November: Nana, BlaBla, Baby Jane, Thanksgiving...OH MY!

Remember November?  Yeah, me neither.  I have been wanting to write this blog for a while, but for some reason blogger wouldn't let me upload pictures from the laptop, and a bunch of the pictures from this post were only on the laptop, and transferring them to the desktop downstairs was just the extra step that broke the camel's back and prevented me from ever finishing it.

But now I am here!  And the pictures are in! 

So now I can go back and fill in all the details surrounding the pictures I took in November.

I think a Princess Bride quote is applicable here,

"Let me e'splain. No there is too much.  Let me sum up"

Halloween night, Oct 31, 2013.  Daddy took the girls to a couple of houses, while I stayed home and passed out candy to kids, after about 20 minutes, the girls were back and they helped pass out candy for the rest of the evening.  I love that my girls favorite part of Halloween is passing out candy to the other neighborhood kids, getting to see their costumes, and their big smiles when they get candy.  It's such a fun experience.  We also get just the right amount of trick or treaters in our neighborhood, and all is usually quiet by about 8:30 pm.  I LOVE ROCHESTER!

The girls all got sick in early November, here is Katy sleeping on my super pregnant lap.  Nothing like being 9 months pregnant.  It's the worst.  Normally I love when my kids are cuddle monsters, but when I am that pregnant it seems smothering to have extra kids draped on me.  We all survived though!

We got our first snowfall (that stuck) the first week of November

Nana came to visit!  We were all so happy to see her!  It had been almost a year and a half since we'd seen her, so it was SO nice.  (Though in the future I think I will limit house guests during the month I'm set to have the baby)

Matt's school friends gave us a cute outfit and some serious gift card-age.  It was so sweet and we put it to good use!

 I started working on my super secret dollhouse project for the girls Christmas present.  I got this dollhouse that was all grubby/dirty white, but solid wood for $10 on Craigslist!  Woohoo!  I kept it in the garage and cleaned and painted it, then put in some faux wood flooring.  I got it all finished before I had the baby (whew!).  It was a super fun project.  Though I am sure if it wasn't freezing in the garage and I wasn't 9 months pregnant I would've made it a little more fancy and detailed, but I was happy with it.

Baby Jane is Born: The Birth Story

 

To catch you up to speed, my mom-in-law, Martha, was here for 6 days, leaving on Monday, November 11th.  My mom flew in that same day.  I had been having contractions all week especially after my mom got there.  There were 2 nights (Tuesday and Thursday) were I timed my contractions for several hours having them every 2-4 minutes, but still being completely moderate and manageable pain wise, only to have them stop after several hours.  Thursday night I even stopped by triage due to insistence from Matt and my mom that I check in, since when I start hard labor the baby usually comes fast.  They eventually stopped on Thursday night and I was still only dilated to a 2.  Then Friday and Saturday I had even fewer contractions than what is normal for me.  Until Saturday night.  In the night I had pretty steady contractions.  I was able to sleep off and on, and only occasionally were the contractions painful.  Matt was working at the hospital that weekend, so when he left for work at 6am I told him that I had a feeling it was going to happen today. 

 

Here is my last belly picture, taken Friday November 15th at 37 weeks!

