Random thoughts on my 31st

So today is my 31st birthday.

Cluster feeding all night followed by a wake up call from a toddler who just wanted MOMMY. Uh huh. At least it didn't start with projectile vomit in the car seat the way Matt's did. So... progress?  We've already declared that next year for 32 we're doing something ridiculous and awesome and child free and... BOOZY. Perhaps a trip somewhere like for 30? Who knows. But it's nice to think that by a year from now we'll be up for something like that. Everything in parenting is SO temporary.

Besides.  I got everything I wanted for my birthday this year already.

Anyways! We're home now. Last time they sent me home with a prescription for a pile of percoset and a bunch of formula with a dire warning to supplement soon. This time they sent me home with a recommendation to take motrin if needed and ice packs for my bra b/c "he's a very vigorous nurser" Yeah.

Our family v3.0 headed home from the hospital.

I think we're going to need a bigger boat.

We've spent the first 48 hours home in a cone of silence. We've had no visitors, few phone calls, and I've been completely off the internet. It's been awesome. Just to have some time together to figure out our new little family... So, so nice.

I have the same exact picture somewhere of his sister when she first got home.

Now that I'm ready to return to the world of the living I'm a bit overwhelmed. So many wonderful comments! And emails! And facebook posts! And twitter mentions! I don't even know where to start to respond to all of them. But we've read and enjoyed Every. Single. One. It's crazy the wide reach of social median in situations like this.

Meeting his doggie for the first time.  She's.... a bit freaked by the whole situation.  But she'll adjust.

And that's all I have time for right now....

Different is Good.

First of all thank you so much for all of the comments and well wishes!!!  It's been so fun to read all of them and see how excited everyone is for us.  You guys are awesome!

So this whole experience has been amazingly different than last time.  It's crazy.

I'm just going to throw in random pictures to break up this wordy post.  Didn't think you'd mind.

First of all Labor was - by no means easy - but not the most impossible thing I've ever accomplished either. I went with an epidural that I requested be put in by "someone who knows what the hell they are doing." And it worked. And I'm not going to lie - I enjoyed the shit out of that epidural.

Proud grandparents.  My dad was literally about to step onto a boat for a day long fishing trip out of Vermillion when he got the call that I was going into the hospital.  Bummer.

Oh and did I mention? The baby flipped. No posterior birth. He came out like a normal human being and not sunny side up like my super stubborn daughter. I honestly don't know if it was him or me (I did so, SO many exercises to get him to turn over) but either way it was a completely different birth experience. No hours of pushing and threats of c section. No internal monitor or questions about the baby. Just plain, uncomplicated, and normal. It was awesome.

Proud Uncle.  Although he only got to hold the baby for a second before my toddler took over.  She loves her AN-DY.

Aunt Carolyn.  Also didn't get to spend much time on the baby before my daughter was bossing her around.

And nursing! This kid is a champion eater. Seriously. Latchedon less than an hour out of the womb and hasn't looked back since. It took my daughter and I a solid week to get the hang of things during which time she lost alot of weight and I was tied in knots by the medical professionals giving me advice. Not funtimes. This kid has had no issue and I'm pretty sure he would eat all day if I was up for it. But I'll take "cracked and blistered" over "possible failure to thrive" any day of the week. (Btw Lanolin? just another example of the awesome powers of sheep)

Great-grandma Bobbie.

And the recovery! Last time I felt like I was run over by a mac truck. No lie. I was in so much back pain from the posterior labor that I could barely hold a thought in my head. I sure as shit couldn't walk. The normal postpartum concerns like "stitches" and "cramping" didn't even register. This time? Yeah ok I'm sore. And it's not comfortable. But it's also nothing that the painkillers they have me on can't handle. I was up and out of bed mere hours after labor. And let me tell you how much I've been enjoying this hospital stay. I'm ALL ABOUT THE NAPS. I don't even remember chunks of being in the hospital last time b/c I was so out of it and in pain. Yeah.

