The Readiness Is All

I started getting this post ready for the lovely blog, but I was trying to take some of the most important parts of it out because we don't always get overtly religious on the lovely blog because of the multiple writers with many backgrounds, so I just decided to post it here.

Post-Christmas blues hit me really hard this year. We came back from Texas, my husband went back to work, my parents went on a 3 week trip to Australia, and the boundaries for my church congregation changed while we were out of town, so I was no longer had working with the young women to look forward to every Sunday and Wednesday night. My kids had a major case of the post-vacation grumpies, as did I, and I just felt incredibly frustrated and snappish, which of course reflected back to me in the behavior of my 3 year old. It was rough.

After about 3 days of just feeling like I was about to burst into tears any second, I came home one night, put the girls to bed, and while my husband finished up some work I took a long bath, read some scriptures to try to fill myself with more kindness, said some long prayers for patience with my little people and myself, and put myself to bed early.

I woke up the next morning feeling refreshed. I wasn't short with my babies, I spent time cuddling them and drawing with them and dancing with them. We went to the library and they were sweet and patient with each other. CB was having quiet time and I kept hearing her in the bathroom running water, but I figured she was getting some water for her teapot or something. When CB came to get me during quiet time and asked for help getting "the yellow stuff" off her hands, which turned out to be some diaper ointment that she had spread ALL OVER THE ROOM, I stayed calm. I helped her clean her hands, I told her we'd deal with it later, I had one of those moments of clarity where I realized the panic she'd been feeling trying to clean it up herself without any luck was probably enough punishment, and she didn't need me to add my lecture to it. We read library books, we cooked dinner together, we had a lovely day.

But of course, by the end of the week, I was stressed and frustrated and feeling lonely and isolated again, and I had to start all over again trying to get my head into a good place. Eric was gone for a good part of the weekend and by Sunday night I was once again not feeling terribly patient as I put my babies to bed, especially when their laughing and giggling together in their room turned into overtired wailing.

I've been thinking a lot about myself in terms of that sticky, greasy stuff CB spread all over her room. I think sometimes we don't know why we do the things we do - why we waste our time on our phones instead of engaging or why we yell at preschoolers to remember to pick up their things (when it's not like my room is spotless either) and feel angry when a toddler decides she wants to throw a screaming fit because she got water instead of milk at bedtime. Sometimes it just seems like a good idea, so we spread the stuff around, day after day after day, and then it's really hard to clean up. And we feel even more frustrated because it won't wipe up and it won't go away, and it stains stuff and it smells, and why on earth did we wipe it on the paper lamp that's going to have a grease stain on it forever, and why did I put a paper lamp in a room for toddlers anyway (whoops, got a bit distracted there, didn't I?) and it just seems like it will never get better.

I think I'm a lot like CB with her diaper ointment spread all over. I don't always know how to clean up the messes I make. Sometimes I don't know how to pull myself out of the ruts I am in and make my life better than it is, and I need someone to help me figure it out - someone who knows more than I do. I said such sincere prayers the other night and it so helped, but then I go out and do my thing again without saying the sincere prayers for help, so of course I flounder again. Just like I know that Clara's problem will get better with some wipes and some dish soap, I believe my Heavenly Father is just waiting to help me solve my problems or at least make them easier - or to help me to gain more patience and perspective - but I try to just solve it myself instead and I end up feeling so frustrated because I don't have answers, and I don't know why I feel sad and frustrated sometimes, and I don't know how to feel more fulfilled about some aspects of my life. I think prayer and the influence of the spirit are like the dish soap I used to help CB get that greasy ointment off my hands, but I waste so much time trying to just clean it up with water instead. Ugh.

Anyway. All of this is to say that I sometimes am angry with myself for making things harder than they need to be, but I keep doing it anyway, and I'm trying to stop it.

9 months is such a fun time. Miss D is crawling all over the house and pulling herself up to everything. She's just barely starting to cruise along the furniture, but she does like to let go and see if she can stand up without it. She doesn't last long, but she's more fearless than CB was. I won't be surprised if she walks earlier than her big sister did - she's fearless about testing her limits.

Sigh. Poor, poor second baby. Sorry I stink at the updates. I partially blame my lack of laptop, but mostly it's just that when both kids are finally in bed I just want to watch cooking shows instead of sitting at a computer. It looks like soon I'm going to have better laptop access though, so fingers crossed for next month! (Luckily, I overgram like crazy on Instagram, so we have a full shelf of chatbooks with all of the best stories.)

Just a day or two after 6 months, little miss got her first tooth and started sitting up on her own really well. This pleased her greatly. A couple of weeks after that she got a second tooth and is now rocking the two bottom teeth look delightfully. She did great on our roadtrip to Lubbock despite the long drive and the car breaking down. After we got back, we moved her pack and play out of our room but didn't feel like she was quite ready to move in with CB (or that CB was ready for her) so we moved her into our big closet under the stairs (the "Harry Potter closet") and she mostly does okay there. More on that later.

