The Resurrection - The Second Coming of Trouble

I know. I`m going straight to Hell for that title. Which would matter only if I believed in Hell.

Anyways...

We`re knocked up. Again. Well, I`m knocked up and Steve`s along for the ride. See?

No, it wasn't an accident. All of our babies have been ridiculously planned. And what can I say...our kids are pretty awesome, so why stop at two?

And I want a pink one. A pink ruffly girl. I figure we'll keep going til we get one.

Had my first prenatal appointment as well. Didn't get to see Dr. Miller but I saw the resident. I had to drag two sick kiddos along with me. They don't know their lives are about to be turned upside-down yet, so I had the doc keep it on the DL. I also have Jayme booked again. Yep...another home birth. 

A Long Over-Due Update: The Birth Story of Quinn Oliver

I'm the most horrible blogger that ever existed. My last post was at 41 weeks pregnant, and my sweet baby is now almost 10 months old. But I've decided to get it going again, starting with Quinn's birth story. Enjoy.


I woke up 4:30 am on March 20th in active labour. I was 42 weeks and 3 days pregnant. After timing contractions and counting 13 in just 35 minutes, I called my midwife, Jayme, my doula, Tina, and my Aunt Cathy (who was to be there for Jesse) and then puttered around doing a couple things before waking up my mom. I let Steve and Jesse sleep (Steve was sleeping in Jesse's room because Jesse woke up crying in the middle of the night). Jayme, her assistant, Dawn, and Tina got here around 6:15 maybe. Jayme took my vitals and checked fetal heart tones and told me to eat (I didn't want to but she insisted) and everyone else went to work setting everything up. Tina gave me a bit of a neck massage. Steve, hearing all the commotion, thought my mom was up making a racket and was about to tell her off when he saw all the people and figured out what was going on. Jesse figured out that the baby was coming, lifted up my night dress and started rubbing my belly saying "open...open". (hilarious!)
 
The contractions were quite strong, and I gripped a chair and swayed through them. They were very manageable though, and there was plenty of time between contractions to recoup. I decided at around 7 am that I should go pee (last time I used the washroom was around 5 am) so I went upstairs. I peed and then things started getting really intense. I had a couple of serious contractions where I just had to vocalize and I started feeling grunty. The birth pool was about filled at that time and I said I wanted to get in "NOW". Apparently Jayme said something about making sure I was at least 5 cm dilated before getting in and I cursed at her (don't remember doing that!) and had another contraction and felt really pushy and felt something come out (likely a lot of bloody show) so I whipped off my night dress and jumped into the birth pool. That was 7:20 am. I immediately got on my hands and knees and leaned against the side of the birth pool. The next contraction I had that really overwhelming urge to push and gave 'er. My membranes ruptured with a pop and I felt the baby move down and felt the stretching and burning. The baby started crowning and I was cursing and yelling. I yelled, "I wish I had that ****ing gas!" All this while Jesse was so calm (my mom was watching him...Aunt Cathy was coming from 2 hours away and didn't have nearly enough time to get there before all this happened). He brought me over his baby doll (the one that I had as a child) to make me feel better. Anyways, baby was crowning FAST. I did my damndest to "breathe the baby down" but in the end instinct won over and I pushed HARD and out came Quinn's head and then his shoulders. Jayme said "Amber, catch your baby!" and I put my hands down and she passed him through my legs and I pulled him up and sat back down in the pool. That was 7:29 am. I'd been in the birth pool for 9 minutes.

Quinn was corded twice so Jayme quickly unwrapped it so I could pull him up a bit higher. He was breathing right away. Jayme had been prepared for deep suctioning because a nurse at my second last biophysical profile had said that a hazy area of fluid looked like meconium to her. In the end, there was no meconium and she didn't even need the bulb syringe. Everyone started saying, "What is it?!" and someone said to let Jesse check. So we asked Jesse (I held the baby's legs open) and he said, "It's a BABY!" We asked again and he said, "It's a boy!" So sweet. The midwife checked the babe out a little while we sat there in the pool and he was obviously fine, with the exception of some facial bruising and a couple of broken blood vessels in his eyes (due to the precipitous birth). Apgars of 8 and 9. She was a bit worried about me though because I was a bit shell-shocked. She kept checking my pulse, and I think she might have been considering breaking out the oxygen for me.

Shortly after that I started feeling really bad. I was aching really badly. So with the baby still attached and him in my arms, everyone lifted me to stand and helped me out of the pool and onto the bed. They got me all dried off and we got the baby latched on to help encourage the placenta along. Jesse, seeing a baby on his boobies, insisted on nursing too....the more the merrier! I wasn't bleeding much at all though. I cramped and delivered the placenta at 8:03 am. Jayme estimates I lost less than 250 mls total. Shortly after that she checked me out and I had torn...we just weren't sure how badly. After I rested a bit she was able to assess me better and figured the tear was too much for her to suture, so she called my family doctor, who said I should head in to the L&D ward for the repair. We sort of decided to wait a bit and then go, since I was still pretty out of it and didn't really want to move at all. In the meantime, the baby was all weighed and measured and Jayme did his newborn assessment. He was 9 lbs 3.5 oz, 52 cms long, with a 36.5 cm head (completely unmolded, just like Jesse's was at birth).
 
