About A Boy

This poor 3rd child.  I haven't really posted about my pregnancy at all.  But trust me, I'm very pregnant at the moment!

So let me fill in some of the gaps.

We found out Memorial Day Weekend that I was pregnant.  We took our Pacific Northwest trip a couple weeks later, and moved across the country about a month after the trip.  So my first trimester was mainly made up of long car rides.  The worst of it hit when we were leaving Albuquerque on our move, on our way to Oklahoma City, and I had to pull over a couple of times to throw up.  As far as sickness in general, I've noticed that I've gotten progressively more sick with each pregnancy.  All 3 pregnancies, morning sickness has stuck around for about 17 weeks, but the intensity of the sickness has gotten worse with each.

When we finally got to Florida, the timing was great, because I was still in the sicky part, but we were living with my parents, who were more than happy to help watching the girls while I was not feeling so hot.

We kept our little secret for a while, knowing that we were coming to Florida, and actually had the chance to tell our families in person, which we've never really been able to do before.  So when we pulled up in my parents driveway, the girls were wearing shirts - Kendall's said, "I'm going to be a big sister again," and Cami's said, "I'm going to be a big sister."

My mom noticed the shirts after about 5 minutes.  Then Grant's parents came over, and I think Grant had a feeling his parents might not notice the shirts, so he drew their attention to them.  Then my brother and his wife came over the next day, and it took them seriously like 3 hours to notice the shirts.  And then when my sister and her family came for a visit, my sister noticed pretty quickly.  It was fun to see everyone's reactions and be there in person for the big reveal!

Time went by and before we knew it, we found out that we were having a boy!  I actually had two ultrasounds.  The first one was around 16 weeks, and our ultrasound tech was pretty sure that it was a boy.  I needed to go back in a couple of weeks, though, because they couldn't get all the measurements they needed.  So when we went back, it was even more obvious that it was a boy.  That second ultrasound was amazing.  I felt like we got to see so much of his personality - he even waved to us!

And it should be noted that he was doing squats in the womb - at least that's what it looked like.  His Uncle John should be proud!  A future CrossFitter in the making!

Then we bought a house, moved in, went to New England for John's wedding...this pregnancy has been a whirlwind to say the least! 

The girls are so excited to have a baby brother.  We talk about what his name should be (Grant's been telling the girls it will be either Kiefer Sutherland Spear or Herbert), but we haven't made any decisions yet.  Kendall's pretty obsessed with my belly, and the other day she asked me if she was going to have a belly like mine when she grows up, and then told me how much she wants to be a Mama.  Cami loves to poke my belly and give it kisses.

As far as preparing for the birth, we've decided to go with a home birth this time around.  We're all pretty excited about it, and actually, the people we bought the house from had a home birth here, using the same midwife we're using.  I was at the midwife's office for an appointment and was looking through a photo album of some of the births she's assisted in, and I came across pictures from our house!  That was kind of weird. 

I'm due in early February, but given my track record of going a little late, I'm counting on it being close to Valentine's Day.  That's what I keep telling Kendall to give her some sort of time frame, because she wants this baby out now!  So it helps when I put it in that perspective.

So that's about it!  We haven't really taken any belly pictures this time around.  Although Grant did take one of me the other morning at breakfast.  But it's not very flattering, so I won't be posting that one on the blog.  I'll try to get a decent one soon.

Six Months Later...

Here's the story of Cameron's Birth!

I had an appointment on my due date which was October 17. My doctor decided to tell me the fantastic news that she would be out of town from the 20-24. Awesome, I said sarcastically, I would for sure be having this baby during that time. She said she already had all of her other patient's that were due around that time set up for being induced. But I was her only patient that wanted to go natural, but she asked me anyway if I wanted to be induced. I told her no, and that I would just hope to go into labor either before she left or after she got back. The thing is, even though my doctor was "natural childbirth friendly," as I like to call it, she's not a midwife, and I was already nervous that she would pressure me into something I didn't want. So, the fact that there was a good possibility that another doctor would be delivering me, who might not be so naturally-inclined scared me.

She checked to see how dilated I was, and I was dilated to 3.

Absolutely nothing of consequence happened until...