Around 7 months she started to try to move, pushing back with her arms and usually moving away from whatever she wanted to get to. However, she was so much more involved and interested in things than she had been that there was a bit of contention with CB, who wasn't excited about sharing toys AND attention now that D had an opinion about which toys she wanted and could sometimes get to them. There were a few weeks that were just really hard because of CB constantly yelling at Miss D and taking things away from her and THROWING them so she couldn't have them.

Then a couple of weeks ago I was putting CB to bed while holding D because Eric was out late at a job, and D was reading for CB and just smiling and suddenly CB looked at her with utter delight and said, "You DO like me D!" It's been much better since then, with CB mostly celebrating D's milestones and enjoying her along with me. She loves trying to make D smile and always pulls her pacifier out if it's in when she starts making faces at her.

Just a couple of days before she turned 8 months, D got the hang of crawling forwards. It's so much different than CB, who army crawled for a long time before she got up on her hands and knees. D was always on her knees and sometimes even on her feet. She's always trying to get up and has already pulled herself up to a couple of things. However, just like CB, she can't resist crawling over to knock over a block tower,

Her favorite thing to play is "Where's D?" We put a blanket over her head and she pulls it off and laughs like crazy. She's a total mommy's girl right now, but she loves to smile at people from my lap. She loves anything she can feed to herself and has finally found some purees that she likes too, but she'll cruise across the room for those vegetable flavored baby cheetos.

With sleep, she's the exact opposite of her big sister. CB was an amazing night sleeper from the beginning and was a terrible napper. She gave up naps early and by 4 months was down to two that I had to let her cry herself to sleep for. D is a great napper and only recently gave up her third nap, but she's not great at night. I think part of this might be the fact that I learned how to nurse lying down last time, so I'd always fall asleep nursing her and just not put her back in bed, so now she likes to cuddle. Also, because of the second kid thing and the rough start we got off to with c sections and gallbladder, we didn't work that hard at putting her down drowsy but awake, and now we pretty much rock her (or at least hold her) to sleep before transferring her. Unlike CB, she transfers pretty well, so we haven't had much motivation to change things yet, but because CB was such an AWESOME night sleeper (10 hours straight  pretty much every night from 3 months on) I have a little bit of anxiety about what to do to get her to be a bit more independent, especially at night. Part of me isn't that worried because we haven't reached a miserable stage yet - she usually goes back down pretty well during the times she wakes up at night (usually 1-2 times but again - sometimes I just fall back asleep and she sleeps better with me, so who knows?) and we don't  spend hours putting her down unless she's WAY over tired. Having a set schedule has been so much harder this time, and I'm sure that's part of it. I also kind of enjoy snuggling her and know how quickly that snuggling can go away, so there's that too, but I still feel like SOMETHING will have to be done at some point, especially if we ever want to move her in with CB. Blah. Any advice on this would be appreciated. I'd rather not do cry it out this time unless it gets to be more dire, but all of the no tears ideas I've read have been kind of lame. So.

Lastly, D is still just a little ball of sunshine. She's SO easy going and cheerful most of the time that it's really easy to forgive her for things like making me occasionally frustrated at night still (what, they couldn't all be magical unicorn sleeping babies?) I need to baby proof a little more, which turns out to be harder when there's another little person leaving delightful tiny things all over (you know what D loves putting in her mouth? Pom poms. Which CB loves to leave all over the house) but I'm excited to watch her become more interactive and independent all the time. She's such a sweet, loving baby girl and I love her.

Poor Miss D. I'm so behind. Everyone has been sick and we were staying with Papa and Mama on her actual five month birthday. I took pictures a few days later, and then I haven't done anything with them, plus they weren't that great and I didn't have the energy to keep messing with it. But time marches on and Miss D is older and gets better and better, so. Here are a few things.

