the Birth of Audrey Francine

When people ask me how long my labor was with Cora, it's an easy answer. 21 hours. Start to finish. Second babies are supposed to come quicker, right? Right.

Except, not right. Now I'm not sure whether to say I was in labor for 7 hours or 13 days. THIRTEEN DAYS. Let that one sink in. I know this is supposed to be 'the birth story,' but I feel we need to separate this into two parts: the twelve days before, and then the actual birth. If you don't want to hear about all the crap leading up to it (which was a huge emotional roller coaster) and just want the nitty-gritty of my time at the hospital, then click this for Part 2.

Part 1

April 2, 2015, the day before my due date. Also, Holy Thursday. I woke up with contractions. Pretty mild, and I never really know if they're BH contractions or not, but they were timeable to about 10 minutes apart and 30 seconds or less in length. I decided to go into work and timed them with an app on my phone.

They went on all day, time-able the entire time, but never picking up strength or duration. We had set everything in place and my MIL was on her way. I came home from working the whole day and we took a walk to see if it would help. We skipped Holy Thursday services and eventually I went to bed. And then fell asleep. Now I don't know a ton about birth, but if you can sleep through contractions, then it's not go-to-the-hospital time.

I woke up the next morning sorta nauseous and having the same type of contractions. I decided not to go to work, hoping that something might start happening. Around 9:30am, it all just stopped. Since my MIL was there and Cora's daycare was closed for Good Friday anyway, we sent MIL off with her while B and I went to walk around the grocery store to see if we could get something to start.

Nada. I was mad I wasted a day of PTO and still kinda wish I had just gone in late. Oh, hindsight.

Walking around the neighborhood with my "Easter egg" belly on my due date.

Saturday morning, I woke up and went to Zumba class. I felt amazing. Everyone was giving me all kinds of old wives' tales. If you're feeling great, then birth is nigh. And also if you're too tired to do anything else but give birth, then it is nigh. Well, it's all hogwash.

Zumba didn't work.

Hot sauce also didn't work.

For the following week and a half, I had contractions daily. Weak ones, strong ones, time-able, not so time-able, whatever. I deleted the app on my phone and basically ignored them unless I couldn't. I went to Zumba on the Tuesday after my due date (4 days late), and the baby was kicking me so hard that I had to stop a few times. (Pretty sure she was also doing Zumba.) But then, when it was time to sleep that night, I slept.

I had a Non-Stress test with a nurse practitioner on the following Friday, at 41 weeks. Everything was fine, but I was still holding around 1cm. Cora had her spring show at daycare that night, which I had hoped to make one way or another. I did, and it was adorable.

She's in the purple stripes

Right after Cora's class performed, B immediately left for his Reserves weekend in Indianapolis. He spent his weekend in a secured room, no phones allowed, so he walked outside once an hour to check for any news. Nothin'. My parents had come into town as planned on their way to Chicago, and Mom and I hung out, shopped, and made some freezer meals.

I had been hoping to hold out until exactly 42 weeks for induction, but we had a snag.

The blasted military. Still haunting us even years after my husband left Active Duty. As a Reservist, life usually goes as planned, one weekend a month and two weeks a year penciled in on the calendar and generally unchanged. Well, this one was even on the books, too. Two Reserve weekends in April, the second one being a plane ride away. A weekend for a training that he needed to do for his two-weeker the following month. We hadn't worried about it because second babies come earlier, right? Except, not right. And because our baby was holding out on actually being born, it was a weekend that would essentially choose her birth date.

I hated the idea of induction. Truly, truly hated it. I didn't get much sympathy, since both the birthing women and the doctors in this town seem to love the idea. My doctor generally induces at 41 weeks, but she said she'd let me go to 42 if I wanted. But at 42 weeks B wouldn't be there. So, minus 2 days, and that's what we had. The day before he left, April 15. I kept praying baby would decide to come before that, but she was a stubborn one.

Part 2

April 15, 2015. 41 weeks, 5 days. We woke up bright and early to arrive at the hospital at 6am like we were instructed. B's aunt came over to take care of Cora who was still passed out asleep in bed.

We walked into the hospital and checked in at the desk. It almost felt like I was going in to make a deposit at the bank, not birth a child. My nurse was great, and we had the IV stuff in by 7am. It was a pitocin-only induction, thankfully. I decided to not immediately get the epidural, just to see what my tolerance was.

Getting ready to get this show on the road!

My neighbor is a night nurse at a different hospital but has a good relationship with where I was at, so she came by after her shift was over. She was probably more excited than the two of us about the impending birth of our baby, and I'll admit her joyful attitude was annoying me. I'll blame the pitocin. And the fact that I'd been hoping every day for the past two weeks was baby day. She got mad at B because he wasn't helping me enough (poor guy literally did not know how to help--we never took a class on natural birth or anything). She got me set up on a ball to see if it would help. Turns out I hated it. I mostly just paced around with the IV pole and went to the bathroom a lot. We also discussed our name list a bit further and nixed a few more off (we walked in with 11 combinations of acceptable names!). After a bit, I realized that I was scared of every contraction and totally not trusting my own body. I mean, those pitocin contractions HURT. BAD.

I'm not really sure why I was scared. Yes, it was painful, but I think I was just psyching myself out. Also feeling like my crotch was about to split in two, and I just plain didn't like that. I had some tearing with Cora's birth that I think I never fully healed from, so that was just adding an extra layer on top of everything.

So around 11am, I asked for the epidural. I was pretty sure it would come to that anyway, so I didn't feel defeated. The nurse checked me around noon when the epidural went in and I was around 5cm.

Remembering my epidural from my first birth, I started settling in for a longer haul. I messed around on my phone and turned on the tv while propped up on one side. It hadn't completely taken on the other side after a half hour, so they propped me up on the other side. About 10 minutes after that, I felt something wet. I told B to call the nurse because I wasn't sure if my water had broken or not.

