Owen's birth story, 9 1/2 months later...

I was scheduled to go into the hospital to be induced the morning of December 18th, 2013.  I was 39 weeks pregnant.

I was more than ready to not be pregnant anymore, and since Owen is our last baby, have one last labor and delivery.

I forgot to pre-register, so we had to do that first. By the time I got all registered and set up and pitocin in, it was 7:30 am.  I didn't expect not to get to hold him for another 12 hours.

The first 11 hours of my labor were long and slow and drawn out.  I read, watched TV, dozed and chatted online with a few really good friends.  There were some very disheartening moments, when the nurse considered me further progressed than my doctor did.  Either way, I made it to about 5cm by noon, and pretty much stayed there all afternoon.  I broke down into tears at one point, too.  It felt like the never ending labor.

I got an epidural around 2:30 in the afternoon, and for the first time in my 5 experiences, my blood pressure started really dipping.  I had the anesthesiologist in my room monitoring me and adjusting things for over an hour.  It was actually fairly scary for me, as I could feel my brain going fuzzy and see the concern in the faces of my medical staff.  Owen's heart rate started dipping at that point, too, and they put me on an oxygen mask.  I don't know if it's this way for anyone else, but it was SO claustrophobic for me to wear it, which started my downward emotional spiral, I think.  They also put an oxygen sensor on Owen's head, and took off the external heart rate monitor.  Which meant that I could no longer hear his heart beat.  Even though I felt him moving, and was able to reassure me that way, it was really emotionally difficult for me to be laboring without that sound.  It took a lot of effort for me to try to calm my mind and body.  My baby was okay, and would remain that way, but it was just too close to my first labor, which of course had no fetal heart beat to hear.

By 6:30, I was progressed to 7 centimeters, and it had been 11 hours of labor.  At that point, I started feeling really uncomfortable.  I was having hot flashes and waves of nausea, and intense downward pressure.  The pain was coming through the epidural.  I think it was at this point that my stop chatting online.  The contractions were accompanied by a searing pain in my round ligaments.  It was a burning/tearing sensation, and I wanted nothing more than to be in any position other than on my back.  Of course, between the fact that I had an epidural in and could not support myself on my legs, and Owen's heart rate really dipped when I sat up, I had no choice but to lay back.  But I wasn't the most rational person at that point (pain does that to a person), and the nurses kept having to push me back down.

At 7:20, my doctor determined it was go time, after telling me she'd do "one last check and then maybe it's C time."  I was so ready to just be done and hold my baby.  My body was doing it's own thing, too.  Since I could feel the pressure and contractions, I got to tell the nurses when I was pushing instead of them telling me to.  It was nice to get to boss them around a bit.

He was born, screaming, at 7:47pm.  Finally.  7lbs5oz and 20 inches, making him my 2nd heaviest baby, but my 2nd shortest.

And we are so in love.

July wrap-up.

Its August already!  I can't believe it!  3 more weeks of summer vacation...when did that happen?  I feel like time is doing this weird thing where each day feel like soooooooo long but then I look back and MONTHS have gone by without me noticing.

Owen turned 7 months!

He's getting so big! and he's such a sweetheart.  No crawling yet, but he rolls everywhere.  I think he's thinking about trying to crawl though.

We haven't been doing anything really noteworthy, but we celebrated Batman's 75th birthday at the local comic store

Got a little sunburned

visited the redone mall play area

And crocheted

Okay, not really on the last one.  I mean, Erin and I have been.  Owen just chews on everything he gets his hands on, as babies do. Funny thing, I told Patrick that Owen puts everything he can get his hands on in his mouth, and he didn't believe me.  Well, he got close enough to Owen for Owen to put his hands on his face, and suddenly Owen was slobbering all over Patrick's face.  So, yup, he tries to eat everything he can get his hands on.

But we love him.

A bit of a catch up.

Time always gets away from me.  I think I just need to accept this as a permanent state of being.

So, Tuesday my visiting teacher invited us to go swimming at the pool in her little gated community thing.  We had gotten floaty things at the end of June (we were invited earlier but couldn't make it), and there was hardly anything to choose from! Apparently if you want pool stuff you have to buy it in, like, April.