I had my first real contraction around 9:15 pm Friday, October 23. I had been having contractions very, very infrequently ever since that last appointment. One would come, and then nothing for another day or so. So when that one hit at 9:15, and then another one came about 10 minutes after that, I had a strong feeling that this was it...I was in labor. For a while, they were coming anywhere between 2 - 10 minutes, and not really hurting. Then they started getting closer together, and of course, hurting more.

Just before 1 am, we woke my mom up to tell her that we were going to the hospital, because my contractions were getting really painful by this time - during this whole time, my mom had been sleeping, so she had no idea that I had been in labor for the last few hours. I leaned on her for a few of my contractions while Grant got a few pictures and shot some video.



I drank a bit of juice just before we left, to get something in my system. I ended up throwing that up in the hospital parking lot. Once I got to the hospital, they checked me and I was dilated to 5. I was so relieved to hear that, because as any woman who has given childbirth will tell you, there is nothing more depressing than hearing you haven't progressed, or you've progressed very little after you've been laboring for a few hours.

Julie, a lady from my church acted as my doula, and she got there right after we did. I had her blow up a birthing ball for me, which I never ended up using, because...

Apparently, my water didn't want to break. Anytime I would sit down, I had unbelievable pressure! Even walking was difficult. So, I mainly just stood and swayed my hips from side to side. This was completely opposite from Kendall's birth. Even though with hers, my water didn't break until near the end, I felt more comfortable sitting than standing.



Because of all this pressure from the bag of waters, I was in WAY more pain during my contractions than I was during Kendall's birth. I kept telling Grant, "I can't do this...I can't do this..." And in my head I was thinking, "just get the blankety-blank epidural!" But he kept me calm, and Julie was very encouraging. She would just randomly start praying out loud or quoting scriptures, and I so appreciated that. And Grant was always encouraging me to just get through this next contraction.

I kept feeling the need to push...again, I think that was because of the water not breaking. But the nurse kept telling me not to push. That was the hardest thing in the world to do - go against what my body was telling me to do. When the nurse would leave the room, Julie would tell me to just go ahead and push if I felt the need. So I pushed a few times, but tried not to other times. They checked me a couple more times...one time I was 6, and shortly after that I was 8. Finally, I couldn't stop myself from pushing anymore, so the nurse told me to get on the bed so she could check me again. She started getting everything set up, and I said I had to push. Another nurse that was in the room looked at me and said, "She's crowning!" and she ran out to get the doctor.

Cameron came maybe 10 minutes (at the very most) after that. I only pushed a few times.

Julie held a mirror for me so I could see everything. When they said I was crowning, it really was the bag of water. So I saw the bag come out intact, and then pop at the very end. Cameron's head was right behind it. It was incredible to be able to see everything.



As miserable as I was during the labor, as soon as she was out, I was laughing and happy and energetic. I even yelled out, "Yay! No vacuum!" I was on such a high - I'd never felt like that before.



So she was born at 3:43 am, and she was 9 lbs 12 oz and 21 1/2 inches long. Since I'm not around newborns alot, she seemed really tiny to me. In fact, when she came out I said, "She's so tiny!" All the nurses laughed and said, "NO she's NOT!" Then they started trying to guess how big she was - the closest guess was 9 lbs 2 oz.




I did have 2nd degree tearing, but considering the amount of tearing I had with Kendall, it wasn't too bad.




Unfortunately, the hospital had just set up a policy - thanks to the swine flu - that no visitors under 18 could come. So that meant Kendall wasn't able to come visit, and I was totally bummed about that.

But we were able to go home the following day, so it was just a short stay in the hospital, and Kendall met her new baby sister soon enough.




So as I had jokingly predicted, my doctor did not deliver Cameron. She came back in town about 10 hours after Cameron was born. But the doctor that did deliver her literally walked in the door, delivered her, fixed my tearing, and left. He was there maybe a total of 20 minutes. I will say this, though, Cameron's birth made me never want to deliver in a hospital again - if we have more kids. Unless I can find a hospital that works well with midwives, like we had for Kendall's birth. The nurse that I had was not at all sticking to my birth plan, even though my doctor, and the nurses signed off on it about a week before I came in. We kept having to put our foot down with the way we wanted things, and she wasn't too happy about it. All I have to say is, don't mess with a woman in pain! You will not win!! It was just frustrating to have to do that, when I'm trying to focus and concentrate on what I'm supposed to do. So I'm really leaning towards a birthing center for the next one - if there is a next one.