Sure enough, it had. Nurse checked me again and said I would be pushing soon. I was at 9.5cm! The epidural totally relaxed my body to just open up. Crazy.

They weren't going to call my doctor for my delivery because she had delivered a baby in the middle of the night, and it's pretty common to just have another doctor from my practice step in if they're on call. However, the timing was perfect and my doctor had shown up to do a postpartum check on another mom. She came in to help me get started on pushing and see where I was at.

I pushed for about an hour, with most of that time being just me and B and the nurse. This was so different than my previous experience when it felt like there were 20 people in the room for the entire duration. After making some good progress for an hour, my doc came back in and within a few more pushes, baby was out!!

She didn't cry immediately, and both B and I looked at each other thinking something might be wrong. But no one was freaking out and the baby-nurse sucked the goop out and there was a cry. A cry that we could easily tune out because it was so much quieter and lower in frequency than our first baby's. And luckily for us, it has stayed that way! (We have even watched some videos of Cora as a baby to compare because we were starting to think we were delusional.)

I could tell right away that she was shorter and heavier than Cora, and I was correct. It took a little bit of time to name her, but I basically gave her the first name of Audrey, and then I asked B what her middle name was. He picked Francine, and I thought it was perfect.

And our little Audrey Francine is the most perfect addition to our family.

Digital Nesting

I never actually 'nested' before my oldest was born. Not because she came too early or anything like that, but I just plain didn't feel like it. We got stuff done because we had to get it done (like putting the crib together), but not because I got any actual 'itch' to do it.

This time around, it's been mostly the same, minus one episode where I decided to vacuum out my car. To be fair, it was filthy.

Now that I'm 5 days overdue, my nesting (or lack thereof) has taken on an interesting form. Digital nesting. It's kind of dumb because I know I can get this kind of stuff done during a midnight nursing session after baby comes, but I want it done NOW.

I have four email addresses. FOUR. (Not including my work one.) Three with gmail, one at Yahoo. They each had their own purpose, although I might be able to phase one out. (But letting go of a primary email address that goes back almost 10 years is HARD. Like, way harder than it should be. That's literally a third of my life kinda hard.) As of 2 days ago, one gmail address had been forwarding to its own Yahoo folder, and the other 2 were just sitting out there not being checked much. I started hating how Yahoo's organization was (and it seems to keep changing), so I've decided to dump them all into one gmail account. Sounded easy enough, but I'm finding out it's a lot harder than I though, thanks to a million security features on gmail's end that I don't always know how to fix.

I'm also trying to fix commenting on this blog and when I comment on other Blogger-hosted blogs. It wasn't playing nice with a Yahoo email address any more, and everything I got was coming from no-reply email addresses and my comments on other blogs were bouncing. What a headache! I might even put CommentLuv on this site and fix some other issues I've neglected to touch.

Once I get the email situation under control, my plan is to back up some pictures to our external hard drive (and probably the cloud as well) and try to get my Documents folder under control. I promise I'm much more organized at work!

And who writes a post almost a week overdue without a bump pic? Notmesaidtheflea.

that face when you realize that you're more pregnant than you have ever been before
(40 weeks, 4 days, post-Zumba class)

Have you ever done a big digital cleanup? Or nested in an unconventional way?

Preparations for Baby #2

Yesterday was my due date, which obviously came and went with no squishy baby to show for it. Normal? Of course.

While I'm not sure if I've technically "nested" (except the day I decided to vacuum out my car perhaps), we have done some stuff to prepare for our newest family member.

1. Getting the nursery ready (even though we won't use it for a few months)

Cora is staying in her room, and our office has turned into a nursery/office for now. We'll get the desk out of there when the need arises.

The empty space in the center bottom is where her name will go!

2. Getting Cora's room decorated
I had been meaning to do this since, um, August, when I repainted her room and decided on a coral and navy blue color scheme. So it was about time, but I knew we would switch some furniture out and rearrange so I let it sit.

 I made the 'artwork' with some art canvases covered in fabric. Then I cut shapes out of some other fabric and used fabric glue to attach. Easy project (although my stapler was not very good, and I ended up bringing home my work stapler to finish it. A staple gun is the best option, but the staples in ours were too big and stuck out too far.)

I think I still want to add some navy blue curtains to the window, and then we'll call it mostly done.

3. Buying new pajama pants
When I was pregnant with Cora, I had a short "pregnancy vs. x" series on the blog, with topics like Pregnancy vs. Habitat for Humanity and Pregnancy vs. A Music Festival. Well, this time around, pregnancy didn't stand in my way much. However, if I had to pick something to remember, it would be "Pregnancy vs. Pajama Pants."

I have ripped--the the point of needing to throw out--not just one, but TWO of my favorite pairs of pajama pants. They're the Old Navy lightweight cotton ones that I've had for YEARS, and they were the only pjs that still fit on my expanding bottom. The first pair didn't make it through the second trimester due to my own clumsiness in trying to put them on and stepping my foot right into the crotch part. On Wednesday, my second pair broke (also in the crotch) when I was cleaning up the house and squatting down to pick stuff up. I went to Old Navy on Friday and bought another pair (a size up, ugh). I even tried them on, which I don't recommend to any 40-weeks pregnant lady, like ever.

My newest pair. May they last as long as the old ones.

4. "Practicing" labor
Ugh. We thought I was in labor the day before I was due. Steady contractions all day long, but they were very mild. They never got more intense. I went to work the whole day and timed them with an app on my phone. Everyone was excited for me and was hoping to hear good news soon. My mother-in-law drove up to stay with us, expecting that she would be taking care of Cora while we were at the hospital.  But it never progressed to anything more than mild contractions.