• First, how on earth did I take all of CB's pictures on that little backdrop? Miss D was ALL OVER THE PLACE, wiggling, grabbing the backdrop, eating her feet, etc. It was really, really difficult to get a good picture this time, and I'm thinking of switching it up next time. 
• Miss D is so, so smiley and happy. She's so sweet. She gets more interactive all the time. She loves the squeaky giraffe and the crinkly frog and everything goes directly in her mouth, which distresses CB greatly since we're ALWAYS telling her to get things out of her own mouth. 
• She's getting much more purposeful about grabbing things - toys, my face, blankets, anything on the table. I'm looking forward to introducing solids next month, although she's TERRIBLE at taking medicine, so I'll be interested to see how she does. CB was really good at it and solids went really smoothly, but Miss D does seem VERY interested in sitting at the dinner table and stares at all of us, so we'll see. 
• She loves playing with her feet and is getting really close to rolling from her back to her stomach. 
• She's still not sleeping through the night, but I've finally got my act together and have been helping her get a little more scheduled, which I think she appreciates. She's getting more predictable and even made it through the night without nursing the other night (she woke up, but a quick pat or a pacifier and she went right back to sleep), so I think we're getting closer. Hooray! She's still going pretty strong with the pacifier, which is LOVELY, and I'm hoping that it will continue. It's so crazy to me that by this time I was trying to sleep train CB. I can't even imagine doing that with Miss D yet, and so far she's a much better napper than CB (knock on wood!) It's so crazy how much less worried I am about all of that than I was with the first baby. I rock her to sleep when I need to, but she fall asleep on her own occasionally and we're just going with it. She sleeps, no screaming, everyone is happy so far. 
• She still has a really funny growly laugh that I love, and CB gets as many laughs as anyone. You still have to work for it a bit, but she gets in giggly moods and won't stop. 
• She kicks her legs like CRAZY, especially when she's sleepy but not calm yet. Sometimes in the morning I'll wake up to this really loud "THUMP THUMP THUMP" of her legs before she starts making other noises. 
• Generally she's just such an easy-going, smiley little soul, even when Clara is squishing her face and brushing her hair and generally pestering her. We like her a lot.
  
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  The background was all wonky on this picture, but her face was cute so I cropped it terribly.

Miss D's update is coming a couple of days late because CB has been really sick, and now she's starting with it too. Luckily, she's still been really cheerful despite her coughing, and CB is coming back nicely from what the doctor thought might be RSV on Monday. If we can get Miss D through it as well, we'll be breathing sighs of relief.

Miss D, you have been such a sweet, chill baby that I haven't feel like I've really gotten to know you that well, but this last month you've really stolen our hearts. You have a hilarious deep growly laugh that just kills me every time. You're ticklish under your chin, so sometimes I get a surprise giggle out of you while I'm snapping up your jammies. You give smiles readily, and you always make me feel extra special when I walk past you and you give me a big grin.

You love being sung to - especially by your big sister. We started having CB sing to you when you were upset - in the car, at the store, etc. - because we didn't want her to be upset by your crying, but now when CB busts out the ABCs (which she tells me is your favorite song) you almost always calm down and smile at her. You two already have such a special relationship, and I hope it continues throughout your lives. The other day you were lying on the couch while we were getting everything on the table for dinner and you started crying, so your Daddy went to get you and said in the high pitched voice we use to talk for you, "Why did you leave me? Nobody loves me!" And CB quickly piped up, "I love you, D! Mommy loves you all the time!" It's so clear that you love each other, even though you're both so young.

You still usually wake up a couple of times a night (although last night it was only once and it was very nice), but you always go right back to sleep. The problem is, sometimes so do I, so I'll wake up with you snuggled against me two hours later and you don't want to go back to your bed because by then it's cold! I've been much less concerned about getting you on a firm schedule, which is probably why, but honestly, CB really seemed to need one and you seem to be much more able to go with the flow, grabbing naps here and there and everywhere. You often just zonk out sitting on your Daddy's lap, which is hilarious.

I'm so grateful for you, sweet girl. Your calm spirit is such a happy influence in our home, and I love you.

3 Months today! A few things about this sweet little missy this month:

• She had her first long road trip (twelve hours each way to Tucson to see Great-Grandma Long for Thanksgiving) and she was and EXCELLENT little traveler. She slept a lot, saved her blowouts for times when we weren't in the car, fell asleep in my arms when we were visiting relatives, and generally was a very pleasant little companion. CB did great as well, and I think it was nice for them to have each other in the back seat this time. 
• She has finally overcome her hatred of baths, and now generally seems to like them (or at least not scream through them).
• She had her first giggle a few days ago when I was holding her on my lap while we watched Muppet Christmas Carol. I was blowing zerbits with my lips and tickling her, and we got a little chortle out of her. She's also given one to Daddy and to my mom, but they're still pretty hard to earn. 
• She completely lights up when she's been just chilling on her own and one of us comes over to talk to her. She loves looking at a smiling face and almost always rewards us with a smile now. 
• Unlike CB, who was pretty much sleeping 10 hours at a stretch by now and had a pretty firm schedule, Miss D is still waking up to nurse around 4 am, and then she sometimes gets a little offended when I try to kick her back out of the bed to the cold and lonely pack and play. However, she's still rather easy at night, so I can't complain about her being slightly less magical at sleeping at night than CB was, especially since it's probably partially because I haven't pushed much of a schedule at all during the day yet. She's much easier about just sleeping whenever than CB was, so I'm just going with it as long as I can. This time around I know that there will probably be several periods of sleep training/retraining, etc. and I can't bring myself to get too worked up about it this early when she's been such a peach. 
• Just a few days after she turned two months, she shocked us all by rolling over from her tummy to her back, and then doing it over and over again. CB was nearly 4 months old before she attempted it at all, and was over four months old by the time she mastered it, so it was crazy to have my two month old do it so easily. Of course, she'd already not been getting too much tummy time, and now she barely gets any because she just flips right over when I put her there. 
• She still likes a pacifier, which I'm enjoying. 
• She adores and is adored by her sister, who loves coming and talking to her and giving her pony rides (with Daddy holding Miss D on her back while CB neighs on all fours). When we asked CB what was special to her, she said, "D is special to me!" And when Christmas presents started appearing under the tree, first CB found on of hers, and then she found on and said, "This one for D!" She is always so concerned that her baby sister be involved and included (except for the times when she wants her to be put down so that Mommy or Daddy can play with her - which are natural.) I'm grateful for the level of love that already exists between them. Miss D loves to have CB come and talk to her and make faces at her, and she watches her all the time. I just know they're going to be the cutest little partners in crime. 
• She seems much calmer to me than CB ever was. She's certainly less of a spitter and less refluxy, but just generally she seems more chill and less intense - but certainly no less sweet. 