We went to the hospital that afternoon and met my family doctor at the L&D ward. He decided I had a partial 3rd degree tear so he got the OB to come in and assess me and she ended up doing the suturing. The repair was done under local numbing (though I could still feel a LOT and it was incredibly uncomfortable) and then I got to go home. We were only there for about 2 hours total, and the suturing took a good hour of that, so it wasn't too bad. Then we came home to a wonderful supper delivered by my mom's friend.

 The next day we finally decided on our sweet boy's name. We'd been throwing around the name Quinn for a while, and Steve figured it was appropriate, since the baby was born on the spring eQUINox. Then we had to figure out a middle name. And really, there isn't much that goes well with Quinn, but we both liked Oliver. So, Quinn Oliver.

Now for some pics....My cousin, our birth photographer, made it about 15 minutes before Quinn was born.

25 weeks 3 days - a bunch of updates

I suppose I'll start with pics. Boy have I grown! I'm starting to feel pulling and stretching on my sides now. And it's no wonder, really. This was me 2 weeks ago.

And this is me now:

Big difference, huh? I think so anyways. I really feel like my belly has really popped out just in the past week. Even though I'm only up by 6 1/2 lbs, I'm definitely starting to feel pregnant now!

In other news, I had a good prenatal appointment with my midwife, Jayme, a couple of weeks ago. Belly is measuring right on target and baby's heart rate is in the 140s. Jesse had to get in on the action too...we had a listen to his baby with the doppler and measured his teeny tiny belly. He loved it. I got told off for not eating enough, so I'm trying to work on that. In my defense though, I had been sick and really hadn't felt like eating much at all. Some food had actually been making me gag. I also need to up my water intake, which I've been working on as well. It was also suggested that I add some spinach to my smoothies, which I've been doing. You don't even notice a difference! It's pretty good actually. I should post the recipe. I'm going to try some avacado in it tomorrow as well, I think.

I also had a prenatal appointment with Dr. D, who damn near broke my heart when she told me should would not be acting as back up for Jayme. She explained her reasoning, which is fine. I just wish I'd been told sooner, as I've been going to her clinic for 3 months now. So tomorrow I'm calling Jayme's usual back-up, Dr. M. I've worked with him before, as a doula, and he's absolutely wonderful, so I'm sure I'll be taken care of. Before she cut me loose though, Dr. D suggested I start on ASA 81 mg per day and calcium 1000 mg per day to ward off any issues with pregnancy-induced hypertention or pre-eclampsia. I had some blood pressure issues with Jesse, so I'd like to do what I can to prevent that this time. I need to look into it a bit more though before I start taking meds.

And lastly, I've been asked by a couple people about my newborn cloth diaper stash. So I figured I'd share what I have thus far. In the first pic, you'll see a dozen unbleached prefolds, 16 bleached prefolds, a small Bumstoppers fitted, 2 WAHM one-size fitteds, a small Imse Vimse cover and 2 small Swaddlebees covers. In the second pic, you'll see 9 small Fuzzi Bunz (these were Jesse's), 3 Swaddlebees Econappies, and a Bum Genius 4.0 snap dipe. I'm still waiting on 2 Blueberry Coveralls (one-size covers) to come in the mail.

I cannot wait to try these dipes out on Trouble! Oh the cuteness! :) I think I'll wait before getting more though...who knows, I may end up with a reason to buy some adorable girly fluff!

19 weeks

I had my first appointment with the midwife, Jayme, and her assistant, Erin. It lasted for nearly 2 hours! They came to our home last evening and were able to meet Steve and Jesse. We talked about my medical history, my pregnancy with Jesse, and how this new pregnancy is going. They checked my blood pressure, which was fine, measured my belly, which was 19 or 20 cm (I can't remember), and we just talked. It was so nice to just talk about birth! I love it. They gave me a ton of paperwork to fill out, and Jayme will be emailing me the contracts and all. I think it's starting to hit me now that this home birth is going to happen!

I also took a pic today! I didn't post the one from last week, so I'll post them together now. I'll post my 3 week pic as well to compare:

I think I'm definitely starting to pop out a little, which is nice. I'd rather look pregnant than just plain fat. My new maternity clothes that just came from Motherhood Maternity should help! Maybe I'll take some pics as I wear my new outfits. Well, really, it's just shirts. 3 shirts and a sweater came today, and I'm expecting 2 more shirts to come as well. I really need to buy another couple pairs of pants. I just wish I could find some that didn't haul my underwear down. I'm about to say "screw it" and start going commando!