I slept a bit, then woke up a bit nauseous on Friday morning (my due date) and decided not to go into work. Then it all just stopped. No more contractions, no more labor. I guess I ended up taking a "mental health day." I was mad. I felt like I was letting everyone down. And I was tired of getting texts from anyone and everyone about 'how was I doing, do you need anything?' (I think a lot of this was due to lack of sleep. Although I still don't want the bothersome texts.) I got hit by the one-two punch of prodromal labor, and I'm not a fan.

5. Looking at pretty nursing-friendly dresses online

Isn't this gorgeous? I still can't figure out if it's my size (it's a one-off listing on Ebay), and I have no desire to jump through the hoops for a return, so I'm refraining. But darnit, it's so pretty.

This dress on Amazon is also on my list.

6. Zumba and cartwheels
I think I've started to become a legend at Zumba, what with showing up the day after my due date for class. But I had so much energy this morning, and probably sweat harder than I had in the past 2 months.

40 weeks, 1 day, after sweating it out at Zumba Toning class!

I also did 2 cartwheels after the Tuesday class (during week 39), and it, uh, kinda hurt. As evidenced in this video:



Well, that's pretty much all the preparations we have made (aside from a half-packed hospital bag). Baby can come out now if she wants!

I Can't Have a Baby Right Now -- My Schedule is Already Full (7QT)

I wrote most of this last night, but B forced me to go to bed before I could hit "publish." He's a good man, but he'll never understand blogging.

--- 1 ---

It's all there in the title. While most women are trying everything under the sun to naturally induce labor by this point, I'm actually avoiding some of that stuff. No castor oil for me (never never, yuck).

--- 2 ---

First of all, I'm sick. Cora got some type of plague this past weekend and missed daycare in favor of sleeping all day on Monday and Tuesday, and then it hit me bad enough that I skipped out on Tuesday Zumba class. I'm still congested and should probably be sleeping instead of blogging right now.

I was lying on one couch, her on another. We sure know how to party.

Of course everyone at the daycare thought Cora's absence meant baby sister had come, especially since when B dropped her off on Wednesday morning, she kept telling everyone she has a sister. A sister named Daisy. Girlfriend is convinced her sister's name will be Daisy Duck.

--- 3 ---

We took Cora to an Easter egg hunt at her daycare this morning. They did a great job and even read The Story of Easter before the kids got to go on the hunt. For tomorrow, I won a photo session from B's very talented cousin, so I guess we'll be doing some [very] last-minute maternity and family photos (what to wear?).

--- 4 ---

If the baby comes in the next week, it messes up my maternity leave a bit, making me have to go back to work while B does his Reserve commitment in Italy the last 2 weeks of May. I'd have to find a sitter just for that short term since he'll be staying at home for half the summer (as far as we know right now).

--- 5 ---

This is the dumbest thing ever, but ever since I knew my due date was April 3, I never even considered having a March baby. April Fool's day baby? Yes. (This has been a very popular date in both my work and family baby pools, too.)

--- 6 ---

Aside from babies, who is playing the March Madness brackets? We have a tourney going at work that I'm pretty sure I won't win, but it's the first time I ever put money down on sports. I also filled out a women's bracket because I technically know more about that than the men's stuff. Notre Dame women all the way!

Georgia Lady Dogs didn't qualify for the tourney for the first time in YEARS, then our coach retired, but at least I have an awesome co-worker who made this dress for baby!!

--- 7 ---

My sister gave me a TON of hand-me-downs for baby. Reason #197,489 she can't come yet is this mess:

The 'pre-sort' pic is over on Instagram. It is scary.

My sister had twins a year ago, and between this and the clothes that multiplied, I'm a bit overwhelmed. Blessed, but overwhelmed.

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My Pregnancy Exercise Regimen (and other updates)

First of all, thank you all for your kind words and concern after my last post. They never called me after the 3-hour test, so as far as I know (a week later), I do NOT have gestational diabetes. Hooray! I had an appointment today and totally forgot to even ask, but it wasn't brought up.

However, I did bring up my exercise regimen, which has differed from the last time around. Amazingly, I'm working out MORE this time, even though I'm working full-time and have a kid underfoot. Last time, I had a part-time gig twice a week and could hit the free gym on base pretty much any time outside of that. I happily pay for a 'single parent' Y membership now, and it kinda forces me to use it or I feel guilty about paying.

With Cora's pregnancy, I did the elliptical. That's pretty much it. I would go when I could watch my favorite shows on cable on the gym's machines since we don't subscribe at home. I even did the elliptical on my due date. I still remember that workout vividly. I remember trying to picture what kind of birth I would have and how much my activity in pregnancy would help my delivery, recovery, and weight loss.

I did have a good birth with Cora, and the weight came off pretty easily. I'm hoping for mostly the same this time, but the elliptical kinda bores me now. I also haven't gone running since the Thanksgiving race. This might have more to do with the weather--I hate running in the cold!

Belly pic time: 30 weeks, 1 day

I have maintained a goal of working out at least once a week this time around, with a solid attempt for two times a week. I found that going at 5am before work was just not working for me, so I'm now trying to hit Zumba or Zumba Toning class twice a week because I really do love it! The Zumba we do at my gym is so different from the first time I tried it (way back in 2010--you can read about that here). It's such a party in there! And we do a lot of current songs and not so much the stock Zumba songs. The instructor pulls her routines off YouTube. You can see a similar version of the one we do to "Uptown Funk" in this video.

While I am having a blast, I got word from the nurse practitioner today that I'm probably letting my heart rate get too high since I am actually having some slight contractions during it (just a tightening at the base of my belly, but pretty sure that's a contraction?). Ugh. Darned if you do, darned if you don't, right? I do the low impact moves, but I think I'm just having too much fun in there. I might get a heart rate monitor to see if I can keep it below 140, or I might just march in place or step-touch more often from here on out.

This is what comes up when you search "pregnant Zumba." I chortled.