A few things about Miss D at 2 months:

• As of her 2 month appointment, she was 11 pounds 8.5 oz and 24 inches long, so she's 70th percentile for weight and a whopping 96th for height. Looks like the tradition of having long Long girls continues. 
• Last night she slept from 11 until 6, and then went back to sleep for a couple more hours. She might be less consistent than CB was at this age for sleeping, but she always goes back to sleep right after she nurses and usually sleeps at least 5-7 hours at a time at night. 
• Is still quite sleepy during the day - more sleepy than I remember CB being. On the one hand this is really nice, because it's given CB more time to adjust. On the other hand, I feel like I still don't know her very well because she sleeps a LOT. She has been starting to smile at us for the last month, but I have to work harder for her smiles than I did for CB.
• She was blessed on Nov. 2, and she was beautiful and slept most of the way through the blessing itself, which meant she was nice and quiet for it. :) All of her cousins came and we didn't see CB through all of sacrament meeting because she was playing with them, so we just got to snuggle Miss D and enjoy the day. 
• She loves driving in the car (or at least falls asleep or calmly looks around whenever we drive) and going for walks in our sit and stand stroller. 
• She has specific bounces that she likes from both me and Eric, and there are times that they are almost magical. 
• She likes a pacifier more than I remember CB liking on at this age, so maybe I'll get a pacifier baby this time.
• She loves attention from her sister as long as it doesn't involve being crushed or clawed by her (which sometimes happens even though the intentions are always loving. 

• I spent the first week or so of your life recovering from your intense arrival. My recovery has been more painful than it was with CB's, and your daddy has had to pick up a lot more of the work than he did with your sister. I'm pretty sure he's changed about 75% of your diapers so far. 
• You seem to me to be much sleepier than CB was, and even if that's just because I've forgotten, I feel like I've made much less of an effort to make sure you start conforming to some kind of schedule than I did with her. (Re: C-section recovery + toddler in the house). You pretty easily drift into your naps and have slept a LOT (probably in part because I was on lots of painkillers at first, but maybe not, since I didn't see a huge decrease after I went off them). In any case, I have been intensely grateful that you have been an easy baby so far, because I needed it. 
• Last Monday, the intense stomach pain I had during the last couple of months of my pregnancy with you (you know, the pain that was supposed to be cured when they delivered you because they decided it was HELLP syndrome all along) came back, and your dad and I took you with us to the ER while CB slept at home. They finally did an ultrasound on my gallbladder after absolutely everyone had speculated that it could be a problem, and wonder of wonders, it was full of gallstones. I went on a very strict diet (not fun for your nursing self) and scheduled surgery for Monday the 6th. And then later that day I tried to eat crackers and had another horrendous attack, plus I'd been throwing up Cream of Wheat for two days, so Thursday morning I went in for surgery and you and CB went to Mama and Papa's house. I didn't get to pump for you like I'd hoped, and the outpatient surgery that was supposed to have us home by about noon turned into a two day affair due to a gallstone in my bile duct, so you got to be in formula for a couple of days. Thank goodness you took a bottle willingly and went back to breastfeeding readily when we all got back home (although it wreaked havoc on your digestion for a day or two). So for at least half of your short life I've been recovering from a surgery, and thankfully, you've been a sleepy sweetie about the whole thing. 
• Your sister takes up a lot of my attention right now. She's a real force of nature at the moment, and she really loves you but really wants lots of attention as well. It's been interesting trying to figure out the balance, and I'm sure I'll struggle with that in the coming months. She always wants to hold you and is very concerned when you cry, but as soon as you are awake and not crying she says, "BABY HAPPY NOW??" and giggles and kisses on you. Whenever she wants to go and play in another room, she'll tell me to come on, but she also always tells you to come too. I hope you two will be best friends. 

