays

hey! haven't posted in a few days. we've been busy with family and holiday stuff. i'll tell you what, holidays are so much more special with little kids around. seeing their excitement and the smiles on their little faces is the best present a mommy can get.

happy holidays!

Big Girl Medicine

successful mommy trick #1! elise didn't want to take her eye drop medicine the first time i raised the bottle to her eye. so i said, "this is big girl medicine! only big girls can take it. can you act like a big girl and let me put the drops in? show me that you can be a big girl and hold still." and it worked. now i just say, "time to take your big girl medicine!" and she lays down for her eye drops. yay!

Here We Go Again

elise has a middle ear infection in her left ear. her left eye is swollen, red, and gunky because of it. she looks pathetic. :(

Naughty or Nice?

Tonight the kids were opening books that we had wrapped in gift bags stuffed with paper. Henry opened his and Husband and I shouted, "Henry got a book! Yay!" Then Georgia opened hers and we said, "Georgia got a book, too! Yay!" Elise looked inside of her bag and only saw the paper. She happily yelled, "Elisey got trash!!!"

Another Story About How Big Clark Is

As we were leaving a store today, I gave Elise a quarter to put in the Salvation Army bucket. You know how the Salvation Army has people outside of stores collecting money and ringing bells around the holidays. Well, I'm sure that job is very boring and it's probably annoying to have people avoid making eye contact with you all day, so as we paused to put the quarter in the bucket, the lady bell ringer struck up a conversation.

Eventually she asked, "How old is the little one?" indicating Clark.

"Two months." Her eyebrow shot up, so I added, "He's big for his age."

"How much did he weigh when he was born?"

"9 lbs, 5 oz."

"My daughter-in-law, she just had a 9 lb baby. He's 5 months old now and he already weighs 17 POUNDS! Can you believe that? 17 POUNDS! He just eats and eats and eats all day long..." blah blah blah.

I didn't bother to mention that Clark is already 15 lbs and putting on about 3/4 of a pound every week.

Elise's First Haircut

I gave Elise her first haircut last night.

When Elise was born her hair was really patchy. Right under the curve of the back of her head was where her hair was longest, and it's stayed long in that one spot for her entire 21 months of existence. Consequently, she's looked for a while now like she has a baby mullet. Or a rattail. Remember those things? (Click here.)

I put a rubber band around her long hairs and cut. But I saved the lock. It's beautiful.

Itsy Bitsy Spider

Elise's version of Itsy Bitsy Spider:

It's tee tee tee spider
climb up down
spout
Down down down rain
and boppa spider out
Tee tee tee tee sun
dry uppa rain
It's tee tee tee spider
climb up down

Evening Roundup

Notes from today:

1. I took Georgia and Henry to get their second flu shots today (because little kiddos have to get two in one season the first time they get immunized) and I also had Clark with me. There was another little baby in the waiting room with us and she looked so tiny and cute. I asked her father how old she is... "Five months." Clark was way bigger than she was. Way bigger.

2. Elise did fine in her toddler bed today at nap time. I kind of figured she would. She always did well when she was sleeping in Henry's toddler bed while he and Georgia were at school during the week. It's on the weekends when Georgia is home during the day time and the girls are in their room together that everything goes haywire. It's so strange because we don't have any problems with the girls at nighttime, but they never want to take naps during the day when they're in a room together. They have a little baby party. You can hear them on the other side of the house, laughing at each other and singing songs.

We have a gate up across our hall so no babies can wander into the living room or kitchen. When Henry wakes up he either stays in bed and cries or he comes into our room. Elise hasn't gotten up during the night since she's had her bed, but I have a feeling she'll stay in bed and cry for us. If not, she certainly knows where our bedroom is. Our bathroom door is childproofed, so the kids can't get into the bathroom on their own. The worst thing that can happen is that they get up and play with their toys. But none of the kids have the faintest idea of how to be quiet yet, so even that will wake the adults up.

Our foster son Bo lived with us while he was 3 years old. He would wake up in the mornings before us sometimes. He usually didn't wake us-- he would just turn his light on and play with his toys. I think Bo felt like he was doing something sneaky. Of course, you can't dump a bucket of legos onto the floor with out making a huge racket. Husband and I would hear him and just lay in bed for a little while longer and let him play and not know that we were listening to him move around. It was nice to not have to jump out of bed just because he was awake.

3. This evening Husband and I both got stuck in the hallway while the kids were playing in Henry's room. Clark puked down my back and Husband was helping me. Then we hear Henry scream. So we hurry into the room and Elise has a death grip on Henry's leg for some reason. She looks up and says, "Elisey do bad." I hate it when she's cute while she's misbehaving.

Screw Naptime

Elise and Georgia didn't sleep one wink today during nap time. The toddler bed has thrown Elise for a loop; she could not hold still. Georgia was in her crib on the other side of the room, egging Elise on. Nap time was a disaster.

Somehow, Elise did okay during the rest of her sleep-deficient day. She didn't get all cranky or emotional or mean like I thought she would. Georgia got kind of fussy, but I also had to do her hair tonight and that puts her on edge in even the best of circumstances.

I can't wait until Elise gets used to her new bed.

At least the girls will sleep well tonight. (I hope.)

Big Girl Bed

Yesterday Elise got to open her toddler bed Christmas present. All of the kids got to open a big present, just to make it fair. But the reason we let Elise open the toddler bed is that we knew Elise would need an adjustment period with her new sleeping arrangement and we wanted to just get it over with.

Like we called it, Elise is drunk on the power of being able to get up out of her bed anytime she wants. She's okay at nighttime. The room is dark and she's not so inclined to roam around. But nap time today was redonkulous. She and Georgia share a room, you know. So after walking in about 5 times on Elise not only out of her bed but climbing Georgia's crib, I ended up sitting in there with them until they fell asleep. This was me: "Lay down... Hush... Lay down... Be quiet... Stay in bed... SHHHHH..." It took them forever to go to sleep.

I hope she stays in bed tonight.

Twist and Shout

Clark almost rolled over today. He was lying on his back. He pulled his legs up into the air, flopped onto his side, got his hips twisted around, but couldn't quite get past his shoulder and all the way onto his belly. So he got really mad and yelled. Poor Babu.

He is really such a good baby. So quiet and happy and sweet. I love him so much. My gentle giant.

Christmas Spirit

Today Elise was singing, "Jingle buns! Jingle buns! Jingle on the way..."

I Tooted!

Elise announces it every time she farts now. "I tooted! Scuse me!" At least she excuses herself. Half the time you wouldn't know she farted if she didn't say something. And, of course, she says it TWICE as loud when we're in public. She has to make sure that everyone on the other side of the grocery store knows.

Sweet Sweet Sleep

Clark slept for 5 1/2 hours straight two nights ago.

Yes! High five!

I can remember in the beginning feeling happy if Elise would sleep for 2 hours straight. This is awesome.

Big Baby and Big Talker

We're adjusting our life insurance coverage (because that's what you do when you have lots of kids) and today we had a nurse at our house as part of that process. After I picked Clark up from his swing and the nurse got a good look at him she said, "You said he's only two months old? He's kind of big, isn't he?" Yes, yes. Thank you for stating the obvious. She asked how long he was when he was born. I told her. "My son was 22 inches when he was born. And he's 6'5" now!" I wonder if Clark will be tall, too.

Elise was talking and talking while the nurse was here. Finally the nurse asked, "How old is she?" 21 months, I told her. "That's just great. She's a good talker. She'll be reading soon!" I don't know about THAT... but Elise is quite the chatterbox.

Elise does memorize books and recite them back fairly well. Her favorite right now is "Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?" She says, "Bown bear, bown bear do do you see?" After I read her a book 2 or 3 times in a row and I'm sick of reading it but she asks "again?" I tell her "You read it to me." She gives it a try.

Husband Gives His First Haircut, Elise Sings In French

Husband and I bought some hair clippers today. We're really lousy about taking Henry to get regular haircuts. We haven't found a place that we really like, and since he's so young, there aren't very many places that will cut his hair anyhow. He sits still and does really well while his hair is being trimmed, but most of the places we've talked to simply wont cut a child's hair who is under 3 years old. So we decided that we'd learn to do it ourselves. Save a little money in the process.

As today was the first time Husband has ever cut hair, we agreed that he wouldn't attempt anything fancy. All one length. Just cut it all off. Buzz, buzz, buzz. And it looked okaaaaaaaaaaaay... but kind of... off somehow. Quick Google search. And we found out the trick to cutting hair with clippers. Husband clipped from back to front and then front to back, or "with the grain and against the grain" as he called it. But you have to also clip from the left side of the head to the right side, and then from the right side to the left side. Those hairs must be buzzed from every direction. And it looked much better. Yay, Husband! You did it!

In other news:

Elise has been singing "Frere Jacques" like crazy lately. She sings the tune perfectly. It's especially adorable, though, because she has her own silly words for the song. "Frarah Jocka, frarah Jocka, do moo moo? Do moo moo?..."

I love talking with her because she's a little bit crazy. The other day we were in the car and it was close to lunch time. I was telling her that we'd go home and eat soon. "Mommy eating lunch?" Yes, I said, I would be eating lunch. "Eating?" she asked. I assumed she wanted to know what I would eat, so to tease her I said, "I eat BABIES for lunch!" She looked at me and said, "Elise eating mommies..." dramatic pause "... ALL GONE!" She one-upped me. You're good Elise.

Baby Giggles

Clark laughed tonight while I was bouncing him on the bed. I love it. Nothing is cuter than baby giggles.

Oh! And he is officially too big to fit into some of his 3-6 months clothes now. He's only 2 months old and I have to start dressing him in 6-9 month clothes.

The Not So Near Future

Spoke with the kids' case manager recently. The earliest that Case Manager will be able to request a termination of parental rights with respect to Henry is sometime in February. So, two months from now. There will need to be two more court hearings after that and then the judge will need time to make a decision-- we're at least half a year away from any kind of permanent plan for Henry's future. At least. Probably more like 8 or 9 months. And then the whole rigamarole with regard to adoption will begin. Hopefully Henry will be in his forever home by this time next year.

Husband and I have a lot of talking to do in order to decide if Henry's forever home might be with us. A lot of talking. A big decision. At least we know we've got some time to figure it out.

