baby girl's birthday

for those of you who want to know, this is a short recap of the events leading up to and immediately following the birth of our second daughter. as for the rest of you, read it or don't. whatever.

i had been having braxton hicks since my first trimester, so some deep maternal instinct told me this baby would come much earlier than my first. don't always listen to your gut. to give you a little background, my parents drove 17 hours straight from texas overnight to get here 4 days earlier than planned because we just knew she was going to come ahead of schedule. well, she didn't. four days passed with no clear indication of an impending labor. we walked. i carried big girl around like a mule. i juggled a soccer ball around with my husband (i bet that was a sight). we played bocce ball. i walked more. i had a checkup on friday morning, and after wrestling with the thought of rushing her arrival, we decided to let the doctor rupture my membranes to help me along. i was at 3 and 50% effaced at this point. my dad almost gave up and went home on saturday to get home in time (and somewhat rested) for work on monday, but we convinced him to stay just one more day. it payed off! and now, here is the labor story...

around 7pm saturday, i started getting regular contractions. when i first began timing them, they were about every 3-5 minutes but not painful at all. my mom kept trying to kick me out the door, but i didn't think i was in labor, and even if i was, there was no point in spending all night laboring in the hospital. after an hour or so, i called the doctor's office to see what they thought. in the meantime, i fed big girl dinner, gave her a bath, read books with her and got her ready for bed. even though i was in a little bit of denial, i knew these were the final precious moments with just one daughter. it was very bittersweet and i will cherish that time i had with her forever. we rocked and said our bedtime prayers, and i gave her big hugs and kisses before putting her to bed.

another hour and a half passed, and i had yet to hear back from the doctor's office. so we made the decision to just go. we loaded up the car, called the babysitter, and headed to the hospital. by this point, my contractions were about every 2-3 minutes and starting to get a bit stronger but still not big. i still wasn't fully convinced that this was it. we parked and checked in, answering a lot of questions (we'll come back to this later). when they got us in upstairs, i was at 4 and 70% effaced, so we walked the halls for about an hour and a half. i wanted to walk, but i wanted to lie down, but i wanted to stand, but i wanted to sit. nothing was comfortable. the nurse asked us most of the same questions we had already answered at check-in, but i wasn't in excruciating pain yet so i wasn't too annoyed. after our walk, the nurse violently checked me. i had dilated to 5. she stepped out of the room a few seconds later, and my water broke! it was so loud, top gun heard it over the monitor! the contractions started to get serious after that. it was gut-wrenching, but it earned us a spot in a delivery room! so they moved me...

when we got into our room, they started hooking me up to all the monitors and IVs. the nurse there asked me all of the same questions i had already answered twice! i was so mad at that woman i wanted to kick her. why do they ask you questions when you're enduring the agony of childbirth?? the worst part is your husband isn't allowed to answer them for you...what kinda hotel is this? anyways, after mumbling a few choice words and giving her the evil eye, i decided i'd had enough. it had been 6 hours (39 weeks, actually), and i was still at 5. who knew how much longer i would suffer? well, it would only be about 45 minutes...

i thought the anesthesiologist would never get there. 20 long minutes after i put in my request, sweet relief came dripping down in liquid form. ahhh, praise the Lord for modern medicine! after that, the nurse and i were best buds! not too long after the epidural was administered, i felt a bit of pressure that i remembered having when riley was born. we called in the nurse, and since i had just been at 5, she didn't check me. she said to just let her know if it continued or got stronger. the second she stepped out of the room, i looked at top gun and told him to get her back in there! she came over and said, "oh! there she is! you're going to have a baby now!" everyone came in and got ready, i pushed a few times, and there she was!

at 2:16am, i held our second perfect, beautiful, and healthy 8 lb. 1 oz., 20.25 in. long daughter for the first time. i was in love!

the next morning, big girl came to the hospital to meet her new baby sister. the first words out of her mouth were, "no! don't want it!" it took her three days to touch her, and she also kissed her on the head without us prompting her. she is slowly warming up, but most of the time ignores her. she will bring us things like blankets and diapers to help out, which i love. a few days ago when baby girl was crying, she patted her on the leg and said, "it's okay, samantha." she made one attempt at playing blocks with her baby sister and put in a request to take a bath together, but it hasn't taken much for her to realize she is much too small and incapable for now.

for now we are still getting up about three times every night, but i am trying to focus on the positive and enjoy my blessings while i can. i know that pretty soon they will be too big to give momma hugs and kisses. they grow up so fast...

i wanna wear my cleats

i miss soccer. i miss playing in the warm rain and squishing around the field in my soggy cleats. i miss the blistering feeling on my lips while playing in the dry heat. i miss the foggy humid morning practices and the muggy friday nights under the lights. i miss the smell of fresh cut grass and sweat and dirt and the taste of salt dripping down my face. i miss shin guard tan lines and training hard. i miss the sound of the ball hitting the back of the net, teammates, tackling, road trips, sun burns, and fighting hard to be the best. i miss it all.

the final stretch!

i hit my 38 week mark today, and it's really starting to hit me how our lives are going to be changing very soon! baby girl has been overflowing with love and giggles and cuddles and kisses and cuteness and playfulness for the past few days, and i have really been treasuring what little time is left with only one daughter.

