Little Bug's birth story

Haley Marie was born at 6:07 am, January 2, at 8 pounds 4 oz, 20 1/2 inches long.

I started having irregular contractions on Christmas. I was due December 27, but from Christmas night on, I was having sporadic contractions.

Around 3 pm on New Years, the contractions started coming a little more regularly, about 20-30 minutes apart. By 8 that night, they were roughly 10-15 minutes apart again. We sent our midwife a text to let her know what was going on, and she told me to take a bath and try and get some sleep. I did, and went to bed around 11. The contractions had pretty much died out again. I went to sleep and slept until 2 or so. They were roughly an hour apart. Went to the bathroom, had some bloody show, went back to bed. At 3, they started coming 10-15 minutes again and were getting difficult to work through laying down, so I got out of bed around 4. I started watching The Office to distract myself, and then suddenly the contractions were coming every 5 minutes or so. They had gotten very intense, so I woke Zach up after 3 of those. He came out and helped me through some and called Kat. Kat and her assistant showed up a little while later and they set up the birth pool. At some point, before Kat got here, Noah woke up. Zach's mom took him back in the room and put him back down to sleep. Shortly after Kat got here, she listened to LB's heartbeat and checked me- I was dilated to 6 already. The contractions started coming right on top of each other shortly after that. Around 5:30, the pool was finally ready and I climbed in. The relief was instantaneous. I was sitting in a sort of squat and was starting to feel like pushing already, and after a few contractions in the water, I started pushing without being able to stop. Everything happened pretty fast after that. Kat told me on the next contraction to reach down and see if I could feel the head. My body just took over, and I was pushing again, so I reached down and I could feel the head. Feeling the head coming out with my hand was a really incredible feeling! Another push and the head was almost all the way out. After resting for a minute, I pushed with the next contraction, and Little Bug was out! I pulled her to my chest, and Kat had to use the suction bulb to clear her airways before she would cry. She also had the cord wrapped around her body (not her neck, just her body), so Kat unwrapped that and then she cried. We still didn't know if it was a boy or girl. I think somebody asked and I looked and said its a girl! She started nursing shortly after, and after a while, I got out of the pool to deliver the placenta. After that happened and Haley nursed a whole lot more, Kat checked me over and her assistant did the newborn exam and weighed and measured her. I know at some point before she was weighed, I commented on how small she was. She's 8 pounds, 4 ounces, which is over 1 1/2 pounds smaller than Noah was- no wonder I thought she was tiny!

She's nursing well and is super adorable. Noah has a cold so he hasn't been able to get too close to her yet, but he seems ok with her right now.

From the start of active labor to birth was 2 hours and 6 minutes. It was crazy fast! All the irregular contractions had been doing something. =)

I'm sure I'm leaving some things out, but that's how I remember it right now.

Haley is named after Zach's great grandpa Hal (hence the spelling) and Marie comes from me and my grandma.

25 weeks and appoinment

We had an appointment on Tuesday. Baby is doing great, heartbeat is 147 (which is very boyish), and I measured 24. I've gained 6 pounds so far, and I'm still below starting weight with Noah. Urine test was clear- no more infection and no ketones! Probiotics galore did the job. =)

Kat talked about birth supplies and some of the options we have for after baby is born. She talked about this herbal bath thing we can do after and it sounds amazing. And she was talking about how Zach or I could do the baby catching part- she would provide support through crowning and once the head is out, provided there's no cord in the way, Zach or I could grab the baby. That made me super excited! I've been daydreaming for a few weeks about pulling the baby out and putting him on my chest. The thought of finally being able to hold LB makes me very excited an teary-eyed. I'm so excited.

LB is still transverse, which isn't a problem yet. Kat mentioned doing some poses from spinningbabies.com to help him (....or her) get into a good position. I think baby should generally be head down by 28-30 weeks or something. So we're still ok for now, but I'll add the poses to the end of my prenatal yoga workout.

Symptom wise... I feel mostly fine. I've noticed a little bit of heartburn over the past few days, and my feet are swelling a little. No big deal.

So that's about it.

20 week appointment update

We had a good appointment. Blood pressure was great, and I'm measuring 20, which is spot on. Kat found the baby's heartbeat right away, which was nice. Last time LB tried to hide. She said he's hanging out right in front, which is cool, and right now he's lying transverse facing in. She could feel his bum. =)

Noah was being very adorable and studying everything Kat did. When she was feeling for my uterus, he started feeling my belly too. After she had measured me, he lifted up his shirt and she measured him too. And when she was rubbing in the aloe (she uses aloe as the gel to transmit the doppler noises), he helped. Super cute. =)

LB's heartbeat was 137-149. He would move around and be all excited, and his heartbeat was higher, and then he would settle down, and that's when it was 137. Kat said that's what boys do. So I've just started referring to LB as a boy. I think it's a girl, but I know it's probably going to be a boy, so I'm just referring to him as a boy for now.

I lost about half a pound this past month. I'm up a total of 2 1/2 pounds now (still about 5 pounds lower than where I started with Noah). I think that's a good starting point. The rest of the pregnancy is when the weight really starts to come on, so I think I'm doing well so far. I'd like to keep the weight gain at a -healthy- minimum.

