A June Update

Well, Violet will be six weeks old tomorrow!  The time has absolutely flown by and we could not be more happy with our new addition.  She eats great, she sleeps pretty good, especially for a newborn, and is just loving life.  She is starting to be more awake everyday, which Lily is loving.  Lily is always really excited with Violet wakes up and says "Baby sister's awake!!" because she wants to play with her.  We do have to watch Lily closely with her because the few times we left them alone together in a room, Lily has picked Violet up.  She has only dropped her once and from a very low angle but I guess I will need to take one, or both, of the girls to the bathroom from me until Lily is better able to hold her sister (because I doubt she'll just stop trying anytime soon).

Like I mentioned above, Violet will sleep pretty good stretches during the night which means we are not as sleep deprived as we could be!  Lily is probably the hardest to deal with so far.  She still gets a ton of attention from us but because there is someone else sharing the attention she acts up a little more to make sure we aren't forgetting she's there - like that could ever happen.  But some of that is probably due to her age.  Hopefully she can grow out of the toddler attitude soon!  I'm practicing, and reading books about, my good parenting techniques because some days I just don't feel like I can be a good mother to her!  But I love her so we'll keep figuring it out as we go.

Not much has been happening since my parents left a few weeks ago.  Just getting through each day.  Tomorrow we start swim lessons for Lily for two weeks.  That'll be fun, I think!  Although getting into a swim suit 6 weeks after having a baby isn't ideal, it's worth it because I know she'll have a ton of fun.  More updates to come on here later in the summer.  We're going on a few big trips - one to northern VA for a Redfearn Family Reunion and then about a month out to California for my baby sister Wendy's wedding.  I think we'll also be driving out to Utah during that trip so I look forward to walking around BYU again and showing it to Lily (because I'm sure she doesn't remember living there for a year and a half before we moved).  I think I'll have to get both Lily and Violet some BYU gear.  This Hokie stuff just isn't cutting it!

Here's the pictures we did for Brady for Father's Day:

I love my cuties!!

Violet's Birth Story

Well, Grandma (my mother in law) has taken the girls on a walk so I thought I'd write up a quick birth story post.  We woke up on May 6th around 4:45 am (after a super restful night of sleep - NOT) to get ready to go into the hospital.  My friend Holly came to stay at the house until Lily woke up and then took her back with her to her house to play for the day.  We had a lovely drive in the rain and got to the hospital around 6:15 am.  They checked me in and got the antibiotics going as I was positive for group B strep.

That process took a while and they didn't really do much else until the doctor came in  to check me (I was at a 6, 50% and Violet was still way up: -2 station for anyone who knows what that means).  The doc slightly broke my water - meaning it would leak for a while instead of gushing out all at once - to get things going.  (That was fun).  I can't remember when that was but around 8:30 am they started the pitocin to get the contractions I was already having a little closer together and more intense.  I labored for a while and when they started getting really bad I let my nurse know I wanted my epidural.  Well, that took forever for the anesthesiologist to come in and do it and when she did finally do it I think it was more painful than some of the contractions.  It worked for a while - maybe an hour - and then I started to feel all the contractions in my pelvis.  I tried using the button to add more medicine and it worked a little bit but it was still hurting quite a lot.  I told my nurse I was feeling tons of pressure and she thought it just might be a full bladder (I'll skip the next part but it ends with me having a much emptier bladder).

I was still feeling the pressure after that so she checked me and I was at an 8 dilated and still 80% effaced but Violet had come down a lot.  She said the doctor was in the room next to mine so she'd go get him and see what he thought.  20 minutes later (just after 2 pm) they both came in and the nurse checked me and told the doctor that she thought it was time for me to have the baby.  He wasn't sure and was going to go back to his office that is right next to the hospital and have the nurse give him a call when I was really ready.  After some prodding from the nurse, though, she had me push once and see what happened.  Well, in the 20 minutes she was gone to the doc, I apparently dilated the rest of the way and Violet was ready to come out. It all happened so quickly that I can't really remember all of the specifics but it basically happened like that. After some crazy intense pushing  for about 15 minutes(of which I could feel most of it - dang epidural!) Violet was born at 2:32 pm after about 6 hrs of active labor - not too shabby!  They put her right on my chest, all goopy, and she was amazing.  Barely cried at all.  Just hung out on me while the nurse cleared her out and wiped her off with some towels.  They let her stay with me for about an hour and then they came in to weigh and measure her.  She was 8 lbs 1.8 oz and 22 inches long!  That's a pound lighter than Lily was an 1.5 inches longer.  So she is our tall and skinny girl!  The new born clothes we've put on her are short in the arms but super baggy everywhere else.