Mr Personality

Clark smiles and coos now. It's so so so cute. It never gets old. And, of course, it's not one of those things like "I already went through this with the first kid. No big deal this time." No. It melts my heart. Mommy heart puddles.

Secret confession: I love the smell of little baby breath. Breastfed baby breath. It smells so sweet, like they've been eating candy. Just this fresh, milky sweetness. If you don't know that smell, you are missing out, my friend.

Say What?

Some things Elise has said lately:

1) Singing Baa Baa Black Sheep-- "Baa baa black sheep, have you any wood?"

2) Elise is really mean now. She pinched me today so I said, "Ow, Elise. Cut it out!" She looked me in my eyes and said, "Cry Momma. Run away." Evil.

3) Now when she wants to know what something is she says, "Who dat?" She says "who dat" for inanimate objects, but also (more appropriately) for people. At the doctor's office while Clark was getting examined she asked in a stage whisper, "Who dat boy?" about the doctor. The doctor thought that was pretty funny.

My Little Monkey

Elise's rendition of "Five Little Monkeys" yesterday in the waiting room at the doctor's office turned into a rant on monkey safety.

"... Momma call a docta and a docta say, 'No no monkeys jumping bed!' NO NO MONKEYS! Bumpa head! Boo boo head! Falling down. Ground. Boo boos. BE CAREFUL! I'm be careful. Climbing? NO! Boo boo head! Call a docta! Night night monkeys. No boo boos. No ground bumpa head. No falling down..."

We're getting Elise a toddler bed for Christmas because she loves Henry's toddler bed so much that she sleeps in it for nap time during the weekdays when he's at school. Let's see if she still believes in no-no-monkeys-jumping-bed when she has her own bed to bounce on.

Clark's 2 Month Check Up

Clark turned two months old yesterday! Yay, Baby Man! And today he got poked full of holes. He had his two month check up today. Three shots and some weird liquid in his mouth. Clark is pro at this, though. A few little shots are nothing compared to a scalp IV. He was awesome.

Clark is currently 24 3/4 inches long (98th percentile!!!) and he weighs 14 lbs 1 oz (90th percentile). Big is beautiful, Clark!

Prenatal Vitamins

Because I'm breastfeeding, I'm still taking prenatal vitamins. I've been on these things forever. Since I found out I was pregnant with Elise-- so, for over 2 years. I swear, they boost my immune system or something. For all of the colds and weird baby diseases that the kids bring home, I barely get sick. Husband gets sick more often than I do, and that was never the case before he knocked me up. Is there any reason not to take prenatal vitamins once you're done breastfeeding? Because I think I'll just keep taking these things until I croak.

Clark's Belly Button

Clark has an adorable belly button. It's an innie, and when you look inside there appears to be a fold running vertically from the top to the bottom of the hole. It makes his belly button look like it has a little butt crack in it. So I call it his belly butt.

Poop Explosions & What Elise Says

Over the past few days Clark has had some major shits-up-the-back.

There's never a good time for these things, right? But his timing is truly impeccable. Just as Henry and Georgia's guardian ad litem knocks on our front door for a home visit. As I'm rushing to leave the house to make it on time to an appointment. Clark seems to sense my stress and have some sort of poopy sympathetic reaction.

In other news...

Elise says lots of cute, silly things now. She has this way of talking sometimes-- it's sort of stream of consciousness. I love it. One day when the sun was in her eyes: "Sun. Eyes. Boo boo eyes. Eyes broken. Sun broken eyes. Eyes. Eye brows? Sun broken eye brows? Nope. Boo boo eyes sun..."

Today she looked out the car window and saw the moon in the sky. You know how sometimes you can see the moon in the middle of the day. She always looks for it. But anyway, she saw the moon and said, "Momma, I bite the moon?" Maybe some day, sweet Elise. You can do anything you set your mind to do.

Rumors

it's still not official, but i heard another rumor that case manager will be requesting a termination of parental rights for henry and georgia's mom. the request will only be made with regard to susannah and henry, though. case manager will wait to request a termination of parental rights with regard to georgia and eve until it's more clear whether their father is going to do well with his case plan.

Elise's Bad Dream

Elise woke up crying around 10pm last night. I think she had a bad dream. She was talking crazy talk. She was really concerned about our cat Beanie and about Clark. In fact, I had to get Husband to bring Clark into her bedroom so she could see him again and kiss him good night.

When she's sick or sad she says "I lub you" a lot. I lub you Momma. I lub you Daddy. While Clark was in the room she was even yelling "I lub you Baby Clark!"

When I first went into her room she was asking me to turn on the light. "Light on! Light on!" Then she was asking about Beanie and Clark. Elise kept insisting that Husband wasn't at home. She was saying "Daddy be right back?" and "Daddy working?" She was all confused.

She kept crying and crying. At one point as she was sobbing she trailed her finger down my cheek and said, "I crying Momma." It was the saddest thing. I choked up. Poor Elisey.

8 Weeks and an IUD

Happy 8 week birthday, sweet baby Clark!!!

In honor of my two amazingly perfect children and the idea that I should quit while I'm ahead, today I made sure that no more babies tumble out of my baby tunnel. IUD!!!!

I got a Paragard IUD, which is the non-hormonal copper IUD that lasts for 10 years. 10 years! I'll be in my 40s by the time I have to think about birth control again. Booyah!

Let me be honest for a second, though. A small, weird, highly emotional and totally illogical part of me felt sad about getting the IUD. Here's what happened in the "crazy" compartment of my brain. I thought about how I wanted to get an IUD after I had Elise, but we didn't because it was so expensive. We decided to use the mini pill instead. But I suck at taking pills and blah blah blah and then when Elise was 10 months old I found out that I was pregnant again. Which was a shock. But now I'm so happy for it-- I love Clark to pieces. If I'd have gotten the IUD, though, we'd have never had him. So getting an IUD this time for some reason makes me feel a little bit sad, as if I might be stopping more amazing babies from being born.

BUT

#1. That's the whole point, right? I don't want to have any more babies in my belly. So I'm sad that I'm keeping myself from getting pregnant when I know that I don't want to get pregnant? What? How does that make sense?

#2. You can take the IUD out whenever you want and potentially get pregnant again right away. So if Husband and I ever decided to have another biological child, we can. It's not like I got my tubes tied. It's totally reversible.

#3. There is still a teensy weensy chance that I could get pregnant, even with the device in. So if it is really really meant to be, then I'll get pregnant again. If I believed in fate. Which I don't. But I do believe in science. And science says that with the IUD in I have slightly less than a 1% chance of growing another baby in my belly before I go through menopause.

So whatever. I was sad for a second and now I'm like "Yay! No more babies for me!"

The procedure itself was pretty quick. And I didn't feel any pain, but I guess some people do. I've had some cramping this evening, but nothing crazy. And certainly nothing like labor pains (ha!), so the mild discomfort is worth it.

YAY! No more pills, condoms, counting days on the calendar, checking my cervical mucous, or worrying about getting pregnant again for 10 YEARS!!!

Near Miss

Last Tuesday, the morning after Elise's ER visit, Clark developed another fever. I couldn't believe it. I called Husband to come home and stay with Elise, I called the doctor's office and they told me to come in right away, and while I waited for Husband's arrival I packed a suitcase for the hospital. Since Clark was still under 2 months old, I was pretty sure we'd have to be admitted to the hospital again. I assumed I was going straight from the doctor's office to the hospital, like the last time Clark had a fever.

When Husband got home I cried. Told him how I don't want to watch the nurses and doctors poke and pull at Clark again (during his last stay the nurses took over an hour to make 4 attempts at inserting an IV before they finally gave up-- it was awful, AWFUL). Then I packed up the car and went to Clark's doctor's office.

By the time we got there, Clark's fever was down from 100.9 to 100.3. The doctor looked in his ears during the exam. Ear infection! I was happy there was an obvious reason for Clark's fever, but I thought I'd still have to go to the hospital for at least one day of observation.

Fortunately for us, my doctor recently cared for another baby that was only 1 month old and had RSV. A few weeks after the baby got over the RSV, he developed a fever and an ear infection. The ear infection was related to the RSV. They treated the ear infection an the baby was A-OK; there were no other underlying problems. So my doctor said that we could make a follow up appointment for the next day and in the meanwhile he was sending me home with some antibiotics. If the fever comes down and Clark is doing okay the next day, no hospital. Clark looked perfectly healthy except for the ear infection and his oxygen levels were great, so the doctor felt okay taking a small risk in believing that the ear infection was what was causing Clark's fever.

I was elated.

By 2am that night, Clark's fever was gone. Whew! Close one! I can't believe that we almost went to the hospital for a 3rd time before Clark was even 2 months old!

A for Effort

Tonight I tried for the first time ever to cornrow hair. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the best possible execution, I'd give myself a solid 1.5. And that's just out of pity. For myself. Hey, at least I tried. I don't know anything about doing hair. I barely brush my own. I cut my hair short so I don't have to brush it. And I don't wear make up. Not like "I just throw on a bit of blush and some mascara before I leave the house," but seriously, I don't wear make up. So what do I know about styling hair into a shape that requires some actual skill? I have two younger sisters but we did NOT sit around doing each others hair. Ever. That did not happen.

I think that if I keep trying, eventually I'll get better at braiding cornrows. I might not have years of experience with pretty lady rituals, but I DO have perseverance. Hang tight, Georgia! Eventually I'll figure it out!

Interactive Clark

clark is just beginning to become interactive. eye contact. smiles. sweet baby coos. i love it.

he's still gigantic, by the way. about 13 pounds right now. the other day someone in the grocery store said, "aww, how cute! how old is he? 4 months? 5 months?" when i said he's 7 weeks old the person looked at me like i was crazy. like i, his mother, didn't know what i was talking about.

Pee Pee Bed

today at nap time elise took off her diaper and then ended up peeing in her bed. she was very upset by this. so much so that she just woke up crying during the night, after she was put down for the evening, which she doesn't normally do unless she's sick. i asked her what was wrong.

"why was elise crying?"

"diaper off."

she was wearing zipped up footie pajamas, so she clearly didn't mean her diaper was off tonight. she was thinking about earlier in the day.

