August/September photos

Taking some photos from Instagram to create more of a record for my blog...sorry they're recycled but that's the amount of time I have these days! (And I only have time to blog right now because my kids are on antibiotics for pinkeye, so we came home early from church as soon as sacrament meeting was over to avoid passing on contagion to all the Primary kids!)

My adorable little bunch before church this morning. Aren't they so sweet? Confession: I bribed them all with a piece of saltwater taffy each to smile. It took about 10 seconds to get 5 good photos as opposed to the 15 minutes of cajoling it would have taken otherwise. Oh well.

Note that everyone's hair is done--that's a miracle!!! 100% due to the fact that I had a 9 am meeting at church this morning so I had some extra time afterwards to do everyone's hair instead of putting off getting ready until the last minute...



Some pregnancy updates. 38 weeks before church today...

37 weeks after my 8-miler last Monday...

...and 34 weeks a month back.


Also--swelling is super super super bad. This photo is maybe a month old? Nerve pain is getting really bad too. In general I'm just super uncomfortable. Florida was AMAZING because I was swimming so much that I slept all through the night most nights (I only woke up to go to the bathroom 2 of the 7 nights!). Most days my right foot looks like a balloon, then I run and it goes down briefly, then I stop running and it balloons right back up. Yesterday I left my running shoes on all day as an experiment and the swelling went from my ankle to my knee and was CRAZY painful...so I've decided that the foot is better. (But I'm really sick of not being able to flex my toes and having to completely relace my shoes before/during/after runs.) I have an appointment with my OB tomorrow and I'm anticipating that we will discuss an induction based on the swelling like we've done for the last 3...ever since I had surgery during Isaac's pregnancy it's just been crazy bad at the end. (And after one pressure ulcer on that leg I do not want to EVER EVER have one again, much as I dislike inductions--having a 6-inch open sore on my leg for months that's constantly weeping pus and blood is much worse.)



Moving on. :-)

Loved catching all the kids gathered around Neil as he was reading to the two littlest boys...his voices are just so good that they invariably grab everyone's attention!

One morning right before the kids went back to school, we got up bright & early and headed to the peach orchard. We picked over 70 lbs of peaches and then turned them into jam/canned peaches before Neil got home. The kids are the most amazing helpers these days!!

We watched the first season of the Great British Baking Show over the summer (one a week...it was a highly anticipated event in our household!) and the kids got so into it! We've had lots of family baking adventures and Juliet made her own birthday cake. She was super excited!

A random dinner. I don't know why I took a picture of it other than the fact that it was really good. Also--I have probably eaten more watermelon this summer than in any other 3 summers of my entire life. It's one of the few things that I actually want to eat these days (really struggling with my appetite right now). 

The kids all started school and Nathan was so unhappy to see them go! Luke is in kindergarten for just 2 hours a day--that was the compromise that the school and I came to and I'm still not super thrilled about it. They are all at a new school this year and I love it for Juliet and Isaac and I'm horribly sad about it for Luke--I just really love the kindergarten and 1st-grade teachers at our old school, but it was pretty vital for Isaac & Jules that they switch. Isaac is in the high-ability 2/3 class, Jules in the high-ability 4/5 class, and Abigail has started middle school!!! (where they now only have 2 advanced-track classes...boy has that been an adjustment.)

When we were in Florida, Juliet and Isaac had TONS of homework--their teachers had prepared huge packets in advance and we did SO much before we left and then quite a bit while we were there. Abigail hardly had anything and it was stressing me out so much!!! Like I said...it's been an adjustment. I can't remember if I mentioned this, but she started clarinet lessons over the summer in preparation for the school band, and she has been doing SO well! Her teacher is fabulous and has told Abigail repeatedly that she has a true gift for the clarinet, which definitely motivates her in practicing and performing. :-) (And from my perspective I'm totally blown away by how quickly she has mastered principles that (according to her teacher) take most students a year or two to learn. All that piano theory sure helps!) Isaac has also started piano lessons and he is totally loving it to the point where I have to kick him off the piano bench after 45 minutes because the girls are waiting to practice! He is seriously in heaven and it's pretty nice not to have to ever repeat my request that he go put in some practice time. :-)

A grocery-store visit with Nathan one day...he loves wearing stickers over his eyes and always has to exit the store like this (holding my hand and walking very slowly...but we take them off once we hit the parking lot!).