I felt bad for Brady because once Violet was born, they put her on my chest and I was surrounded by the doctor and nurses so he couldn't really see her for a while after she was born.  He was just off standing in the corner trying to look over at us.  But he got to hold her soon enough and held her a ton in the hospital.  We had to stay a full 48 hours because of the group B strep thing and I was not enjoying it.  They were actually really good about only checking on us when they had to but I just wanted to be home.  When we had Lily, I never wanted to leave the hospital but with Violet, I wanted to get out of there!  Hospitals are super uncomfortable.  Why is that not more known?  My bed and all the seating available in the whole room was awful.  But now we're home and much more comfortable!  Most of my good pictures of the events have been posted on FB already but here's one of our sweet girl:

And one of our girls together for the first time:

So far Lily is doing ok with the new person in our house.  She is acting out a little more than usual and gets pretty jealous especially when I'm feeding the baby.  I'm sure it'll just take some getting used to and it's only been on day of us all being home together so I'm not too worried.  I think the hardest part so far has been making sure I'm giving Lily enough attention.  It's hard to explain to a 2 year old why mommy has to take care of the baby so much.  My parents get here tomorrow and we are very excited for that!  We haven't seen them since Christmas so I'm sure Lily will have a great time.  That's all for now.  We are so glad to be all together at home!

Who wants to have a baby?

So I'm 38 weeks and 2 days today and I had my weekly doctor's appointment.  Because of my GD, the doctor said he didn't want me going past my due date simply because GD means bigger babies which means higher chance of c-section.  So today we talked about when we might induce and his options were Monday May 6th or Thursday May 9th.  I originally said the 9th, since Brady doesn't have class on Thursdays but, after talking with Brady, we decided that we would do it Monday.  Next week is Virginia Tech's last week of class and finals start on Saturday.  So Brady has some review classes he has to go to Wednesday and then his two finals are on Saturday, the 11th (my due date).  We figured it might be better to have her on Monday so that we're home and he can get some studying done for his finals by Saturday.  So, in a week's time we will have a baby!

It still has not hit me at all.  She'll be early but only by about 5 days and it still seems so far away.  And for those of you interested, and know what these numbers mean, I was checked today and I was 3cm dilated, 50% effaced but my cervix is still high - meaning baby hasn't "dropped" yet.  So things are already looking better than they were for Lily's induction (I was barely 2cm a week overdue with her).  I think I'm going to try and be a lot more active and moving around to see if I can get her to come on her own but, if not, we'll still have a baby in a week!  Here's a new picture.  I don't look much different from the one two weeks ago.
 

Oh, and in case you're curious, we have decided on Violet Jane as her name.  We can't wait to bring her home!

33 Weeks and Potty Training

So I'm 33 weeks and 1 day, about.  Here's what I'm looking like these days:

Lily wanted to show her belly off too.

As you can imagine, I am having trouble moving around and am having some braxton hicks contractions, I think.  I've never had them before so I'm not sure what they feel like but I've been having lots of belly pain.  I am HUGE as you can tell.  I look 9 months pregnant already.  But, enough about me.

