Our {not so} little Twig was born yesterday, January 20th at home at 11:12AM after about 2 hours and 45 minutes of labor. She weighed 9 lbs 8 oz and was 20.25 inches long. She’s already a nursing champ and Peanut is absolutely in love with her.

I’ve already written up the birth story (I couldn’t sleep when Peanut, Twig, and my husband did yesterday), so I’ll be posting that as soon as I have the mind to go through an edit it. Other than that, I’ll be babymooning by posting guest posts by some other wonderful bloggers (still accepting posts if anyone is interested!), re-posting some old blogs, etc. Thanks in advance for your congratulations and patience.

39 Weeks 4 Days

I know it’s entirely normal for moms to go past their due date. I know that Twig will come when s(he) is ready. I know that things like dilation and effacement don’t matter in terms of when a baby will actually come. Regardless, I am going nuts!

As of today, 40 weeks and 5 days pregnant, I am the most pregnant I have ever been. With Peanut, I went into labor when I was 40 weeks and 3 days and she was born in the very early hours of 40 weeks and 5 days. I thought that possibly the math could be off because with Peanut it was based on my first day of my last period, but if I put that date for this pregnancy into the calculator, my due date is actually one day earlier than my due date based on my date of ovulation.

40 Weeks 1 Day - The Amazing Belly Drop!

Yeah, I know that due dates don’t matter. Due dates don’t mean expiration dates. I’ve been preaching this all along! It’s just so much harder to keep my convictions when I just want this baby to be here. In my family and friends’ defense, no one has really been bothering me about whether or not the baby has come yet. I was purposefully vague with my due date, even though it would be easy to calculate based on my posts here and I did announce that it was my due date on Facebook. I announced at the same time that no one was allowed to ask me if the baby had come yet and people have respected that. My plan if people start asking is to simply delete the comment and move on.

I know that this baby will come when s(he) is ready. I know that extra time cooking is a good thing and that life really is easier with the baby inside. I am still trying to cherish the last days that Peanut is an only child and I’m trying to pamper myself as much as possible in preparation for the lack of being able to in the near future. I’m trying to rest, even though my body decided to wake up at 4:50am this morning and wouldn’t go back to sleep. I’m as prepared as I can possibly be. Now I just have to wait.

This baby is already trying to teach me patience.

I finished all of the individual pieces and then lost myself in other projects. Since it was Peanut’s “something to wear” for Christmas, I stayed up until 1-2am on Christmas Eve mattress stitching it all together. I’m really happy with how it turned out. It’s a bit big for Peanut right now (the options were 2T or 4T and she’s in 3T, so I opted for 4T), but it’s still super cute on her. I also learned how to block pieces so they’re all nice and square and the right size.

Peanut in her new sweater on Christmas morning.

So excited! She even picked the yarn!

I did mess up in one spot, but it’s not noticeable. I was confused about which side was the right side and which was the wrong side when I was making the back, so the neck shaping is accidentally on the outside. Not anything you’d notice when she’s just wearing it, but I’m sure if this were a contest I’d get some points off for that. Doesn’t matter, it was made with love!

40 Weeks 0 Days. Baby has dropped over the last two weeks!

Today is my due date. First off, this does not mean that you’re allowed to start asking me every day if I’ve had the baby yet. I’ve decided that Facebook posts that ask me will be deleted (I already had to delete one yesterday), texts will go without response, etc. If I feel frustrated at someone prying about this baby being born, I’m just simply going to ignore it. It’s not worth getting myself upset (by having conversations with all these people about how the baby hasn’t come yet) or hurting my relationships (by reacting badly to their comments).

But that’s not the purpose of today’s post. Today I’m talking about the little bit of time we have left as a family of three.

After the prodromal labor two weeks ago, I was really sent into high gear. When I thought I was in labor, I realized how unprepared I really was. I had the big things done, but things would still be a mess if I went into labor right then. So I took the following week really paring down my “To Do Before Baby” list and was intensely satisfied when it was as completed as possible (with some things that had to wait until a certain day or other event to happen still on it). My house was the cleanest it had ever been, everything I needed to do for the next couple of months was in order, and I was sitting there waiting.

I found myself re-cleaning things that had already been cleaned. I felt horribly impatient. I felt angry at the other moms on Twitter who were having their babies. I felt grouchy and irritable and just sooo tired of being pregnant.

Then I realized how this is all effecting Peanut. She had to deal with the mom who was being a grouch. She had to deal with the mom who wasn’t paying enough attention to her because she was busy. She gets the short end of the stick and after the baby comes, it’ll get even worse. So I decided that the rest of my time will be spent absolutely adoring my daughter.