last night hit me really hard with the realization that it's not just my life that will be changing, but my sweet little girl's whole world will turn upside down. she has had momma all to herself for over two years now, and a baby sister means sharing an overwhelmingly large amount of momma. as excited as i am to meet my second daughter, i'm also slightly afraid of the toll bringing home a new baby will take on her. all i can do is prepare myself for sharing my time, love, and attention with two children and their daddy...and hopefully squeeze in a little me time every now and then, too.

i am praying for the courage, strength, and energy i will need to care for a newborn and toddler through the early days, weeks, and months of sleep deprivation...especially when daddy has trips and is gone for a week or two at a time and it's all on momma! it's nice to know that we have a handful of trustworthy friends nearby that i can call if i start to lose my marbles!

ready or not...

i am ready. i am so ready to be not pregnant anymore...not so sure if i'm ready to take care of a newborn through all hours of the night and spend the whole next day chasing around a two-year-old...but definitely ready to be normal again. i mean, as normal as one can be postpartum...which really isn't that normal when you think about it. but at least i will be able to lie on my back again. at least i will be able to cuddle my husband without this huge bump in between us. at least i will be able to breathe again. of course, i'm trading all that fun stuff in for leaking milk and having a person latched onto me for at least a year and never sleeping again, but who cares about sleep and independence and dry shirts anyways? that stuff is way overrated. these early years are supposedly easier than the teenage years, too, right? the best part about all of it - pregnancy, birth, and postpartum - is that i will have two amazingly beautiful little girls to snuggle and love and watch grow into amazingly beautiful women.

daylight savings

so, yesterday baby girl decided to opt out of nap time, which i thought would aid in adjusting to daylight savings...wrong! thanks to a runny nose and over exhaustion , someone was too cranky at dinner to eat. we spooned in a few bites of applesauce and put her to bed without dinner and a bath. i'll give you one guess what happened next...

well, first of all, i had the most difficult time getting comfortable and falling asleep. i probably got up to pee about seven times, thanks to the little girl in my belly. the last time i checked the clock, i think we were nearing 3 am. normally, this wouldn't be too damaging to my morning, since baby girl typically wakes up sometime between 8 and 9. last night, however, some barky little voice called out for momma to rescue her around 4am. "hungwy." yeah, that no dinner thing came back to haunt me.

despite her requests for milk and cereal, i gave her a strawberry granola bar in OUR bed. i did not feel like dealing with that mess all over the kitchen and baby girl's pajamas as i waddled around like a zombie. of course, someone also decided they couldn't sit up on top of the covers (that i could easily shake out) and eat the granola bar. no, she had to lie down under the covers in the middle of the bed next to daddy.

when she was finished, she begged for milk and cereal anyways, despite my best efforts to dodge that bullet. i compromised with dry cereal in a bowl, but my deal was not good enough. so i picked up a screaming little girl and put her back in her bed, unplugged the loud humidifier, which probably woke her up in the first place, and went back to bed, where another grouch was waiting for me...top gun soon rolled over into a chunk of sticky granola bar that had somehow made it to his side of the bed. before i could do anything about it, he threw back the covers and grumbled, "i'm going to sleep on the couch!"

i brushed what crumbs i could out of my side and passed out. we all slept in until sometime around 11 this morning. i guess this was God's way of sending me through a newborn boot camp before we bring home another little person who is going to torture me with restless nights. stupid daylight savings.

j'aime ma vie

amid all the diaper wrestling...

the crumbs on the couch cushions...

the sock factory in the backseat of my car...

the crib circus of stuffed animals...

the blueberry stained t-shirts...

the wall murals painted in sharpie and crayon...

the missing toys i find in the most obscure top-secret hiding spots...

the constant picky-eater battle...

the runny nose and impossibly fast-growing fingernails...

the begging and whining, "i want it"...

...and "don't want it"...

the inescapable cartoons...

the play dough and fingerpaints...

reading the same books twice every night for 17 days straight...

the "big castle" and "choo choo" blocks...

the puzzle books that end up in a pile...

the no-spill sippy cups that somehow always leak...

the "rinnie pieces" and "bwownies"...

amid Kipper and Nemo...

Mickey Mouse and Curious George...

the grubby smears and fingerprints...

bike rides and playgrounds...

the mountainous piles of laundry...

...and dishes...

the time-outs and no-nos...

the holes in...well...what doesn't have them these days?

yup, amid horsie-back rides...

the pants that never stay up...

and shoes that are too small...too quickly...

i get a glimpse of the amazing, incredible little girl my baby is growing up to be.

and i find myself smiling through the tears of frustration and fatigue...

because

i would not trade one minute of my crazy, sometimes lonely and isolated, blessed life for anything.

j'aime ma vie.

cry baby

top gun and i had a little debate earlier about an experience we had as first-time parents in california. we went to disneyland for a few hours and ended the night with a dinner out at downtown disney. first of all, it was our first time out together since baby girl was born. second of all, the hostess seated us smack in the middle of the restaurant...it was like we were on display, and everyone was there for the new parents show. not long into our meal, our little girl started making a BIG noise. i tried nursing her, holding, rocking, changing...nothing was helping. daddy said we should take our food to go, but i said no. absolutely not. this was our first night out, and they shouldn't have seated us "on stage" if they have a problem with crying babies. i'm curious what you would have done??