We have been trying to tackle the infamous potty training.  I'm not sure why this is such a hard thing and yet every kid must learn how to do it eventually.  Lily did great for a few hours, she went on the potty the two times I took her early on, both 1 and 2, but then when I would take her later she wouldn't go 1 and then 20 minutes later she would go in her pants.  We'll just have to keep at it.  I think she's ready, she just has to decide she is.  She likes wearing big girl underwear so hopefully that'll motivate her.  She did go number 2 twice in the toilet so I didn't have to change a poopy diaper today!  Yay!  That might be worth cleaning up a few number 1 accidents during the day.  I'm trying to do this before the baby comes - we'll see if that happens.  I'm just not too keen on having to change two children's diapers at once.  If anyone has any suggestions for potty training a kid when nothing usual works (sticker charts, treats, shopping for underwear, etc.) I'm up for hearing it!

32 Weeks 4 Days

I'm almost to the 33 week point in this pregnancy.  I feel like she is getting huge and kicking the heck out of me all the time. I'm also starting to get stretching pains (that I got with Lily) and other pains (that I did NOT have with Lily) so I'm pretty uncomfortable all the time.  I kind of want her to come but also want her to wait so we don't have any problems with her health.  I know it'll be easier to just be uncomfortable than to have a new baby but I still wish she was here already or that the time would go more quickly!  Granted, the next two months will certainly FLY by but it only appears that way from some future point in time so for now, I'll wish it was May!  I do have my birthday coming up in a little over a week.  That'll be fun - it's also Easter so Lily will love that.  I got her some great things for her Easter basket.

As for my Master's Degree - I have a capstone class, which is what I'm doing instead of a thesis, that ends on April 15th.  So that'll be over soon and a big weight off of my if I can get my advisor to pass off everything.  I still have two classes to finish before that but those won't be hard and I'll be ready to have the baby!  Plus, the final assignments in each class revolve around research papers which will not be hard to do so if I can finish early and have my assignments ready to turn in on their due dates I'll be all set and stress-free.  Minus the stress of adding another little baby to our family.  Still unsure of names - I think we'll wait until we see her to decide.  My gestational diabetes is well in hand - my numbers are way below the limit of what they can be (which makes me wonder if I have it at all) - and my belly is measuring a little bit big but not big enough that they are worrying yet.  We'll see what my doc says the closer we get!  I seriously think we need to invent a way to see into the future and give pregnant women a date that actually means something.  Due dates are so arbitrary.  I'd love to know the date I'm ACTUALLY going to have her.  Whether it's late or early, I don't care.  I just want to know!  Just one more thing a pregnant woman has to worry about.  Because even when you try not to worry about it and realize she'll come when she's ready, you still worry about it.  Not much else going on.  Just trying to make days fun for Lily when all I do is feel like sleeping - and, in reality, she won't even remember this time in her life but she remembers it now, at least for a little bit, and I don't want her remembering her mommy in a ton of pain from little sister.  The most recent pregger pic:

I think I was just under 31 weeks.  I thought I was huge but when I look back at Lily pregnancy pics I look about the same, except carrying way lower, which I already knew because of the pain.  Current pregnancy is the blue shirt. 

Baby Names

So Brady and I are debating between a few names and can't seem to decide on any of them.  The top two contenders are Olivia or Violet.  We've liked Olivia since we had Lily - it has a lot of options for nicknames, it's just plain cute.  But it's also very common and many syllables.  Violet we love because it is less common but still really cute and not too weird.  The only thing holding me back is that there is not a good nickname for it.  We are not a fan of the obvious "Vie" but we don't necessarily need a shorter name.  I think I would commit to the name but Brady, I think, likes Olivia a little more but just won't come out and say it.  We'll probably wait until the baby comes out to decide but if anyone who reads this blog has an opinion, let me know!

          OR      

Pregnancy Update

Well, I'm almost 29 weeks now.  I don't have an updated photo.  I usually take them on Sundays when I dress up but we've been sick the last couple of weeks so I haven't taken one.  But I'll be going this Sunday, hopefully, so I can do another pic.  I feel like she is already huge and I can barely breathe.  So onto some fun stuff (sarcasm should be detected).  I took the one hour glucose tolerance test around 27 weeks and the results came back a little high so my doctor said I had to go in and do the 3 hour one at the hospital.  I felt really gross most of the time but I brought my laptop and Gilmore Girls and it went by fairly quickly.  Although I arrived at the hospital at 7:30, as per my doctor's instructions, only to discover that no order for my test had been sent over so we had to wait until they opened at 8 and then had to wait some more for them to fax it over.  So I basically spent an extra hour in the awesome hospital lobby waiting for the test to start.  But they had a reclining chair set up just for expectant mothers so I set myself up nice and comfy.