I know we’ll find a new normal, but for a while things are going to get really tough for her. She’s so excited to meet the baby (and hold it and play with it and take a bath with it), but I don’t think she really realizes that things will be different for her. There will be extra stress and there will be less time devoted to her. It’s just a fact when you have two kids. There will be an adjustment. So until this baby comes, I’m spending my time playing with her, cuddling with her, and just giving her all the attention I possibly can. Hopefully it’ll help her with the changes to come.

Today I am 40 weeks and 0 days pregnant. The dreaded due date. I’ve been crampy and can hardly sleep, no matter how much I try. Heartburn is still killer, which doesn’t seem fair considering it’s supposed to calm down when the baby lowers. At my midwife appointment yesterday she said my body looks “more ready” and my bump is moving lower. This, of course, also means I’m getting some awesome pelvic pressure. Also peeing every 5 minutes and can’t poo for the life of me. Yeah, I know you wanted to know that.

I got a big set of double-pointed bamboo needles as part of my Christmas, though I started using them long before Christmas since I was knitting gifts. To be honest, I haven’t finished most of my Christmas gifts, but I’m working on them still. I’m sure that the family doesn’t mind getting them a little late. Anyway, thought they’re unavailable at the time of this posting, I would definitely recommend this set of needles and it’s at a great price.

So with my newly acquired double-pointed needles, I started knitting my first hats. This first one is a simple knitted hat from the book Last-minute Knitted Gifts. It certainly took me more than 2-4 hours, but I’m also not an expert knitter. I made this for my dad for his birthday, so it’s an adult male sized hat. Peanut, of course, didn’t care and had to wear it anyway.

Boy she's making a creepy face in this picture.

This second hat is from the same pattern, but it’s the garter brim variation. I made it for my brother-in-law for Christmas.

Both hats seemed a bit big in my opinion, but maybe they’ll shrink a bit with washing. I used an acrylic yarn that I bought from a lady selling her excess and they’re really comfy. I think my husband would even wear one of these and he’s not a big hat person. They were a lot easier than I thought they’d be and I felt super accomplished while I was making them. They actually look like hats when they’re on the needles! It’s a silly thing, but it keeps me going to actually see my progress. I’d definitely recommend these to a new knitter looking to start knitting in the round. Also, toddler pony tails work great for marking the beginning of your row!

It feels like so much has happened over the last two months! School ended for both myself and Peanut at the beginning of December. I can tell you miss your preschool friends Peanut, but I also think you’re happy to be home with Mama all day. We spend the day doing puzzles (your current obsession), helping Mama with house work (you love to sort socks, put away the silverware, and feed the dog), and watching Dinosaur Train.

Oh boy, do you love Dinosaur Train. You request it many more times a day than you’re allowed to have it. You’ve convinced both of your sets of grandparents to DVR so you can watch it at their houses (more than Mama likes, but that’s how everything is with grandparents, right?), which has never happened before because generally you have a specific show for a specific household. You love to sing the songs from the show even when it’s not on (like stomping around the house screaming “I’m a T-rex! I’m a T-rex! Stomping ’round the forest, ty-ran-no-saur-us rex!”) and you got mad when Mema called you her “buddy” because you’re not Buddy, that’s a dinosaur. You also tell people you’re a Pteranodon.

Here’s a video of you running around the basketball court Daddy is playing on “exercising” and pretending to be a Pteranodon:

You also quite love Tangled. You got a doll and dress-up dress from your Mema and Pop Pop for Christmas and that doll goes everywhere with you. We keep talking about how her name is Rapunzel, not Tangled, but you still call her Tangled. You’ll eventually get it.

As I said earlier, you love puzzles. You got puzzles from all your grandparents this year because they all know how much you love them. The other morning you were begging Daddy to wake up and do one of your puzzles with you. The same puzzle that we’ve literally done about a dozen times since you got it a week ago.

You also love to do your “trick” with putting on your coat. Apparently they taught you at preschool. You lay the coat flat and put your hands into the arm holds (hood of the coat closest to you) and swing it over your head to put it on. It’s actually pretty nice because you no longer fight getting your coat on, but you also have to show everyone your new trick. You also love showing people how you can play Angry Birds (better than Mama can) and Plants Versus Zombies (not very well at all) on Mama’s phone.

You’re back in our bed, which you actually have been for months and I think I’ve just forgotten to mention on here. I think it’s partially nervousness about the new baby coming and partially Mama not wanting to lay in your bed to nurse you to sleep. While I could deal with less kicks to the belly from the outside (and really from the inside too, mind you), I do love cuddling with you every night. Hopefully your nursing and co-sleeping helps all of us transition to a family of four easier.

