This Is So Embarrassing...

This is so embarrassing to admit out loud. The only reason I am is because I hope that it helps another mama out there feel not so alone. I wish I found someone else who admitted this so I didn't feel like such a terrible mom. I'm also only sharing it because my kids will never know (you're sworn to secrecy, reader, or I will punch you in the kidney).

I had a glamorous first child experience. She slept when I wanted her to sleep, ate when I wanted her to eat, wore what I wanted her to wear, and giggled when I tickled her. Basically- she was the perfect child for a control freak like me. Of course we had bad days- teething cries, fevers, shots, don't want to drink from a cup, won't eat anything but cheerios, screams when you leave the room, etc... These are all normal baby behavior. However, these were like 10% of who my daughter is (and that's being generous). She's cute and easy to love because she's easy to handle. She started sleeping in 11 hour night stretches at 11 weeks old - which is heaven for this mama who LOVES her sleep (loves=needs 9-10 hours to be pleasant).

I am a big schedule mom- I use the Babywise method. I sacrificed going many places so my kid could sleep in her crib for both her naps every day. I sacrificed going places while she was awake because I wanted her to be able to crawl/run around and play with her toys instead of being strapped in a car seat between naps. [I know not everyone agrees with that but it was our parenting decision and we don't regret it] Well, right when she was finally at a really flexible age- like skipping a nap here or there or going to bed late since we were out, etc... her brother came along and rocked my world.

Everett was not an easy baby- at all -for the first 5 months. He cried incessantly, never napped well, and worst of all- was the absolute spawn of satan in the middle of the night (remember I said I need 9-10 hours or I want to die). Now, I'm a realistic person. I'm sure Everett behaved better than many babies out there. I'm not playing into this mom-competition (or, mompetition) phenomenon where I'm claiming my-child-is-worse-than-yours-so-you-should-feel-bad-for-me-and-grateful-for-yours. All I'm saying is I had a difficult time adjusting to a more difficult baby than my first child.

This led to feelings of resenting Everett (remember- your kidney). I missed time as just a family of 3. I hated that the kids were so close together that I hadn't had enough time to just focus on Joelie. Ya know, a child's world opens up when they start walking and they just start advancing so much every day. I had Everett a mere 6 weeks after Joelie started walking. I was missing out on so much with her because I was constantly tending to him. I feel like I can't challenge her and teach her how I want to because I'm back at the beginning with a baby who can't do anything for themselves.

Everyone says you shouldn't have a favorite child- but let me be one of the few to admit that that is very difficult at this stage. Joelie is SO MUCH fun. She walks, talks, hugs, kisses, pats my back, runs to me, says she loves me. And then there's Everett, crying crying crying. Yes, I've liked Joelie more for the bulk of Everett's short life. If that makes me a bad person, then so be it. I'm nothing if not honest.

And then it happened. Magic. We changed Everett's formula! After trying 5 (yes 5) other things to help him, changing his formula did the trick. He started sleeping through the night- 11 hours. He's napping better, crying less, and just a much happier baby. This started happening right around the same time he was really rolling more, playing in his jumper, etc... aka- not just a blob. He gets so excited when I come in his room to get him. He smiles and kicks up a storm. He absolutely cracks up anytime Joelie is playing near him. He thinks his dad is the bees knees (what does that even mean?).

Of course he's not the perfect baby, and still fussier than Joelie, but that's ok. He's my son and I adore him (I've always loved him, just didn't like him very much sometimes). I'm so excited that he and Joelie are close in age and think they'll have so much fun growing up together. It's taken me almost 6 months to really embrace the stay-at-home life of having 2 under 2. It's exhausting and often not rewarding- but we do feel this is what's best for our family.

I know how extremely lucky I am to have children at all, and to have 2 healthy ones. I certainly do not want to sound ungrateful. I am just a real mom who is trying to adjust to a more difficult baby, not working outside the home, and having kids so close together. I feel like such a terrible mom for my previous attitude toward Everett. I hope I'm not alone in these transition feelings from 1-2 kids, but if I am, oh well- sue me.