See? This is what happens when we first unwrapped you, especially because you weren't wearing pants.

Okay. Time to finish this story.

At some point that morning (probably within 3-4 hours of the C section) someone came in and asked me if I wanted to try to breastfeed the baby. I was still in quite a bit of pain at this point, and I felt like I was just barely able to stay awake because of all of the painkillers I was on, and I just couldn't imagine doing it yet. I think I asked them if it would ruin anything if they gave her a bottle and I tried for the next one, and they said of course not and went and gave her some formula.

At about 10:00 my dad, who had stayed the night at our apartment and been there when CB woke up (her reaction to his being there was a very calm, "Hi Papa,")  brought CB over to see the baby, and this was by far the best part of the day. She walked in and after saying hi to us, Eric took her over to show her the new baby sister. She immediately said, "Hold her?" So Eric pulled the baby out of the bassinet and the two of them went over to the big chair in my room to sit together and hold the baby. CB was completely delighted with her, exclaiming over her tiny body parts ("Hands! Little ones!") and giving her kisses. I kind of liked that it was very similar to the way things went down on the new baby episode of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood that we'd watched about 10 times, because I felt like she was comforted by the fact that this was kind of what she expected.



All day I felt like I was fighting to stay awake or I was just zonked out. They gave me a button to push for pain medication, and I could push it every 10 minutes when I green indicator light came on. There was a steady drip of medication, but I could push it for an extra bump of it. I remember at one point the nurse said I had pushed it 17 times.

Eventually I felt like I had enough brain function firing that I felt like I could try to nurse my baby. Luckily, although I was still pretty out of it, a little instinct from last time kicked in, and D was as good at latching as her sister was and latched on pretty quickly. She nursed several times throughout the day despite my barely being able to stay awake while I was nursing her and my extreme difficulty moving her around to get her in the right position to nurse because of the pain in my stomach and weirdly, my shoulder. (Apparently whenever they open you up some oxygen can get in and air pockets settle somewhere and cause that kind of pain. Mine was in my shoulder and my right side, which is apparently really common, and for almost the entire first two days that was the worst of my pain unless I was trying to stand up.)

The rest of the story isn't very exciting - it involves lots of keeping track of how much both the baby and I were peeing, some very tentative times getting up to go into the bathroom and to get cleaned up, then some slightly less tentative times walking around the hospital halls v-e-r-y slowly. Meanwhile, we got decent sleep at night by sending D to the nursery except when she came in to feed at midnight, 3 or 4 and 7 or 8.

By Sunday I was feeling way better than I expected to feel (especially after the first day) and although I didn't feel better, I felt like I didn't really need to be in the hospital any more. Eric gets to take at least a week off work, and at this point he can do everything I need and he's cheaper than the hospital staff. Plus that hospital bed was miserable by the end, and all I wanted to do was get out of it. On top of that, we missed CB so much and couldn't wait to be home as a family. When the doctor came in to check on me Sunday morning, we asked how long we had to stay, and he said he didn't see any reason why we couldn't go home that day. D was doing so well that the pediatrician had said he would have sent her home Saturday if I could have gone, my incision looked good, and I was walking around reasonably well. We called the nurse and started talking to her about what had happened, and once I had lunch and D got her hearing re-tested (she'd failed the first one that happened really shortly after she was born, but she passed the second with flying colors - I think the same happened with CB) we did some last minute checks, got all of our prescriptions in order, loaded up and headed home. My parents brought CB back home a couple of hours later, and it felt really good to be together as a family in our own house. We spent some time settling in and figuring out where to put the baby until she's ready to go into the room the girls will share, we had some dinner, I spent lots of time lying down, and D spent lots of time sleeping.

When she is awake she makes awesome faces like this.

Well folks, just when I thought pregnancy was never going to end, our baby came - in a ridiculously dramatic and unexpected way. Fair warning: this is a birth story. If you don't like birth stories, don't read it. I personally love them and know I have friends who love them, so that's why I'm writing it here. Don't blame me if you are traumatized.

