Best laid plans

Oh my. It has been a while, hasn't it? I had all kinds of intentions for blogging--I even planned a follow-up to my "I Will Wait" blog from more than a year ago. Aaaannnnnndddddd it never happened. It might, still, but not today.

I'm currently 39 weeks and 1 day pregnant. Except I'm not. Nope, little baby Jonas had other plans. Two weeks ago exactly, at 37 weeks and 1 day, as I was getting out of bed to get ready for work, my water broke. When I called Ben to tell him, he wanted to make sure I hadn't actually peed my pants. Pretty sure peeing your pants doesn't happen involuntarily multiple times in succession. :p I called my boss to tell her I wouldn't be in and she asked how I was doing. I mentioned that I didn't really know how I was getting to the hospital since Ben was in Cinci, and she generously came and got me and drove me to the hospital.

I didn't start having contractions until Ben got there, close to an hour after my water had broken. They verified that it had, in fact, broken (apparently they wanted to make sure I hadn't peed my pants, too!) and then got me into a room. The first couple hours of contracting weren't bad...manageable at least. Time went by so very fast.

I was dilating ok and progressing as they would expect. But then the contractions got pretty painful. I opted to have some medication to help with the contractions, but it was still more than I felt I could handle. I tried getting in the bath (I had requested a room with a tub) and getting on the birthing ball, but neither offered enough relief to make it worth it. So, I chose to have an epidural after seven hours of contractions.

It made things quite a bit better. I dilated up to 8 1/2-9 inches quickly...as in, within 10 minutes. But then I stalled. For three hours I made no progress, the baby's heart rate dropped several times and they noticed that he hadn't descended into my pelvis. They were concerned that he wouldn't make it through my small pelvis and suggested considering a c-section. After talking it over with Ben, we decided that would be the best course of action and within a half hour, my son had joined us!

The last two weeks have been a wonderful and frazzling time. Jonas has grown more than half a pound from his birth weight and brings new experiences to our family every day.

Between issues with the cat jumping in the bassinet to honing our swaddling abilities to sorting our a night time schedule (which works most of the time), it has been an adventure. While our best laid plans haven't always gone the way we wanted, they haven't always gone awry, either. I'm ready to see where this little guy will take us and how we will grow together.

The journey isn't over now that he's here. It's just a new direction that we're headed in, and it is certain to change on us countless times over the next couple of decades as we continue on the journey. He is a precious addition to our lives and we are lucky to call ourselves his parents. Whatever our best laid plans may be through this journey, he is worth every bit of it.

Top Five of the Second Trimester

I started this several days ago and then, well, we had some plumbing issues that needed to be addressed RIGHTTHISSECOND, so it got put on hold. But, my second trimester is officially over! It seems like it was just yesterday that the first trimester was ending. Whew! Here's my top five adjectives for the second trimester, like I did with the first (in no particular order).

1. Exciting
The second trimester brought a lot more excitement! We got to hear the baby's heartbeat much stronger, and it was the same day that Ben found out that he passed the Bar, so it was a very good day. We also had two different ultrasounds done and got some awesome pictures to show off. My favorites are a picture of his foot and one of his nose and lips. They're just a glimpse of what he will look like in person, but I'm already biased.

2. Urgent
We definitely got a sense of urgency in the second trimester. We found ourselves at a point that it was crucial to start thinking ahead and be prepared (there's that Boy Scout Motto!) for when he arrives. We took some time and cleaned out Ben's office in stages, then switched his desk and computer to the guest room. It was important to make headway with it so that we could get the nursery ready. The guest room is now a mess, because even with cleaning out the office, there was still a lot of stuff that just got moved over en masse. Beyond that, I started thinking about childbirth classes and hospital prep bags and birth plans. It hit me one day that I had not given ANY of those the attention they needed!

3. Quick
Like I said earlier, it went by so fast! You'd think that the first trimester would have seemed faster because I spent 4 weeks pregnant without even knowing. But, I think keeping it a secret and the fatigue made it drag on. I fully expect the third trimester to zip by as well.

4. Eventful
Lots of stuff happened in the second trimester. We found out that we are having a boy, I took my glucose test (gah, that thing was horrible!), got stuff put on the registry and were told that my brother and his wife are having a baby, too! We also felt the baby kicking, and then stronger and stronger. So many things happened this trimester, it's hard to remember them all!