Aside from exercise and my occasional doomsday vibes, this pregnancy is actually going quite well on paper. I've already gained more weight than I did the entire time with Cora, but I'm within the normal realm. (I still hate thinking about how I'm the heaviest I've been in my entire life and I still will probably add another 10 lbs to that!) I'm sleeping well, the baby is kicking a lot, and she got the hiccups for the first time last night when I went to bed. I had almost totally forgotten that was a thing.

When There Is No Pregnancy Glow

I'm sitting here in the first hour of my fast on the night before my 3-hour glucose test. After failing the 1-hour just as fantastically as I did in my pregnancy with Cora, I also found out that I have pregnancy-induced anemia this time around. In addition, I've basically convinced myself I'm going to fail tomorrow and get the official Gestational Diabetes diagnosis within the next few days.

But I'm definitely welcoming GD if that's the worst of my troubles. See, for most of this pregnancy, I have had a 'sinking ship' kinda feeling. With Cora, all of my worries melted away after we got a heartbeat at the 10-week ultrasound. This time, it took until the 20-week one and some signs of movement before I started to feel at peace. I actually felt movement 'late' for a 2nd pregnancy, so I wasn't sure what was going on before that ultrasound (turns out, anterior placenta). I had about 9 weeks of optimism, and now I'm back to the doomsday vibes.

This snowman didn't even last a day.
This picture is single-handedly keeping my hopes up for a good winter.

Maybe I just hear too much. I'm in a few faith-sharing FB groups, which obviously include prayer intentions. Every other day, I can't help but clicking on the "trigger-warning" posts: infant death, stillborn babies, dads with terminal cancer, anencephaly diagnoses, the list goes on and on and on. I click because I want to send up a prayer for these friends of friends of friends, but I probably need to just lay off the bookface for a month or so. (The rest of my feed is a mostly-happy mixed bag of quotes and pictures of friends' kids, which I do enjoy.) I should probably default to my bloglovin' feed vs. my Facebook, since most blog posts lift my spirits.

I also feel like I've been so distant from my kid in her final days of undivided attention. Some of it is just natural, as B is the one who takes her and picks her up from daycare most days. My husband has been especially wonderful with Cora, even though she has hit the 'threenager' stage big-time (her birthday is next week). She has started waking in the middle of the night for various reasons (last night was "I want my mommmmyyyy!"), and he is the one who deals with it. What a rock star.

I'm not really sure where I was going with this post (do thoughts on a page really need to go anywhere? that's so American, isn't it?). But I'm tired and sorta sick (hello, phlegmy cough that I can't take anything for right now). The baby is kicking, which I know is a good sign and has quelled my fears in the past. Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and feel amazing again. Lord knows I want to.

A Gender Reveal!

I am 23 weeks pregnant today!

. . . Which means that we had the "big ultrasound" almost 3 weeks ago. And we kept a secret from everyone, until Thanksgiving Day. (If baby hadn't been 100% healthy, we wouldn't have kept any secrets.) My parents had come up for the holiday week, and we were doing the big feast at B's aunt's house. I figured it would be the perfect time to announce if Cora would be getting a brother or sister.

For my sister and her family who live in GA and weren't with us in person, I made a word search and emailed it to them! There were a LOT of kinks in this (repeated words, etc.), so just know that if you want to go that route. I used this website, though, and this right here was the actual word search I sent if you feel like doing it. (You'll probably find some errors or such, but you'll figure it out.) The leftover letters tell you a phrase with the answer. It's easiest to do these types of searches if you circle each individual letter instead of the whole word.

As for the rest of everyone present at Thanksgiving dinner, we did a balloon pop. There were a lot of kinks in this plan, too. (Can anything ever be so easy for me??) But here's the video, and with the sound on you can hopefully figure it out (even though B accidentally had his finger over the mic for the first part):

We did pink and blue balloons so people could pick a side (since it wasn't actually a gender reveal party where people come dressed for their 'team'). All of the blue ones got chosen, as I think people were just hoping for the one-and-one. We had to fill the wrong ones with white confetti (confetti being torn-up crepe streamers) because you could totally tell if the color didn't match. Some things I'd do differently if I use this idea again:

• Use helium-quality balloons. They're more opaque. The crappy blue balloons I got at Wal-Mart for a buck were basically clear and we had to dig out some other blue ones from our party stash.
• Don't use pink and blue balloons. Maybe black and purple and designate which goes for which, and fill them all with the correct color. People had no idea what the white meant, since all I told them was "you'll know if you're right."
• Maybe only use black and make people get into teams on each side of the room.
• Have people hold the balloon in front of them or over the head. Just trust me on this; I had done a practice balloon on my dad, and he held it above him and it was awesome. Plus, he clearly could see the color because it was falling on him.
• Have someone help me pass out stuff (B filmed the whole thing, and I ended up cutting the video down because it was rather boring and you couldn't hear anything because his finger was over the mic). Also figure out a way to give the pins out quickly, since his aunt accidentally popped her balloon while I was still passing pins out. (White confetti came out and nobody knew what it meant). I had threatened that if anyone popped theirs early, they would have to clean up the mess. (That was moot because all participants did a good job of cleaning up!)
• Another idea I kept seeing when doing research: only one person gets the 'reveal' balloon. Everyone else has white confetti so that one person gets to shout it out.
• Get a better videographer. (Sorry, B.)

Maybe the proverbial next time we'll just do a cake like everyone else, but I think everyone present thought this was a fun activity to throw into the Thanksgiving celebration.

My Life Exhausts Me, But At Least My Daughter Is A Genius (7QT)

--- 1 ---

Well, I think the title of this post says it all. I have way too much going on right now. I'm now 19 weeks pregnant, I'm still in the learning curve of my new job, my husband is a grad student who doesn't get home until after 6:30 four nights a week (so I have to get dinner cooking as soon as I get home), I'm dealing with a sometimes-ornery toddler, and I'm attempting to stay fit and healthy. Oh, I'm also a student taking classes 3 mornings a week to get my real estate license (required for my job), so I'm reading and studying (read: falling asleep in my textbook) every night. To top it all off, I ended up having a medical issue this Monday (unrelated to pregnancy and rather minor) that left me in a good bit of pain. I'm mostly recovered but still have a big bandage on my back.