A game of Chubby Bunny one night for Family Home Evening. Neil was the hands-down winner and none of the rest of us even came close. I'm not really a big marshmallow fan so once I got to 4 I couldn't handle the taste anymore! We played Pie Face too and got our fill of sticky-faced fun...the kids sure loved it!

Abigail was super excited to get her own Chromebook this year! The middle school uses these pretty heavily in class but it's been interesting troubleshooting connectivity and issues like that (honestly seems like more of a pain than anything, but hopefully it will be smoother soon). 

 And Nathan saying goodbye to Neil one morning. It's been a pretty rocky adjustment for Nate having all his buddies gone all day...most days we go for a really long walk and count dump trucks. :-)

Catching up on July

We're starting to wind down the summer--CRAZY! All the school supplies are purchased and packed in everyone's backpacks (man oh man that was crazy but it feels so good to have it done!) and we have orientations starting next week. I am torn between being excited to have more of a routine/schedule/quiet and feeling like, are you kidding me? Where did it go?! Did we do everything we should have done?

This has been such a low-key summer (after our big road trip!). I think that's a combination of things--being pregnant and pretty darn tired + feeling like the kids had a pretty grueling school year and just wanting to take it easy in the summer and really relax. We have spent most of our time either in pajamas playing Legos, in pajamas reading giant piles of books, or in swimsuits going crazy in the pool. (And I mean that literally. Every day I come home and think, "Hurray! Another day where Nathan did not drown!" Little guy thinks he can swim and he can't, but he HATES having people hold him so he does his best to sneakily edge away/push your hands away/silently slip into the water when someone else is asking me a question. Basically all my kids have the time of their lives every afternoon and I am ratcheting up my adrenaline levels thanks to Nate the slippery fish.)

Anyway, we went from having two pretty decent swimmers (Jules and Abigail) to both Isaac and Luke being very confident swimmers and the girls spending 90% of their time seeing how long & far they can swim along the bottom of the pool (I still keep an eye on Luke every second, but he can swim across the pool by himself). The girls and Isaac have learned to dive--so has Nathan, bizarrely enough. Luke is probably going to be our best swimmer--he is super fast and can hold his breath for a ridiculously long time! They have all made a TON of progress this year and it makes me really excited for our Florida trip in a few weeks!

Everyone has done really well on their summer reading lists. Abigail finished hers a few weeks ago and loved every single one. Jules is almost done and has discovered so many new favorites! Isaac is pretty close to finishing up as well, but we've swapped out a couple of his when he found that he really really wanted to continue with the next book in the series, etc. I think it's been a success. Always interesting when we go to the library and they check out a bunch of crappy books that they've read a million times (I have strong feelings about authors who churn out repetitive books with the same plot just to make $$...but I guess I'm guilty of also loving my Agatha Christie and Louis L'Amour books, which are basically the same thing), but in a day or two they burn through all the library books, reemerge from the reading cocoon of total ignorance of their surroundings, and are back to the good stuff. And then they get sufficiently sucked into the good stuff that I find them reading next to the front door sidelight at 6 AM. :-) 

Isaac turned seven--almost three weeks ago! I have lots more pictures on my iPad but this is the one I can easily download. (Yes, every photo in this post is a recycled Facebook photo.) He had a great birthday--all the remote control and build-it-yourself-robots one little boy could possibly need. :-) I'm promising myself that I will download those photos in the next week--summer term ends on Friday and grades are due Monday and then I will have a wee bit more free time!