The only slightly bad thing is that I have an infection that's trying to get started, and I'm spilling keytones, I think, but Kat gave me some instructions on how to take care of it.

That's all. Other than that I'm super duper excited for December. =)

20 weeks

Half way through again! I'm surprised. It feels like it's flying by and dragging on at the same time. We're going Team Green again, so I kind of hope it continues to fly. I want to know if LB is a boy or a girl! It's driving me crazy. I don't know why I do this to myself. Team Green. Bah.

LB is the size of a banana now. 6 1/2 inches head to foot, 10 1/2 ounces. Goooo LB! 

I'm feeling movement every day now. It's still pretty spotty throughout the day, but I enjoy it. I haven't really had too much in the way of symptoms lately. Some headaches. Some heartburn. Hot all the time, but that might be because I live in Vegas. Crazy, crazy dreams. Like dreams that could be turned into novels about this scary distopian universe and become best sellers and turn into a smash hit movie, Hunger Games style. Maybe I should write them down.... I wouldn't turn down a book contract. Or movie rights. Then when I'm being interviewed and they ask me where I got the idea for the novel, I could say "oh, y'know, I was pregnant. Having crazy dreams. And I was watching a lot of Doctor Who."  Score.

There are a lot of foods I've been wanting lately, although I think Pinterest is largely to blame. Cinnamon rolls, shrimp, crab rangoon, any Chinese food (oh, how I love Chinese food). I haven't really been hungry though. I'm mostly eating because I know I need to. I've had a cold lately, though, and that may be why I haven't had much of an appetite. Whatevs.

Noah... is going to be 2 next month (what??!?). Um. I don't know how that happened. I'm still trying to figure out what happened to the sort of little baby that I held that first day. Wasn't that just yesterday?

He's becoming a lot more verbal. Most of his words aren't super clear yet, but he's been stringing a couple words into sentences, which is super cute. He likes to watch the garbage truck empty the trash can every week, and when it drives away, he runs back to me and says "cah go?" holding his hands up. I don't think he could be more adorable if he tried.

We're going to have to turn his carseat around soon. I'm super bummed. He's an inch away from the height limit, so once he gets there, he'll have to be forward facing. We'll have to turn him around once LB comes anyway, since we can't fit two rear facing carseats in our itty bitty car. I'm still hoping he can make it until then. He's got 6-7 pounds until the weight limit, so he should be good there. We'll see. December's not that far away....

If there's any truth to "mother's intuition," LB will be a girl and will be coming early. I've been feeling very convinced of that. But trying to prepare for it being opposite. Because this family makes boys. And Noah was super duper late. So. There's that. We'll see in December. Or January. Probably January.

16 week appointment

I love our midwife. She's awesome. Just wanted to throw that out there. =)

LB (Little Bug) is taking after his/her (his) brother and evading the Doppler as much as possible. But we kept hearing him move, and I felt him move every now and then. Kat (midwife) eventually got the heartbeat for a couple seconds- it was 155. Noah's was usually in the 145-155 range, I think. She kept commenting on how fast LB is; he'd dart around when she moved the Doppler.

Uterus measured 16, which is spot on (at 12 weeks, I measured 13). Blood pressure was a little high, but still ok. We went over the results of my bloodwork from a couple weeks ago, and Kat was super excited that my hemoglobin was 14. Apparently that's awesome and highly unusual. There were a couple minor things that showed up in the bloodwork to take care of- I'm losing (leaking?) trace proteins, and I'm not completely sure what that means, but Kat mentioned it could just be a dietary thing and recommended a couple things to do to take care of it. She mentioned the Brewer pregnancy diet, so I'm going to look into it. I also need to drink more water. I've been really bad about it this time around. I just lose track of time and get to the end of the day and realize I've only had 32 ounces of water. That's no good.

So I have a few things to take care of. Nothing big, and Kat said if we listen to our bodies like this and address problems, we have less chance of running into bigger problems down the road. I really like Kat. =)

Otherwise, I'm doing well. I have random moments when I feel sick, and I sporadically feel LB fluttering around. I love those flutters. I'm very excited to feel them more consistently. I've had a couple instances of heartburn and hip pain, but it hasn't been a big deal.

For the record, I think LB is a girl. But because boys are pretty much what this family has, I'm going to assume its a boy. And if it's a girl, we'll just be pleasantly surprised. =)

Cravings

I don't seem to have weird pregnancy cravings, like pickles and ice cream (the exception of course, being french fries dipped in a chocolate shake- but that was a pre-pregnancy favorite). My cravings tend to be normal foods that I just don't like. With Noah, I wanted sauce on my spaghetti, and mayo on my sandwiches. And I started eating bell peppers. All normal things, but not something I would eat.

This time, I'm wanting jalapeño poppers. I hate spicy food. I do not like jalapeños. And yet I keep seeing jalapeño poppers on Pinterest and it makes my mouth water.

I'm also really wanting potatoes. And soups. But I love those anyway.

So. Jalapeño poppers. I may be trying some soon. (Or I may substitute bell peppers for the jalapeños... But y'know)

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