But we were able to get a few things.  Even if they were pretty much all pink.

Turns out Owen is my fair one.  The other three all tan pretty well, but Owen looks so pale compared to them!

Speaking of Owen, I gave him some little baby biscuits today.  He LOVED them.

They're banana biscuits and I made the mistake of giving them to him (and, picking up the soggy pieces and giving them back to him when he dropped them) while eating myself.  Even though I wiped my hands off, there was enough to make my tongue tingle and throat kinda feel dry.  Hopefully he doesn't inherit my allergy because he loves bananas!

Hello supercart

I want to kiss whomever invented these

 Usually when I have all four, Erin walks and Patrick and Allison sit on the extra seats.  But today Erin *reaaaaaally* wanted to ride (she said it exactly like that.  "I *reaaaaaally* want to ride, Mom!"), so that forced Allison into the basket (since she's smaller and takes up less room for other things).  She was not happy at all.  I feel for her a little, I mean, Erin took her spot.  But tough beans. Sharing means sometimes someone else gets the good seat.

Anyway, her fussing started into a full-on tantrum as we passed the books.  This Wally world actually has a pretty good book section.  So I grabbed one, and handed it to her.  Yes, I bribed my child to end a tantrum.  But the fact that it WASN'T candy has got to mean something, right?  Of course, that means everyone else had to get books too.  Again, it's got to be good that it wasn't candy, right?

People always give me looks in stores like I've got four heads instead of four kids.  When did four kids become a lot?  Maybe my perspective is skewed coming from a family of seven, but honestly, is four really all that unheard of?  Thankfully they were all generally well behaved today, aside from Allison's original fussiness.  Because sometimes it cascades and then everyone is tantruming.  *That's* when four becomes a lot. But not today. Today it was actually kind of fun.  We were buying ingredients for ice cream sundaes for dessert.  Everyone got to choose something.  Hopefully they'll still be that happy after dinner.

Spinning around...

What is it that all 2-3 year olds love about spinning around and getting dizzy?  She's already fallen over 3 or 4 times, but she keeps spinning.

I said to myself "okay, what time is it?" and she said "Mom, iss spinnin time!  Wook at da cwock, iss spinnin time!"

Okay, honey, sure. It's spinning time.

Starting again.....again.

So, I used to be so good at this.  And then I realized that it's been almost a year since I posted and it makes me a little sad.  I was looking back at old posts because I am starting a scrapbook page and wanted to see what I'd posted about these pictures.  I didn't post these specific pictures, apparently, and I don't really remember what was happening, and it made me sad.

I've been having a hard time since Owen was born.  I've been feeling so overwhelmed.  Like each day I'm barely emotionally hanging on and I still have SO MUCH that needs to be done at the end of the day that I just can't do.  And I'm having a hard time figuring out why four is so hard.

Anyway, we had a pretty good afternoon today.  I woke up this morning with a bad headache, and I didn't want to do anything, but we'd told Erin that we'd try to make it out to a little water park that's nearby, so we went.  And my headache didn't go away, and now I'm slightly sunburned, but the kids had so much fun.  And their laughter and smiles make me happy.

Expected too much of myself maybe?

Guess what, moving is hard.  And moving while pregnant is harder.  And it takes a long time to recover from.

So I haven't updated the blog for a long time.  Hard to have the energy to do really anything at all.

We're doing good though!  Erin started first grade

And Patrick started preschool

Allison turned 2!

And baby boy has a name!

We're still living with several boxes.  Once we got to a certain point in unpacking (and the internet got set up :p ) things came to a halt.  But it's still really bothering me, so I'm going to be trying over the next few weeks to get them unpacked or out of the way somewhere.

I love my new house.  Except for just a couple little hiccups, it's great.  But I am really missing Denver's fall weather.  Denver was really the only place I've ever lived that I felt totally at home in, so it's been hard now that the permanence of it (and DIFFERENCE of it) is settling in.  And I may just be a tad bit hormonal.