And I'm completely embarrassed that apparently I posted more photos of my own birthday than my son's. Neil and I ran a trail 5k for my birthday that was super fun (so nice that the dates coincided!) and then he indulged me and ran another 5k with me when we finished because I was stressed about only running 3.1 miles instead of my normal mileage. Hah! It was a blast--super fun course with lots of logs to hurdle, streams to cross, and beautiful woods. Could have done without the ankle-deep sand and endless concrete steps but hey, nothing is perfect. :-) It was really nice to see a lot of my running friends in the community that I haven't seen lately, since I've been running mostly on the treadmill instead of the group runs--hopefully once it cools off I can get outside again! It was such a great day and it was so, so, so wonderful to have so much time with Neil. He's been doing a lot of 18 & 20-hr days and "it's been hard" is an understatement. Quite aside from the constantly-being-on thing as a parent, I just really miss that awesome man I married. 

31 weeks last week and the miles are still feeling surprisingly good. This week (32 weeks) so far was 8 Monday, 6 Tuesday, and another 6 with speedwork today. Still trying to average 30 mpw as long as I can. :-) Why do I feel so much better being pregnant at 33 (birthday!) than I did at 29 with Nate? Must be those years off to actually let my body recover!

A little less sweaty here at 30 weeks. :-)

Abigail and Juliet were SUPER excited to make me a treat for my birthday. They decided to make puff-pastry tarts with chocolate, cream, and strawberries. The tarts were delicious but the poor girls were NOT happy with the outcome (the recipe wasn't very well-written and I think we should have blind-baked the pastry before adding the filling, which is what I normally would have done, but we were going to follow that recipe to the letter!).

We've been watching the British Baking Show on Netflix lately on Sunday evenings and they felt like that recipe was akin to a technical challenge. :-) And when I told them that I loved the tarts and they were super tasty (they were! I ate a ridiculous number of them!) they just looked at me woefully and said, "Paul Hollywood would say the pastry was underbaked. And he would be RIGHT."

After-church nail painting. This makes me so sad. Isaac LOVES having his nails painted and always has a super-specific design in mind, but if we go anywhere in public he has me remove the polish because he doesn't want to get teased by other kids. My heart breaks a little bit every time and I don't know what the best thing to do is--we've talked a lot about it and suggested different strategies but he just feels more comfortable without the polish in public even though he adores the bright colors and is SO creative in coming up with his chosen designs and color coordination. It's really hard for me to watch him go through this. 

On a lighter note, we are super-obsessed with making Greek yogurt right now. One batch lasts us one day because that's all anyone wants to eat until it's gone! Soooo yummy, especially when stirred up with a tablespoon of cherry syrup (first jam I've ever made that failed to jell, entirely due to the fact that I had made jam so many times that week that I didn't bother to read the directions again, started talking to one of the kids, and put everything in in the wrong order. Oh well. The syrup is dang good.)

Pregnancy update: 27 weeks

Well, I'm finally far enough along in my pregnancy that I actually REMEMBER I'm pregnant. Mostly when Nathan kicks me in the stomach at the pool.

The photo above is a week old, at 26 weeks; the photo below was from this afternoon. 10 miles, baby! Still running. :-)

I'm logging 30+ miles a week which is pretty respectable even without pregnancy, so I'm pretty darn pleased to still be running at this intensity/distance right now (although man oh man it is hard to motivate myself some days...instead of a normal training cycle where I'm going faster and farther toward a goal, I'm going progressively slower and shorter). I keep telling myself that it will all be worth it when I'm able to shorten my recovery and maybe even fit in a couple of fall races...we'll see how the postpartum stuff goes, but I've got 3 races that I'm eyeing depending on the level of fitness I'm able to maintain. I was pretty excited to see that 10-mile mark today; I've mostly been running 7ish miles a day but today the kids were really occupied with some new Legos so I decided to give it a few extra miles. (Unfortunately, it is WAY too hot and humid to run alone outside safely, since I tend to get dizzy pretty easily later on in pregnancy, so it's the treadmill for me until it cools off again.) Yoga a couple of times a week and we bought pool passes this summer, which is pretty heavenly post-run!