So its Sunday morning, and Matt is at the hospital for his on-call weekend shift.  I decide to stay in bed and try and rest since I had a relatively sleepless night and my contractions are still mild, but very consistent.  My mom comes up around 8am and asks if she should get the girls ready and take them to our church (which starts at 9am).  I tell her that she better not, just to be safe, because I think it's possible I might go into labor and need her to drive me to the hospital.  My contractions are still mild and regular so I try not to put too much stock into them, but I just have a feeling.  Just before 9, I decide to get up and use the bathroom and wash my face and get ready for the day.  While I'm in the bathroom doing my morning routine, my water breaks.  I let my mom know and tell her that I want to wait until my contractions get more intense before going to the hospital, so no rush.  In the meantime I start to pack up all the last minute hospital toiletry and electronic items and put my pillow and bags by the door.  I brush my hair out and make sure I'm ready.  Around 10:30 the intense contractions start.  They are crazy intense, they paralyze me, and I just hold very still and try not to die.  I tell my mom that I want to wait 30 minutes and if they are still going strong head in.  I am not a fan of going to the hospital unless it's absolutely necessary and I felt bullied into it on Thursday so I am waiting until I am at the point of no return.  At 11 my mom brings the girls up has them start getting bundled up and she starts loading up the car.  At this point the contractions are coming hard and fast.  Lasting 90 seconds to 2 minutes and giving me less than a minute in between.  I think that in the car ride to the hospital my girls got a nice view of the fact that labor is NOT a pleasant experience.  "Mommy, why are you groaning?"  "Mommy, why are your eyes closed?"  "Mommy why are you breathing like that?" I managed to squeak out, "Because it hurts.  So much!  The baby is trying to come out of my body and it hurts."  At 11:35 my mom drops me at the hospital curb and goes to park the car and unload the girls.  I get about 2 steps before being hit by a contraction and stand there looking pathetic I'm sure.  A nurse notices me and asks if I'm OK, clearly I'm not, I tell her I'm in labor, she goes and gets a wheelchair, brings it outside and wheels me up to labor and delivery.  It was so nice of her to use up several minutes of her lunch break pushing me to triage (especially because she works on a totally different unit).  I never would have made it without her.  I seriously could not walk more than a step or two at a time between contractions.  I get up to Labor and Delivery and tell them to page my husband (who is in surgery) and let him know that I'm here.  They say that the residents are all busy and that there probably won't be anyone around to come check me for a while.  Not sure exactly what I tell them, but it's something along the lines of, "That's unacceptable, please check me in and get me into a room.  This is baby # 4 and I'd guess it'll be out of me in 1-2 hours max".  That seemed to do the trick, within a couple of minutes a very nice doctor came in and checked me very quickly, "Yep, your water is definitely broken, you're at a 5, and the baby's head is low."  They immediately wheeled me to a room and less than 10 minutes later I was meeting the epidural crew! (I didn't have an epidural with Izzie, and it wasn't an experience I was anxious to repeat)  While they're putting the epidural in Matt walks in.  I was so happy to see him!  After the epidural was in, I was able to relax for about 30 minutes.  Ahhhhh.  During that time I had the girls come into the room for a few minutes now that I wasn't in so much pain so that I could explain to them what was happening.  I didn't want them to feel scared for me or worried or anything. 

At 12:30 the baby's heart rate dropped and the nurse came and had me try rolling over.  She then said, "I know you said that you progress really quickly, do you feel like you need to push already (It'd been almost an hour since I was at a 5 and had last been checked)?"  I said not overwhelmingly, but they brought the Dr in to check me and as soon as she touched me I felt that indescribable sensation of needing to push.  So they set everything up, told me to not push too hard, like at 70% or so, so that the baby wouldn't be born too quickly.  That's what I did.  2 nice smooth and steady pushes and she was born.  The nurses, doctor, and resident were all oohing and ahh'ing that it was a beautiful delivery and couldn't have gone better and that it was like the ideal textbook version of what a perfect deliver could be.  That made me happy and proud, but I frankly was just glad that I had the epidural for that 40 minutes!  I know that 40 minutes doesn't seem like that long to endure something, but I was sooooo glad not to have to feel that pain for a minute longer!

Anyway, it was perfect.  As soon as I held her in my arms I felt so overwhelmingly that this was our Jane. I felt like I'd been waiting my whole life to get to meet her.  Matt and I experienced a sweet moment filled with pure love as we looked into each others eyes and felt the right-ness of the moment.

Jane Amelia

11-17-13

12:45pm

6lbs 3oz

19 inches

The day after I got home from the hospital my mom came down with the full on flu.  She spent the next 2 weeks quarantined in her room downstairs where I just brought her food, meds, and water.  So the above pic from the hospital is the only time she got to hold Jane.  It was incredibly crummy timing, especially because Matt didn't take any time off, so I was flying solo.

A week and a half after I had Jane was Thanksgiving.  My brother Charlie flew in to spend it with us.  Unfortunately, he ended up having to sleep on an air mattress in our main room upstairs so that he didn't have to share a bathroom or be in the general vicinity of my mom who was still out with the flu. 

Matt ended up having Thanksgiving off so it was AWESOME to have his help!  I was glad not to have to do the whole meal by myself.

We made my mom come up long enough to be in this picture and make herself a plate.  At this point the worst of her fever and miserableness had subsided, but she still wasn't well.  She didn't want to be photographed, so she threw on one of the girl's dress-up hats to cover her face.  We're a ragtag group, that's for sure, but it was still a yummy Thanksgiving!

The weekend after Thanksgiving we decorated for Christmas, and Uncle Charlie bought pizza.  We had a movie night and rented Monsters University and did facials.  It was lots of fun!  We sure love it when Uncle Charlie visits!

By this time my mom was feeling much better, though still not well, and I wasn't ready to let her anywhere near Jane, who was the only member of our family who didn't get a flu shot.

Charlie flew back to Ohio, and a few days later my mom followed suit.  I was so sad to have her go.  I'm always sad to have her go, but I was especially sad that she didn't get to spend much time with the girls while she was here, since she was sick for the majority of her stay, and I was especially sad that she didn't get any time to bond with Miss Jane.

Here are some pictures we took of Miss Jane during November