Speaking of our family of four, you’re super excited for your new brother or sister. Lately you think it’s a brother. You love to give the baby a hug and kiss goodnight through my belly and put your hand on my belly to see if the baby is kicking. Usually you give up after about two seconds and tell me the baby is sleeping. You also keep smelling my belly, which is kind of weird, but whatever.

Twig, you’re just chugging along. According to my emails, you’re the size of leek right now. I’ve never had a leek, but it looks like something Bunny would like. You’re also kicking like crazy, though I can’t blame you considering your head is stuck way down low in my pelvis. That certainly can’t be comfortable.

It’s amazing to me that the next time I write one of these, you’re going to be outside of my body. Wow. We thought you might be coming the other night, but it turned out to be a false alarm. In the end it was a good thing though because it made is kick into high gear with preparing for you. We’ve already finished a ton of things on our list and I feel like we’re truly ready for you to come at any point. Of course though, keep cooking in there as long as you need to. I’m certainly not going to rush you out. Though I’m starting to really want to know if you’re a boy or girl.

I love you both so much I could cry,

Mama

38 Weeks 0 Days While I thought I was in labor.

Prodromal… I feel like that word mocks me.

I spent the majority of New Years Eve thinking I was in labor. It finally ended at around 2 or 3 am New Years day with a shot of vodka (with expressed consent from my midwife) and no baby.

From what I’ve read online, prodromal labor is often thought to be synonymous with pre-labor or Braxton Hicks contractions. This isn’t always necessarily true. What I experienced two days ago progressed and was painful. While I did spend a good part of the day in denial, in the end I truly thought I was in labor. I even felt an urge to push (though that may have been in my head, I’m not sure).

Contractions started at 10am and I mostly ignored them. I didn’t time them or anything of that sort, but they felt different. There was pain in my lower abdomen and rather than being an uncomfortable tightening like Braxton Hicks, they felt more like menstrual cramps. Possibly like a bad stomach ache. I thought possibly I just needed to use the restroom, so I tried that a few times with no relief. I also noticed a significant increase in urination. If even the tiniest bit was in my bladder, I needed to go immediately.

After around an hour and a half of contractions, I started to wonder. We went for a walk around the block to see if it would slow things down. They were coming regularly (though I still wasn’t timing), so we decided that we should run out to get some last minute things (read: hose and adapter for filling the birth pool) just in case this was really it. While we were out, I felt an intense urge to be at home. I wanted my nest. We called the midwife to say this might be it so she’d be forewarned and she said to call again when they were five minutes apart.

After eating lunch, I put Peanut down for her nap. Nursing made the contractions stronger, but they calmed once she unlatched. I started timing contractions on an app I downloaded so I could tell my husband about them since he wasn’t in the room and they were around 6 minutes apart. I tried to nap myself, but couldn’t, so I took a bath. It didn’t slow things, though I will admit it’s difficult to really relax when my tub is so pathetically small. By this point I had tried all five things to tell if I was in real labor according to The Bradley Method: drink, eat, take a walk, take a bath, nap (though I couldn’t nap through the contractions).

By 8PM, I was thinking we were having a baby that night. Things were progressing slower than I had anticipated, but they were getting stronger and closer together. I called my mother and had her come over to tend Peanut during bedtime and sleep and she arrived a while later with some food I asked her to grab at the store. They went to bed. We called the midwife when they were 5 minutes apart and she told us to call when we wanted her to come. I decided to rest for a while since I figured I wouldn’t have another chance any time soon. It took a long time, but I finally started falling asleep, only to be woken by an incredible antsy feeling like I needed to get up and move.

I tried the birth pool, which we had filled earlier, but it was too hot. I decided to go downstairs and watch Arrested Development while bouncing on the birth ball. By this point the contractions were around 2-3 minutes apart. After a little while I started feeling incredibly annoyed by the show, so we headed back upstairs. I tried to rest again, but to no avail. I started feeling incredibly shaky and wanted to get in the pool again. This time it was very nice. My husband determined that I was in transition and that we needed to get the midwife to our house.

She arrived and set up her supplies. My husband was in the pool with me helping me through contractions and I started feeling an urge to push. I even pushed for a little while before requesting the midwife check my cervix. When she did, I was still at the exact same dilation as I was five days earlier.

She explained to me that this sometimes happens with prodromal labor. These weren’t Braxton Hicks, but rather something in between Braxton Hicks and true labor contractions. In hindsight, I can see that they should have been more intense. They were progressing, but I guess I just assumed I was having an easier-than-normal labor. They were painful, but nothing in comparison to my last labor, but I had decided that was because this baby is in the correct position. It was progressing slowly, but I figured that progression that doesn’t stop with change in activity is still progression.

