Can things get any more nuts?!

Well, you'll notice I haven't posted recently...with good cause. We are moving in 9 days, and I have no idea how we're going to pull it off. I have spent every minute I possibly can packing...and I feel like I've barely made a dent. I will probably not post again until after the move, but when I do, hopefully it will include the full birth story. That will probably be the last post to this blog. This one was pretty much to track the pregnancy, so I'm going to start a new one on the whole family. Here is a link to pictures that our photographer did of Mia. She wants to take more, since some of the poses didn't come out like she had hoped, but I don't know if we're going to get that done before the move.

http://www.ninemonthslaterphoto.com/miak

Take care!

Birth Story in pictures

Here is the link to the slideshow our photographer made out of the photos she took. I hope to have the written version of our birth story to post soon, but for now, this will have to do! Feel free to leave any comments for the photographer here for her to read.

http://www.ninemonthslaterphoto.com/mia.html

Mia is continuing to do great! She was back to her birth weight within a week, and is a wonderful nurser. She's having more awake periods now, and it's pretty nice to see those little eyes just taking everything in. I'm doing just fine too...still having trouble with making myself take it easy. One of the potential pitfalls to homebirth is moms feel so good afterwards, they tend to overdo it. Joe is doing a pretty good job of keeping me in check...most of the time.

Mia just woke up, so we're off to nurse...again!

One Week Old!!

I will post the entire birth story when I have more time...but here are the bare bones:

On September 13th at 2:15 am, Joe and I welcomed Amelia Grace to our family. We had another wonderful home waterbirth...and the midwives were even here this time! She was 7 lbs, and 20 3/4 inches. We are all doing beautifully, and the boys are in love with their new little sister.



Here we are at 6 days old...sorry for the haze in the upper right corner, but apparently Dom got his finger on the lens and we didn't catch it...Mia is the important one in the picture anyway! :o)

D-day

So today is the official "Estimated Due Date"...big whoop. Since only 20% of babies are born on their due dates, I'm not expecting a whole lot to happen in the few remaining hours of this day. I don't think I've gotten much bigger in a week...what do you think?

I had a couple of rough days this week. Thursday and Friday I had these pain in the butt, piddly contractions ALL DAY. Literally, they started at 7am, and were every few minutes all day and all night long. Nothing I did made them stop, so we tried to move things along by taking some good brisk walks. While we walked they got nice and strong, but as soon as we stopped, they went back to just being annoying. By Friday night I was pretty much mentally done with being pregnant. I went 41 weeks with Dom, and just could not imagine another week of having those type of contractions all day. I hadn't gotten much sleep because it was seemingly impossible to get comfortable, so that didn't help either.

Today however, wasn't so bad, and I'm in a much better frame of mind. I got a good night's sleep last night, and I didn't have the annoying, mild contractions all day. I only the usual "when I bend over or stand up from sitting or laying down" contractions, which are much more managable.

We went to Curtis Orchard today, sort of our last family "outing" before we go from a family of four to a family of five. The rain was nice enough to stop while we were there, and it kept the crowds to a minimum. It was a nice change of scenery, and the boys had a great time...especially feeding the goats:

I'm pretty sure next time I update this it will be with a baby announcement...but I've been wrong before!

In the home stretch!

So here is a 39 week belly picture:





I've had two midwife appointments since I last updated, and happily everything is still good! Baby has had a nice growth spurt, because I've been eating like a horse for just that reason...to fatten the kiddo up. You do learn something new every day, and what I learned at my second to last prenatal is that skinny, long babies (like mine tend to be) can have nursing problems because they don't have much body fat. I would not have thought the two were related, but here's why: A baby without a lot of body fat has trouble regulating their body temperature. They can therefore burn through sucrose really fast, and become hypoglycemic, which causes them to be very sleepy, and they won't wake up to eat, even if they're hungry. So I've been eating everything in sight for the last week and half. This baby is feeling pretty long like the boys were (both measured 21 1/2 inches), and hopefully I'll still be pregnant a bit longer so I can get the kiddo up to at least 7 lbs. or so.


Baby is also no longer posterior, and is "really far down" according to my midwife. That makes me incredibly happy, since malposition has been one of my biggest concerns this whole pregnancy.


Everyone (except me) thought it would be amusingly ironic for me to give birth on Labor Day. Despite a nice bout of waves that had me wondering if I should call the midwife and let her know we might give birth last night, no dice. That is the second bout of warm-up we've had (the first was over a week ago, and that time we actually did call the midwife to let her know we thought we were close). I didn't get real worked up last night, which was good because they fizzled out around 10 pm after about 6 hours. I really don't mind being pregnant longer, as I'm still quite comfortable, with the exception of some fairly constant reflux and heartburn resulting from the drastic change in eating habits in the last couple of weeks. Not to mention these kids are always easier to manage on the inside than they are on the outside, and a couple more weeks of ease is never a bad thing!


I'll have a new update Saturday on my "guess-date!"

Almost 39!

Just a quick post to say I'm still pregnant...which is totally, completely, and utterly fine! I didn't update last weekend because it got pretty crazy since I had a friend from college come to visit, and I spent very little time on the computer...and getting on during the week is still a challenge. I will post a 39 week belly picture as soon as I get Joe to take one, and will update you all on my last (and possibly last two) prenatal appointments.

Officially "term" already?

Wow...37 weeks already! I'm having a hard time believeing that I am at the point where this baby is considered "full-term." Even stranger to think about is that this baby could come anytime. Odds are he or she won't, but it's still exciting and weird to think about. Joe and I set up the birthing room last night, and that really hammered home the fact that we're going to have another baby very soon. I'm really pleased with how well everything came together down there. The bed and pool fit perfectly, and everything is within easy reach and will be easy to find for us and the midwives. It may sound strange, but pulling out my nursing pillow and thinking that "I get to use this again soon!" made me smile.

Baby is still nice and active (often overly so in my opinion). S/he is still head down, but was posterior at my last position check. I certainly don't want to be back-laboring with a posterior baby, so I'm doing a whole bunch of pelvic tilts and really watching my posture to encourage this little one to rotate to anterior. I still have some time, so we'll see what happens.

I'm seeing the chiropracter about every two weeks, since I've found that my back and hips go wonky pretty easily now. I'm really looking forward to my apointment today, since my right hip has been driving me nuts. I've also started taking liquid calcium with magnesium every day, as I've been having quite a few episodes of Braxton Hicks and some round ligament pain. Other than that, I'm still feeling great...tired, but great. I know I could (and probably will) be pregnant for another few weeks, but I'm really anxious and excited to meet this baby. Since I'm having another pretty comfortable pregnancy, I wouldn't mind this little one staying in there longer (because as strange as it sounds I really do enjoy being pregnant). But I'm already feeling a little frustrated because of wanting to meet them and finding out who they are. Oh well, they'll come when they're ready!

The quilt is finished! All said and done it took a little over 42 hours start to finish. It was completely worth it though. I'm thrilled with how it came out. I really enjoyed the whole process, and definately plan to do more. I think I'll stick to smaller sized ones for now, like baby-sized and lap quilts...no big bed ones yet! Here is a picture of the finished product:

And a detail shot:

We also had our maternity portraits taken this past week. I absolutely love how they came out!! I want to make a note about the ones with the "older" looking shoes on my belly. That is a pair of Joe's shoes from when he was a baby that his mom gave us. Here is the link to our proofs on the photographer's website:

http://www.ninemonthslaterphoto.com/kolodinski.html

And here is the obligatory 37 week belly shot:

That's all for now!