5. Definitive
For the first trimester, it was surreal. Often I couldn't believe I was pregnant and it didn't seem like it was actually happening. The second trimester put all of that to rest. The ultrasounds and heartbeats and kicking and growing belly all helped solidify it for me. There really is a tiny person in there!



I am fortunate to be able to say that this pregnancy has been relatively easy. There have been some issues--from almost constant nausea at first, to the second ultrasound when he measured large, to my periodic back pain. But, in the grand scheme of things, I know it could have been much, much worse. There have been no complications, my weight has been manageable, he is an active little guy (which is sometimes a blessing and a curse) and there is no reason to believe he won't be a healthy baby when he decides to make his arrival. I just hope that he doesn't make life too hectic once he's here. We'll do the best we can with whatever situation we are given. It will be such an adventure and I can't wait for us to start it together!

Curiouser and curiouser

We went registering this weekend. Whew! It was super overwhelming, let me tell you. Thank God we had friends of ours, the Conner-Rinehart clan (thanks again Kevin and Tim for offering your expertise, and Catherine and Christian for being great sports as the boring old people debated the merits of car seat bases!) to patiently walk around with us and be our sounding board.

I really liked registering for the wedding, so I kind of thought this would be similar, but it was a whole different beast. Fourteen different high chairs, eight of them essentially identical, three from the same brand (I'm exaggerating...slightly). Burp cloths and bibs and pacifiers, oh my, all with the same predicament, except multiply it by five. My issue was the fact that a burp cloth is a burp cloth is a burp cloth. Who cares if it has images of fire trucks or butterflies or cans of sardines on it?? It's going to be spit on. That's it's function. When we were registering for the wedding, we could look at the fourteen different types of towels and pick one because we liked it and that was that. Why do I need to like a burp cloth? You see my predicament. Now, I'm reducing this incredibly, but really there was some degree of that with everything. The high chairs I knew we needed certain things like removable tray and a seat strap and a barrier to keep the baby from sliding out the bottom, but it seemed like they ALL had those certain things!

I was Alice and Babies R Us was Wonderland. Little did I know that the seemingly innocuous act of walking through the automatic doors would be my rabbit hole. The lady at the registry desk offered me a bottle of water; "drink me." Christian, the orange-hatted two year old, spent a decent amount of time rearranging cups to his liking and pushing a popper vacuum; mad hatter indeed. Catherine, the scene-stealing second grader, all but demanded that they purchase a purple stroller for her to ride around in--her chariot; a queen of hearts without the sadism. The only thing we were missing was a cat whose smile lingered and haunted.

Anyway, it's done, or so I think. I've already added some clothes to the registry via their website. Though, I was really unimpressed with how it's handled on the website. Nearly everything was out of stock and quite a few things were online only. Also, God forbid I want something that isn't sports-themed, camo, cowboys or dinosaurs. I mean, I don't have anything against those specifically...but why can't I just have plain old plaid or polka dot or striped or even *gasp* solid colored?! Something non-gimmicky. :/ There were 125+ options shown for newborn baby boy onesies on the website and I could probably count on two hands how many didn't make me curl my lip or sigh. Heaven help us.

P.S. http://www.toysrus.com/registry/index.jsp?ab=BRU_Header:Utility2:Baby-Registry:Home-Page
Registry number 52179672

Duh, winning!

I called the ob today. I took my blood glucose test last Thursday and wanted to give them a couple of days to get the results. Holy cow, that test was terrible. I wasn't even all the way through the 10oz of 50g sugar drink and I felt sick. Luckily I was able to hold it off until they took my blood an hour later and then threw up. I felt like crap the rest of the day. Anyway, I digress. They had the results and said that I passed. Wahoo!! Good thing, because if it had been inconclusive, I would have needed to do a 3 hour test instead. I don't know if I would have been able to keep from getting sick that long.

While I had them on the phone, I asked if it would be possible to speak with the doctor about how necessary the additional ultrasound that had been scheduled was. Those following along at home may remember that they had said that Jonas was measuring large. They said they would review the last ultrasounds and call me back. Well, they just did. They said that they felt his size could be monitored through fundal height measurements at each visit going forward (which starting on the 17th will be every two weeks. I can get behind that. They did mention that if they feel it's necessary, we may revisit having an ultrasound done at 34-36 weeks, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

For now, I feel like I've got Adonis DNA (must be little Jonas haha) and tiger blood in my veins (the cat has scratched me a few times, though we liken him to a lion more often than a tiger) because I'm, duh, winning!