"your diaper was off?"

"pee pee bed!"

"you peed in your bed? that's okay. it was an accident."

"cleaning?"

"yes. we cleaned your bed."

"cleaning pee pee bed?"

"your bed is clean now."

poor elise. hopefully she's learned her lesson. diaper on.

Happy Thanksgiving!

this year i am thankful not only for my amazing children, but also for the fact that no one is in the hospital right now. clark almost had to go back to the hospital this week. for real. i'll tell you about that later. i'm slipping into a pumpkin pie coma...

Croup

elise was diagnosed with croup last night. she was given a steroid to help control the inflamation in her throat, and she should be better relatively soon. croup is a viral infection, so it will just have to run its course.

i was up last night until after 4 am, clark got up to feed at 5:30 am, and the big kids woke up at 7:30 am. i've been awake ever since. i'm tired. it's been a loooooong day.

I Think We've Earned Our Own Parking Space

Elise is at the hospital right now with Husband. She woke up crying, having trouble breathing, making noises in her throat like a seal barking, and saying "boo boo!" We called 911.

The EMTs seemed to think it is croup. I hope so. It was a very sudden onset-- she was perfectly fine just 3 hours prior when we put her to bed. But RSV can cause croup and we know that Clark had RSV sooooo...

I'm waiting to hear from Husband about what the ER doctor says. I stayed home with Clark, Henry, and Georgia (who all managed to sleep through the commotion). So far I know that Elise's oxygen levels were okay and she doesn't have a fever. Not being able to go with her killed me. I needed to stay with Clark, since he's breastfeeding. Husband will take care of our Baby Baby.

Update tomorrow...

Cost of Having Clark

We just got a statement from the hospital regarding Clark's birth. If I didn't have insurance, it would have cost about $8,000 to have Clark in our local hospital. I do have insurance, though, and it only cost us $250 because that is what our copay costs. There were prenatal check-ups with my OBGYN, too, but I'm just talking about the actual labor and delivery and postnatal hospital stay. I remember that Elise's birth cost a lot more (over twice what Clark's cost), but she had to stay in the hospital for an extra 3 days after she was born.

Babies are expensive.

Henry and Georgia's Foster Care Case

Right now, Case Manager and Guardian Ad Litem have serious doubts that Henry and Georgia's mom will be able to complete her case plan and prove to the court that she can provide for and protect her four kids. The State will likely pursue a termination of her parental rights, meaning that she will no longer legally be their mother. If that happens, they won't be able to return to her care or live with her ever again.

Georgia and her little sister Eve have the same father. He's still in the picture. He may be able to regain custody of them in the future. That's still waaaaaay up in the air, but it is possible none the less. If their mom loses her rights to parent the children, Georgia and Eve may eventually be able to live with their dad.

Henry and the oldest sibling, Susannah, both have different fathers from each other and from Georgia and Eve. No one knows who their fathers are and the court has listed their legal fathers as "unknown." If their mom loses her rights to parent them, Susannah and Henry will need to be adopted. No one in their mother's family is suitable to adopt young children, so they will need to be adopted by non-relatives.

Case Manager seems to be thinking that Henry is on the path toward adoption. If that is the case, we will be asked if we'd like to adopt him. Husband and I have been talking about this possibility. Georgia, however, is still in limbo until her father proves whether he can parent her, and that may take a long time to figure out. If he can parent her, she will eventually return to his custody. If he cannot parent her, his parental rights will be terminated and she will either be adopted by another family member on her father's side or she will need to be adopted by a non-relative (such as her foster parents).

It'll be a few months until we know whether Case Manager is in fact going to request of the court that the mom's parental rights get terminated. And then after that there has to be a hearing and then we have to wait for the judge's decision. So nothing is going to happen with regard to Henry until well after the new year. I'll post updates as they happen.

That Was Quick

After I had Elise, it took about 6 months until mommy and daddy time was 100% pleasurable for me again. I had some amount of pain for so long that I was just about to make an appointment with my OBGYN, and then the pain started to subside. Like, I seriously thought that maybe sex would never feel good again.

Well, it did. And just in time for me to get pregnant with Clark.

So when Husband and I decided recently to give it a go 6 weeks after 9-pounds-of-baby-out-the-hooha, I was a bit nervous. If you were inside my head you would have heard, "Okay. Okay. You can do this. It'll be okay. Try to look sexy. Or at least relaxed. Or at least not like someone's about to stab you with an ice pick in your lady parts. Let's just get this over with. Okay. It's okay..."

I'll spare you the details, BUT let me just say that everything went fine. No pain. I couldn't believe it! It was amazing.

Then I realized that my body is now in this fulfill-my-biological-purpose-and-stuff-me-full-of-babies mode, making everything about sex and conception exponentially easier. My baby pump has been primed. Look at how quickly I got pregnant with Clark after Elise was born. I'm STILL in shock that I got pregnant a second time. And now, after Clark, by body is even quicker to jump back into form for baby making. Yikes!

I'm definitely getting an IUD this time. Husband and I have discussed it. It's going to happen. Soon. Elise and Clark are the best things that have ever happened to me, but I'm done with biological children now.

Swaddling; Milk Conversation

Elise liked to be swaddled when she was an infant. She wanted her arms pinned down straight against her sides (instead of folded across her chest like they try to teach you to do it) and the swaddle wrapped tight. Clark can't stand to have his arms wrapped up. From day one, he fussed and pulled his arms out if you tried to wrap them. He likes to have a blanket wrapped around his legs and his middle, but not his arms. I'm convinced it has something to do with the fact that he was such a big baby and I'm not such a big momma. Like, some kind of claustrophobic reaction from being cramped up in my tiny uterus.

Non-sequitur...

Elise has been wanting to talk a lot lately about the fact that Clark drinks "mommy milk" and she drinks "cow milk." I guess because she just stopped breastfeeding, and because Clark just started. This was our conversation tonight before bed, right after I'd finished feeding Clark:

"Baby Clark eat milk."

"Yes."

"Mommy milk."

"Yes. Clark eats mommy's milk."

"Elise cow milk."

"Yes. Elise eats cow's milk."

Pause.

"Elise kitty-cat milk?"

"Noooo. Elise doesn't eat cat's milk. We don't eat cat's milk. Just cow's milk."

Another pause. Then Elise smiled.

"Dinosaur milk?"

"All right. Now you're just being silly."

Elise's Favorite Web Game

Good for occupying Elise so I have a few minutes to fold laundry: GAME

Disposable vs Washable Nursing Pads

I tried disposable nursing pads for the first time today. There were a couple of them in the "bringing home baby" package that the hospital gave us after Clark was born. I've been using washable cloth nursing pads since I had Elise, figuring it was worth the little bit of extra hassle in order to save some money. My boobs leak like a faucet sometimes. They've definitely leaked through the cloth nursing pads on a few occasions.

Disposable nursing pads have plastic-y backs so you can't leak through them. They also have sticky stuff to help hold them in place in your bra. HOWEVER, the nursing pads didn't really seem to stay put. After unlatching and latching my bra a few times, the nursing pads were crumpled up and sticking to themselves rather than my underclothes. Plastic backing or not, if the pad doesn't stay put in front of my leaky nipples, then there's no point in wearing the nursing pad. Even though the cloth ones don't have stickiness, they seem to stay in place for me.

I'm sticking with the cloth washable nursing pads. There wasn't enough benefit to the disposable ones for me to want to switch.

Big Baby

Clark had a post-hospital doctor's check up today. He is healthy and wonderful. And he weighs 12 lbs already. He's not even six weeks old and he fits into size 6 months clothes and size 2 diapers. What the what?

Like a Bowl Full of Jelly

I gained 36 pounds during my pregnancy with Clark. More than with Elise, but I was also pregnant longer with Clark.

I lost 15 pounds right away, as soon as Clark was born. Bam! Then another 6 sort of slipped off on its own. I still have 15 more pounds to lose. All of this sitting around in hospital rooms hasn't helped me slim down. Hopefully I can get a little bit of an exercise routine going soon. I consider the first month after I have a baby to be R&R time-- just eat, relax, and don't worry about the weight. But Clark is 5 1/2 weeks old now, so no excuses.

Time to dust off the exercise bike, crack open the yoga book, and plug in Wii Fit.

Boo Boo Plane

elise saw a blimp today. she was very interested in it. she asked if it was a "boo boo plane," i guess because it had no wings. she must have thought that it was a broken airplane. i explained that it was a blimp, so elise then referred to it as either a "blip," "bloomp," or "gloop."

"boo boo plane bloomp sky! bye bye yellow blue blip! blip? sky? blip! balloon? balloon! bloomp!"

it was cute.

Hospital, the Sequel

clark was admitted to the hospital yesterday. he had another fever, and at 5 weeks old that's pretty much a go-directly-to-jail card. they ran all the tests-- nothing major showed up, so it looks like clark just caught another virus right on the heels of recovering from that last respiratory virus and his little body wasn't quite prepared to deal with another bug.

we were discharged today and we're back home now. only one night in the hospital. i couldn't post on the blog yesterday because my cell phone died early in the evening. i'll tell you all about our second trip to the hospital later, in another post. i'm very tired right now.

so glad to be sleeping in my own bed tonight. so so so glad that my sweet little babu is doing okay.

Post-delivery Pains, Baby #2

I never really did discuss what happened to my body due to labor and delivery of Clark. I have to say that my experiences with Elise and with Clark were totally different. With Elise, everything was pulling and stretching for the first time. With Clark, his large size was the issue. As I mentioned before, I was able to endure the pain of Elise's birth without an epidural, but Clark was just too big and I needed help with pain management in order to get through his birth.

After Clark was born, I got a few stitches in my lady parts where I tore. But the tear and the stitches never bothered me. I never felt extra pain there, it didn't hurt when I peed. Nothing.

I got a small (according to the nurses) hemorrhoid-- I guess from pushing. It didn't bother me for a little while. I didn't really feel it until about 4 or 5 days after Clark was born. It's still not completely healed. Mostly, but not entirely. I only really feel it when I wipe my butt. For a while it was sore every time I sat down, but as it healed, that went away. Weird that I pushed a giant baby out of my vagina, but it's my butt hole that's sore for weeks. Go figure.