I do not love being pregnant (it's just not a time when I feel confident about my body and I've had some pretty bizarre pregnancy issues), and I especially do not love being pregnant in the summer. I'm having lots of issues with swelling in my right leg, which has been problematic ever since I had surgery when I was pregnant with Isaac. As luck would have it, that's also the leg that I fractured during marathon training last fall (and then ran that darn marathon on the fracture!), so things are generally pretty painful on that side. I'm also having quite a bit of cramping on that right side, likely because that is the ligament that herniated and required surgery, and it has hurt quite a bit in subsequent pregnancies. And thanks to all my running clothes rubbing me in different places than they normally do (thanks a lot, changing body!), my normal chafing scars are getting a break and I've got 4 new areas on my body that are either perpetually bloody or oozing. It's super attractive and I hear all the cool kids are doing it these days.

On the bright side, this is the first pregnancy since 2007 where I have not spent part of it on bedrest! Yeah! I'm running 2.5x more/week than I ever have before and generally feeling much better overall, which was a fun surprise--I thought for sure being pregnant at 32 (33 next month!) was going to be harder than 29, especially since I literally felt like my body was going to fall apart when I was pregnant with Nathan. I think the extra couple of years in between babies REALLY helped a ton, as did all of the training I did for the 2 full marathons and 4 half marathons I ran after Nathan was born. Generally, my body is feeling stronger and more resilient than it did a few years ago, which is nice the 6th time around! I remember crying to Neil when I was pregnant with Nathan that I really wanted one more baby but I honestly did not think my body could do it. So far, so good...now I'm just praying that my brain holds it together afterwards. And that this baby is a reaaaallly good sleeper, eats well, and doesn't have any crazy medical issues. Basically I'd just like a Luke repeat. :-)

Mother's Day and other photos

20 weeks pregnant with all my kiddos. Luke is making a weird face, but considering I had to do some sweet-talking to get him out of his pajamas and into a sort-of nice outfit (he was not feeling well and stayed home from church) I am pretty darn happy with this photo! Every Mother's Day I beg for one good photo and this is by far the best we've ever managed--hah!

Such a nice Mother's Day today--I slept in until 8:30 (after going to bed at 8 PM--I was pretty darn tired after the 4 am wakeup for yesterday's race!) and Neil made his delicious cinnamon rolls for breakfast with extra-decadent cream cheese frosting...ooh la la! The two little boys weren't feeling well so I took just the 3 oldest to church and everyone was sooo quiet and well-behaved without a Nathan climbing all over the pew. :-) Isaac and Jules both snuggled up to me through the entire meeting (Isaac does this darling thing where he either puts his arm around my shoulders or plays with my hair--I think he's picked it up from watching Neil). And after church the kids all played happily outside in Nathan's sandbox and Neil and I talked nonstop for an hour while we made a delicious dinner which everyone then ate happily without ANY complaints (um, hello, this is AMAZING! It was this recipe if you want to try it out yourselves...we halve the sauce and serve it with lots of brown rice and veggies).

And then after dinner we had time for a delightful walk through my favorite woods. It was much cooler than the humid heat-fest we had yesterday (seriously, go figure, the only day it's been above 50 in the last 2 weeks and it spiked up to 78 for race day) and absolutely gorgeous. As Natie remarked, "the woods smell like a million flowers!" Beautiful day.

A few random pictures I pulled from my Facebook posts. Apologies for the cross-postings, but I have so little free time these days that the lengthy process of finding the right cord for my iPad to the computer, downloading everything, reformatting and resizing, uploading again...it just takes so long that I put it off forever, and I'd rather document what I can rather than putting it off because it can't be perfect.

One night Luke and I were bored and so we decided to see how many tiny ponytails we could fit into his hair. He then told me he was a porcupine (left) and a moose (right). Good golly I love that kid's sense of humor. Everyone else has had at least three haircuts since the last time we cut his hair, but his is so fun and fluffy and wavy that we're just letting it do its thing.



Last week the girls and I took this photo before church. A little fish-eyed effect going on there with them, I think, but I sure love those faces! Abigail in particular is growing up so fast. We've been in the throes of middle-school prep the last couple of weeks (just finished all the band paperwork and now on the hunt for a clarinet teacher!) and it's starting to really sink in that she is about to launch out into yet another big milestone that takes her just a bit farther away. So many chats lately where I realize how mature and thoughtful she is becoming.