Well, that three hour test was a week ago and I hadn't gotten any call from my doctor so I was going to call today when he finally called this morning.  It was a little annoying that the first thing he said was 'I've been trying to get a hold of you' when I had had my phone glued to my side for a week with no calls.  So whatever, doc!  Anyway, my test results we abnormal so now I guess I technically have gestational diabetes.  Yay!  Not.  What that basically means is that I have to limit carbs, especially the type of carb, and take blood sugar measurements four times a day.  Here's my kind of cute blood sugar reader thing:

The thought of having to prick my finger four times a day is not great but I have a feeling I'll get real comfortable with it real soon.  I'm going in tomorrow so the nurse can show me how to use it but I think already know after reading the instructions.

My numbers are not too far off the normal range so my doctor is optimistic that I'll be able to control it just by diet changes.  If I can't, then we'll have to talk about early delivery, etc. because the main problem with having gestational diabetes is that the baby will be huge and it'll increase the chances of having a c-section and going into preterm labor.  I don't think the diet changes should be too hard - once I found out I failed the first glucose test I've already been trying to modify my diet.  It's just combining carbs and protein and fat in all the right amounts.  And I'm not a huge fan of meat so I'll have to get creative on what to cook for protein.

Huge babies already run in my family so I'm not sure how this condition will affect that.  Brady is freaking out that the baby is going to be super early while he's still doing class (I probably will be too, for that matter) so he is all for he new diet.  But my doc already likes to induce at 39 weeks, as long as your favorable, so this baby might be coming early.  Of course, she'll probably be late but we'll see.

Bangelina (Think Angelina with a B)

Lily really likes to pretend she is Angelina Ballerina.  And she adds a B at the beginning of her name, for some reason.  She doesn't actually watch the show very much (she prefers Kipper and Curious George) but she found her Halloween tutu a week ago and has been loving playing around in it.  It's a little more scrunched up now but she has fun with it, so it's ok.  And it was super easy and cheap to make.

Tutu on Halloween

Performing some "Bangelina" moves

New (to us) Couches

So a couple weeks ago we decided we need more seating in our living room.  We've only had one couch since we moved in in August but as I'm getting wider I kept wanting more and more of the couch space.  So we started looking around Craigslist to try and find something decent.  Brady really wanted a recliner, and so did I really, because it was great when we had one with Lily.  I felt like we needed another couch, too, for laying out purposes.  We found a few choices and emailed them but then, for a week, no one responded.  (Sometimes I feel like people on craigslist don't really want to sell their stuff - they just want to tease people with it).  Anyway, one of the ladies contacted us, finally, after I sent a second message and went to see the couches.  They were in West Virginia, about an hour away, so we rented a U-Haul (just in case) and drove out there.  It was both of our first times to West Virginia so we can cross that state off our list.  The lady was wanting to sell her microfiber recliner and couch (with a recliner on each end) for $300 originally, lowered the price to $250 when she emailed back and then when Brady asked her if $250 was her best price, she lowered it to $200 because we'd drive so far for them.  We brought them home and have been loving the extra space!  And the recliners!  I looked up how to clean microfiber on Pinterest so I gave them a scrubbing and a fabreeze-ing and they are good to go.  Here are pictures of them:

The recliner

The couch that has two recliners.

It has been really great, too, since I've been sick that I can lean back without being completely horizontal because I'm at the stage in pregnancy where breathing air gives me heartburn.  It also helps stretch out my stomach and baby bump so they aren't so cramped, thus worsening the heartburn/acid reflux feeling.  I think we'll be keeping these for a while!