And my pelvis! Oh, lord, my pelvis hurt after Clark was born. Right up front. The pubic arch area. I could barely walk for about a day and 1/2. I seriously thought I may have fractured my lady bones. God almighty, it hurt. And like an idiot, I kept refusing pain medication. I refused it until I started having really painful post-delivery contractions as my uterus was shrinking back down, and then the pain of my pelvis and my uterus together became more than I wanted to deal with so I finally took some Motrin.

The only other big pain that I had after Clark was born was from the epidural. It felt like I had a big bruise on my back where they had put the needle in. I didn't-- I kept making Husband and the nurses check for me. Apparently pain at the site where the epidural was inserted is pretty common, so no big deal. It went away after a couple of days.

I feel good now. It took a couple of weeks to feel normal again. Mostly the pelvis pain just kept lingering forever... my hips will probably never shrink back to their pre-Clark size. He was worth it, though. Of course, he was worth every bit of it.

Snot A Good Idea to Eat That

Tonight Elise stuck her finger up her nose.

"Mucous?" (This is what Husband has taught her to call whatever comes out of her nose because he so hates the word "booger.")

"Yeah, Elise. Mucous. Let me get you a tissue."

While I went to get her a tissue, Elise sat there and played with the booger on her finger. When I came back she looked at me and asked, "Eat eat?"

"No. We don't eat that."

Thanks for asking, though. Lots of kids would have just figured it out the hard way. Or not figured it out and subsequently become that-kid-in-class-who-eats-his-boogers. I'm glad we got this out of the way so early on.

Flu Shots

Husband and I got our flu shots today. Elise got hers weeks ago. Henry and Georgia will get theirs in about a week at their doctor's office. Clark is too little to get a flu shot, which is why everyone in the house is getting one. I am NOT sitting at the hospital for another two weeks while Clark recovers from a common illness. (Unless I have to. But I don't want to have to.)

Clark's Smooth Baby Skin

Most newborns have weird skin. They get baby acne or milia or red rashes. Elise had all of that when she was little. Plus cradle cap. I've seen some babies that look mildly grotesque because of their sensitive newborn skin. They outgrow it, of course, but that old saying "a face that only a mother could love" totally applies to some of those poor, spotty, red-faced, flaky kids.

Clark came out with nice skin. Hardly any of that newborn stuff. And he still has nice skin. It's a little dry, but other than that he's looking pretty good. Maybe the extra time incubating helped.

Henry's Ears

It's getting wintery. Cold and flu season. Ear infection season. And guess who has an ear infection. Henry.

You'll recall that we nearly got ear tubes put in Henry's ears this past spring, due to his chronic ear infections and consequent speech delays. Then summer rolled around and his ears cleared up and his doctor said that we should wait until next ear infection season to see if he continues to have a problem or if he's outgrown it. But guess who has an ear infection. Henry.

So. Here we go again. Hopefully his doctor will just cut to the chase this time and not make Henry suffer through too many ear infections or too many rounds of antibiotics before referring Henry for ear tube surgery.

Happy 1 Month Birthday, Clark!

One month old today! Yay!

Clark had a check-up today. He is 23 1/4 inches long, which is in the 98th percentile, and 11 lbs and 1 oz, which is in the 80th percentile. Still gigantic! I am, like, 5 feet tall. This makes no sense.

Bye Bye Boobies

Elise hasn't breastfed for the past week. She was only nursing right after she woke up in the morning and right before bed at night. Since I was staying with Clark in the hospital, it seemed like a good time to wean her. I wasn't at home for her morning and evening feedings, so she got used to nursing for a really short time when she came to visit me in the hospital, and then the last few days of the hospital stay she didn't nurse at all. When I came home, she'd ask for milk at the usual times but I've just been offering her a sippy cup with cow's milk and she accepts that as a less-than-perfect replacement.

I breastfed Elise for 19 months. I'm so glad that we got to bond that way.

Hospital Nurse from Clark's Birth

during my second day in the hospital while i was recovering from childbirth, one of the nurses came in my room to check my vital signs right after my sister had left from a visit. the nurse lit up when she saw me and said that she remembered me from when i was in the hospital after i had elise. she said she just saw my sister in the hall and she remembered her, too, from when she was in the hospital after having her son. it's nice that the nurse remembered us both and kind of neat that she was a part of every birth experience that my sister and i have had.

So Long, Stumpy!

clark lost his umbilical stump yesterday, just shy of his 4 week birthday. my silly baby boy does everything late-- he was over due and i had to be induced, our estimated "few days" in the hospital while he recovered from r.s.v. turned into over two weeks in the hospital, and while most babies lose their umbilical stump within the first two weeks, clark took almost 4 weeks. all signs are pointing to my son still living at home when he's 30, as he seems keen to take his sweet time accomplishing milestones. maybe you're just a late bloomer, little guy.

Happy Halloween!

clark's first halloween! he completely slept through our trip around a friend's neighborhood, so i don't know if it technically counts.

henry was a farmer for halloween. georgia was a cow. elise was a puppy. clark wore the head part of a teddy bear costume. they all looked super cute.

we bumped into one of the i.c.u. nurses from the hospital while we were out this evening. she not only helped take care of clark recently, but she was working in the i.c.u. when henry was there because of the abuse he suffered. so she got to see henry again, this time looking happy and healthy.

the kids collected a little bit of candy-- we wanted to let them have the experience of trick or treating, same as all of the other kids they were watching as we walked around. they don't get to eat the candy though. husband and i will just have to take care of that for them...

Second Home Coming

clark was discharged today! yay! so good to be home. :)

Keeping My Fingers Crossed

clark has been off the oxygen pump all day today. he just has to make it through the night in order for the doctors to discharge him from the hospital tomorrow. nighttime is the worst time for clark's oxygen saturation levels because he sleeps and gets all relaxed and his breathing gets more shallow. then he has less oxygen in his blood.

i'm hopeful that clark will make it through the night without needing to be put back on oxygen, but i don't think we're at all in the clear. tune in tomorrow to find out what happens with this cliff hanger!

Out of the ICU (Again)!

clark stopped needing the high flow oxygen pump today and was able to switch to the regular oxygen pump. yay! that meant he no longer needed to be closely monitored and could be moved out of the i.c.u.

we moved to a regular room in the pediatric section of the hospital this afternoon. he's been weaned down to 1/2 liter of oxygen, which isn't much, really, and i'm very hopeful that tomorrow he'll be able to come off the oxygen completely.

clark's chest xray looked really good this morning according to the doctors. he's only on one antibiotic now, they're continuing to reduce the frequency of his breathing treatments, and he's no longer on i.v. fluids.

i'm hoping we'll be home in time for halloween.

Little by Little

clark keeps making slow progress in his recovery. the doctors have discontinued one of his treatments (where they thump on his chest to loosen congestion), they're weaning him off of the steroid he was being given to reduce inflamation in his lungs, and clark has finished one of his three antibiotics. he's doing well, he just needs to come off the oxygen but that's taking time.

Doing A Little Better

the doctors, nurses, and therapists today all said that clark's lungs are sounding better. yay!

the amount of oxygen that clark is receiving and the flow of the oxygen have both been reduced. the trick will be for clark to get through the night without the oxygen levels needing to be turned back up. it's hardest for babies to maintain their oxygen levels while they're sleeping. i'm hopeful, but we've had so many set backs that i wont be surprised if things don't work out.

Plateau; 3 Week Birthday

happy 3 week birthday, baby clark! i love you so much!

clark has hit a plateau in his recovery. he's not getting better but he's not getting worse, either. his chest xray looked about the same as yesterday. no real change in the amount of oxygen he's receiving. no news is good news, i guess.

Two Steps Forward One Step Back

Clark didn't have the best day today. his breathing was of concern and so even though he's still on the high-flow oxygen pump, we lost some ground on the process of weening him off of it. i feel like we'll never get to go home; this is such a slow process. i just want my little baby to get better. i feel so sorry for him.

i'm not sure why his breathing was bad today because clark's chest xray showed that his pneumonia is clearing up. i'm trying to convince myself that maybe he just has a lot of congestion loosening up in his chest and that even though that makes it harder for him to breathe, he's still getting better over all.

hopefully tomorrow is a better day.

Sunday Fun-day

clark had a much better day today. his chest xray this morning looked better than yesterday's, so his pneumonia is starting to go away a little bit. yay! then clark got to come off the c.p.a.p machine and move to a high-flow oxygen pump. the respiratory therapist is working on weening him off the high-flow pump and back to a regular oxygen pump. after clark is weened off the regular oxygen pump, we get to go home. so we're still a ways away from being discharged. but at least we're moving in the right direction.

Saturday to Saturday

another long day in the hospital. i'm exhausted. last night was awful. clark is doing better today, but he's still really sick. he's on a c.p.a.p. machine to help him breathe. he narrowly avoided being intubated this morning.

i'm totally exhausted. i'll have to write more later. i literally feel like i'm about to fall over. being in the hospital with clark for this long is physically and emotionally draining.

good news is that it looks like clark has hit the bottom of this illness and is on his way back up. (god, i hope i'm right about that...)

Terrible Horrible Day

today was unbelievably bad. bad bad bad. clark is back in the i.c.u.

he's been diagnosed with pneumonia, along with his r.s.v.

clark's currently on 4 liters of oxygen through a high-flow pump (bad news). he's getting three different antibiotics. breathing treatments (with albuterol) every two hours. the respiratory therapist has to pound on clark's tiny chest every six hours to loosen the congestion. clark can't breastfeed right now because he's having so much trouble breathing and so he has an i.v. of hydration fluids. he has wires and tubes running everywhere.

last night clark was so close to getting completely off the oxygen tube. i thought we'd be going home tomorrow.

on top of all the drama and tears that have gone on today regarding clark, my cat who already has been diagnosed with chronic kidney failure was sick today. husband had to take her to he vet. everytime she gets sick i wonder "will the vet tell us it's time to let her go?" fortunately the cat just had an infection this time. something we can fix.

i miss the older kids, i miss the cats. i'm sick, depressed, lonely, worried about clark, still trying to recover from childbirth. this sucks. i just want clark to get better so i can go home with my sweet little baby-man and have my whole family together again.

