Coming down

I'm sure this feeling will be familiar to anyone reading this, similar to a race let-down period, I'm hitting a wall. The past month has been completely nuts with Baby Girl's arrival and all the house stuff. I think that I'm a pretty good person to have around in busy and stressful times. I do well with a bit of chaos and can keep my head and organization to the extent that people have often commented they have no idea how I'm doing it- it being whatever needs to be done. Well, she's here, the house inspection is done, and I've got, say, maybe a tad more hormones running around my body than usual, so I can feel a crash coming on. I haven't hit the random crying-for-no-reason post-partum point yet. For me that's been about 5 days after, so by the beginning of next week that's where I'll probably be at. I'm trying to just enjoy the absolute blessings I've got in my life but there's something about my personality that leads me to dwell on small trivialities to keep my brain occupied when there isn't enough external stress. So, I'll cry "because" this is our last baby, because we're leaving this house, even though I can't wait- because this is where Superman was born, because I don't really like pink and we've already gotten about a dozen pink outfits for her. I'll cry because I'm not quite sure what to do with a girl, and I don't think girl toys are nearly as cool as boy toys, but also because I'm a little scared about the whole mom-daughter relationship thing and how I know that there will likely be times when I'll push her away by trying to do what I think is the best thing for her. Or, I'll just cry, no reason.

I think I'll be taking a blogging break for a little while to get myself together again. Right now I don't have a lot of interest in, well, anything. I'll get through it, I've been here before, it's just not the fun part and I'm not sure I'll be up to sharing. Thanks again for all the well-wishes, I'm sure I'll be back soon and I'll be keeping tabs on everyone else until then.

Pictures and info

Thanks for all the congratulatory responses! Just to let you know, we do have a name in-real-life, but I don't have a blog name for her yet, to go with Hot Wheels and Superman. I realize that anyone could probably find out who we are relatively easily, but SuperDad prefers that we not use names, especially for the kids. You never know these days, it's sad but true.

She was 8lbs 4 oz and 20" long. I'm told that's long for a girl, but she still seems so tiny. She's asleep right now, the boys are looking forward to her waking up so they can "help" me give her a sponge bath. They've been so great with her, she may be the most-kissed two-day old ever since Superman kisses her just about every time he walks by her.

Here's a picture of all of us at the hospital, and her close-up. Thanks again for all the well-wishes.

"Race Report"

Well, we're home and Critter has arrived. Or, I guess I should say Critterette. Yes, it's a girl. She's not quite old enough for me to have figured out a suitable name for her, I guess we'll just go with Baby Girl for now.

The whole induction thing was much less invasive than I had expected. The dr. broke my water about 11am and she shot into the world a little after 2pm. You don't need all the details, things were steady from 11am until about 1:15pm. Then at 1:15pm the nurse said we could walk around the maternity ward if we'd like, I was going stir crazy in the room so I said yes. After three laps I was feeling really uncomfortable, we got back to the room and she was on her way. There were about 25 minutes of some intense pain and a little nervousness due to a compressed cord and the fact that they couldn't find her heartbeat. Finally they got the monitoring back and the dr. barely had his gloves and gown on before he reached up and caught her. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about being in labor for only four hours, but that last part was quite overwhelming.

She's doing well, her brothers are thrilled to meet her and they've both shown much more interest and concern for her well-being than I had anticipated. I'm pretty exhausted because we probably got a total of three hours of sleep at the hospital, I don't know who can rest at a hospital- it's impossible. Glad to be home, our family of five.

Thanks for the many well-wishes throughout this pregnancy. I'm looking forward to getting back into shape after the next couple weeks of recovery, another journey I'll be sharing.

The end of the tunnel

Tomorrow's induction day. I was really hoping I'd go into labor before then, and I still could, but at 10 days over I guess tomorrow's the day. I'm a bit nervous about the whole induction thing and I'd rather have it progress naturally, but this is the best option available. The doctors think it shouldn't actually take much to get things going, but then again they didn't think I'd even make it to my due date.

I'll be back Thursday or Friday with the update, depending on when this one arrives I might have to be there more than 24 hours. Thanks for all the well wishes.

Nothing.

Still here waiting. Up to six extra days of maternity leave now, but I'm ready to get things going.

Almost the happiest place on Earth

No, not Disneyworld, my favorite local spot is the used bookstore down the street where all paperbacks are $1 and most hardcovers at $4. The bookstore is a converted residence with a main house, a barn and four other small outbuildings all crammed full of books, the owners live in the residence next door. I now have 11 new books to last me the next few weeks, it's always good to have a book handy for those late night feedings or baby sessions when I'm up, but don't want to noise of the TV to distract the baby. I also stock up on kids books there. My kids have 1 full sized bookcase almost full and four 4-shelf bookcases full of books. I'm so glad that they enjoy reading almost as much as I do, and it's been so much fun rediscovering some favorite books of mine from when I was a kid. They're big into the Berenstain Bears, Franklin, Clifford and some other random story favorites.