At least I voted on Tuesday.

--- 2 ---

So, yeah, it's exhausting, but I'm enjoying my new job! It's a lot of different stuff every day, and I've gotten the chance to design two ads already. My portfolio is happy, and I'm learning lots of new stuff.

--- 3 ---

Cora is doing great at daycare. After about a month, they decided to move her up to the 3-year-old class, even though she doesn't turn 3 until late January. I was a bit skeptical, but it seems to be a good fit for her! Not to get too much into mommy wars territory here, but if we had waited until "3 and ready" to potty-train, this couldn't have happened. (She actually started at daycare in the 2.5-and-potty-trained class, instead of the 2.5-and-not class.) Also, it's $20 cheaper a month for us now! Win win.

She can spell her name aloud and count to 25 on a good day. She knows some numbers in Spanish (thanks, daycare!) and a handful of sign language. (Yeah, I'm bragging, but I'm also writing it somewhere so I can remember for later.)

--- 4 ---

Speaking of my little genius, here is a video of her putting together a 24-piece puzzle with no help last week. (I sped up a good chunk of it.)

--- 5 ---

Belly picture? You got it.

This was at 18 weeks even.

--- 6 ---

It snowed on Halloween here, just for the exact time we went trick-or-treating. We bundled up and hit about 7 houses. But I made sure Cora got to the one that gives out full-size candy bars! She enjoyed being Minnie Mouse.

--- 7 ---

And she is now prepared for winter, thanks to the snowsuit I just got her. (Burlington for the win.) She calls it the "Minnie Mouse coat" for obvious reason.

I'm thinking I might have to cave and buy a maternity coat this time around. Also, we can't put Cora in the car seat in that coat. What a pain in the butt. Can you tell I'm already dreading winter??

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How We Chose Her Name

Our little one is already 2 years old, but I don't think I ever shared why we chose her name.

Since we wanna get pregnant again, like tomorrow, baby names have been on my mind. My sister is also expecting twins in April and they are keeping the names (and the sexes!) a secret. That's a complete 180 from her last pregnancy, when she called me up right after her 20-week ultrasound and said, "It's a girl, her name is Emma Grace."

To which I replied, "You can't name her Emma! It's the most popular name in the country!"

I've always been kind of obsessed with the birth name popularity. Even way back here in my early blogging days, I had a tab on all the babies born the previous year to people I knew. (Liam and Sophia were the big ones in 2010. I would say Henry and Lucy have been popular in my circles recently.) I still check the SSA site a bit, but not nearly as obsessively as before. (I can't wait for the 2013 list to come out though!)

So taking that into account, our child is named Cora Elizabeth.

We kept the name a secret, which was good because we didn't even name her until a good hour after she was born. We walked into the hospital with two names we liked, and just figured one would fit her better. (We did each name in the scrabble tiles during our maternity photos.) I delivered at 1:30am, so I was still in a daze from the birth and kept waffling on the name when finally B put his foot down and said, "Let's go with Cora." Once it came from him, I knew it was right.

At some point in my pregnancy, I got some baby name books from the library, and both B and I pored through them. We had lots of caveats: no names that usually get shortened to nicknames, no going by the middle name instead of the first, no initials that spell a word (JEW was a real possibility and it just bothered me since we're Catholic), and B was slightly opposed to anything longer than 2 syllables since we have a 3-syllable, 10-letter last name. (I did not agree with him on that last one, since I reminded him that he has 2 brothers with 3-syllable names, and they don't seem too hindered by it.) We were having a tough time agreeing on anything, so we finally split up and each wrote down a list of names we liked.

My husband's list, mostly ("Margaret" is in my handwriting.)

My husband's list contained popular names from when we were born in the 80's: Stephanie, Sarah, etc. Nothing against those names, but uh, I didn't want an 80's baby born in 2012. My list had more of those 'grandma-turned-modern' names, like Charlotte, Virginia, Nora, etc.

Cora was on my list. He shot down Nora, but somehow Cora was okay with him. The baby name book said it was a Greek name and meant "maiden." Nothing objectionable there. I knew at this point to NOT inform B that there is a Food Network chef named Cat Cora. He would have nixed it right away. He found out in the hospital after we had named her, from one of the male nurses who asked him if he watched "Iron Chef." Too late now, sucker!

For the middle name? We knew we wanted a more Catholic name for the middle, since there is no St. Cora (yet!). I also didn't want a kid with the exact same initials as I have, so anything starting with A was out (my middle name is Ann; my mom's name is Alyce so that got tossed as well). We waffled about Claire (with the i!) for a bit, but Elizabeth won out. We agreed that St. Elizabeth (the biblical one) should be our girl's patroness.

I think the BEST part about keeping the name a secret was that I did a baby pool and added a name category to it (you can still see it online!). Seeing what other people thought (or hoped) we would name her was hilarious--I even printed the whole thing out for her baby book. My dad, whose name is Charles Harvey, chose Charlene Harvette. Sorry, Dad, maybe next time.


Linking up with Team Whitaker's Baby Names Story linkup. Check it out!

my thoughts on Pretty Pushers gowns

As y'all know I win a lot of giveaways. Well, I win a lot because I ENTER a lot of them, and I try to find ones with less entries to up my odds (uh oh, my secret is out!). Anyway, while I was pregnant, I was intrigued by the idea of a cute labor gown made by Pretty Pushers that I had seen around the internet. I knew I probably wouldn't pay out of pocket for it, and I wasn't sure if anyone I know would give me one as a shower gift, but I ended up winning one!  I always think that's the best way to try something out.  And I'll say it right here that Pretty Pushers did not convince me in any way to review their product--I just wanted to.