Another Day in the Hospital

the hospital staff is working on weening clark off his teensy little oxygen tube. they're progressively lowering the amount of oxygen getting piped up his nose. so far it's going well. he's on a super small amount right now-- 50 ccs, which is practically nothing.

my little bubba is getting better slowly. i'm so glad he's making improvements.

Year 100 in the Hospital

it feels like we've been here forever. clark's still not ready to come off the oxygen. his chest sounds less congested, which is good. he's coughing up a lot of mucous, which is good. but he can't keep his oxygen levels high enough on his own yet.

maybe tomorrow. you can do it, baby clark! and until then, mommy will be right here with you.

Clark's 4th Day in the Hospital

clark was taken off oxygen at a couple of different times today, but his oxygen levels always ended up too low and the nurse had to turn the oxygen back on. he had a lot of mucous in his nose, throat, and chest. hopefully that mucous is loosening up and tomorrow he'll be able to breathe well enough that he can stay off oxygen.

Hospital Day 3

clark is still on oxygen. he's making some progress, but the pediatric doctor here in the hospital said that the first 3 to 5 days with r.s.v. are the worst and then most kids start to get better after that. so hopefully tomorrow will be better.

when clark was in the emergency room, the nurses and doctor took blood, stuck a tube in his weenie and took urine, and did a spinal tap. both clark and elise had spinal taps done when they were newborns. poor babies. but anyhow, the results of clark's cultures came back today and he does not have a bacterial infection. just that respiratory virus. so we wont be stuck in the hospital for a week while he does a round of intravenous antibiotics. we're just waiting for him to come off of the oxygen.

i miss my family-- husband, elise, henry, georgia, even the cats. i'm glad i get to stay with clark while he's sick, but i look forward to having my family back together soon.

Hospital Day 2

Clark is doing better today, but he wont be going home tomorrow. he's still on oxygen. his fever has stayed away, though, so that's good. and he's eating well. starting at 2am last night he decided he was ready to nurse again and he's been eating regularly ever since. we're moving in the right direction, we just need a little more time with all these nice nurses.

my poor baby.

Clark Is In the Hospital

clark woke up this morning with a fever of 100.8. since he's only 11 days old, we took him to the emergency room. by the time they started checking his vital signs, clark's lips and mouth were turning blue. he wasn't getting enough oxygen. the nurses rushed clark to the back and put oxygen on him, then they started running all sorts of tests.

it's been a long day. i'll share more details later. but basically, clark has been diagnosed with r.s.v., a respiratory virus that is no big deal for adults and kids but is hard for newborn babies to deal with. right now clark has an i.v. in his scalp that is feeding him fluids and antibiotics. he has an oxygen tube under his nose. he has wires on his chest and monitors strapped to one leg and one of his toes. its sad to look at. my poor baby.

Sick House

Everyone here is sick. Henry just got over a fever, but he still has a little bit of congestion and a cough. Georgia is about a day behind Henry with regard to her illness. Elise just got a fever today, although she's been congested and coughing for a few days now. And poor baby Clark has congestion and an elevated temperature, although it's not a fever yet. Even Husband is feeling crummy. With all these sick people, we're blowing through bottles of baby Tylenol and ibuprofen like you wouldn't believe.

I'm taking Clark's temperature every time I change his diaper. I'll need to call my doctor right away if his temperature goes above 100.4. What do you do for a newborn with a fever? Poor Clark. I hope that my breast milk can help protect him and give him lots of antibodies that help to keep him healthy. I have a little bit of a sore throat, but no congestion and no fever. I think my body is mostly fighting off the toddler illness, and I hope that I can keep Clark safe, too.

Poor sick babies. :(

Notes from After Clark's Birth

* Clark had a short umbilical cord. That's what everyone told me.

* I felt a piece of the umbilical cord this time. It's thicker and stronger than you might imagine.

* After I delivered the placenta, everyone commented on how big it was. I guess you need a giant placenta if you're going to have a giant baby. My belly was really stuffed full! No wonder I got stretch marks this pregnancy.

* Clark came out with bruises all over his face and down his left forearm. Apparently that's common with big babies. They scrape past the pelvic bone during birth and get bruised up. He had bruises on his forehead, nose, and chin. The bruising on his forearm was because he had his left arm up to his chest when he came out and it rubbed past my pelvis. That arm being up was also the reason I tore a little bit and needed stitches, according to my midwife.

* Clark had very mild jaundice but it never became an issue. It was probably at least partly due to the bruising, according to Clark's doctor. As a person's body deals with the bruises it raises the levels of bilirubin in that person's system and high levels of bilirubin lead to jaundice.

* Due to the fact that he was "large for gestational age," Clark was tested for diabetes right after he was born and then again the next day. Negative. Negative. He's just big.

* Clark was born at 9 lbs 5 oz. His weight was 8 lbs 14 oz when he left the hospital two days later. His weight was 8 lbs 13 oz at the doctor's office the following day. Then 3 days later at the doctor's office (when Clark was 6 days old), Clark weighed 9 lbs 6 oz, one ounce above his birth weight.

* Newborn clothes never fit Clark. He barely fits into newborn diapers.

*Just before being discharged from the hospital, a nurse hurried into my room. "You didn't circumcise him!" It sounded more like a statement of alarm rather than a question. "Right," I said. I guess she thought I'd forgotten. "Okay. Just making sure you didn't need me to arrange something before you left..."

My Baby Cloning Machine

clark looks a lot like elise. i was surprised. his features are a little more masculine-- his nose is a bit bigger, his lips a little thinner, his eyelashes shorter. but they have the exact same color of hair, and the shape of their facial features is very similar. maybe that will change as clark grows. we'll see. right now i'm betting that they'll be the kind of siblings that you can tell are brother and sister just by looking at them.

clark definitely has husband's feet. long and narrow with long toes. those long toes were one of the first things i really noticed about clark after he was born. i think husband likes that clark has a feature that is so definitively his. aside from the weenie, of course. clark's weenie looks nothing like mine.

Clark's Birth Story: Broken Water through Birth

I think I got some of the times a little bit wrong in previous posts. My midwife must have returned from her office around 2:00pm and then raised my pitocin dosage. After that, I labored for about an hour and a half before she broke my bag of waters.

I don't remember if I had a few contractions first or if it was the very next contraction after my waters were broken, but the next thing I remember is being on all fours on my hospital bed, rocking my hips, moaning, and being in a lot of pain. And it just kept getting worse. Once my waters were broken, I was in LABOR. Hard. It hurt. Clark weighed almost 3 lbs more than Elise did when she was born, and believe me, I could FEEL it. It felt like my pelvis might break in two.

As the pain got worse, I developed a way of coping by focusing my attention away from my pelvis during the contractions and trying to think just about my breathing and what was going on inside my head. That helped a little. Then I got all loopy and during my contractions I kept thinking, "I'm a deer in the forest. Hold your head up high! Watch for danger!" So I guess your totem animal is the deer, Clark. Pain does funny things to a person's brain.

I realized after about an hour of insanely painful contractions that if things got any worse (and they would because I wasn't even pushing the baby out yet) I wouldn't be able to deal with it. I'd pass out or go into shock or SOMETHING. So I talked to my midwife and Husband about getting an epidural. I was so so so sad about my decision to do it. I cried. I had to mourn the loss of my ideal labor. I did it without an epidural for Elise and I wanted to do it for Clark, too. But Clark was just too big for my little 5 foot tall body and I couldn't take the pain anymore. At the time, I felt like I was being weak. Now, I thank goodness that I did get an epidural because he was a BIG baby and it DID hurt more than with Elise and I wasn't being a wimp about it, either. He was born bigger than over 90% of babies-- it was a rough labor and it would have been rough for anybody.

Of course, the anesthesiologist wasn't waiting outside my door in order to give me an epidural if I wanted one, so it took some time for her to arrive. I had many contractions in the meanwhile before she arrived, each one worse than the last. By the time she finally arrived, I was about to go crazy. Then she started talking, warning me of the possible side effects, asking me family and personal medical history. Oh my god. I couldn't believe it was taking so long. I started yelling "It HURTS!" and "Someone help me!" whenever I'd contract. It was honestly the worse pain I've ever felt. By a mile. Worse than pushing Elise out.

Then, before they'd give me the epidural, my midwife said she wanted to do a quick exam to make sure I wasn't already at 10 centimeters. If I was, they wouldn't administer the epidural, they'd just tell me to push. I said something like, "Do whatever you have to do as quickly as possible." I pretty much wanted to kill everyone in the room at that point. I felt like no one was helping me, everyone was just letting me go on hurting.

I was 7 1/2 or 8 centimeters dilated, so they decided to let me have the epidural. By some stroke of magic, I didn't have any contractions while they were doing the epidural procedure. The contractions had been coming really fast before that, but my body seemed to know that relief was on the way. And it WAS relief. The epidural doesn't work right away, but each contraction gets a little bit less intense until it all just fades away and all you can really feel is the pressure of the baby in your pelvis.

I laid down around 4:30, right after the epidural was administered, and I fell fast asleep. My body was like, "Thank you. I think I'll just shut down now. That was way too intense." I slept for about an hour.

I woke up at about 5:30, as my midwife was walking back into my room, and she said that it was time to push. As I sat up, I remember saying, "It feels like I'm sitting on the baby's head." And my midwife or maybe one of the nurses said, "That's because you are." He was far down in the birth canal by that point.

My OBGYN arrived in the room, too. She wanted to be on standby in the room as I delivered Clark because he was so big. She was afraid that he'd get his shoulders stuck behind my pelvis and there would be an emergency, with his head out, his shoulders stuck, and his umbilical cord pinched off and not delivering oxygen to him. If that happened, she wanted to be able to step in and take over from the midwife.

I started pushing. And I could feel him coming out pretty fast. Fast, relatively speaking. With Elise I pushed for 2 hours. It was slow going. But with Clark, it felt like there was progress being made with each push.

Right at the end, just before he was all the way out, I heard the midwife say something. I thought she said, "He's flat." Just then, something started beeping. Some monitor somewhere. I lost my shit. I started yelling, "Is he okay? Is the baby okay?!?" And since no one else knew what I had mistakenly heard or realized that the beeping was going on, they just kept telling me, "Push! Push! He's fine! Push!" But I thought that maybe they were lying just to make me not be scared. I felt pretty panicked. I pushed as hard as I could.