Wow- didn't realize I had rambled on for so long. Sorry about that! To compensate you for your time here's a picture of my one and only, chubba -bubba :)

Everett's Birth Story

It all started last May when...... just kidding :)

Everett's arrival was all up in the air (aren't they all?). The farther along in my pregnancy I became, the more doctors were unsure of my actual due date.  I really wanted to have a vaginal delivery this time but I was SO miserable toward the end. I scheduled a C-section for 3 days after my first due date. About 2 weeks before that, the doctor said she thought I was measuring small so she sent me for an ultrasound (this was deja vu from my first pregnancy). That ultrasound showed that I might be due a week later than they thought. I pushed back my scheduled section another week - I really didn't want to get cut if I hadn't even hit my due date yet.

So it was Tuesday, February 19. I woke up at 5:12 a.m. from a contraction. I kept contracting about every 10 mins. I went downstairs to the couch so I wouldn't wake Barry until they were closer together. I contracted like that for about 2 hours. I finally called the doc and told her some things that were going on and she told me to go to labor & delivery. So I ate something (knowing they wouldn't let me once I got there) and we were off! But then my contractions pretty much stopped as soon as we walked into the hospital. Boo. So after getting violated by a few different doctors, doing a non-stress test, and having another ultrasound- they sent me home.

I contracted maybe 3 times an hour for the rest of the day until 7:30 p.m. I started contracting every 8-10 minutes. I couldn't sleep all night and kept contracting every 8-10 minutes until 4:45 a.m. (Meanwhile Barry was sleeping like a baby-ha!) They kept coming but weren't getting any closer together. I finally called the doctor at 4:45 a.m. and she said I could come in to labor & delivery and get checked. If I was dilated, they'd keep me. Or I could wait till 8 a.m. and go into the office and get checked. Well, after contracting steadily for 9 hours at home, I decided I was not going to wait till 8 a.m. to get checked. Because, in case you were wondering, contractions are NOT fun. So, again, I woke Barry up, ate something and off we went!

Much to my surprise, I was dilated to 3 centimeters! I was so terrified happy when they said they were going to admit me. At about 6:30 a.m. they asked me if I wanted an epidural. I said "I can have one already? I thought I had to be more dilated?" She said "Nope, you can if you want!" Hmm let me think about it, does a bear crap in the woods? OF COURSE I want the drugs! Well that was around shift change, so it ended up being around 8 a.m. before the anesthesiologist made it to my room. The nurses kept apologizing that I was having to wait, but I mean, after 9 hours without it- another hour wasn't going to kill me. (Sidenote- my nurses were amazing!)

After getting a spinal with Joelie, I wasn't that worried about getting an epidural (even though I'm terrified of needles). I just didn't look at the equipment and told the drug dealer anesthesiologist to not tell me anything he was doing. So he and the nurse started talking about their dogs (lol) while he was shooting me up. It was great because I was listening to their conversation and not thinking about that giant needle in my back. He said it would take about 20 minutes to take full effect. Well, about 45 minutes later, I was still feeling pretty much everything. The nurse called him back in and he was shocked I wasn't numb. He gave me some more - woo hoo! The nurse said "Man, you are on some serious amount of anesthesia!" It finally worked and all was right in the world!

I tried so hard to take a nap since I had been up since 5 a.m. the day before but I couldn't. My room was right next to the nurses' station which is a hoppin' place during the day. Well then, we were in the middle of selling one of our homes in TN so Barry had to go to the bank and take care of some things. He felt bad leaving me but I told him I was fine and was only dilated to 4 so we had time. So the day went on basically just waiting to dilate more and trying to rest.