Now when I was looking at these, I was reading some of the Amazon reviews.  Everyone loved them, but hardly any of the comments were from the actual user AFTER the birth.  Most comments were something along the lines of "I can't wait to wear this in labor--so cute!" or "I just gave this to my niece who is about to have a baby and she loved receiving it!"

Well, I definitely loved receiving it, too.  Along with the "I dream of Sushi" Pretty Pushers gown, my winnings also included a headband and two pairs of post-partum underwear.  The first thing I noticed was that the cotton was super soft!  The company tells you to dispose of everything instead of washing it afterward since it's cotton and will break down easily (they say that's more eco-friendly since labor goo is hard to get out).

I was actually looking forward to wearing this in labor.  It's basically a halter gown with a low back for an epidural with a few ties in the front for the fetal monitors or whatever.  However, if you read my birth story, you'll see that I was in the standard-issue hospital gown during labor and right after delivery.  When they had me suit up in the gown, the Pretty Pushers was still in the bag in the car.  I think it worked out though because I was actually pretty cold most of the time and the sleeves on the hospital gown kept me at a really good temperature.  However, I did actually wear the headband, and it helped a lot.

Even though I didn't wear the gown during labor and delivery, I did wear it for the next two days of my hospital stay!  After they helped me take off the hospital gown that was covered in who-knows-what (they really did put the baby on top of me and my gown immediately after delivery), I had B fish out my Pushers gown and I put that on.  It was actually really awesome for post-partum recovery!  People tell you to bring an old nightgown for that, but I actually don't wear nightgowns, so I definitely didn't have an old one sitting around and I didn't want to buy something just for this.

You may be wondering how I breast-fed in that, but I think it was probably easier than the hospital gowns.  Since it's a halter top, I just yanked the neck over my head each time I fed her and then pulled it back when I was done.  It was really comfortable that way.  It was also super-easy to go to the bathroom in, since it's a dress.  (If I had gone the "old nightgown" route, it would have been old boxer shorts which would be way more difficult.)  I also got a ton of compliments from the nurses once whenever I got a wave of energy to walk the hallways!  I unfortunately don't have any pictures of me during those two days I was wearing the gown.  Actually, it's probably fortunate because I'm pretty sure I looked like crap!  I had a really rough recovery, so at least I felt pretty good wearing my gown.

As for the post-partum "disposable" underwear, I only used one of the two pairs.  The hospital had that mesh disposable underwear, so I mostly used that.  But at one point, I just didn't want to wear medical supplies any more, so I opted for these.  They were nice, and they have a drawstring.  They have a place to put an ice pack, but I never used them that way.  My only issue was that when I won the contest, I was in denial about my true size--so I probably would have loved them more if I had gone a size up.

And did I dispose of any of this stuff?  Actually, no.  Since I wore it during my recovery, it didn't get all too gross.  I just tossed it in the wash with my other clothes when I got home, and it came out fine!  I currently have it tucked away for the next pregnancy.  Maybe then I'll actually wear it during labor!

 

conquering my fears

If there's one thing I've taken from my whole pregnancy/birth/new mommy experiences, it's how much I've worked through some of my fears.  I usually don't have many fears, but for some reason, the thought of labor and delivery freaked me out.  Here are a few things I was scared of and how they played out:

• The IV.  Although I'd been stuck by needles in my inner elbow a lot, I'd never had an IV before.  I knew I had to get one regardless of my pain meds because I was GBS positive, and I knew they would stick it in the back of my hand.  Yes, it HURT, but I managed.  When I came close to passing out the first time I used the bathroom after delivery, I was so glad that lock was in there because then they just pumped me with some more fluids.
• The epidural.  Holy cow, I was so scared of this.  I was crying when the anesthesiologist first came in, and she had to give me a few minutes to calm down before she could even do anything.  It ended up being not bad at all, and I will definitely do it that way again for the next baby.

So happy with the epidural!

• A catheter.  I think I only feared this because of another friend's birth story where they put the thing in before the epidural.  But for me, they waited until after it had me mostly numb so it wasn't a big deal.  The idea of it still kinda grossed me out, but overall, it was fine.
• Post-partum depression.  Yes, during my pregnancy, I just had this feeling that this would probably happen to me, even though I've never had any history of depression or other mental health issues.  Well, I don't have full depression, but I did have some pretty bad "baby blues" the first two weeks and talked to a counselor at the hospital a few weeks ago about it.  I had a hunch it was mostly due to sleep deprivation and the hormonal issues, and she called it on that as well.  It's mostly subsided, but I'm seeing a counselor again soon for a check-up.  But I've learned that the depression happens to a lot of moms and getting medicated is quite alright and nothing to be frowned upon.
• Tearing.  You know what?  It happened, and there's nothing I could do about it.  I had a lovely 2nd degree one, and I'm still recovering.  I was hoping by 6 weeks the pain would be gone, but my baby will be 7 weeks tomorrow and it still comes and goes.  I have my lady appointment tomorrow and am dreading it!  Luckily it seems that Tylenol still helps.  I really want to get back into working out (at least doing some elliptical and some ab exercises to firm up the tummy), but this is basically the only thing stopping me.

It seemed that initially a lot of people were more excited about my pregnancy and birth of baby than I was.  I was not "over the moon in love" those first few weeks.  I was exhausted and sad and sometimes regretted it (newborns are boring, by the way!).  Breastfeeding was still painful and my baby hadn't regained her birth weight (more on my ups and downs with those issues in another post).  I remember my sister calling and asking, "Are you enjoying it?"  I love that I could just tell her, "No."  I probably couldn't have been that honest with anyone else other than my mom.  And she told me that my "no" was perfectly okay, and a lot of moms don't enjoy it at first but won't admit it.  I felt so much better and less guilty after that.  If you're wondering, I am starting to enjoy it now!

See??  I look like I'm enjoying mommyhood finally!