Then all of a sudden he was out. They put him right up on my chest and I saw that he was okay. I had labored for 9 hours and pushed for 15 minutes. Despite his large size, I only needed 3 stitches, and the midwife and doctor even debated about whether or not they should put those in. Thanks, Elise, for having already tunneled your way out of my lady parts, because I'm pretty sure that if I'd have had Clark first, I'd be telling a different story.

I got to hold Clark for a really long time. Breastfeed him, even. He was born ready to eat, by the way. No problems breastfeeding at all. Perfect latch, ready for milk. With Elise, they set her on my chest for a second and then whisked her away because she wasn't breathing well. I got to hold Clark for quite a while. It was nice.

Amazing. What an incredible experience. Two babies now. Totally different pregnancy experiences, totally different birth experiences. And now that's all behind me and I get to love on them and kiss my babies' pretty little faces every day. Amazing.

Giggle Baby

Clark was laughing in his sleep last night. Oh my god. It was so cute.

Clark's Birth Story: Pitocin

to induce clark's labor, i was given pitocin starting around 9am on october 4th. (they give you saline in your i.v., too, to keep you hydrated.) before she even started the pitocin, my nurse noted that i was having contractions every few minutes. i told her that i've been having contractions for weeks. the strange thing was that the external monitor strapped around my belly was noticing contractions that i wasn't feeling. i'd actually feel every third or so contraction, but it looked on the monitor like i was having contractions non-stop. the nurse said that is because i'm small and don't have a lot of fat on my belly, so the monitor could pick up every little movement my uterus was making.

once the pitocin started going, my midwife said she'd be going to her office to see patients and that she'd return after lunch. hopefully my labor would be going strong by then.

well, it wasn't. over the course of the morning, my nurse gradually increased my pitocin dosage. my contractions were never feeling any stronger than they did at home. which isn't to say that some of them weren't intense, but i knew it wasn't full-blown labor. they'd be strong for a while after the dosage was raised, then they'd sort of taper off, just like all of my false labor before the induction. i was getting kind of bummed out and thinking more and more that a c-section was imminent.

at one point i asked the nurse if we could up my pitocin dosage again, as i wasn't feeling the contractions anymore. she said that there was a hospital policy that you can't raise the dosage if there are 4 or more contractions in a 10 minute period of time. i said, "even though i can't feel the contractions? even though they aren't effective contractions?" she said that everything the monitor picks up counts.

my midwife returned around 2:30 to check on me. i told her that not much was happening as far as labor is concerned. she gave me an exam and sure enough, i'd only dilated another centimeter, from 4 to 5 cms. 5 hours and i was only 1 centimeter farther along. my midwife told the nurse to give me more pitocin and then they discussed the issue of the hospital policy. ultimately they raised my pitocin level up to 7 (whatever that means) and inserted an internal monitor into my lady parts in order to better monitor the contractions. apparently the internal monitor can tell how strong the contractions really are, whereas the external monitor was just showing whether or not i was having one. using the internal monitor would allow them to justify giving me more pitocin if the contractions were inadequately strong to help my labor progress.

the extra pitocin got my labor going, though. i was feeling the contractions for sure. i bounced on the birthing ball, stood by the bed and rocked my hips, and had husband rub my back to help alleviate the pain. the pain was strong, but still manageable. i must have labored like that for about an hour and a half, until 4:00. then the midwife gave me another exam, noticed that clark's head was coming down farther into my pelvis, and she made the decision that it was time to break my waters. my midwife told me that if we were going to have a successful vaginal birth, breaking my waters should make things start moving along much more quickly and that labor would get pretty intense once the bag of waters was ruptured.

everything seemed to happen really fast after that...

Fountain of Youth

weenies are so much work! i end up changing clark's clothes nearly every time i change his diaper because he pees again once i get his diaper off. first he pees one direction, next time it goes a different direction, sometimes it shoots far into the air, other times it dribbles out. he peed on his own face yesterday.

i'm slowly developing a few techniques to help minimize the number of incidents. it's trial and error at this point, though.

also, today clark crapped on my hand. babies can be so gross.

Clark's Birth Story: Check In through Pitocin Time

i was scheduled to arrive at the hospital at 7:30am on tuesday october 4th for an induction of labor due to the fact that i was past my due date and my baby was suspected of being large for his gestational age. husband and i got up early that day, he took the foster kids to day care, we left elise with relatives, and then we went to the labor and delivery section of our hospital.

once we arrived and filled out hospital check-in paperwork, my assigned nurse came and asked if we had some papers that my obgyn's office had given me weeks earlier-- a record of my pregnancy, with various test results and stuff like that. we forgot to bring the papers with us. for some reason, my scared and stressed out brain saw this oversight as my first failing in the attempt to have a positive birthing experience. maybe it was even a bad omen. so silly, but i kept thinking "crap, i've already screwed this up." of course, it was all no big deal. my obgyn's office faxed over another copy of the papers and that was that. i was just worried about how the day would go and i was disappointed that it got off to a very-slightly-less-than-smooth start.

eventually we were brought back to my labor and delivery room. i was given a gown to change into, the nurses strapped monitors around my belly (one monitored my contractions, the other monitored the baby's heart), i answered a million questions (anyone in your family prone to seizures? when was your last bowel movement?), and then my i.v. was inserted.

i've had very little luck with i.v.'s. with elise, i had two i.v.'s infiltrate and leak fluid into the tissue around my vein-- super painful. i refused to let them insert a 3rd i.v. Then this time, despite the fact that the nurse seemed to do a really good job of inserting the i.v. and was very thoughtful about the placement, i wound up with a huge purple, yellow, and green bruise. oh well. just one of the downsides to childbirth for me, i guess.

once my midwife arrived in my room she did an exam. i was still 4 cm dilated, about 70 percent effaced, and the baby's head was at station negative 2. i asked if we could just break my water and see if that would get labor going, but since clark's head was still pretty high up in my pelvis she decided we should start with the pitocin. i was a little disappointed with that, but i knew i'd probably end up taking pitocin one way or another, so i got over it pretty quickly.

they started the pitocin around 9am. i guess that would be the official start of my labor.

Clark's Homecoming

we got to leave the hospital today around 2:30 pm. healthy baby, healthy mama and so we didn't have to stay the full 48 hours they normally require after a vaginal delivery. we got to leave a few hours early. it is so nice to be home with all the kids, the cats, my own bed. i love having my family all together again.

Monday Visit with My OBGYN

so, after the ultrasound where clark's weight was predicted to be 9 lbs 6 oz (surprisingly accurate!), i had a meeting with my obgyn doctor that afternoon to discuss the results. i was hoping she'd give me a strong recommendation one way or another as to what we should do about getting him out of my uterus. i knew, however, that she'd most likely present me with the facts and then let me decide what our next step would be. and that's exactly what she did.

i was given the choice of induction and an attempt at vaginal delivery (with the risks being that the baby might get stuck in the birth canal, leading to shoulder dystocia and possibly permanent injury or even death) or an elective c-section, which is major surgery. in reality, i probably could have lobbied to wait a bit longer to see if labor would start naturally, but the thought that clark would keep growing bigger and bigger alarmed me, and anyway i was so uncomfortable that i wanted him out as soon as possible.

i struggled with the decision between induction and c-section. i asked the doctor tons of questions, all of which she answered very honestly. she even admitted that as an obgyn she personally would feel more comfortable performing a c-section because that is a situation that she has more control over than waiting to see if something goes wrong with a vaginal delivery. she also stressed that she wasn't advocating for elective surgery and that her answer to my question was simply a response to dealing with what is mostly known vs what is mostly unknown.

husband admitted a preferance for an elective c-section, although he would support any decision i made.

believe me, it was a very, very, very hard decision. i was so afraid that choosing the induction could result in such a bad outcome that it would be a decision that i regretted for the rest of my life. especially since my sister had to have a c-section recently because her pelvis was too narrow for her baby, and he was under 7 lbs. maybe my pelvis is kind of narrow, too. we are sisters, after all. elise only weighed 6lbs 7 oz... there was nothing to prove that my pelvis could accomodate a 9 1/2 lb baby. that's a big baby for anyone, and i'm a petite person.

i cried and cried over this decision.

but i ultimately decided to trust in my body and believe that either i could do it, or if i couldn't then my body would let us know early on, before something bad happened. i told my obgyn that i wanted to try for a vaginal birth. the induction was scheduled for tuesday morning and my obgyn said that although a midwife would be delivering the baby, she would join us for the final stage of labor, that way she could step in if clark got stuck and some fancy maneuvering was needed.

needless to say, i got very little sleep monday night.

Happy Birthday Clark!!!

clark was born today, october 4th, 2011, at 5:57pm. he weighed 9 lbs 5 oz (!) and was 20 3/4 inches long. delivered vaginally! i did get an epidural, as the pain was intollerable, but he delivered after pushing for only 15 minutes. i only needed 3 stitches! i feel so happy that my pelvis was big enough to accomodate such a large baby! clark has some bruises on his face and one arm, from sliding past my pubic bone, but other than that, we're both doing great.

more details later-- i need to sleep.

Ultrasound Results

The ultrasound tech and doctor estimate Clark's weight at 9 lbs 6 oz. Which means he could be anywhere between 8 lbs 7 oz and 10 lbs 5 oz.

Big baby.

Damn it.

He's bigger than 90% of all newborns. In fact, newborn clothes wont fit him. I don't have gestational diabetes. I'm not a big person at all. I didn't gain an excessive amount of weight during pregnancy. I just grew a giant baby for some reason.

I meet with my OBGYN this afternoon to decide what we're going to do. I've done some research before going in to talk, so I have lots of questions. But I know that the truth of the matter is this: there's no way to predict how labor and delivery might go if we try to do it vaginally. My body may do a great job of delivering a large baby. I might rip all to hell and need lots of repairs to my lady parts. Clark's shoulders might get stuck and he could even die if they can't get him out through my pelvis quickly enough. And of course, a c-section is major surgery. Vaginal delivery and c-section can both possibly lead to complications. There are risks to both me and the baby due to his size, and I'll have to figure out what is safest and best for both of us.