A couple of things first to provide context. First, you may recall that I mentioned a couple of times on this blog reasons I would consider having our next baby somewhere other than a hospital. After a lot of thought and research and prayer, we had decided to have our baby at a birthing center not too far from here, and we had done all of our prenatal care there. We loved the midwives, Clara loved going to listen to baby sister's heartbeat, and I was feeling mostly pretty calm about having a natural birth. (I had the occasional freak outs and wasn't really enjoying Hypnobabies, but overall I felt very calm about it and like it was a good decision for us.) We were considered good candidates for an out of hospital birth, we'd had an ultrasound at the hospital, the midwives were keeping a close eye on things like my blood pressure and urine and other things that indicate problems. The baby was head down and sitting low, and at 39 weeks I fully expected that we'd be having a baby at the birthing center any day. My main concern was making sure I got there in time, because CB's birth was very quick for a first time birth, and once the doctor broke my water I was ready to push in about two hours and she was out in three (which would have been sooner if I hadn't been waiting for the doctor to not get there in time to catch the head).

The other thing of note that had happened with this pregnancy (which had been really normal otherwise) was that sometime toward the end of July I started having this weird attacks that seemed like they might be gall bladder attacks or at least very severe intestinal distress. The first couple lasted for about 15 minutes and then subsided and were gone, but at the beginning of August, I had several back to back attacks, and they just wouldn't stop. I had horrible pain just under my sternum and my ribs that radiated around to my back. It was so bad it made me throw up (which actually made it feel better temporarily, but then the pain came back). We had called the midwives about this pain the first time it had happened, and they didn't have anything to tell us. Luckily, it had gone away about the time we called them, so we just didn't worry about it. This time we just went ahead and went to the hospital, and after some tests and poking and such, they gave me what they called a GI Cocktail (basically Maalox and Lidocaine) and said if that helped it was probably just some kind of intestinal inflammation. I felt better almost immediately, and although my tests had some slightly elevated numbers that indicated maybe gallbladder could be a thing, it wasn't bad enough for them to keep me there. They sent me home with instructions to avoid fried foods and to come back for a follow up test in two weeks. That test was totally normal, so we stopped worrying about it. The midwives recommended taking Magnesium, and that seemed to help the small episodes I'd still been having stop the rest of the way, so we were feeling good about everything.

This episode did make me freak out slightly about the birthing center (mostly because of the amount of pain I'd been in) but after talking to them and getting the test results back, I felt calm and decided to go ahead with my plans to have the baby there.

Fast forward to last Thursday night. I was more than 39 weeks pregnant and very ready to be done with pregnancy. We'd gone to dinner with my parents and my aunt, and at some point during the meal I began to wonder if the somewhat greasy Chinese food had been a mistake, because I was starting to have the stomach pain again after 3 weeks without it. It continued to get worse as we went home, and for the first time in a long time Eric put CB to bed without me while I sat very still and felt miserable. The pain wasn't going away, and when I called the midwives they said I should probably just go to the hospital and ask for the GI cocktail again and then have my gallbladder looked at after I had the baby. The one thing that was very clear to me was that I definitely did NOT want to be in labor while that pain was going on, and in fact I had a few Braxton-Hicks contractions which were EXCRUCIATING because everything in my stomach already felt horribly tight, and taking deep breaths was almost unbearable.

At about 10:30, we called our upstairs neighbors and asked if Brother Keeler would come down and help Eric give me a priesthood blessing. I was hoping it would just making the pain go away and I could just carry out my pregnancy in peace, but at one point in the blessing I was told that I would be blessed for the pain I experienced for my children (or something to that effect), and that the pain would be healed (but in a way that didn't sound like that meant immediately). I had told Eric that I just really didn't want to go to the hospital if I didn't have to, so before the blessing he said we should put a time limit on it and told me that in 20 minutes we would go. I was not in favor of this time limit, but about five minutes after the blessing I started directing him to things we needed and started preparing myself to go to the hospital. I told him I thought we should take the hospital bag just in case there was a reason we ended up having the baby that night, but not really expecting to. I just felt like the pain wasn't going to go away on it's own and like the hospital was the right decision.

So at about 11:15 we arrived at the hospital, where the same nurse was on the desk who had been there when we had gone in a month ago. She remembered us and got us set up with a nurse. They drew blood again and did some tests, but they also gave me the GI cocktail and told me as long as I wasn't super dilated I could probably just go home if the GI cocktail worked. I felt much better after I had it (although not quite as good as I'd felt the first time - after a few minutes I could feel some pain still there) and the nurse said I was only dilated to a three, so I could definitely go back home as soon as they got my labs back.

Then they got my labs back.

When I'd been to the hospital before, my liver enzyme numbers weren't supposed to be higher than a 40, and they were at a 48. Not a huge deal, but something they were keeping an eye on. They'd gone back to normal when I went in for the second test, so they'd decided I was fine. This time, they were at a 93. My platelet levels were also lower than they were supposed to be, meaning I had two out of the three symptoms for HELLP syndrome, a form of preeclampsia. (The third symptom is high blood pressure, which is also the most common symptom of preeclampsia, along with protein in the urine. I'd had fantastic blood pressure throughout the pregnancy and still did that night, so no one had really suspected that could be the problem.) HELLP syndrome can turn into something really serious in a hurry, and the cure for it is delivering the baby, so they told me that they needed to deliver the baby right away and they were going to induce that night.