Nono

Nonni

So I"m not sure if this is a second baby thing or a different kid thing but either way I am in much, MUCH better shape than last time at this point. Which is a good thing because tomorrow? I get to go home to the reality of being the mom of 2 small children.


I can't wait.

Introducing

Desmond Thomas

He was born April 13th at 11:45 am.

He's 7lbs 9 oz and 20 inches long.

All of us are doing really, really, well.




And just like that we became a crazy, messy, but oh so happy family of 4.

11 days

So yeah. No baby. I was really hoping for the 9th but this kid has a different idea. Isn't that the story of kids, though? I'm trying hard to stay in the happy place of "he'll come when he's ready" but I'm very, very quickly slipping into the mode of get out, get out, get out, get out, GET OUT. We've made the decision for lots of reasons that if he's not here by the 21st we're going in after him. And as much as a scheduled induction doesn't appeal to me the reality is this kid is posterior. The bigger he gets the less chance I can get him out on my own. Also having a definite end date on the calendar has been... refreshing. No matter how uncomfortable this gets I only have 11 days.

11 days.

I can do anything for 11 days.

I've completely moved out of getting ready mode and am now in the mindset of LET'S HAVE FUN WHILE WE CAN. Literally yesterday Matt was all "we should clean out the cars and start the yard" and I was all NO. Done with that. Let's go the park and to El Business* instead.

MORE AGAIN SLIDE

We made the right choice.

Even if I couldn't have a margarita (I want one immediately after having this baby. Seriously. Bring booze.)

I've been trying to do super fun things with my kid during the week, too. She had her friend over and they made crowns:

I like how my kid is ignoring me all INTENSE WITH THE CRAFT PROJECT while her friend is smiley at the camera.

My God she looks like Matt.  Startlingly so.

Although it took all the bribery we had in us to get them to actually wear them:



Heh. So yeah... 11 more days.  I think I can find enough fun things to do to occupy us until then.

*El Business = all Mexican restaurants

Happy Place

So I'm currently 38.5 weeks pregnant.

which means this kid is done and can come out whenever he wants too.

And considering last time at this point our house looked something like this I'm feeling pretty ready. Or as ready as one can get. My hospital bag is packed, a plan is in place for our daughter, we've talked to our friends/relatives about how we're going to spread the news once the baby comes*, our house is clean (M'FING CLEAN, actually. We even did the stove and I don't think we've done that since we bought it. 6 years ago.), and we're slowly checking off the list of random crap we wanted to get done beforehand. Such as getting my haircut:

Yes. I am large. Whatever. I'm 10 months pregnant.  Also perhaps maybe I could have blow dried and styled it before taking a picture?  Or perhaps located some makeup?  Meh.

So really whenever this baby wants to come - now or two weeks from now - is totally fine. I'm actually in a really good place with that. To the point where I've refused an internal exam at my last 3 appointments. It's not going to tell me anything. It's just going to stress me out. Especially with a second pregnancy the numbers - what station you're at and how dilated/effaced you are - mean NOTHING. I could be 60% effaced and walk around like that for 2 more weeks. Or I could be 0% and have the baby tomorrow. Best to just say in a happy place of "he'll come when he's ready"

Pic from the last ultrasound. We got no good face shots b/c Scipio's reaction to any type of poking at is to RUN AWAY AND HIDE. Clearly not following in the footsteps of his "namesake".

The only concern is that the kid is currently posterior. Which. DUDE. Again? But after 17 hours of unmedicated back labor followed by 2 and half of pushing last time I kindof feel like I can handle anything. Because seriously:

17 hours of unmedicated back labor**

If I made it through that I can make it through whatever this kid decides to throw at me.

That is a kid in there, right?  I kindof don't see it.

So yeah. No baby yet. But we're officially ready and waiting.

