Kiddy update and blah blah blah...

Ryan is 10weeks and 1 day old today... he had his two month checkup earlier this week. He was 12lbs 1oz and 22.5 inches long - which is actually not nearly as high in the percentile charts as he was when born, but I never went searching for the breastfed baby charts, which are supposed to be more accurate than the "normal" charts based on formula-fed babies. He is starting to roll a bit - manages to get up on his side sometimes. He smiles a lot more - I love that huge toothless grin! He is constantly "bothered" by his brothers who just can't love on him enough. I guess you could say he's attacked by me, too - I just can't stop kissing his sweet soft cheeks!

Levi is a little conversationalist - and very opinionated. He has a love/hate relationship with the car wash - wants to go so badly, but is scared when going through it. LOL! He went to his first movie theater showing yesterday - Oz: The Great and Powerful - and slept through most of it, which was for the better anyway... he was having trouble sitting still and being quiet. He has been sleeping in his own bed since probably June of last year. He has trouble falling asleep on his own still, so Mommy or Daddy have to lay with him until he falls asleep. It has been mostly Daddy doing the duty since I'm usually busy with Ryan at night. Over the past week, Levi will wake up and come into our room and ask Daddy to come lay with him. Not sure how to stop that, but maybe he'll just start sleeping all night and essentially grow out of it.

Tyler started kindergarten this past fall. He already decided that he doesn't like school. (He's really not going to like going everyday next year.) It could mean a very long 12 years until HS graduation... ugh! He is learning to read this year and I think he is doing quite well. I am amazed at listening to him read books to me. His handwriting is also improving - when he concentrates on it. He frequently comes home with his writing "books" only partially filled out, so we spend far too much time finishing them at home... all because he just stares at the pages or doodles on them instead of doing the work. He has improved on that "flaw" somewhat, but we have more improvement to make. He doesn't have any trouble concentrating on other things, so it is just a matter of making him realize that he is wasting time sitting there instead of just getting his work done so he can go off and play.

Tyler and Levi play together pretty well most of the time - they like pretending they are transformers. There are also lots of times they don't play well together, but luckily those moments are becoming less and less - but still more than I'd like. The playtime has been much improved since I've taken away most of their toys and only left out a few things. I enjoy not having the room covered in a layer of toys all the time, and I think they are actually playing with the toys left out instead of going from one thing to another so quickly. It has made for some more imaginative play and they aren't quite as overwhelmed at the task of "cleaning up".

I have unbunked the twin beds in their room - mostly because Levi was in the process of destroying the ceiling fan. I started taking the ladder down so he couldn't get up on the top bunk (that he was forbidden from), but being the monkey that he is, he was able to scale the side to get up there... something his big brother can't do. So I was forced to unbunk the beds or end up getting a new fan and repairing the ceiling. I picked the lesser of two evils. The room lost some floor space, but at least now I have more wall-space to hang things up and the beds are WAY easier to make.

The "nursery" has been de-nursery-fied when I moved Levi out of the crib. I took down all the nursery decorations and disassembled the crib - the back of the crib became the headboard for our double bed. I also took down the wallpaper border in there and began trying to figure out how I wanted to paint in there... before i had the chance to completely make it over into the guest room, I found out I was pregnant with Ryan. So, I decided that I should go ahead and turn it back into a nursery somewhat. I put the changing table back in there, and hung back up some of the nursery decor. I have since figured out what color I want to paint in there, so when the weather breaks for good, I'm going to get started on that. I certainly want to have it painted and give it plenty of time to fume off before I have anyone sleeping in there. I haven't completely decided how I want to do the sleeping arrangements when Ryan is out of our room, and I'm sure that I'll never fully have it figured out. I can't tell you how many times I've moved the beds and furniture around... within the rooms and between the rooms. At least with the paint color I picked out, it doesn't matter what beds go in there because it'll match either way. I'm always rearranging the living room furniture in search of the "perfect" arrangement, but I haven't really found one that is completely ideal. There's always something I'm not super-pleased with. Either, I don't like where the TV is because either the sound travels too well up the stairs to our room or the channels don't come in well through the antennea. The ideal place for the TV makes the couch be in a non-ideal location. And so on and so forth... needless to say, I stay busy rearranging furniture when I'm bored. It's a pretty cheap way to "redecorate". I always enjoy the freshness of a new arrangement... almost like I'm on vacation. :-) Ha!