 

the birth of Cora Elizabeth

Well, everyone loves a birth story, right? (If you don't love 'em, then don't read this.)  I'm not even going to apologize for the length of this post, since I wrote it just as much for myself as for anyone else.  If you want the CliffsNotes version, see the first picture.

Two days past my due date, I woke up around 3am to go to the bathroom.  When I tried to go back to sleep, I was pretty sure I felt a contraction.  I lay in bed for a bit to make sure it wasn't just hunger or something.  But they kept coming, so I got out of bed around 3:30 to work through them on my own.  I didn't feel the need to wake B yet since I knew that I had to go at least 2 hours before calling the hospital.  I knew I couldn't focus on looking at a clock to figure out the intervals, so I googled for contraction calculators and used this one on the Bump website.  I was also updating Twitter and reading some blogs during the intervals.  (That first/bottom tweet was time-stamped at 4:13am.)

My labor tweets that spanned almost a 24-hour period (start at the bottom)

Around 6am, I decided it was time to wake B up and let him know.  Then I hopped in the shower and B packed the rest of the stuff for the hospital bag.  He knew we still had a bit to go, and went in to work (we live really really close) to tie up some loose ends and put in his paternity leave.  Around 7am, he was back, and I called the hospital.  The nurse on the other end asked me a few questions and decided I was still in early labor.  She told me to hold out longer until I couldn't talk through the contractions and got really annoyed if anyone was talking to me while they were happening (the latter never actually happened).  I resumed my internet timing and B and I just did whatever for a few hours.  I needed to try to talk through contractions, but I had nothing to say (for once in my life), so I was trying to name the presidents in order.  I kept getting stuck around number 7 or 8 and it was driving me nuts.  This eventually turned into a day-long joke about our child coming out looking like Martin Van Buren.

NOT what our baby looks like.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day here in Pensacola, so around 11am or so, B suggested we take a walk.  We walked to the mailboxes and around our apartment complex a bit.  I was leaning on him through each contraction, and apparently my neighbors and some of the office staff noticed me laboring.  We found out later that the office sent someone over to check on us at one point, but we had left by then.  It was actually so nice and sunny here that even in my knee-length skirt, I was getting too hot outside.  We came back inside, let it go a bit longer and called the hospital again.  This time, I got some clown (possibly a corpsman) who hardly asked me any questions at all, but I said I'd called hours before, so he just said to come in.

The ride to the hospital was amazingly smooth.  I only had about 2 or 3 contractions the whole time (the hospital is pretty close, so that helped).  B couldn't find any close parking, but decided to park in the open spot labeled "Hospital CO's Guest" with intent to move it later.  When we walked in the hospital, one of my fellow volunteers from Navy-Marine Corps Relief was at the front desk (she also does Red Cross volunteering), and she asked me, "Is this it?!"  My reply: "It better be!"  She wished us luck and we hopped on the elevator.  Which. Stopped. At. Every. Floor.  L&D was up on the top floor, of course, and we just had to endure the 10 other people in the elevator with us.

We got up there, and I bee-lined it for the water fountain, not knowing when my next drink of water would be.  Then we checked in and got put in a triage room.  I labored in there for a bit, the OB on the floor thought my name was "Cather" because it got cut off on the paperwork, and then they tried to check my dilation.  I say "tried" because two different people (both men) couldn't get it.  I knew I was hard to check (I'm super jumpy), but sheesh.  It was decided then that they would officially admit me to L&D and get an epidural started so I could at least be checked.  (I had no real birth plan and was just sorta "playing it by ear," so this was fine with me.)  They made me get in a wheelchair to go a whopping 100 feet or so to the room that would become our new home for a few days.  I wasn't very happy about the wheelchair, and I made that known, but had to cave anyway.

B surprised me by wanting to cut the cord.  He now says he'll never do it again.

Before the epidural, they had to start my IV, both of fluids and one for the penicillin since my GBS test came back positive.  I think they also grabbed some blood samples during that.  The IV in my hand was seriously one of the absolute worst parts of my labor!  I was still doing good breathing through contractions at this point.  The anesthesiologist then came in, and I freaked out because I was so scared.  She gave me some time to calm down and then talked me through it.  It actually was not that bad at all--it felt like getting a shot, really, and it hurt way less than that IV in my hand!  Also, once it took, I realized that it quelled my one and only pregnancy complication--a super-itchy rash called PUPPP that had developed on my belly within the previous week.  Those monitors strapped to me while in triage were a total bear because they made the itch worse, but thank God for the epidural.

Who's about to push out a baby?  This girl!  And for my own memory's sake, I would also like to point out here that I wore my rings through my entire pregnancy, including through labor and pushing.  I call this a victory.

Now it was time to just sit around and wait.  B moved the car, brought up the bag we packed, I watched some TV, called my parents and sister, chewed some ice chips, texted my friends, and just chilled.  It was kinda nice.  My doctor finally came in to check my dilation, and I was already at 7cm!  She actually high-fived me.  (I'm not kidding.)  I was so happy.  Then I finally called her out on her own pregnancy and asked her when she's due.  Ha.

Since I was progressing so well, my doctor was pretty sure the baby would be out that day, and B went out in search of that day's newspaper.  We had decided previously that he should get a New York Times.  He was gone for quite a while, so I thought he'd gotten himself dinner or something, too.  He came back with no food and a USA Today, telling me he went to like 4 different places and no one sells anything other than that and the local paper.  Ah, well. I was still calm and got to watch my favorite show.  Here's me answering Jeopardy! questions while in labor:


We had to wait until 8pm for my second round of penicillin, and then my doctor came in to break my water.  She tried a few times, but my water wouldn't actually fully break.  She asked me if perhaps I'd had a slow leak over the past few weeks, but if I had, even I didn't notice it.  She ended up breaking it a little bit, but there was no big gush or anything.  Apparently the water bag was kinda behind baby's head or something, and it wasn't a huge deal.  After another check, I was pretty much complete, but my epidural was also wearing off a bit on my right side.  Actually, ever since it was put in, my left was way more numb than my right.  (In hindsight, I think this was because the nurses kept propping me up ever-so-slightly with a wedge, but only on my right.  Next time I'll make sure to get them to move it.)  I couldn't even feel my left leg at all when I touched it, but my right leg still felt kinda normal to me.  We decided to get it fixed, and this delayed pushing for another few hours.