Last weekend we were finally able to have Abigail's friends over for her belated party! Juliet got sick midweek and I was SO worried we were going to have to cancel her party again--thankfully she was better by Thursday afternoon so we had 36 hours of fever-free people before any guests came over. Then Neil came home Friday after I had dinner going and told me quietly that he didn't feel very well...he valiantly built a fire, hung up the pinata, and then quietly went back into the house and threw up a few times before falling asleep on our bed. Oh boy! Kind of some unanticipated excitement, but all the kids were super well-behaved and my fears of having only one adult in attendance didn't come to fruition (I was picturing someone falling into the fire the minute I looked away, so I stayed pretty darn close to that fire and appointed myself the neurotic guardian of "where are all the marshmallow sticks?").

Abigail's friends are all lovely, kind, and sweet girls. Two of her three closest friends will be going to different schools next year, so it was wonderful to have one last hurrah with these awesome girls. I love having them over as they are all kind to each other, endlessly patient with the younger children, and unfailingly respectful to me. Just a really sweet bunch and I am so sad to see them split up next year! One especially nice moment from the night was when Abigail told me later (after everyone had gone home) that it was so great to have everyone over at home because that meant that Juliet could be there too, whereas she isn't able to play with them at recess or at the other girls' houses. Jules just lit up when she heard that--I am so grateful for the strong friendship and love between my girls. They still do their fair share of bickering, but they are really becoming an inseparable team.

Speaking of which, we found out we are adding another boy to our family! The boys were thrilled; the girls were sad--as Abigail told me, they really wanted a little girl to dress in ruffly dresses and put sparkly things in her hair. I admit that I was unexpectedly emotionally as well; I was pretty sure going into the ultrasound that it was a boy, based on heart rate (both the girls were over 160 and all the boys were below 150). But when the tech announced literally 10 seconds in that it was a boy, I felt a few tears well up in my eyes and I was really having a hard time the rest of the day. I was SO grateful for my dear sister, who texted me later to ask how I was doing, and mentioned in her text that she had been sad with both of her ultrasounds simply because it meant saying goodbye to the possibility of life with the potential child of the other gender--even though it opened one door, it closed another for that pregnancy. That was a perfect description of how I was feeling and it helped me so much to contextualize my emotions. Just thought I'd share that in case it helps anyone else. :-)

And speaking of darling sweet boys we're so thrilled to have in our family, is this cherub not adorable? Goodness, I love him so much. He is the sunshine of my life these days--my constant companion while everyone else is in school. He's quite fond of the jogging stroller and about half of my miles these days are logged with him--I usually run much farther with him than I'd planned to simply because he sweet-talks me into detouring to see a particular construction site/parked schoolbus/etc. I kind of can't believe how much I'm still running with this pregnancy (a half-marathon at 20 weeks? Are you kidding me?!) and it's mostly due to that little Nathan egging me on to 6-8 miles on our MWF runs which makes a long weekend run seem like cake if I'm not pushing the stroller!

April birthdays! And other stuff.

 Oh goodness. Not only am I posting about birthdays after the fact, but I am combining the posts? Children, shake your heads at me in the future.

But seriously, considering someone has been throwing up in my house for the last six days, I think I'm right on the ball. (You guys, I am so tired. So incredibly tired. I am--literally--changing beds and giving baths and administering Tylenol/Popsicles in my sleep. Apparently 12-6 AM is the best time to throw up, if you live in this house.)

I've also been waiting to put up pictures until after Abigail's party, but we've already postponed it once (thanks to vomiting children) and I'm really hoping we don't have to do so again. So pictures of that when it happens WHICH IT WILL because I stayed up late 3 nights in a row making her pinata. And once you commit to a pinata, there will be a party.




But I digress.

Abigail is 11!

I forgot to write a Hogwarts letter.

I'm honestly not sure how I forgot to do that.

Abigail at 11 is absolutely delightful. She is responsible, caring, compassionate, funny, intelligent, and quick to help without being asked. She is considerate of others--case in point, when Neil asked her what she wanted for her birthday breakfast, she said, "Oh, I don't know. Whatever you'd like to make." And when Isaac said, "You love crepes! Say crepes!" she responded, "Well, I do love crepes, but I know they're time-consuming to make, and I don't want Dad to get up even earlier on a school morning." To which Neil responded that um, he most definitely would be fine with getting up earlier on a school morning to celebrate her birthday (I also got up earlier and we had crepes with fresh strawberries and whipped cream + yummy sausages).