However, every few hours, my epidural would completely wear off and we'd basically have to start all over with that. Everyone was shocked I wasn't staying numb but I wasn't surprised. If you remember, my spinal didn't take with Joelie either. But when it was working, it was fun for Barry to look at the screen and say "Whoa that was a huge contraction!" I couldn't feel it at all. An epidural is a beautiful thing! Now for the life-wrenching terrifying difficult fun part.

It was about 4:45 p.m. and the nurses/doctor said they were coming back in 15 minutes and I was going to start pushing. Well, lucky for me, this is exactly when my epidural started wearing off again. The nurse came back in about 5:10 and I told her and she said they weren't going to give me any more because I was so close and they didn't want to slow labor down. So I braced myself for having to deliver with almost all my feeling back. At 5:17 p.m., I started pushing.

Delivering was definitely not what I thought it was going to be. First of all, my feet were not up in stirrups (like on tv, ha). And the doctor wasn't even in there for probably the first half of me pushing. The baby was really starting to progress out and one nurse told the other nurse "you better call the doctor, she needs to get here" To which I replied "I hope you can catch because I'm having this baby whether the doctor is here or not!" And on we went, push-breathe-push-breath-push-breathe, water. I repeated that cycle until our little man finally emerged at 6:13 p.m.

They put him up on my chest and started wiping him off and Barry told me it was a boy! All I could think was "OMG IT'S A BOY!!!" and "OMG HE'S SO GROSS!!!" They announced his time of birth and I just laid there holding him while the doctor finished her business down in my business. Then I said "someone's gotta take him, I'm gonna puke!" One nurse grabbed the baby and another put a bowl next to my face and I yakked everywhere. Have you ever tried to puke laying down? It's virtually impossible to not get it all over yourself. So that was good times.

So they took his measurements, wrapped him up and handed him back. And they all lived happily ever after.

Dun, dun, dun...

February 1st. You know what that means? It means I'm officially in my baby's birth month. Do you know what that means? It means I'm anxious and huge! I am still working on my Master's degree - to be conferred in May. I'm trying to get a lot of my work done before the baby comes, though. I had planned to do almost all my remaining work during the month of January but then we decided to move so I spent all of January packing up our house. Yikes.

I have gained far less weight with this pregnancy than with Joelie, which I think has attributed greatly to my state of discomfort (33 total vs. 20 to date). Also, this baby is head down which I now know is FAR more uncomfortable than baby laying across you like Joelie was. Every time I stand up I think I'm going to pee myself or the baby is going to fall out right there. Oof!

So today I woke up and became very anxious about it all. I have 60 pages to write and two projects to complete. Granted it's all due by May, I can't help but know it will be much easier to write with only one baby than it will be with two. So if you have any extra motivation lying around - please send it my way! Having Joelie not so long ago, I remember how completely worthless I was for about 4-5 weeks. I am not looking forward to that again.

Also, I have scheduled a c-section a few days after the due date in the event that I haven't gone into labor by then. Doctors will not induce a vaginal birth after a woman has had a cesarean so my only options are to go into labor naturally or have surgery again. Today I found out that the earliest in the day they can have my surgery the week after my due date is 2 p.m. and I'm not allowed to eat after midnight the night before. Are you kidding me? Do you know how dangerous it is to tell a pregnant lady she can't eat ALL DAY?! Talk about cruel punishment! Not to mention I will have to literally twiddle my thumbs all day just waiting for them to cut my baby out - not cool.

So here's to hoping that I go into labor on my own some time in the next 2.5 weeks (due date is Feb 16). We've also ordered a crib and some diapers so hopefully those are here before the baby is! (oops) Praying for baby to come soon and for these papers to write themselves :) Better go pack a hospital bag...

Stats:
*Baking Time: 38 Weeks
*MIA: Comfort
*Cravings: Cookie dough ice cream
*Worst symptom: Big baby, little belly.

*Lessons Learned: Head-down babies make you have to pee a lot.