Home at Last

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Peter picked Lydia and me up from the hospital and brought us home this afternoon.  Alethea (who was being watched by Gramma and Aunt Leah) was thrilled to see me walk in the door and seemed a little surprised, but pleased that I’d brought the baby with me.

Just a few other observations from the day:

I found out Lydia has dimples!  She ‘smiled’ in her sleep and I saw one on each cheek.  I’m glad, dimples are so cute!

Alethea has been very sweet to her sister today, giving hugs and kisses and saying ‘gentle’ every time she goes to touch Lydia.  I can see though that she is struggling a little bit with all the change, since she’s been testing the boundaries more than normal.  She also screamed a few times, which is a new thing for her.  It wasn’t directed at anyone in particular, but it was definitely a sound of frustration.  We also had some tears when I left the room at bedtime, which isn’t entirely unheard of, but certainly not the norm.  Over all though, I am extremely pleased with how well she is handling everything.

I mentioned to one of the nurses this morning that I had been scheduled to be induced, but that I had gone into labor on my own.  She said it was probably a good thing because Wednesday night the ward was completely full, which means, it is quite likely they would have had to reschedule my induction.  I know I would have been completely depressed if that had happened!  Whew!

After having a bit of a rough night last night, Lydia has slept nearly all day long.  I am wondering if that means we are in for another rough night, or if she’ll just keep sleeping.  We’re about to find out because we’re all off to bed!  Goodnight!

Sisters

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Mostly this post is about cute pictures of my little girls, but I just have to say while I’m thinking about it that Lydia currently has the coolest eyes you’ve ever seen.  Today she opened them really big in the light and I saw that they are brown in the center and they fade out to a dark blue around the edges.  I’ve never seen any eyes quite like them and they are so great!  I don’t suppose there is much chance they’ll stay that way though.  She’ll probably have all brown eyes, just like me, which is nice too.

So here are a few pictures from tonight of the first time Alethea (my blue eyed girl) got to “hold” Lydia (my blue/brown eyed girl).

Alethea thought it was important for Lydia to meet Dee

Alethea thought it was important for Lydia to meet Dee

Turns out the baby has a nose, cheeks and eyes!

Turns out the baby has a nose, cheeks and eyes!

Sisters! Awwww!

An Update from the Hospital

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Elise here.  Lydia Grace is sleeping right now and amazingly there aren’t any nurses in my room, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to write a post about our newest family member and her arrival into the world.

First off, I’d like to say thanks for all the prayers and words of encouragement.  It was fun to read your comments on the blog while we were waiting for labor to progress yesterday.  Speaking of labor, can I just say how much easier it was the second time around?!!?!  I thought maybe I would try to do this one without drugs, but then after experiencing real contractions without an epidural for the first time, I decided that it was better for everyone involved if I just got the epidural after all.  It did slow things down, which I was afraid it might, but then with a little pitocin things got moving again.  At 1:08 they told me I could start pushing.  They said they thought she’d come quickly.  I said, “The last one took me three hours to push out.  I’ll believe it when I see it.”  At 1:15 our baby girl arrived in the world.  Amazing!

For how much I was dreading labor, I have to say, it really wasn’t that bad the second time.  And now I feel great!  I’m actually more comfortable and mobile than I was at the end of my pregnancy!  If it weren’t for the room service and free night time babysitting, I think I’d just check out of the hospital now.

But I know none of you stopped by today to hear about the delicious (or not) hospital food.  You want to see baby pictures.  Here’s one I took this morning:

Lydia has been a real champ.  She’s feeding like a pro and sleeping great too.  Our night did start out a little rough because she kept spitting up amniotic fluid and then choking.  I was so afraid to fall asleep because I knew that after having been up for 40 hours straight, I was going to really be out once I did.  After the fourth or fifth time getting up to help Lydia spit out the fluid, I sent her to the nursery so that she would be safe and I could get some rest.  The nurses brought her back in the middle of the night so I could wake her up to feed her (which I didn’t do).  Then we both slept until 5:30am when I did finally decide to wake her up so that I could to get some food into her stomach.

We had a relaxing morning together and then Peter and Alethea came by so we could spend some time as a family getting to know each other.  Alethea likes ‘the baby’ and only seemed to get jealous of her when I was feeding Lydia.  However, even wanting to be near her little sister hasn’t cured Alethea of her dislike of getting her picture taken:

Well, my lunch is here, so I’m going to eat, but I’ll write again (and post more pictures!) when I get a chance.  If Lydia keeps sleeping so well, it might even be tonight!

Baby update

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We are at the hospital – arrived at 4am this morning. Everything is going smoothly so far. Elise got an epidural around 6am and is taking a nap. It took us 3 days to get to this point when Alethea was born so we are feeling good.