And when I asked her what she'd like for her birthday dinner, she said, "Mom, what I'd really like is just a nice family meal where we can all talk together, so make something that the little kids will eat without complaining and that will be perfect."

I love this age. I love it so much. She is so sweet and funny and hard-working, quick to obey, and is perennially stopping what she's doing to help Nathan with a toy, break up a fight between Isaac & Luke, wander in to the kitchen and ask me if I need help with dinner or setting the table--even when I remind her it's not her assigned day! She is insightful and thinks deeply before offering her opinions (she's an avid NPR fan, which I love!). She is a stellar student and works so hard to do her best in school--the high ability classes have been such a blessing to her in elementary school and she has worked diligently to maximize that opportunity. I was proud but not at all surprised when she was offered a place in both of the advanced-track options in middle school next year. She is blossoming into a talented pianist and she never, ever, ever, ever misses a day of practice.

And my little imp turned 3 yesterday! How has it already been three years?! I'm so happy to see that life with Nathan is more smoother these days than it was when he was two; we don't even remember to call him the Honey Badger anymore. ;-) He is my most reliably well-mannered child, never forgetting to say thank you for anything, even if he's infuriated about it. ("Thank you for making this delicious dinner. I don't like it.")

If possible, he loves construction equipment even more than he did as a two-year-old. He knows every possible type of equipment by name, and he knows every construction site around town. On our morning runs together, he usually dictates the route based on what he wants to see that day (on Monday we turned a 5.2 mile route into a 6.6 mile route just detouring to see various bits of machinery). He is often generous, has decided opinions about what he will wear and eat, loves loves loves to snuggle (so much, in fact, that we had to create a star chart--with a tractor reward--to encourage him to stop sneaking into our bed in the middle of the night accompanied by his entourage of favorite toys). He still adores his blanket and elephant, and has a rotating cast of favorites among his huge collection of bulldozers, excavators, graders, scrapers, tractors, trains, etc. He is enchanting and delightful and I'm so glad he's ours.

And speaking of babies, I am so grateful that this pregnancy is going more easily than my last 3. I've entirely skipped the weeks of bedrest that accompanied Isaac, Luke, and Nathan. I'm running more miles and longer distances than I ever dreamed I could at this stage with any of them. At 18 weeks with the last two babies I was only able to run 12 miles a week and had to start wearing a support band when I ran because the pain was so bad, and I hit 18 weeks this week with nary a support band in sight (despite frantically texting my sister weeks ago that I NEEDED it and could she please mail it right away?! Oops).

Last week's runs were 6.3, 5, 6, 4.1, and 11 (32.4) plus another 10.16 hiking/walking with the kids. Hurray hurray! I'm feeling so good that I even signed up for another half-marathon next weekend at 20 weeks...one that I've been wanting to do the entire time we've lived here and the timing has just never seemed right. I'm so thrilled and excited!!

And REALLY EXCITED because I am using this race as a celebration for the end of the semester. Hurray hurray! It's been a looong one. And it marks the end of a decade teaching here at the university. Still trying to wrap my brain around that one.

Baby #6!

When I signed up for the race I ran this morning, the awesome race director told me I could pick my bib number. So I picked 9276 since our 6th baby is due on 9/27! Surprise! (I thought I was very clever, haha!)

Race report here if you're into that sort of thing.

Nathan's birth story

I've written so many different versions of this, but I think enough time has finally passed that I can write one that isn't four pages long full of frustration!  Whew!  As always, you might not want to read this post if details about labor aren't your thing.

Nathan is the first baby where I have gone into labor (sort of) on my own.  When I went in for my 40-week appointment, my midwife was very concerned about how swollen my bad ankle was, and told me that I needed to have the baby ASAP.  Since this had been the reason for induction for my last few babies, I wasn't surprised to hear her assessment.  She did a membrane sweep and told me to come back the next day if I didn't have the baby that night.  I went home, timed contractions until midnight, and then got up at 7 to go in and see her again.  As I was getting ready to go, there was enough bleeding that I knew the baby would be born that day.  I called my mom with an update and she started packing up to travel to our house.

My midwife did another membrane sweep and told me she'd see me at the hospital at some point that day.  I went home with even more contractions and asked Neil to stay home from work until my mom arrived, since I wasn't sure how quickly things would progress.  Neil & I took the boys out and we walked a few miles trying to get my contractions to fall into a consistent pattern.  After a few hours, he left for work just before my mom arrived.  My mom & I spent the afternoon timing contractions.  I was feeling pretty good all day--I remember at one point I was reading Little House in the Big Woods to the kids while I was knitting (still timing contractions) and thinking, wow, natural labor is soooo much better!  My midwife called halfway through the day to check in on me and we planned to meet at the hospital around 6 that night to break my water, if it hadn't already broken.

When my contractions were about 5 minutes apart, I started to get a little worried.  I knew that was the point where we needed to go to the hospital, but they were still pressure without pain.  I called in and was told to just go ahead and come in, so we left for the hospital around 4:30 and walked around the parking lot for awhile.  Then the fun started.

When I was first admitted, Nathan was not moving well, so I spent a reaaaallly long time on the monitor guzzling more orange juice than I ever want to see again.  My contractions slowed to about 7-11 minutes apart at this stage, and I was worried about the baby & discouraged that things seemed to not be progressing.  After a couple of hours of constant monitoring, my midwife broke my water (at this point I was 4 cm dilated) and I started walking the halls.  Sadly, I only got to walk for about half an hour before they put me back in bed on the monitors.  When they finally--finally!--let me back up, we started walking again and suddenly the contractions changed.  They were every 10 minutes and then bam!--out of nowhere, I was hit by contractions every 2 minutes that were the most painful I could remember having in all of my labors.  I literally could not get back to our room, and Neil had to half-carry me there.  I've never screamed with any of my babies, but on the third of the awful contractions, I broke that little no-screaming record.  I honestly can't describe how horrendous these were.  I started shaking like mad and I couldn't concentrate or focus on anything.  In the minute between contractions, I thought that maybe I was in transition and that I should have my midwife check me.  I also realized that based on my previous labors, I had about an hour of dilation for each centimeter up to 7, and then about half an hour after that until it would be time to push. I also decided that I had nothing to prove to anyone anymore and that if I was not very dilated and I'd have time to get an epidural AND have it kick in, I wanted one if I still had hours to go.

So.  I asked my midwife to check me and I was at a 4.5.  This was so discouraging, and I immediately told her I wanted an epidural.  The pain was so intense that I could not focus on anything, and I knew I had a long way to go.  I also knew that if I waited any longer that the epidural would never catch up with my labor.

This is where things started to spiral downwards.  She was very antagonistic about the epidural and we were arguing about it, which was so not what I wanted to be doing right then (I won't go into details, but I vividly remember every remark she made).  At this point, another nurse came in and said they needed to check my vitals, so they made me get back in bed AGAIN and took my blood pressure, and then this is where it really got fun.  My blood pressure had nosedived at some point--I remember one nurse yelling something about "64 and dropping" and I spent the rest of labor in bed, shaking so hard that the midwife was holding me down so I wouldn't fall off.  They started running fluids and wired me up to a few more monitoring things and  I was still having these horrendous ripping contractions, and everyone kept yelling at me to hold still and not move with the contractions.  The anesthesiologist eventually came in after half an hour or so, and I felt like I was barely conscious at that point.  I couldn't clearly hear what anyone was saying except for Neil, who was consistently advocating on my behalf when the medical team was making decisions without asking us.  Everyone else was a blur.  I couldn't talk either and that was absolutely terrifying.  My midwife checked me as the anesthesiologist got there and I was at a 7.  I knew that the epidural would be pointless at this stage and I tried to say that I didn't want it but I couldn't talk, and I was shaking so hard that I couldn't move my hands or do anything to signal.   And the contractions were just about right on top of each other.

As soon as the epidural was in, Neil asked my midwife to check me again.  She said that I would not have progressed, and Neil told her that she needed to check, because I typically went very fast at this point.  He kept pressing her until she finally agreed, and I was at a 9.  He gave it another 2 contractions and then asked her to check me again.  Again, she refused, and again, he pressed her, and when she finally did, she looked up at Neil sort of blankly and started yelling for the nurses.  My blood pressure dropped again, and so I had a couple of people trying to do something about that and the rest of the nurses were over getting everything ready for the baby.  I was so relieved that it was finally time to push and let the contractions do something that was visibly useful.

And then things got fun again.  Nathan's head came out after two pushes, but then he started rotating and did a full circle.  The midwife couldn't get a grip on his shoulders to deliver him, since he kept moving away (I'll let you imagine how fun that was without any working anesthesia).  As scary as my labor was, this part was even worse.  I could see the midwife's face and I could tell that she was getting increasingly worried.  One of the nurses just started screaming at me to push as hard as I could, which was really stressful.  I sort of blurred out again during this point so I'm not sure what finally happened, but Neil said the delivery was pretty bad.  All I know is that it was much more painful than in the past and I was sure that I was going to need extensive stitching, but fortunately I didn't need any in the end.  I also immediately started apologizing to the midwife for asking for the epidural, and she got sort of frustrated by this and told me that I didn't need to apologize to her, but the way she had acted during the delivery made this the only thing my mind could focus on right then.

I think this is the first baby where I didn't cry from joy when they put him into my arms--Nathan was not crying or moving and I was really scared that something was wrong with him.  His temperature was very low and my blood pressure was still dropping, so we ended up staying in the recovery room for about 3 hours while they worked to stabilize both of us.  Again, I don't remember much of this except that it seemed like they piled every warm blanket possible on us to bring up his temperature and weigh me down enough to control the shaking.  My back and stomach were also hurting a LOT--I didn't sleep much that night--because the labor had been so violent (it was 70 minutes from the time when the crazy contractions started until he was in my arms) and the anesthesiologist had also hit a blood vessel while trying to put in the epidural.  He told me that my back would hurt a lot as a result, and man oh man, he was not kidding.

I've been debating as to whether this was my hardest labor, and I'm not sure.  It was definitely a very difficult delivery after a very difficult pregnancy.  And labor itself was absolutely terrifying.  I felt very out of control and the delivery environment was really intense, loud, and confrontational.  It was very different than I expected it would be with a midwife--the OB that I saw for my previous two deliveries was much more respectful of what I wanted and much more lenient in terms of letting me be monitored while moving around, etc.

This is also the first time where I have cringed away from the thought of doing this all over again.  With all my previous babies, I have had no problem thinking about the next baby even while I'm still in the hospital (case in point: the first night I spent with Isaac in the hospital, I had the most distinct impression I've ever had in my life that there was another baby ready & waiting to join our family).  This pregnancy took such a toll on me that I suppose it's only fitting that the labor did too!

But.  My physical recovery seems to be going well.  I learned a lesson from my recovery with Luke and took things more slowly (I did start running again when he was five days old, but I started much more gently and limited my mileage).  I've been resting a lot more, frankly, because I've needed it much more (thank heavens that my mom is here and fielding everything for me).  It definitely makes me feel older.  I think the hardest thing for me so far is that I've felt very emotional about the state that my body is in.  I usually don't worry much about my body image because running keeps me fit & strong, but right now every time I look in the mirror I just feel so much self-loathing.  My conscious mind tells me that I just had a baby nine days ago, but my emotions tell me a completely different story, and I start crying when I look at my reflection.  I also feel like my emotional state is getting worse--yesterday I woke up and just lay in bed for an hour crying because I didn't want to get up and deal with everything going on outside my bedroom door. Fun stuff.  

Baby Nathan

He's here!!

Nathan Edward
born April 26, 2013 @ 9:49 PM
8 lbs, 1 oz
21 inches long

What a difference 12 hours can make!!  I'm not going to write much about his birth because I'm still processing it--it was very difficult (although I did finally manage to go into labor on my own [the day before my due date] for the first time) and I'm struggling to recover.  But I'm thrilled that he is here in my arms.