This sucks. I'm honestly mildly devastated at this point. I thought that my second delivery would be easier than my first. So much for my "easy" pregnancy!

The Rest of Friday

During my doctor's visit on Friday I had a lady parts exam and my OBGYN stretched out my cervix a little bit, in an effort to jump start labor. This is the third time that I've had them do this for me-- for the past 3 weeks at each visit I've had the midwives and then my doctor perform this mildly uncomfortable procedure. It supposedly helps some women. Not me, though. No labor.

There's normally a little bit of blood later on in the day, from having them mess with my cervix. Well, on Friday it seemed like sort of a lot of blood. Not gushing out of me or anything, but enough that I said, "Maybe I should go get checked out at the hospital." So I did. I went to the hospital Friday night (Husband and my mother-in-law stayed home with the kiddos, as they were already sleeping). Clark was fine. My contractions weren't close enough together to be official labor, and I was still dilated 4 cm. So they sent me home. The nurse was really cool about it-- all "better safe than sorry! you did the right thing!"

The nurse that I saw kept telling me how "cute" I am. I'm certain that she didn't mean cute as a synonym for attractive, but cute like you call newborn kittens cute-- all helpless looking and kind of pathetic. She even called another nurse over just to look at me. That was weird. I said that it was a very nice thing to hear at 40 weeks pregnant, as I haven't felt anything close to "cute" in a while. Especially by a woman who just had her fingers up my hooha. But I didn't say that part out loud.

Also, while I was in the waiting room, a hospital patient walked by and talked to some of the nurses at the front desk. The nurses had apparently heard about her delivery the other day-- an 11 lb 3 oz baby boy delivered vaginally and delivered very quickly. The nurses kept calling her Superwoman.

Dear Clark, Please don't weigh 11 lbs. I am not Superwoman. Not even close.

Clark-o! (Polo!)

Clark, if you don't come out soon, we're coming in there to get you.

I met with my OBGYN on Friday. (Friday was my due date, FYI.) She's concerned that Clark is maybe too big. I'm going for an ultrasound on Monday to determine if Clark is happy and healthy and to see how big he is. From there we will decide what to do next: emergency baby removal if he's in distress; induce labor if he isn't too big; or plan a c-section if he is threatening to rip me a new one if we try to deliver out the lady parts. I'm scared. I'm sick of being pregnant, but I know now that this delivery probably won't be an easy one. I'd imagined that my second delivery would be easier and smoother than my first, but now that doesn't seem likely. I'm kind of emotional about the whole thing, and I just hope that it won't be as bad as I'm imagining.

My doctor said that I'm dilated 4 cm now. The only thing holding labor up is the baby. She said that maybe he's too big, or maybe he's not in the right position yet. Medical science isn't sure what makes labor start when it does, although the prevailing theory right now is that the baby has some input into that process. It's not just the mom's body that makes labor happen-- the baby is part of the feedback loops that get the whole thing going.

I'm having contractions like crazy. Still losing mucous. Bleeding, even. But no labor. What I imagine is happening is that my body is trying DESPERATELY to make labor start. It keeps sending out the signals to Clark. Contractions begin, my body gets everything ready. But for whatever reason, Clark isn't sending back his part of the signal that will officially start labor. So the contractions fade off and I get all disappointed. I don't know if that's really how it might work or not. That's just how I imagine it. That's what it feels like is going on.

No matter how it's SUPPOSED to work, it's not working for whatever reason and it looks like Clark will end up being forcibly removed from my uterus within the next few days. One way or another, my pregnancy will be over soon. I'll get to hold and kiss my son. And hopefully it will require a minimal number of stitches.

Crazy Day

long day. lots of stuff. too tired to write about it now. still pregnant, though.

If Dreams Could Come True...

I had a dream today where two different dream characters said to me that Clark would be born by the end of the day tomorrow. Is my body trying to tell me something? Is Clark trying to "send me a message"? Probably just wishful thinking. It was a nice thought, though.

Elegant Walrus

Tonight while complaining about STILL being pregnant I told Husband that I have all the grace of a walrus. He said, "An elegant walrus!"

Thanks. I think. Coo coo ka choo.

Trying To Stay Positive

I need to think of the things I am thankful for with regard to this pregnancy because focusing on how uncomfortable I am is getting me nowhere.

1. I am thankful that Clark is healthy.

2. I am thankful that I have not had any emergencies or complications.

3. I am glad that my feet never got swollen, as it happens to so many women. I have kind of ugly feet to begin with, so the thought of them all puffy and red full of pain is just yucky.

4. I am thankful that I have been able to stay home and not work. Having to tell your boss that you're pregnant is stressful, even if he or she takes it well.

5. I'm glad that I've had two successful pregnancies where my babies will have been born healthy and full-term. I know several people who struggle with infertility and/or repeated miscarriages and as much as I complain about how pregnancy sucks, I do recognize how lucky I am to even have the opportunity to complain.

So Close

I thought last night was it. I kept waking up with contractions. Hard ones. Painful ones. I was sure that labor was starting. And then... they faded off like they have so many times before. My body has made so many practice runs for Clark's labor that I must have the world's strongest womb-- when the time comes, I had better just have one massive, powerful contraction and squeeze this baby out with a single push. Otherwise, uterus, you are on my shit list.

I feel like I've been in labor for weeks. I've been enduring really, really uncomfortable and sometimes painful contractions, my pelvis is killing me, and my back is sore non-stop. Not to mention that I can feel every little movement that Clark makes, and this kid clearly wants to stretch his legs out. I keep telling him that if he will just come OUT, he can stretch out all he wants. But he is not interested in what I have to say. He would rather lay on my bladder and hiccup all day long.

Clark I love you. Let me see your little face. I'm so sure that you'll look like your daddy. I can't wait to see if I'm right!

Clark's Baby Shower

I don't think I ever mentioned that Husband's stepmom threw Clark a baby shower a little while ago. It was nice. Since we already have sooooooo much baby stuff, we asked for mostly diapers and wipes, which is what we got. Yay! Clark got a few little outfits and some toys and stuff like that, too. But since I breastfeed and stay at home, the biggest expense of a new baby is managing his rear end.

Have you ever seen any of those "baby calculators" to help you figure out how much a new baby costs? Throw in formula and day care and it's mind boggling. To me at least. And if you don't have health insurance, just forget about it.

My advice: If you want to have a baby, start saving your pennies ASAP-- believe me, it will make everything so much easier in the long run.

Threats!

Elise came over to me yesterday and rubbed my arm. "Boo boo?"

"No. I don't have a boo boo."

She stared into my eyes. Rubbed my arm again. "Boo boo?"

"No, Elise. Mommy doesn't have a--"

And she lunged at me. Fangs bared. Tried to bite my arm right where she was rubbing it. Unbelievable!

39 Week Check Up

I'm soooooo pregnant. Ugh.

Had my 39 week check up today. Clark seems happy to stay right where he is, even though my body is doing its best to kick that baby bird out of my uterus nest. I'm 3 cm dilated, 90% effaced, and thoroughly miserable. My back hurts, my leg nerves keep going bonkers and shooting fiery hate through my body, I have to pee every 30 minutes, and my belly skin is about to rip open like an overripe peach. I have hot flashes, irrationally angry flashes, and crazy flashes where I imagine myself still pregnant at Christmastime.

The dumb thing is, I know that when labor actually starts I'll be all like, "Wait! I'm not ready!"

Being pregnant is really hard work. So is labor. Then you get your baby paycheck with an additional cute bonus and it's worth the 168 hour work weeks.

Two New Words for the Day

In an amusing coincidence, Elise's new words for the day today were "buns" and "lips." Perhaps she was working up the nerve to tell me to kiss her ass. I'll let you know if we get to that point within the next few days...

I try to refer to Elise's butt as her "bottom"-- it seems like one of the least possibly offensive names for a person's rear end. Good for a baby. Never inappropriate. Well, for some reason I called her butt her "buns" today and she just latched right on to that word. How does she do that? She knows just what I don't really want her to repeat and then it becomes her new favorite word. Buns buns buns.

Elise is also starting to make objects possessive. She doesn't quite get that she's supposed to add an "s," but she's got the basic word structure right. As I was folding laundry this evening, she walked up, touched my butt and said, "Mama buns." Yes, Elise, Mama's buns. Then she turned to the side, cocked her hip at me and said, 'E-lee buns!" Yes. Elise's buns.

Who said grammar was boring?

Cry-ola

Yesterday Elise saw my stretchmarks. She touched them gently.

"Color?" (Elise says "color" when she wants me to get her coloring book and crayons out.)

"No. No one colored on Mommy's tummy."

Confused pause. Brain processing. Then...

"Boo boo?"

I don't know why (hormones) but that little exchange made me cry. She thought someone colored on my tummy. Sweet baby Elise.

Henry and Georgia Update

Well, things are really starting to go downhill for Henry and Georgia's mom. She is making some very bad decisions as of late. Continuing to make bad decisions, I should say. For example, she failed to show up for a visit with Henry and Georgia's baby sister, Eve. Then she missed showing up at court when she was supposed to be there for some foster care stuff. And there are other things, too, that I won't go into but believe me that the list of her recent behavior goes from bad to worse.

I don't know what this will mean the next time the court reviews her progress on her case plan. Something tells me that she is still likely to get an extension on completing her case plan in order to give her time to turn her life around. The courts are usually pretty hesitant to terminate parental rights around here, from what I've gathered. But, as I've mentioned before, Henry and Georgia clearly won't be returning to her care any time in the immediate future.

Also, the court has apparently declared Henry's legal biological father as "unknown." This means that unless his mom decides to provide names for Case Manager to research, Case Manager doesn't have to try to keep finding Henry's biological dad. So if Henry's mom doesn't want to provide names then the court is fine with there being no biological dad in the picture for the duration of Henry's case. (When a child comes into the dependency system, case managers are supposed to locate both biological parents whenever possible. They go to great lengths sometimes to find estranged moms and dads. However, the court can always say that the case manager has tried hard enough and a missing parent can't be found, as is the situation here.)

