Grandma and Grandpa

We got a visit from my Grandma and Grandpa this week!  It was fun to show off my little boy and share my girls with them.

More Pictures

Just in case you thought I wasn’t proud of the little guy, here are some more pics …

My sister made this little baby bag for J … He’s a bit big for it already.

But she made a bigger one, too.

My dad came up this last weekend.  My mom says he was excited to see his new grandson.  I think he was missing my mom.  Either way, he got to meet J.  Look at the look on J’s face!  Doesn’t it look like he’s laughing at a joke or something?!

A very loving big sister:

And I just have to put this one in, because it was such a pretty pic of L.

And while we’re on the subject of pretty girls …

And one of the proud Daddy:

 

And to finish it off, I tried to do an “artsy” photo shoot of J today, hoping to get a cute pic for birth announcements … but in most of the pics, he’s grumpy and frowning, just like his daddy when you point a camera at him.  I shouldn’t be surprised.  :-)

The Details

I’ve been asked for details … because  I’m terribly paranoid about putting information on the internet, I’ll be sending out the birthday and other specifics in the birth announcements.  (I think I have everyone’s snail mail addresses – I updated them last Christmas before I decided I wasn’t mailing out Christmas cards.)

No, J (our new little one) doesn’t look like a newborn.  Look at his round little face!

There is a reason for that.  J was a c-section baby, so he didn’t have to get squished on his way out.  It was, in fact, a planned c-sec.  Now, those of you who know me are wondering why I had a planned c-sec …

Well, it all started when L was born.  She was only 7 lbs 8 oz, but she got stuck (for more information, google “shoulder dystocia”).  L was a moderate shoulder dystocia, which means the doctor had to manipulate and maneuver her to get her out.  Lucky for us, she didn’t suffer any permanent injuries, and she didn’t need to have her collarbone broken, which sometimes happens.

When I got pregnant with S, my OB in Virginia wanted to deliver her c-sec.  He quoted statistics at me: any normal woman walking into a delivery has a .05% chance of having a shoulder dystocia.  A woman with a previous shoulder dystocia has a 15% chance of having another shoulder dystocia.  That means my chances of having another baby get stuck were 300 times higher. 

But still, I objected, and I talked my OBs into inducing me early and letting me try and deliver S naturally.  I had a fantastic friend/doula there to help me, the nurses were great, and S was delivered with absolutely no problem.

When I went into my OB here, pregnant with J, they reminded me that an elective c-sec was an option.  I blew them off.  But as time went on, and my belly got bigger, the idea of a c-sec returned to my mind again and again.  I was convinced J was bigger than L had been, and I started worrying more and more that there would be problems with a vaginal birth.  I made up a list of pros and cons and kept poor C up until late at night talking to him about how I felt.

When I finally settled on an elective c-sec, all my worries stopped.  I hardly thought about it anymore.  In fact, I didn’t second guess my decision until I was in the hospital that morning, and the nurse was getting my vitals and getting me ready.  I started feeling anxious … but as soon as I did, I felt a little voice in my head say, “This is the right choice.  You will be okay.  Everything will be okay.”

Then again, just as they’d put the spinal block in and I was I was letting them lay me down on the table, I got the distinct impression, “You would have ended up here anyway, and this way, you’re a lot better off going into it.”

Now, I can’t say exactly what might have happened if we’d tried to have a vaginal delivery.  I’ll obviously never know.  But we do know they delivered J at 8 lbs even, a full half pound larger than L was.  Both the pediatric nurse and my OB commented that, “If your 7 lb 8 oz baby got stuck, we’d have never gotten this little boy out.” 

I will say, if you have the choice, a c-sec is a miserable way to have a baby.  I didn’t like the procedure, and recovery has been wretched. 

But no matter how he got here, we’re glad we have our Baby J.  He is such a laid-back little boy, and a good eater.  He’s working on sleeping – he does just fine in my arms all night, but I’d prefer to have him in his bassinette.  He’s also the first of my kids to really not like his pacifier – although he will rarely take it when I’m changing his diaper and it calms him down for a few minutes. 