So that was the first crazy thing that happened.

We made some phone calls - first one to my dad to ask him to come and stay with Clara and be there in the morning (our upstairs neighbors had the baby monitor and were listening for her so she could sleep, since we didn't anticipate we'd be gone more than a couple of hours and she almost never wakes up at night), then one to the midwives to tell them what was going on and ask them to send over my prenatal information from all of my checkups.

Next they took us to labor and delivery, where they got me on a pitocin drip and told us to get some rest. They would up the dose every half an hour, I could get an epidural whenever if I decided I wanted one, and when I was ready we'd have a baby. They also said the doctor would probably come and break my water at some point, and I told them about how that sent me into hard labor pretty quickly with Clara and I would probably want an epidural shortly after they broke my water if they went that route.

Me all ready to go

Me being not panicky

It turned out the doctor didn't want to wait that long at all for that part, so he came in to break my water about 20 minutes after I went on the pitocin drip. This was probably at about 1:45 am, which is important, because what happened next seemed very long to me but all happened very fast. The doctor broke my water, and it was uncomfortable, which I remembered from last time, but then he just kept messing around in there and it kept being really uncomfortable, and I couldn't figure out what was going on. At first I thought maybe it hadn't broken as much as he wanted it to and he was still trying to get it to break more, but then I heard him say something about the baby's hand and the cord, and how the cord was coming out and so was the hand and they were trying to push the cord back in, and meanwhile it felt like there was just a fist jamming into parts of my body that had already been quite sore for several weeks because of the pressure of walking around with a baby pressing down ready to be born. After what seemed like about 5 minutes of agony but which Eric says was more like a minute, the doctor said, "The cord is coming out first and we can't get it back in. There is only one safe way for this baby to be born now, and that's an emergency C section. We're going to go in there right now, and Dad, we're going to put her under general anesthesia, so you need to stay here." I honestly can't remember whether Eric and I said anything to each other at that point - I think we just said I love you to each other and he told me it would be okay. I also remember asking the doctor if the baby was okay, and he said she was fine but she needed to be born immediately.

What I found out later was that when they broke my water, my cervix went from a 3 to fully dilated in about 10 seconds. The water was gushing out, the baby's hand fell out and created an opening that allowed the cord to prolapse, and everything was gushing out so fast that they couldn't get the cord back in. The doctor said that if the cord hadn't prolapsed, he probably would have delivered the baby in about five minutes with little to no pushing on my part, and he said he had never seen anything like it in his life.

So the next thing we knew Eric was being left alone in the labor and delivery room where we expected to have the baby, and I was being rushed into a cold room with florescent lights (which, oddly enough, someone explained to me would be the case as they were pushing me down the hall, so apparently the bright lights are really scary and disorienting and they like to warn people about them). The doctor stopped trying to push the cord back in and was replaced by a nurse who was pushing the baby's head back in, which hurt SO BADLY. I was terrified, but mostly I just wanted the anesthesia to kick in so they would stop pushing so hard. Someone put oxygen over my mouth and nose and told me to try to breathe slowly, and it felt like it was taking forever for that part to end, but really it was only a couple of minutes, because Eric told me that in about five minutes they came to tell him to put on scrubs and go be with the baby. He said he got to see me for a minute and I was totally out and open, but the baby was screaming and purple. It was 2:04 am. While they spent the next 45 minutes sewing me up and cleaning me up and all of that good stuff, Eric went with the baby while she was weighed and immunized and washed and given all of those things they give babies when they're born (that gunk in their eyes, apgar scoring, etc. etc.) They even gave her a tiny IV so they could give her a bolus of fluids, and Eric said she went from kind of purple to totally pink and healthy-looking almost immediately.

Purple baby

Baby with an IV

So keep in mind that I hadn't ever had an epidural or any kind of pain relief before I went under general anesthesia. When I came to 45 minutes later, I still didn't have any kind of pain relief, and I could feel my incision in a really intense, burning, searing sort of way. Eric was there and was trying to distract me from the pain by showing me pictures of the baby he'd taken on his phone. Meanwhile, they were putting me on medicines that hadn't kicked in yet, and someone kept pushing on my stomach for reasons I still don't totally understand. Eric asked me later if I remembered what I'd said when they asked me how bad my pain was, and apparently I said 6. They put down 8, because I was clearly too out of it to be reliable. (I was sobbing, which is not what the little picture on the 6 on that pain scale chart looks like. In retrospect, I'm pretty sure it was more like a 10.) On the bright side, while the part before the surgery seemed insanely long, the part after, which Eric said took about an hour, seemed fairly short to me. I was awake, but still very out of it (I think my brain was shutting off periodically throughout the day because of the medications, but especially after that part) and although I remember some of it, it's already feeling fuzzy. I remember getting on an elevator to be transferred down to our room, and I remember at some point someone put baby D on the bed next to me so I could see her, but I can't remember when any of those things happened or what happened when we got to the room. Eric says they brought the baby in and let me hold her for a bit, then took her back to the nursery so I could sleep, but that I was awake until about 5 am.