Maybe I've started a new thing to keep me from being bored... renewing my interest in keeping this blog updated! And maybe trying to become the paparazzi for my kids - because I certainly do not take as many pictures and video of them as I would like. I also need to catch up on making our photo books and several sewing projects that I have in the works. So, maybe this blog will continue to be ignored. Or maybe I'll want to share all the things that have kept me from boredom by posting about them here... only time will tell!!!!

Ryan Cole Labor Story

To be honest, I had fully intended to completely abandon this blog, but I figured that I might as well try to keep it limping along. Who knows? Maybe I'll actually keep up with it again... and maybe not. Anyway - so much to update on, so I'll keep it to the big stuff (or the stuff I remember anyway!) Firstly, this past December - the 28th to be exact - we welcomed a new addition to the family. The following is the labor story... posted mostly for my own benefit and not for any sort of bragging or the like. I'm not shy about sharing the story, so here it is for those who care to know my journey through labor and delivery. Hopefully, it might inspire someone else to try for a drug-free labor, because I don't think there is anyone that is more of a baby in regards to pain than me. SO, if I can do it, certainly anyone can. Ryan Cole was born 12/28/12 at 2:07am after a short(er) labor compared to the other two boys. I think I was only in hard labor for 3ish hours. I don't know if I can attribute that to going into labor completely naturally or because I didn't have/need any drug interventions during labor. I was actually sent in to the hospital to be induced because the amniotic fluid levels were really low (which meant my placenta was starting to die off). I was very disappointed knowing that I wasn't going to get my drug-free labor that I had been envisioning and preparing for. As luck would have it, when I got to the hospital and hooked up to the monitors, I was actually contracting every 2-3 minutes on my own already and didn't know it! I didn't feel a thing and was already 4cm (from almost 2cm at the doctor's office earlier in the day). The midwife from my doctor's office was the one on call, so she was there and figured that she'd break my water and see if that gets my labor kicked into high gear and maybe I could avoid getting pitocin. That was roughly at 8pm and then family started showing up, so my room was full of people (and a doggie, too!). They started trickling out and were gone by 10pm at which time my contractions were getting to be more than just cramps. They were still super manageable, though. So, Josh, my Doula, and I were just sitting there talking. I decided that the rocking chair was just not working anymore, so Josh started to blow up the exercise ball for me to sit on, which ended up being the best thing at that point in labor. The whole L&D floor was busy that night, so they finally got around to bringing in all the papers to fill out and sign at that point... so between contractions, I'm filling out paperwork that is asking me questions I feel I have already answered a bazillion times already. It was probably 10:30-11:00pm and I decided that the ball wasn't comfortable anymore, I need to be a little more supported during contractions (was getting afraid of falling off the ball!) so I moved to the bed to be on my hands and knees. What ended up happening was that the head of the bed was elevated about 45 or so degrees. I ended up kneeling backwards and laying over the top of the bed between contractions and then sitting up on my knees during contractions. This was my position for the remainder of labor (and the poor nurse was having to hold the heart monitor to my stomach because it wouldn't stay with all my moving around.) I soon got to the point where I was starting to cry and saying I wanted to go home and that I was done - in all honesty, that was my way of asking for the epidural without actually saying it. Josh knew what I wanted, but refused to acknowledge it, so he and the doula just kept on ignoring my request and telling me that I was doing great. The doula was wonderful because she kept my mind from going into dispair and reminded me to stay on top of the contractions. As long as I stayed mentally strong, they were manageable - but don't get me wrong, they were still the most painful thing(s) I have ever experienced. I just had to keep my mind "in the game" and not mentally give up. At this point, they called the midwife back to the hospital because they knew that I was getting close. I was confused as to why they were having her come already when I probably had lots of time left to go. Keep in mind that my other labors were over 12 hours long and we were only on (from what I could gather) about maybe 5 hours since my water had been broken. When the midwife came in, they had me turn over on my back (the most excrutiating position ever) so that she could check me - I