So that's it! I feel like I scare people out of natural childbirth, because I'm not happy and smiley during labor. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

Forever

There comes a point in (probably) every woman's pregnancy, when she thinks she's going to be pregnant forever. That's where I am right now. And I want to make it clear that I'm not saying that in a complaining kind of a way. I'm saying it in the surreal kind of way - like, I can't imagine not being pregnant. But that could and will all change any time now.

Now, a week ago, I would've totally said it in a complaining kind of a way. I was stressing about so many things that were going on, and I just wanted this baby OUT! But then I went to my mom's group Bible study on Wednesday (I almost didn't go - I'm so glad I changed my mind). We're going through Beth Moore's study of Esther. This particular week, Beth was talking about God's timing. She said something that really stuck out to me - it was something to the effect of, we shouldn't wait on the thing, we should wait on God. She even mentioned waiting for a baby to come! I mean, was she talking directly to me, or what?

This was something that I was really struggling with. And I would openly admit it to anyone who asked.

So being at that study on Wednesday....well, I just really needed to hear it. I can honestly say that right now, 8 days after my due date, I'm totally fine with whatever timing God has for this little girl.

Not Yet

There's still no baby, but Melissa recently suggested that I put up belly pictures like I did when I was pregnant with Kendall.

I apologize for the gross-outness of these pictures, but I guess they're kind of cool to see the difference.

The first was taken when I was 7 weeks pregnant, and the second is from the 39th week.

Soon...

The reality is starting to sink in that very soon, we'll be a family of four. Grant normally takes the bus to work every day, but next week he'll start driving in. My mom comes out here next week, too.

Baby clothes are washed, car seat is cleaned up, baby's outfit for coming home is packed...now we just need her.

It's October!

Wow...this pregnancy has just flown by! I can't believe it's October, and the baby will be here before we know it!

Anyways, now's the time to take a guess as to when the baby will be here. As far as the due date goes, I've always said it was the 17th, because that's the date I was given by the first doctor I went to. But my current doctor says it's the 15th. So why don't we just cut it down the middle for this little game and say it's the 16th, okay?

Also, since we're still pretty clueless about a name for this little girl, feel free to put in any name suggestions. We need a first and a middle this time (last time, even though we didn't have a first name, we knew the middle would be Elizabeth). Thanks.

Catching up - The Zoo

I know I've been a lazy blogger lately. It's not because nothing's been going on. In fact, we've actually been pretty busy! So now I'm trying to play catch up. We went to the LA Zoo on Grant's birthday, which was 2 weeks ago.

It was a lot of fun, but man - was it hot! And hot weather plus a largely pregnant woman does not equal comfort. We even broke down and bought one of those squirt bottle fan mister things at the zoo, which was WAY over-priced, and not something we would usually do, but it was a necessity this time.

Anyways, despite the heat, we still had a good time. Kendall had never been to a zoo before, and she LOVES animals, so she really enjoyed herself. Enjoy the pictures!

Smushy Face

Okay, I know the posts have been lacking lately. Sorry.

Anyways, we had an ultrasound yesterday. I haven't talked much about this pregnancy, but this little girl is so ridiculously active. I thought Kendall was active, but this one makes Kendall seem lazy. She's so active, that many times I said that there must be twins in there. But there's not.

So, all of her activity made it hard for the ultrasound tech to get all the measurements she needed, so it was a really long process. But, the baby cooperated enough for us to get some good shots of her face. I couldn't believe how clear these were! And I don't even think these two pictures are the clearest images we saw. We saw her yawn, and stick out her tongue. It was really cute.

And I realize that maybe to some people, these aren't that clear, but to us, we can see her cute little face plain as day - we even saw her hair! The ironic thing is, these are so much more clear than the 4D ones we got back in June. That's why I never posted any - they just weren't clear at all. It didn't help that she was crossing her arms over her face.

Story of her birth

I figured it was time to let everyone know how the birth went, so here goes...