I was up again from midnight until about 5am with annoyingly irregular yet stronger, contractions. Then a little after 5am I was able to get back to sleep until Superman woke up at 5:40am or so. Not the most rested feeling today. We went for an hour walk this morning, then I came home and vacuumed the house, cleaned the bathroom and helped SuperDad move more bins of clothing and packed items out to the POD sitting in the driveway. I keep hoping that Critter will get the subliminal, and verbal, eviction notices that have been given, but no luck so far. My sister arrived at my parents a little while ago, she's been planning this trip for months to come and meet her new niece or nephew, now there's no niece or nephew to meet yet. She's here until midday Monday so there's still a chance.

A happy anniversary. This weekend last year was my first triathlon at the Timberman Sprint, and 17 years ago today was my first date with SuperDad. Time just flies.

Pregnancy status: 6 days overdue, hoping for Critter's arrival soon.

One Down

Only seven days on the market and we got an offer on our house! It wasn't quite full price, but it's close enough that for the peace of knowing this whole thing will be done, and the fact that we won't have to worry about showings or open houses with a newborn, it's worth it. I'm just thrilled because now our offer on the new house becomes a done deal, we should close and move mid-October. Enough time for me to recover and be more helpful, and before I have to return to work. I guess that this was all meant to be, I can't believe how lucky we are.

All is quiet on the baby front. My sister will be here tomorrow to meet the baby which will most likely still be in utero. Oh well, we're ready whenever he or she decides to make an entrance. At least I've now got a full extra week of maternity leave- woohoo!

Status

Uterus status: occupied and quiet- except for the occasional random contraction, annoying and useless.
Medical status: if Critter doesn't appear by next Wed, we go to the hospital at 6:45am for the induction process to begin.
House status: waiting for feedback, hopefully an offer
Mood status: tired, low energy, getting anxious
Grandma status: calling quite frequently for updates
Grandpa status: proclaims Critter is a girl because of the "grand entrance" she is commanding
Kids status: bored more often than usual, especially since I'm not as energetic and active as a couple weeks ago
Fitness status: I walked for an hour and a half on Tuesday, almost an hour yesterday, not sure what I'll do today. Really disappointed lately that the pool closed for the summer because I had been planning to swim throughout this maternity leave time.
Weather status: storms should come through later today, I've heard that sometimes barometric pressure changes can trigger labor, I kind of hope so.
Weight status: I've lost 4 pounds over the past two weeks, because Critter's squishing my stomach which makes me feel full more easily, which is nice. Overall weight gain, 30 pounds, two more than I gained with Hot Wheels and Superman.
Overall status: Happy to be home, trying to be patient, knowing that things will happen as they should for whatever reason.

False alarm

This time yesterday we were over at Labor and Delivery and I was being monitored for contractions that were pretty consistently 3-5 minutes apart. Then they checked and I was only 2cm, the same at last Tuesday at the dr. office. So, I walked. I walked for over an hour and a half, I'm pretty sure it was actually a decent pace, which people kept commenting on. The contractions felt stronger, and we had walked enough that my legs were actually tired, I was really hoping it would get things going. Unfortunately, that resulted in nothing, so we were sent home, with my apparently cranky uterus left to randomly contract throughout the rest of the day. I had been up all night because the contractions started at midnight after I had crawled into bed at approximately 11:40pm, so by 8:30pm last night I was completely exhausted. Nothing happened overnight, so here we are again, waiting. It's only three days past my due date and I haven't really been all that anxious to get things going, but after getting to the hospital and really thinking Critter was arriving I'm very disappointed that we're still waiting to meet him or her. I was also very embarrassed that this is my third time around, I should know what I'm doing, and I woke up everyone early for a false alarm. I called my mom at 5:45am for her to come watch the kids, I woke Super Dad at 5:30am to tell him we were going, I just feel silly. Oh well, not that motherhood hasn't made me do plenty of silly things. I'll just try to enjoy these last days at the mother-of-two, it's inevitable that critter will arrive at some point, he or she just has a mind of his or her own, already.

Not Monday...

Unless things move quickly, today will also pass without critter's arrival.

We've got a second showing on our house Wednesday morning at 10am. An offer in less than a week would be amazing!

Until then I'm pretty much waddling along, keeping the kids busy going to friends' houses, they can't make as many messes in the house if we're not here.

We'll see what tomorrow brings.

I also have to mention that lately it feels like I should always be nine months pregnant for all the compliments I've been getting! People have been telling me how great I look and they can't believe that I'm due to have this baby already. It's a nice little boost, especially when I'm feeling especially large and cumbersome.