I finally started pushing around 10:30pm.  B got the glorious honor of holding my right leg and also counting to 10.  We did each contraction in a series of 3 pushes, wherein each I had to hold my breath for 10 seconds at a time and push really hard.  I wasn't making that much progress after an hour, and my doctor started threatening me about not having enough space and possible C-section.  She knew how much I wanted this baby to be pushed out, and at this, I was more determined than ever to do it my way.  I also reminded her that my mom (who was 90 lbs pre-pregnancy) pushed me out, and she has told me that I've had my "birthing hips" since I was 12 years old.  An older nurse who has been doing L&D longer than my doctor has been alive came in to help and said I definitely had the space.  I love that nurse.

Anyway, I realized later that it just took me an hour to really learn how to push.  I wasn't doing it hard enough, and I wasn't getting enough air on the inhale part to support it.  The next round of pushing went so much better.  The nurse on my left would get quite vocal when my pushes were really strong and she could see good progress, so that was very motivating.  By the third hour of pushing, the old nurse had me going four pushes for each contraction since I was gaining momentum through each series.  I knew I was getting really close when I looked up and there were a ton of people in the room.  The "baby handlers" had come in and it seemed like there were 20 people in the room.  And I did not care one bit.  Everyone was getting really excited and saying the next contraction would be the one.  I did my four pushes, and then both me and the old nurse wordlessly decided I could do a fifth.  And on that fifth push, out came baby!  It had turned into the next day, January 26, at 1:28am.  Yeah, almost 3 hours of pushing!

The Navy Hospital gave her the ugliest hats!  And the crochet one I made was way too long.

I was still wearing a bra and the hospital gown, and they just placed her on top of all that and cleaned her up.  My first words were, "I can't believe something so big was inside of me!"  And then two seconds later I hollered, "It is a girl, right??!"  I gave her a good look, but honestly, I was kind of exhausted and didn't really care whether she was on my chest or not.  B had cut the cord at some point, and then they took her over to the warmer to weigh her and clean her up some more while I delivered the placenta.

While she was at the warmer, her cries got louder, and some medical person in the room declared, "Good set of lungs!"  I had to laugh at that point, and then I shared the story of how those exact words were the very first thing the doctor said about me when my mom gave birth!  Take a listen for yourself:

It took us another half-hour or so to actually name her, and that was hard!  We had two names picked out, and the one I had sorta convinced myself we would go with just didn't seem to fit.  I needed B's help, though, and eventually he said, "Let's go with Cora."  I said it a few times to her, and that was that.  Cora Elizabeth.  Our daughter.  Whoa.

 

still here, still pregnant

Well, in case you were wondering (like everybody else) . . . nope.  No baby yet.  Due date was yesterday.

We're starting to try a few old wives' tales to induce, but only the fun ones.  Walks are fun, eating eggplant parmesan is fun, and a few other techniques may or may not be fun (you know the one).  I decided against making labor cookies because just reading the recipe made me wanna throw up.

I have a few predictions here.  First of all, I came a week or so late and was born on the 1st of the month.  Maybe Baby W just wants to be like her momma?  I also have a guess of the 29th, due to some family history of babies (my own mother, in particular) born on the 29th.

My other prediction is that she's waiting for me to finish reading Gone With the Wind.  I checked this book out from the library around Thanksgiving and obviously intended to finish it before giving birth.  Well, I'm just over 800 pages into the thousand-page tome.  I've already maxed out the renewals and had to check it in and check it back out again.  I even tried skipping ahead and just reading the last sentence, but she wasn't fooled.

We're trying to figure out when to schedule an induction, and my doctor will let me go all the way to 42 weeks (Feb. 6) if I want.  I'm trying to figure out if that is what I want.  I mostly want to avoid a c-section, and that would probably be my best bet against it (and completely out of my control if it does take that turn).  B got out of his monthly travel for this week since it was close to my due date, but he couldn't get out of the entire week he has to be gone from Feb. 13-17.  I've been trying to figure out if I'm going to get stuck with a one-week-old baby alone or not--it's a delicate balancing act between my mom's visit and when my mother-in-law will come.  I'm so confused.  If baby just came this week, it wouldn't be an issue!!  Sigh.  I know I shouldn't complain a lick since I know a lot of people whose husbands were deployed when they gave birth.  But we waited until shore tour to avoid that!  Oh well, this is the only Navy baby we'll be having, so whatever.

I'm not that tired of being pregnant yet, except for the development of PUPP (basically a really itchy rash on the belly!).  My doctor gave me some cream for it today, thank God.  The other thing I'm tired of is everyone "checking in" or asking if I've had the baby yet.  You will know when she comes, I promise!  For you out in blog-land (who have been very good to me and not pests at all), here is how you will know: look at my sidebar.  See the Twitter feed?  You can even click on it to get to my actual Twitter account if you want, but it gives the last two tweets there in the widget.  If it doesn't say "Baby W is here!" or something like that as the top message, then she isn't here and I'm still sitting on my bum waiting.  No, I don't have a smartphone and the hospital doesn't have wifi, so I won't be uploading pics from the hospital, but I found that I can text in a Twitter status.  I can even hashtag it in such a way that it will be my FB status.  So there ya go.  Everybody, just chill out already!!

(Okay, I just looked and in the 2 minutes that I wrote those previous sentences, one of my bigger nuisances just left another message on my FB wall asking if baby was here yet. *headdesk*)