Around 5 on Christmas morning, I felt a weird pain in my belly. I wasn't sure if it was a contraction or not, but when it came again a few minutes later, I was pretty sure it was. Sure enough, they started coming pretty regularly - maybe every 7 minutes or so. Grant was still asleep, and I didn't want to wake him up, because I knew this would be happening for a while. So, I just went about my business. I ate a bowl of cereal, because I knew if this was real labor, I wouldn't really be eating anything the rest of the day. My mom, who was staying at my neighbor's house, came over around 5:30 or 6, and I told her I thought the baby would be coming later that day. Needless to say, she got really excited. She went back to the neighbor's house to start getting ready.

Around 6:45, Grant kind of started waking up, so I told him, "I think you're going to get your Christmas baby today." Ever since I passed my due date, he predicted that she would come on Christmas day. So like my mom, he got really excited, too! He got up, and we both started getting ready - we took showers, packed our bags, etc.

The contractions started getting closer together, and we called the hospital around 9. They said that we could come in any time. We decided to hold off on going in for a little longer - I didn't like the idea of being at the hospital any longer than I had to be. Maybe around 9:30 or so, I threw up the little bowl of cereal that I had (alot of good that did), and Grant decided that it was time to go to the hospital. It was probably around 10 that we actually got in the car to go.

We got to the hospital around 10:15, and we made our way to labor and delivery. We were happy to discover that we were the only ones on the floor - as funny as this sounds, that was something that I had prayed about.

On a bit of a side note, we were planning on having a natural childbirth. We took some classes teaching us about the Bradley Method of childbirth (which is also called Husband Coached Childbirth). The base hospital only has 1 midwife, and she told us that she wouldn't be available on the 24th or 25th. When we got to the hospital, they asked if we had already called the midwife. We said we hadn't, and that we thought she was unavailable. They said they would call her anyway, and a little bit later, she was on her way! We were very happy about this!

So, I'm going through these contractions, and we realized very quickly that I liked it quiet in the room, especially during the contractions. Grant was great - if anyone was talking too loudly, or taking too many pictures, I never had to say anything - he took care of it for me. I tried different positions during some of the contractions - I would stand up, go for a walk, or sit on the birthing ball - no matter what I did, though, I would always squeeze the life out of Grant's hand. Poor guy.




Around 1 or so, I started feeling the urge to push. Apparently, I'm a noisy pusher, because every time I pushed, I let out this terrible wail. I remember thinking how embarrassing this was, but I couldn't control it.

Things were progressing really well. Around 2:45 or 3, I was sitting in the bathroom pushing, and the midwife had a portable heart rate monitor. She wasn't getting a good reading on the baby's heart rate, so she had me go back into the room, and get hooked up to the regular monitor. According to that, the baby's heart rate had dropped pretty significantly - down to the 60's - so she had to come out ASAP. The midwife had me try some different positions on the bed to try to get her out right away - on my sides, on all fours - but nothing was working. The baby wasn't far enough down the birth canal to come out quickly enough, and her heart rate wasn't coming up, so the midwife decided to call in the doctor. The doctor came in, and they decided that the best way to get her out would be to use the vacuum, and if that didn't work, they'd have to do a c-section.

So, out came the vacuum. The midwife gave me a warning that it would "hurt like hell," and she was right. The wails that I had done before were nothing in comparison to this! My dad said he could hear me all the way down the hall. The doctor said they'd give me 3 tries to push her out with the vacuum. The 1st and 2nd tried came and went with no luck. On the 3rd try, she just reiterated that if it didn't work, it would be a c-section. I pushed with everything I had, and out she came!

It's like they always say, once the baby is out, you forget about the pain. As soon as I saw her, everything was suddenly fine. My baby was out, she was healthy, and I was happy.



The downside is, because they had to use the vacuum, I had 3rd degree tearing (there's only 4 degrees, so this was pretty bad). The doctor spent an hour and a half stitching me up. So, I won't be jumping back into exercising as soon as I had hoped - I can only walk for exercise for about 4-6 weeks.

But I got my natural childbirth, just like I wanted, and am so happy I did!

Grant was a fantastic coach! During the whole vacuum episode, he stayed so calm, even though he told me later that he was really worried. It went from a very calm environment (it was just me, Grant, the midwife, and nurse in the room), to all the sudden being a very chaotic situation, with a doctor, several nurses, and some technicians in the room. He stayed positive the whole time, kept encouraging me, and telling me how good I was doing. Because of him, I never even realized how scary it was.