was 8cm at this point. I can't recall how that made me feel knowing that I still had 2cm to go. I think my mind was focused on getting back into a more comfortable position and just getting through the next contraction. They kept asking if I felt like pushing, and I didn't so they suggested that I "grunt" the baby down during contractions. If it brought the baby down or not, I don't know - but it certainly gave me something to focus on and a "job" to do during contractions. I can't recall when it was decided that it was time to push. I faintly remember being checked and only having the anterior lip left to dilate, so I think the midwife just figured that it will only be a couple contractions from the full 10cm. I don't have a clue how long I was pushing because I could not for the life of me open my eyes but a crack here and there. It was almost like sensory overload or something. I also had trouble letting go of the rails and holding my legs back - I had to have the nurses and Josh hold my legs up for me. The coolest thing about pushing was that without the epidural, I could really feel my body doing the pushing for me. I wasn't pushing correctly until my body did it involuntarily and I could push with that. And honestly, once the pushing started, the contractions weren't painful at all. At the point where it felt to me like my baby's head was crowning, was probably the point where his head was just peeking out... because when he was crowning, I was the classic screaming woman in labor. That was the one and only point where I screamed during the whole process. Something I'm semi-proud of after the fact, but nothing I really strived for during labor/delivery. I just felt that if I screamed, things would get worse because it was like i was letting my body give up and I really needed to stay in control. During crowning, I guess I let myself go because it was so close to the end... and that ring of fire was truly the most aweful experience of it all. It wasn't so much of a "ring" as it was more of a semi-cirle of pain, but still fire-like nonetheless. I was screaming to have them "get it out". Thankfully I had a midwife deliver because Ryan came out as 9 pounds 4.3 ounces and not a tear in sight. In comparison, I had an episiotomy with Tyler (7lbs 4.6oz) and tearing with Levi (7lbs 14oz), so it is truly awesome that I pushed Ryan out with no damage. I was surprised that he was so big... the ultrasound earlier in the day had estimated his weight at 9lbs 6oz, but I didn't believe that to be accurate. Afterall, weights are not very accurate late in pregnancy, and how in the world could this baby be so big when my belly measurements were usually on the smaller side and my other two children were not even close to that size. And I gained something like 10 pounds less with Ryan than I did with Levi and about 20 pounds less than with Tyler. It just didn't make any sense why I would have such a large baby... but I did. To be honest, I never had intentions at first in going drug free... afterall, when there's a way to do it pain-free, why would you go through that? I changed my mind when I watched "More Business of Being Born" on Netflix. I had already watched "Business of Being Born" awhile ago, but this was more in depth on certain topics. One topic in particular was on Ina May Gaskin who is considered THE midwife, and "The Farm". I think they also discussed the role of Doulas and how they support the woman in labor. I wanted to know more, so I looked for a class to take that wasn't associated with any partiular method (like Bradley) and I found one called "Birth Outside the Box". It was something that you could take online where they would email you the class little by little or you could just buy the whole class in a book (which is what I did) I read that book in a matter of a few days and it really solidified my desire to give drug-free an honest try. My desire to do this came from wanting the best start for the baby - I wanted him born alert and free from anesthetics with the hopes that breastfeeding would start off effortlessly. I wanted to have an easy recovery and I didn't want to risk of having the epidural complication I had during labor with Levi (BP bottomed out). Besides, the process of getting the epidural isn't the most pleasant experience and it was stressed to me that I should get it before labor gets too intense to hold still. I got it pretty early on with Tyler and Levi and I remember that it was hard enough holding still for that without a contraction. In the end, I'm so glad/proud that I was able to experience labor and delivery the way God and nature intended. I feel without the Doula, I wouldn't have been able to go through with it. I highly recommend using one if you are thinking of a completely drug-free labor. She kept my mind at ease and I had complete trust in her that she was going to take care of me. It was all mental, and I knew that going into it. I had faith that my body could do it and I had faith in her to support me.