So, now we just wait and see what kinds of decisions the court makes about what should happen next with mom's case plan.

Baby Dreams As Of Late

Because my brain is obsessed with the thought of having this baby, naturally most of my dreams lately are about giving birth. I've had a lot of them. Most notable:

* I gave birth and then promptly fell asleep. I didn't wake up until the next morning. Strange people were in my recovery room-- people who apparently knew me but I didn't have any idea who they were. "Oh, no!" I said. "I didn't feed the baby at all last night!" I was really upset because you're supposed to feed newborns, like, every two hours. "It's okay," some strange lady said. "We fed him for you." I knew they meant that they gave him formula in bottles and I was absolutely devastated that he wasn't breastfed and that I never woke up to take care of him myself. I felt like the first thing I did as Clark's mother was to fail him miserably.

* As I'm going into labor at home, this weird fetus-y, not completely formed dinosaur thing comes out of my lady parts. I start yelling for Husband to call 911 or take me to the emergency room. I am still pregnant with Clark and my contractions are just beginning. I can't imagine how this little beast got inside of me, started to grow, and shared space in my body with my human son. As I'm thinking about all of this, the little dinosaur (which basically looks like it has no skin, just raw muscle and no eyelids) starts to wake up and begins running and jumping around the room. I try to catch it and think that I MUST bring it with me to the hospital so that they can see what happened and hopefully believe me that it came out of my body.

* I go into labor and as I'm walking out of the front door, on my way to the hospital, the trees outside are filled with birds who are literally rejoicing. Like a Disney movie. Birds in the trees rejoicing.

I've Reached My Breaking Point, Apparently

Hello, stretchmarks!

I can only assume they're stretchmarks. They don't look like normal stretchmarks, but what else could they be? They're around my bellybutton. And by "bellybutton" I mean the umbilical hernia that I got with Elise. So, between my two kids I am 100% guaranteed to never wear a bikini again-- a giant outie bellybutton with stretchmarks all around it is not cute or sexy. Maybe I can incorporate it into a Halloween costume somehow... bikini zombie girl? sexy cop with a stomach wound?

Well, So Much For That

Turns out that Henry's presumed father is in no way biologically related to him.

So...

On one hand, yay because Presumed Father didn't want to be a part of his life anyway. On the other hand, now we have to repeat this DNA-testing process who knows how many times until we find out who his real father is. OR, in the alternative, we may never find out.

The next step in establishing paternity for Henry is to see if his mom can provide any other names of possible fathers and then see if those men can be tracked down. If they can be found, the court will order them to take a DNA test. If she can't provide any names or if the men cannot be located, the court can basically say that there is no legal biological father and the state can stop trying to find one.

Wow. So back to square one. Poor Henry.

Elise 18 Month Check Up

Elise had her 18 month check up today. She is 32 inches tall (50th percentile) and 21 lbs 7 oz (15th percentile). Once again, the doctor assured me that her weight is just fine, as she's always been on the thin side.

She had to get three shots today, which included a flu shot. I know from experience that flu shots can hurt. Poor Elisey. She started crying as soon as the nurse and I began to pin her down, though. Oh, it kills me. Kills me. After the shots in her legs she was crying, "Boo boo! Boo boo! B-b-b-boo-boo-boo boo! LEG!!!" Just thinking of it still makes me sad. I tried to explain that these little boo boos would keep her from getting big boo boos later. But, as smart as Elise is, there was no reasoning with her about her leg boo boos. Also, I think she was a bit offended that I participated in the process and let her get hurt. Or maybe I'm projecting my own feelings on to her.

Anyway, some post nap diarrhea (which I feel confident was a result of the shots) and a dose of baby Tylenol and she's a-okay now.

Basically, I Give Up

Dammit, Clark. You win. Fine. Stay there. Fine. But I hope you're in there THINKING about what you're doing to me. Your first words had better be "I love you, Mommy," and none of that "dada" crap, even if it's way easier to say.

Oh, and I've had, like, half a dozen people tell me that the best way to get labor going is to have lots of sex. So, yeah. That's what Daddy and I are doing, just in case you were wondering. And if that makes you uncomfortable or grosses you out, then the only way you're going to make it stop is by getting your labor started yourself. It's up to you.

Long Day

long day. lots of really strong contractions that eventually tapered off to nothingness. tired. and still no baby.

:(

Why am I still pregnant? why why why why why????

One More Cute Thing

I forgot yesterday... Elise calls the blanket she sleeps with her "bucky." So silly and cute to me.

PS- I'm still pregnant. :(

Cute Things Elise Says

* Elise calls Cheerios "yellows," I guess because the box is yellow.

* If Elise does something that she knows is bad, she'll immediately say, "I love you!" Pause. Then, "Happy?" (To which she usually gets a response that goes something like, "I'm happy that you love me. I am NOT happy about your behavior, however.")

* Every night Elise asks to be rocked and sung "Rock-a-bye Baby" by saying, "Bye Baby?" She says it so plaintively that it nearly breaks my heart every time.

* This morning after Elise woke up and I nursed her for a couple of minutes I told her, "Okay. All done. Would you like me to get you a sippy cup with milk?" I'm trying to transition her to having cow's milk instead of breast milk in the mornings. She thought about it for a second and said, "Cookie?" Nice try, Elise.

No Baby Yet

Lots of contractions today. Lots. Usually between 10 and 15 minutes apart. Sometimes I'd have them every few minutes, but they were never strong enough that I thought we should go to the hospital. So we wait. And wait. And wait. No telling when he'll decide to arrive.

Pre-labor for Realz

Baby threat code yellow!!!

I'm definitely losing my mucous plug, and now there's blood, too. Pre-labor has officially begun! You start to bleed when your cervix is dilating and little blood vessels begin to rupture. It's not something that you feel. Just "oh! there's blood!" and that's about it. Not everyone has blood from dilating and not everyone even notices losing their mucous plug. I'm glad my body gives me this heads-up.

I felt weird all day today. Everything hurt or was uncomfortable and I was very crabby. I just felt different. I guess there was a lot going on in my body. I only had a few contractions today, but they were definitely stronger than they have been. Right on the border between annoying and slightly painful.

Real labor could start any second now!

(BTW, at this exact point in my pregnancy/delivery experience with Elise-- the night of 37 weeks and 1 day-- she had just been born. I am now officially more pregnant than I have ever been, as I'm still carrying Clark.)

37 Week Check-up

Made it all the way to my 37 week check-up this time! Baby sounded lovely on the heartbeat amplifier doodad. Around 150 beats per minute. My belly measured right on target for 37 weeks.

AND

I am now 2 centimeters dilated! Woohoo! That's more dilated than I was when I went to the hospital for Elise after my water broke. My cervix is about 70% thinned out, also a good sign. And Clark's head is somewhere between stations -2 and -1, meaning that he's starting to move down into my pelvis. The midwife said, "Well, could be anytime now. Whenever he's ready."

I think I'm starting to lose my mucous plug, too.

Technically it could still be weeks before he gets here-- these things don't necessarily mean that the baby is about to pop out-- but I don't think I'll make it to 40 weeks. Strangely, I've had very few Braxton-Hicks contractions tonight, though. Usually I have a lot of them in the evening. The calm before the storm???

Workin' It

Before I contracted pregnant-belly with Elise, I had a professional job. Something that used my graduate degree. I didn't love my job, but I guess I didn't hate it, either. I actually had to use my brain a little bit and that part of it was nice.

Then, once a baby was on the way, Husband and I decided that I'd stay home for a year with Elise. We thought it would be the best thing for her, and honestly I was kinda psyched to be a stay at home mom for a bit. I worked up until the day before Elise was delivered and I quit my job after Elise was born.

After a few months, I started babysitting a couple of days a week. Elise would come with me to play with her baby friend. As the year mark started getting closer, I decided I should look for a slightly more lucrative job-- something I could do that would get me back in the workforce. I applied to teach at a community college and I was offered a job. Pretty cool. I decided not to take it, though, because we'd just gotten some foster kids that were requiring a lot of my time and energy and I wasn't 100% ready to go back to work, especially since it was before my year with Elise was done. I kept babysitting, and that was my only outside-of-the-home work.

Then I got pregnant with Clark. And not long after that, the family I was babysitting for moved. So for a while I didn't do any extra work. I was contacted a few months ago by the lady who had offered me the job at the college and she asked me again if I'd come teach. I was so happy and flattered that she'd asked me back, but it was an offer to teach during the semester that I am due to deliver, so once again I had to decline.

All of this time out of the workforce has made me feel a little weird. I mean, I have real skillz but all I do all day is sing the ABC song and read "Goodnight Moon." There is nothing I'd rather do than take care of my babies... but at the same time, I don't feel like that's ALL I want to do, either. I need something for ME.

I decided to sell some of my books online. I have a pretty sizable collection of books, many of which I got in college. If I didn't read them then (when my grade depended on it), I reasoned that I probably wouldn't read them now. I sold a few and then I started trying my hand at buying books cheap and reselling them for a small profit. I've been doing this for a few weeks now and I've had a very modest success at it. It actually takes some know-how and I'm learning how to make good choices when I buy used books and price them for resale. Mostly, this is just something that's fun for me. It keeps me busy, gives me something to do, and makes me feel like I have a real hobby. And if I can make enough money to pay our Netflix bill each month, or fill up the gas tank in my car, or save some money for a family vacation, then even better.

Also, I recently applied to and was offered a position blogging for a website dealing with adoption. It doesn't pay. Well... they give you a free subscription to their magazine, which isn't nothing, I guess. But mostly I want to have the experience of blogging for someone else. I felt like it was a good opportunity to get some writing experience. And I'm only required to post once per month, so I can totally swing it.

Anyway, that's what I do for "work" now. #1) I'm a Mommy to four babies-- two foster kids, one biological kid, and one kid in my belly. #2) I'm learning how to resell books-- not a long-term career goal, but something fun to do for now. #3) I'm gaining experience as a writer by blogging for a media company.

One day I might go back to my graduate-degree oriented career. Or I might teach. Or maybe I'll find something else I'd rather do. Don't know right now. Now that Clark's on the way, I guess I have about a year to figure it all out, while I stay at home and give him the same time and attention that I gave Elise when she was born.