I felt devastated that I wasn’t meeting Twig that night. I felt humiliated that I had thought it was the real thing. I felt sorry that I dragged the midwife out of bed in the middle of the night. While my husband and the midwife cleaned up the supplies and drained the birth pool, I sat in the bathroom and cried. I felt so silly. Like the woman that rushes to the hospital at the first twinge in her abdomen.

The midwife told me to take a shot of vodka (which she said was essentially what they’d give you in a hospital to stop contractions) and get a good night rest. She hugged me and told me over and over how she had the exact same thing happen with two of her babies. Throughout all of this the contractions continued, which felt like my body was betraying me somehow. How could it still continue when I knew it was fake?

I fell into a deep sleep that night and didn’t wake until 11am the next day. Since I had written her a note before going to bed, my mother knew what was going on and took Peanut to her house. It felt so good to hug my Peanut when my mom brought her back shortly after I woke. I felt teary-eyed all morning (or I suppose afternoon given the time I woke) and slept with Peanut for 2.5 hours during her nap, which made me feel much better. I still feel upset about the whole incident and how it made me feel, but I’m sure that will lessen even more once the baby really does come. I feel foolish even sharing the story here, but when I went searching for information on prodromal labor I felt like the internet was missing information on what I went through. So I want you to know that if you’ve gone through this, you’re not alone.

I am now 38 weeks and 3 days pregnant. If I sit for too long, my ribs kill kill me (though according to all those pregnancy sites I should be getting some relief from that since the baby is low now, uh NOT). If I stand for too long my feet kill me. My tailbone hurts. I can’t sleep in because my ribs are killing me by the time that I wake up in the morning. I spend all night tossing and turning. My heartburn kills.

Nevertheless, I’m happy to have a little extra time. We’re getting some stuff done around the house that I know we won’t want to once the baby comes and that makes me happy. I’m also getting rid of all the small things on my pre-baby to do list. I’m certainly not doing anything to hurry this along if just to not go through that whole fiasco again.

37 Weeks 3 days. I think I may wear only dresses for the rest of this pregnancy. So comfy.

Sometimes it’s really hard to practice what you preach. Being patient while waiting for Twig to be born is definitely one of those cases.

I have absolutely no plans of getting induced in the hospital. I think that induction without A. Cause, and B. Trying every non-medical way of induction first, is foolish. I also don’t plan on trying to induce myself naturally as of this moment, though that certainly is tempting. My patience (or lack thereof) is purely mental. I won’t do anything to physically alter my state of pregnancy, but I’ll certainly drive myself nuts thinking about when this baby is going to come!

So yesterday at my midwife appointment, she was feeling the baby’s position. At the appointment before, there was a moment where she thought that Twig might be breech, but then decided that the head was just really far down. At this appointment she still thought the head was really far down there, but wanted to check vaginally just to be sure. I almost told her not to tell me anything about dilation, but decided not to say anything.

She said the baby is really low and in a great position, my cervix is nice and squishy, effaced to 70% (or maybe 85%, which is a number she said later, but by that point my head was spinning so I didn’t fully understand what she was talking about), and she could “stretch” my dilation to a 2. I know none of these numbers matter, but it’s hard to not get myself excited. I’m just as likely to deliver three weeks from now as tomorrow, regardless of my cervix’s current state. She did say to my husband that she’s guessing I won’t go beyond my due date though, so that’s nice.

I am now 37 weeks and 3 days along. Woohoo I’m Full-term! Simultaneously, Oh My God I’m Full-term! I feel like I still have so much to do! I have a list that’s much longer than I thought it would be for a second child and I need to go grocery shopping. Luckily, I think I’ve finished the really important things (which there weren’t that many of). Things would go a-okay if I went into labor right now, but there are a few things I’d like to get done before the baby comes just because of the blur of postpartum approaching. Speaking of, don’t forget that you can guest post on this blog while I’m busy with the new babe! I’m still accepting submissions!

I’ve been incredibly swollen this past few days. At my midwife appointment I had gained 8 lbs in 5 days (after only 18 up until that point in the whole pregnancy), which she said is likely due to my water retention and holiday snacking. She told me to eat more protein (and specifically lean meats rather than lots of milk like I normally do because the lactic acid makes your muscles work harder) and drink as many fluids as I can get in myself. Beyond that, some swelling is normal and I don’t have any other symptoms to be worried about.

I’ve also been having braxton hicks even more and they’re even stronger. Multiple times last night, I was actually woken up by them. That’s fun. And I appear to have lost my mucus plug. Multiple times at that. It will just keep regenerating itself and being lost again, so I guess I get to keep losing it over and over until the baby comes out. That’s nice and weird. I don’t remember that from last time. Actually, I don’t remember most of these things from last time. Oh well, every pregnancy is different, right?