My first time meeting this sweetie.

And now this is getting WAY too long, so I think I'll write about the recovery and add pictures in a separate post and go to bed. One final note for this part of the post: everyone at the hospital kept saying things like, "Well, aren't you glad you weren't in the birthing center?" It was like the biggest I told you so ever, and while yes, I am totally glad that things worked out so we were in the hospital when the prolapsed cord happened, and yes, the reason for induction was a really good one (HELLP syndrome) when they kept saying that the doctor had saved the baby's life by delivering her I was kind of like, "Yes, but the doctor also broke my water, which is probably why I ended up with the prolapsed cord in the first place . . ." So I'm not sorry that anything worked out the way it did, and because I'm now higher risk I probably won't try the birthing center again. However, I never felt like the midwives were incompetent or putting me in danger, and I felt very calm about my decision throughout most of my pregnancy. The midwives were actually the ones who told me to go to the hospital, and when I called them to tell them what was happening they didn't try to make me feel sad about the loss of the natural birth - they said, "I know this isn't what you expected, but this is your story and your birth, and it will be okay. I think if I hadn't had HELLP and if I hadn't had to be induced, it probably would have been a beautiful experience in the birthing center, and I really feel grateful that I got to know the midwives I worked with during my pregnancy. They were wonderful, knowledgeable people.  I truly believe we were protected and that things happened so we ended up where we were supposed to be, and I'm grateful for the priesthood and the spirit that I believe helped us to know what decisions we were supposed to make to get us where we needed to be.

More about the recovery and the babe herself coming later!

At this point in the pregnancy (36.5 weeks) it's hard not to be super negative. I'm just really exhausted all the time, and I feel sore and tired of being a human baby bjorn, anxious about all that needs to be done but lacking the energy to do it, sick of getting up multiple times a night to pee when I so desperately need to sleep, etc.

So to combat that after a long and tiring day and a week of crying over nothing because I'm just tired and hormonal and anxious, here's a list of reasons I'm grateful.

• Feeling grateful that Clara went to bed without much fuss despite fighting nap time and then taking a late car nap. 
• Feeling grateful that in a few more weeks I'll still be tired, but it won't be the tired of dragging extra weight and soreness around with me, it will be the tired that comes with a new baby. At this point I've been pregnant for so long that I'm starting to feel like my body is going to be this slow-moving and clumsy forever, but I keep reminding myself that once the baby is born I will start to feel better (or at least that's what happened last time.) No matter how bad of a sleeper the new little miss is, in another couple of months I will be able to get down on the floor to play with CB without wanting to die when it's time to haul myself back up. Food will taste good again, the crazy intense intestinal pain that sent us to the hospital a couple of weeks ago will probably go away too. 
• Feeling grateful for my patient, understanding husband who is doing more than his share of the cleaning and bending over, despite being crazy busy. I feel guilty because I feel like he gets neglected while I feel so lousy, and he just keeps taking care of me. 
• Feeling grateful for the bins full of clothes for this baby that I still have from the last one. Yes, I've bought a couple of new sleepers for the fun of it, but mostly we just get to pull out all of CB's clothes again, which fills my heart with joy when I think of how sad I felt putting them away the first time. 
• Feeling grateful that I have a cousin who is an awesome chiropractor and is helping me feel less sore than I did last time I was pregnant. 
• Feeling grateful for my sweet, cheerful child who has recently started saying "Lub you Mommy" and giving hugs and kisses without prompting, who makes it impossible to be sad because she immediately starts wiping tears away and saying, "No sad Mommy!" When I pretend to be sad and stick my bottom lip out, she pushes it back in and says, "Happy Mommy!" I can tell that my mood is making her a little more cranky than usual, but she's still just such a delightful person. I'm pretty sure she's going to be as cheery and wonderful as her dad. 
• I'm grateful we got to go to a family reunion last weekend, that the weather wasn't as miserable as I fear for St. George in August at 8 months pregnant, that I have an amazing extended family and that my husband and baby like them as much as I do. 

I'm not sure this post will be interesting to anyone else, but I know I have other friends with kids doing this kind of thing, and I will probably want to remember it, especially when I have other kids making the transition. So. Without further ado, here's what happened during the week of CB's transition to the big girl bed! If this sounds like the most boring topic ever, feel free to skip this post.