… and you should see the look C gets on his face when he holds his own little baby boy!

Picture Dump

As requested … This isn’t all there is, but it’s a good selection.

A quick plug for NANO

National Novel Writer’s Month is in November, and the guys at NaNoWriMo have a writing contest every year to see if you can write 50,000 words of a new novel within 30days (you can plan and research before Nov, but no writing until 12am Nov. 1st).

I started Nov. 4th of 2008, and I had a blast.  I have yet to find a publisher for my LDS romance, Lacy’s Choice, but I have had some positive encouragement from the publishers who’ve rejected me.  (The final manuscript is just about 85,000 words, so 50,000 is really only a good start on your novel.)

Nov. of 2009 I wrote a sequel to Lacy’s Choice entitled My Dear Joe.  It turned out shorter than Lacy’s Choice, around 78,000 words, and I haven’t revised it as well as I did Lacy’s Choice, but I’ve pretty much decided that I don’t want to stay with the LDS genre.

This year, with a baby coming in October, I’m seriously doubting I’ll have time to do justice to a NaNo project … I’m more doing it to keep my user name active … and because I think I’d miss it if I didn’t do it at all.  I’m going way off the LDS genre and writing a little sci-fi novella about a town being attacked by aliens.  Honestly, it’s all for fun, and who knows if I’ll get more than a page or two written.

So, if anyone’s interested, go to NaNoWriMo.com and check it out for yourself.  It really is a blast!

Surreal

I think they days leading up to adding a baby to your family are best described as “surreal”.  You have everything all lined up …

The diaper bag for the hospital is packed, the blankets are washed, the bassinet is set up and ready …

The diapers and wipes are bought and sitting by the changing station.  Shiny, new pacifiers wait patiently …

Even the car seat sits ready for the baby to come home in.

And yet, it’s still hard to imagine, even though I’ve been through this two times already, that the wiggling and kicking in my stomach will soon morph into a small infant.  Or rather, that there already is a small infant there, and we’re just waiting for the time to get him out.

We’re down to less than a week, my mom is coming soon, and I’m more tired and sore than I was with either of my girls … and yet, it’s still all so surreal.  A baby boy?  For Real?

Down at the County Fair

We had some friends come into town this weekend, and we decided to load up and take all the kids down to the county fair.  I have to say I love the fair here.  It’s large enough to have fun, but small enough you can cover it in a few hours.  Of course, now that the kids are old enough to demand out of the stroller and to walk themselves, we didn’t see everything this year, but I think we saw all we really cared to.

 

We’d given each of the girls a sparkly headband just for fun that morning, and after adding ponytails to keep their hair back (due to the wind) we ended up with four little girls who looked like punk rockers who’d stepped out of the 80s.  We got there early enough to walk past the still-closed rides to the free petting zoo.  I was so proud of my girls.  Last year, they had to be coerced to touch anything – this year they were a lot braver.

I think L remembered brushing the cow from last year,

But S needed some instruction – she tried to brush his poor little face.

They were especially intrigued by feeding the animals.  This is S’s “the goat licked me on my hand!” pose.

Here are all four girls trying to pet the calf.

Then we wandered through the merchant buildings, where nearly every booth had a bowl of candy or a bundle of balloons to lure the kids (and effectively their parents) into hearing their sales’ pitches.  We ate lunch – corn dogs, French Fries, hamburgers and cotton candy – then went over to watch the piglet races.  I didn’t get any pics there, but I did get some video of the racing pigs.

By that time, it was nearly 2:30, and we’d only planned on staying until noon.  It was getting really hot, so we found some snow cones for $1, and set the girls up in the shade to cool down.

Even the baby got some …

Then, with five kids on the verge of a breakdown, we loaded the strollers back up and made a dash for the cars.  We made it home and set the girls up in the living room to watch movies and rest while both daddies headed to their beds to nap.  L asked if we could go to the fair every day … It sure would be fun, but it just might kill us!  :-)