-Peter

In Labor

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Contractions suddenly started right as I was going to bed around midnight.

Currently 2:49am – haven’t been able to sleep, but am grateful that it appears I won’t have to be induced after all.  Planning on heading to the hospital as soon as we get loaded up.  I just wish I could stop shivering.  Taking a queen size down comforter in the car seems a bit impractical though…

On My Mind Tonight

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So the plan for tomorrow is to call the hospital at 6am and they will tell us what to do.  Apparently there are three possibilities from there: 1) They say “Come on in right away” 2) They say “Come in at X o’clock” or 3) They say “Sorry, we had a sudden influx of women whose bodies actually go into labor on their own and so we can’t accommodate you today.”

Either of the first options is fine with me.  The third one would feel like the universe playing some sort of cosmic joke… and it really wouldn’t be funny.

At least I feel ready though.  Not that I don’t have things I could still do (there’s always something!), but I’m pretty sure I’ve done everything that is truly necessary to prepare for tomorrow.  My bag is packed, Peter’s sister Leah is staying over tonight so that we can leave early in the morning if we need to, there are a few meals ready to go in the freezer for after I get home, we have diapers and supplies waiting in the nursery and the house as a whole has probably never been cleaner than it is at this very moment.

So here are the last things weighing on my mind tonight and if anyone wants to say a prayer about these, I’d sure appreciate it:

1) Alethea – I really don’t know how she’ll do with me being away for a few days or with the baby’s arrival.  I hope she likes her and isn’t too mad at me!

2) My Cold – I’ve had a persistent cold for the past few days and I’m a little nervous because it feels like it is turning into a sinus infection, which is definitely possible, since I’m prone to those.

3) A Long Delivery – I’m beginning to realize how much I had my heart set on the ‘it will be easier the second time around’ theory.  Of course, even with a scheduled induction, things can still be far simpler than they were with Alethea, but now that induction day is almost here, I’m getting anxious.  Let’s face it, I’m sort of a wuss when it comes to pain.

Despite these worries, I want to let you all know how much I’ve appreciated all the phone calls, texts, e-mails and blog comments I’ve gotten over the past few days.  I feel very loved and supported and that makes a world of difference!

Either Peter or I will be posting from the hospital tomorrow (assuming we don’t get turned away), so come back for more updates!

1 Hour Until Due Date

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I’m feeling a little guilty here.  It is only one hour until Baby B’s due date and only 25 hours until her scheduled induction date.  Did I jump the gun?  Should I have given her a little more time to come on her own?  Honestly, I’d much rather go into labor naturally, but the fear of going way overdue and having to push out another 10lb child is overruling every other feeling at the moment.  I’m trying to tell myself that it will all work out in the end either way, but somehow pushing my child into something she’s not ready for seems like a terribly mean way to start out her little life.

In any case, I am sort of glad she didn’t come early.  Sure the tax deduction would have been nice, but I’ve gotten so much done in the last week and a half: laundry, house cleaning, Christmas cards, receipt sorting for taxes, Christmas decorations put away, more house cleaning and lots more laundry!  I even got the load of baby woolens washed.  (We have a ‘wool’ setting on our washer, which makes me feel like I ought to do the wool things by themselves, but when do I ever have a whole load of wool clothes to wash?)  Which brings me to Alethea’s funny moment of the day…

I kept telling Alethea that the little hand-knit wool hats, mittens and sweaters on the drying rack were ‘for the baby’, but apparently she didn’t quite get the message.  I was in my closet hanging up some clean clothes when around the corner comes Alethea in a yarmulke, or at least that’s what I thought it was until I took a second to realize she had adorned herself with one of the baby hats and it didn’t come anywhere close to covering her cute bobble head.  I got quite a good laugh from that one, but unfortunately she took it off before I could get a picture to share the moment with you all!

Well, I suppose I should get to bed here.  I have an early morning appointment with the midwives.  Who knows though, maybe I’ll go into labor in the middle of the night and then I won’t have to worry about going to the appointment or feeling guilty about scheduling an induction at 40 weeks.  One can always hope, right?

The Butterfly Effect

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It all started when Alethea noticed that her Duplo boy was wearing a hat:

Then she looked over and noticed that Daddy was wearing a hat too…

Alethea looked at Mommy, pointed at her own head and said, “Hat. Wear!”

Then Alethea, Daddy and the Duplo Boy were all wearing hats:

But why stop there?

Alethea was very insistent that Baby needed a hat too.

A cap was found in the nursery of approximately the correct size and promptly Baby’s head was covered:

Poor Baby can’t breathe and in the end, it’s really all because of the Duplo Boy’s green hat: