Pretty in Pink

Miriam's Birth

Our little Miriam was born on January 31st at 12:14 am. She weighed 7 lbs 1 oz. and although the hospital workers were generous to say she was 22 inches long, the pediatrician confirmed that she's not the tall little girl we thought and is measuring an average 19 inches long. I thought I'd record Miriam's birth story here for any who are interested or for my own record keeping. 

Like all of my kid's births - we arrived at the hospital early Monday morning for our scheduled induction. I worked all weekend to have the house as clean and "in order" as possible. I think my OCD helps settle my anxiety and keeps me busy. I felt a little silly when I first checked in when this older gentleman volunteering at the hospital kept insisting I sit in a wheelchair.  I don't think he heard me when I told him I was not in active labor. I was perfectly capable of walking to Labor and Delivery on my own and the nurses at L&D probably thought it was a little overkill too, knowing I was there for a scheduled induction. 

    The plan was to "prepare" my body for labor by giving me an oral medicine that starts with an M, and is a little milder than pitocin. I took the medicine at 9:30 am and was told to lay down for 2 hours, then walk for an hour and then we'd monitor how I was doing. Although I was having some mild contractions, nothing was getting stronger or staying all that consistent. After 4 hours, I was given a second dose and the cycle continued - lay down, walk the halls of the BirthPlace, and rest again. I kept watching other women walking the halls in their hospitals gowns, some stopping and holding onto the wall as a contraction would come on and envying their pain. My contractions were hardly slowing me down and the nurses kept saying their were hoping I'd slow down with each lap.  Throughout the day I walked over 2 hours and clocked 25 laps around the BirthPlace. By 5:00 in the afternoon, with no food all day, I was exhausted, had a really bad backache, but was still only barely dilated to a 4. I was growing frustrated by the slow progress and wishing they would just give me pitocin. A new doctor came on at 5:00 and agreed it was time to start pitocin. By 7:00 I was finally started on it, but still blissfully watched Downton Abbey episodes with Andy on the laptop with only mild discomfort. I couldnt' tell if my body was just being more resistant this time or the doctors were being too cautious in their induction method. By 10:30 at night I was hungry, tired, and growing impatient. I don't think I've ever really wished myself to be in pain before. I was still only dilated to 5 cm but the doctor told me she could break my water at that point to speed things up. She asked if I wanted the epidural before she broke my water, but in my haste to get labor moving, I said no, I'll wait to get the epidural after. Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. I instantly started to feel much stronger contractions. I could still stand it, but thought I have nothing to prove here - just get the epidural now. Well it was a good thing I asked for it when I did. Little did I know the nurse still had to administer a whole bag of fluids in my IV drip before she could call the anesthesiologist. The contractions were coming on very strong and close together at this point. I remember thinking - so this is what women mean when they say labor is the worst pain they've ever felt in their life. Also thinking - there's no way that hypno birthing video I'd watched the night before was going to take away this pain. I told Andy the second the IV bag was empty he better buzz the nurse for my epidural. Unfortunately the anesthesiologist was with an emergency C-section and I had to wait longer still. By the time the doctor actually made it into the room and started administering the epidural I really thought I might pass out if I had to endure one more contraction. I knew it was time to push too and could have decided to have the baby right then without the epidural, but at that point could only focus on getting rid of the pain. I think the epidural finally took full effect for the last few pushes. Luckily I only had to push less than 5 minutes and she was out! I suppose the epidural made the hours after labor more comfortable for me too, since it took awhile to wear off. We realized that although I was impatient to have her be born, being born right after midnight meant I got an extra day to re-cooperate at the hospital too. 

   Everything really went very smoothly after she was born. She's been the perfect little baby. Nursing has been fine, I've recovered really quickly and hardly had to take any pain medication in the days after she was born. I went home Thursday morning and have to say it was an adjustment coming home to the loud chaotic house with the boys after being in the quiet, peaceful hospital room for 2 days. I kind of enjoyed my R&R at the hospital. 

    I feel really lucky that thus far, Miriam has been a really good baby. She rarely cries even when she's hungry. She'll aggressively try to eat her hands for a long time before she escalates into a cry. She's doing better at night and sleeps a lot during the day. I feel like Heavenly Father knew I really needed a mellow baby this time. However, I'm enjoying the blessing while it lasts because with the unpredictability of babies - it could change any day now.

The boys have been really good so far too. Bryce is very independent and will play for hours by himself in the play room. Sometimes I feel guilty and wish I could spend more time with him, but he doesn't really seem to mind being by himself. Tyler has been really sweet about helping me and the baby. He loves to hold her and will bring stuffed animals to put in her crib for her to look at. 

  Andy has also been a big support, spending more time with the boys so I can rest and be with Miriam. Business is picking up too which is good, but made it hard for him to feel like he can be with us when his brain is always thinking of the business. Its a stressful time but also feels good to be moving toward our goals. 

Our proud big brother

 Bryce doesn't ask to hold Miriam as much as Tyler. Bryce also isn't as physically affectionate as Tyler is but when he does want to be close, he wants to be REALLY close, like have our faces touching when I put to bed at night. I thought it was interesting that when he asked to hold Miriam that he really wanted to put his face right up to hers, like he does to me at night. I think its his way of showing love.

 This is how Miriam looks most of the time now - serious, asleep and slightly scowling from all the noise in the background.

Waiting...

So I thought walking into my 39 week OB appointment today that I would prepare myself for the best and worst case scenario of my progress towards labor.
Best case: I've progressed from 2 cm to 4 cm and could go into real labor at anytime.

Worst case: I haven't made any progress and the doctors sticking to his 41 week induction plan.

Little did I know worse case could be worse still - I'd retracted from 2 cm to 1 cm!

I guess baby girl started getting cold feet and decided to head back inside for awhile longer. After 2 labor induced babies, I was really feeling like a natural labor failure today. All my long walks, carrying objects heavier than I should, and eating spicy foods had not paid off. However, my day got brighter when I persuaded the doctor that although this baby is measuring small, I do have a history of large babies when I go past my due date and could I please not wait until 41 weeks to schedule an induction. Five minutes later and he was back with an induction scheduled for Monday morning! Success!

Although part of me is still mourning my spontaneous, "stop everything I think I'm in labor" moment I've imagined having during the weeks leading up to my due date - there is something appealing about the planned induction. I can double check everything on my to do list, have the house cleaned, laundry done, and fridge stocked before heading to the hospital on Monday. My mother said she feels bad for me because inductions create harder labors - but like I told her - I don't know it any other way and that's what epidurals are for. So here's to another Ferguson baby eviction! Hope it all goes as smoothly as the last!

We finally did it!

Today was a big day for our family. Andy officially opened his doors and saw his first clients in his very own private therapy practice. It has been a long and sometimes bumpy road getting to this point, but it has felt really good to finally get the ball rolling and begin seeing clients. I won't go into all the details of what has led us to the point we're at right now, but sometimes I think things just don't always go as we think they will and we'll look back someday and know there was a reason for it. I know we still have some rough times ahead as the practice will take time to grow and be profitable, but we feel really blessed by all of the support we've had from friends, family, and people in our church. We're so happy things are finally moving forward.

We're just going to skip right on to Christmas!

I realize its been over 2 months since I've done a blog post. I looked back and I don't think we even took that many pictures in the mean time. I don't even have pics of the boys in their Halloween costumes! Between my last blog post and Christmas we did: celebrate Halloween (Tyler was Batman and Bryce finally agreed to wear a dinosaur costume after we threatened that he wouldn't get any candy if he didn't wear a costume), Paula, (Andy's mom) came to visit for a week, we drove down to North Carolina to visit my sister in law Heather and her family and my brother in law Brad and his wife Emily. A few weeks later Brad and Emily came to visit us for Thanksgiving with their new 2 weeks old baby Thomas. And then the chaos of Christmas, finally starting a business, and getting ready for a baby began. That pretty much sums up our life until Christmas!

 We had a nice Christmas at home with frequent visits from my parents. Here are the boys on Christmas Eve. With all of the excitement of the day and no nap, Bryce fell asleep promptly at 7:00 without even eating any dinner. He awoke momentarily when I put on his jammies to pose for this picture. As you can tell - he's basically sleeping with his eyes open.

 Christmas morning, the boys were very excited that Santa had come. Tyler hurried from one thing to the next eager to open all of his presents, while Bryce was perfectly happy once he saw the first piece of chocolate in his stocking and actually didn't open all of his presents until late in the day on Monday.

 Their favorite toy from Santa was this 4 lane hot wheels race track. They also got a whole pack of hot wheels cars to race on it.

 Tyler also got Cars 2 and watched it more times than I care to know during his Christmas break.

 Bryce got his first pack of big guy underwear! No more diapers here we come!

They also loved this Fisher Price castle (a great Goodwill find that has provided endless hours of play time). The best Christmas present to me is that the boys have started to play together really well! Of course they still have the occasional fights but they will play together for a long time and really engage in imaginary games and conversation together. It makes me really happy to see them be so close and its allowed me more uninterrupted time to conquer everything on my to do list these days.  Merry Christmas to me!

L'Academie de Cuisine

 Last night I got to go to my first cooking class! Some people enjoying reading or sewing or some other craft during their downtime but lately I really like to cook, mostly because I also like to eat. I'm always looking for new recipes and new kinds of food to try. Well my mom and her sisters were having a "sisters weekend" and one of my aunts got sick at the last minute and couldn't come. They'd already made reservations for this cooking class in Bethseda and had an extra spot and offered to bring me! This cooking school is supposed to be the best in the D.C. area. There were about 20 of us in the class and we were divided into 4 groups of 5. The chef taught us a few things to start and showed us how to make our 4 course dinner and then we divided up tasks and as a group made the meal and got to eat all of it too!

 We were in this real professional looking kitchen and the chef was showing us everything we'd make and told us the order we needed to make everything, when he finally told us to get started I suddenly felt like I was on an episode of Iron Chef and that we'd be rushing around with people yelling "15 minutes!" For some reason I felt like I had to peel my apples really fast. My mom said "why are you rushing so much Julia?" I realized then it was going to be more relaxed than that. Pictured above is our first course: a warm goat cheese croquette with roasted tomato and wilted spinach salad with sweet potato ravioli with a brown butter sage sauce.

 

I used the same plate for the main course so it doesn't look as pretty but it was a cider brined pork with spicy apple chutney.  And I learned last night that yes, it is okay to serve pork with a pink center. It was really juicy and flavorful.

 For dessert we made an apple tart tartin with cranberry mousse. All of it was really good. I probably ate more than anyone else in my group. I feel confident that I could probably make all of it again, although probably not at the same meal (that would be A LOT of work).

 Here we are eating our gourmet meal after cooking it. I'd love to take another class, I'm just trying to find one thats less expensive and closer to home. Thanks Mom, Aunt Terry and Aunt Janet for treating me to this fun night out.

Pumpkin Patch

 We went out to Middletown yesterday afternoon to get the boys pumpkins. I think they were anticipating that they'd be able to carry the pumpkins themselves. Bryce tried really hard. I think he was most impressed with the tractor that pulled us on a hayride out to the pumpkin patch.

 I was once heard a mom tell her kids at the pumpkin patch that they weren't allowed to get a pumpkin bigger than they could carry. I don't think we can enforce that rule yet and have pumpkins big enough to carve.

 It was a really pretty spot on a nice cool fall day. Andy listened to the BYU cougars killing Idaho State on his iphone during the drive out and back. Raking leaves, BYU football, and pumpkins - a good day.