*Hint: NOT on Someone else's facebook/twitter/mass email. Seriously. We have too many people that we'd like to call individually and news travels too fast on the intertubes for that to end well. And if someone I wanted to call finds out from some random facebook post? NOT COOL. Once we post it ourselves I don't care if people shout it from their own social media mountaintops but until then NO. Also and I think I'm kindof alone in this age of crazy social media exposure... but while I'm in labor I really don't want the state of my um... business... out there for the world to see and speculate on. Ick.

** Yeah the unmedicated part of that isn't some badge of honor.  I had an epidural.  They set it wrong.  I got NO pain relief.  And noone believed me b/c "there's only so much we can do for back labor".  It was HORRIBLE.  Finally the awesome nurse I had got the head of anesthesia in to see me and he figured out the problem and redid the whole thing.  Immediately I couldn't feel my legs and was able to handle rest of what was ahead.  But by that point I was already at transition and had been through the aforementioned 17 hours totally on my own.  FUNTIMES.

Baby Reorganization Phase I: A New Space

So the first step to getting ready for this baby was to create a room for him.  Problem being that we were using what was going to be the baby's room as a home office / guest room.  So where does all of that business go?  There was much debate.  We decided pretty quickly that the guest room would just have to go away for awhile.   We've slept on couches/air mattresses at our friends apartments for years.  So asking them to do the same now really doesn't seem like that big of a deal.  But a place for our computer?  That we needed.  But... I use every inch of my studio.  Our living room could probably fit a desk but... no.  The basement is a wreck  and taking on a major home improvement project while super pregnant is not something I ever want to attempt ever again (one day it will be the most amazing playroom ever.  one day).

Which left our bedroom.

But... who wants a computer in their bedroom?  All the blinkey lights and noises?  That would just be so... college.  On the other hand the way our bedroom is laid out we had an 8' x 8' area under the gable at the front of the house sitting completely empty and unused.  That's bigger than some peoples' bedrooms.  So finally logic and necessity kicked in and we took that empty space and created this:



It was pretty simple to do. Basically just bought a new desk to fit the space:



And emptied/reorganized all of the built in shelving and drawers. I donated piles of crap that we didn't use and with both drawers and shelves on both sides ended up with way more storage than we really need for a home office. SCORE.

 
Also cleaning off the shelves created new places for the many photos that we had framed in our guest room:


I even updated some of them which is happy.



And the thing we were most worried about - that this would end up like a college room - really didn't happen at all. We moved all the blinkey internet stuff to the basement and were a bit obsessive with our wire management system.  So everything is clean and uncluttered.  The view from our bed looks like this:


Although since we hardly ever close the door* it usually looks like this:

So not obtrusive!  And having a computer in our room so far has been pretty nice.  We didn't have a stereo or a tv in our room before.  Now thanks to the magic of pandora and hulu it's like we have both.  BONUS!  There was even room in the space for an extra chair - just like a real office.  The dog immediately claimed it as her traffic watching spot:

One last view from the new office into our bedroom:

If you ignore the sloppily made bed covered in a pregnancy pillow fortress and the plastic pack 'n play peeking out of the corner - both of which are temporary - it's a really nice space.

I can look for YELLOW BUSes with my doggie while you work!

Overall I'm really, really happy with how it all came out!

*Yeah I LOVE how our house is laid out (2 bedrooms  on the first floor, big-ass bedroom on the 2nd plus a studio space).  At first with the whole kids thing I was nervous about having the baby's bedroom on the first floor while our bedroom was upstairs.  Now?  YES PLEASE.  I don't have to have a changing table in my living room b/c her room is so close by.  And I can tell her to put her toys away in her own room - again saving my living room from becoming covered in plastic.  Plus we're far enough away at night that I"m not woken up by all of her little noises.  But thanks to the magic of a baby monitor I never felt like I was so far that I couldn't hear her if she needed me.  And now with two of them it will be so, SO nice to have a place to get completely away.  Yay for bungalow houses!