Flu

Well, I have experienced something new in the past month.  Twice.  When we got back from California (I'm talking the day we got back) I got sick with some kind of stomach bug/flu that wiped me out for several days.  The actual gross part only lasted a few hours but then I was weak, achy and had no appetite for days afterward. But, I got over it and considered myself done with flu season.  Apparently my body, and the rest of the world around me, decided I should get whatever that bug was again!  So, almost a month later, I am sick with a stomach bug again!  I am on day 3 of feeling yucky.  I'm hoping I'll feel almost better today.  Being sick normally just stinks but when I have to take care of Lily too it is just the worst!  But luckily Brady has been able to be home most of the time while I've been feeling sick.  He only has classes two days a week so he was able to stay home the rest of the day.  I am just going to have to stay away from people now and use sanitizer a ton until this baby is born (which incidentally marks the end of flu season).  I do not want to get more sick on top of already being pregnant anymore!  (And, of course, there are no pictures to document this incident.  I'm sure you understand why).

Christmas 2012

We went to California for Christmas.  It was a really awesome trip especially since we weren't sure we were going to be able to go but we did and since we live in Virginia now, it was really great for Lily to spend time with her cousins.  She has 6 cousins on that side all under 10 so she had a great time.

This was the best picture we could get of all of them.  And soon there will be another one!  We are definitely girl heavy on the Duitsman side.  Both my sister Stacey and I will have two girls and then my older brother has the other four, including the two boys.  We'll see if we can get some more boys in the future!  Lily already misses her California family.  She asks all the time to go to Grandma/Grandpa Duitsman's house and sometimes even asks if we can go on the plane again (since that's how we got to Cali).  It kind of breaks my heart but just cements in me that we will move back West as soon as we're done here!  Even Brady's brother who is having a baby this month (a boy) lives in Utah so we'd be closer to cousins on the Redfearn side, too.

Baby Girl #2

So we're pregnant again!  Obviously, everyone who reads this blog probably already knows this but I'll do a post on it anyway.  I'm due on May 11th, so I have about 3 months left.  During those 3 months I'll be finishing up my final semester of my Master's program.  The semester technically ends on May 13th but I'm hoping to be done earlier in May so it won't interfere with the baby delivering.  Since Lily was 6 days late and they had to force her out of me (via induction) I'm guessing this one will be the same.  Maybe she'll surprise us and come early but probably not.

The first trimester was incredibly easy.  I could hardly believe I was pregnant, except for the fact that my pants stopped fitting way faster this time than with Lily.  I felt sick a few times but nothing to really complain about.  It was good I could go and hear the heartbeat because otherwise I wasn't sure I actually was pregnant.  The second trimester, which is almost over (I'm just over 26 weeks), has been much worse.  And it is supposed to be the easy trimester!  I have had almost a constant headache and the heartburn is really bad.  But I figure that I had a ton of headaches with Lily too, I just didn't have a toddler to look after that time.  I'm already feeling huge and uncomfortable but when I compared my current bump to my bump with Lily I'm about the same size now.  I got big much more quickly but it's kind of tapered off now.

We found out it was another girl just before Christmas and we are really excited.  It means I will not have to do anything but unpack and wash all of Lily's old clothes/toys and that'll be that.  We already have another dresser so each of the girls can have one and her bassinet is already set up in Lily's room.  Lily is excited for her little sister as much as a 2 year old can be.  She knows there's a baby in mommy's tummy and she has heard the heartbeat and saw the ultrasound but it won't really set in until we bring baby #2 home.  I hope these next three months go by quickly - mainly because that means I'll be done with school forever but also because pregnancy gets weird in those last three months.  At the same time, though, I want to try to make it the best three months Lily has had since she will no longer be our only little girl and will have to share us with another little person.  Granted, she'll be the only sibling that will ever get us all to herself but she'll also have a bunch of other responsibilities because she'll be the oldest.  It's weird having my parental love extend towards another person.  I love Lily so much and couldn't imagine having another baby but, now that she is kicking the heck out of me, Baby Girl #2 has just been brought into the parental love bubble.  I think my girls will have so much fun together and there is nothing quite like a sister to be a life long friend.  Here's a grid of pictures of my two pregnancies.  I was curious what the comparison was.  It can clearly be seen that I got huge early but now the difference is not so much.