BBE!!!

Well, I was hoping to get in a post 6-weeks after Silas, but that turned into 2 months, and now we're at 10.5 weeks! Life with two kids is definitely BUSY!
With any baby the first weeks and months are definitely a difficult adjustment, and as most of you know, Ian was an extra difficult baby up until about 6 months or so. But I'm happy to report that our prayers have been answered, and Silas is an AWESOME baby. We like to call him the Best Baby Ever, or BBE. Of course, we've only had two babies, and maybe he's just average in the grand scheme of things. But compared to Ian as a baby, he's amazing! We try not to say this too much in front of Ian, by the way. Silas naps like a champ, is almost always happy when his basics needs are taken care of, and we're starting to get more sleep at night. His main issue has just been gassiness, and of course you always blame mom for what she's eaten when baby gets gassy. Since we usually eat a vegetarian diet of lots of beans and vegetables (which tend to make Silas really gassy and irritable, usually in the middle of the night), it's been making my meal choices a bit tricker. Eating mostly peanut butter and carbs doesn't exactly make losing the last 10 lbs of baby weight very easy. But I guess it's a good trade off for having such a happy baby. And let's be honest, peanut butter makes me happy (at least while I'm eating it!)

Ian's been a great big brother. He loves giving Silas kisses, and he likes hanging out on the playmat with Silas. And he's actually been fairly helpful in general with finding pacifiers and bringing me gas drops, etc. But he's been acting out in other ways, like throwing toys and pushing other kids when he's in child care. He got kicked out of MOPS twice, and asked to leave Sunday School once. Whoops. Obviously it's kind of frustrating, but I think he's getting over the worst of his behavior. I keep telling myself his world has been rocked, and he bound to act out a bit. And I'm glad he's hitting other people's kids instead of his brother. Just kidding.

 

 

After his two-month check up, we can officially say Silas is gigantic. He weighs 15 1/2 lbs already, which puts him off the charts. Ian was 12'10" at two months and was in the 90th percentile, so Silas already has 3 pounds on him. Why are our kids so huge? Guess I must have some extra fatty breast milk or something. Must be the peanut butter.


I've been back to Zumba for about 6 weeks, and I'm so glad to have an outlet! I love my children, but it's nice to take a mental break for a couple of hours during the week. I don't know if my kids will grow up thinking I'm crazy, or if they'll just think it's normal for their mom to randomly break out into a salsa in the middle of making dinner, but I'm often choreographing in my head throughout the day. I guess it's my creative outlet, or maybe just my mental escape from changing diapers (yes, two sets still. sigh. we're getting there!)

So life if busy and full and exhausting, but I am so thankful to be the mother of two wonderful boys! And please don't ask if we're going to try for a girl. We're pretty sure our family is complete now, unless God has other plans. Gulp!

Baby Silas' Birth

I probably should be taking a nap, but I figured it'd be good to get out my thoughts on baby Silas' birth before my parents leave and I don't have any free time! So for those of you who like this kind of thing, enjoy. Excuse the choppiness, gramatical errors, and misspellings, as I'll be glad just to get this story out of my head and onto this blog!

I'm still feeling like it's a bit surreal that there was a 10 pound baby inside of me last week, and now I'm feeling pretty much back to normal. I can bend over and tie my shoes, and I'm not peeing 6 times a night! I don't know how anyone can have a baby and not feel the power of God in the experience. It really is the biggest miracle!

Ian was induced 2.5 weeks early, so for some reason I was thinking baby #2 might come a bit early as well. Alas, he waited until his due date (actually he missed his due date by 56 minutes), and I must say those last 2 and a half weeks were getting fairly miserable. After a relatively easy pregnancy, I can't complain, but everything in life was getting more difficult and was I ready to get baby OUT!

On my due date I went to my OB appt. and I was about 3 cm dilated. Since we have a history of large babies in our family, we sheduled an induction for three days later. The doctor stripped my membranes (I'm not exactly sure what that does, and it sounds way more painful than it actually was), which is supposed to get things moving. Well move they did because about half an hour after I got home from the doc while I was getting ready for Zumba, my water broke! Such a weird feeling. I stood in the kitchen not knowing what to do for a minute, but then decided I should probably call Troy who was on his way home from work. I wasn't feeling any contractions, so I decided I should probably straighten up the house a bit, which was the messiest it had been in days, and finish packing my bags.

We got to the hospital around 5:30 p.m. and I was about 5 cm dilated, but still not feeling any contractions. They gave me pitocin to get things rolling, and we basically waited for awhile. After a couple of hours I still wasn't really feeling any contractions, and I was dilated about the same. When the nurse checked my cervix, my water broke again! Apparently only part of it broke before, so that was probably what was holding things up a bit. After that, the doctor encouraged me to get an epidural sooner than later, since things could progress quickly. I was just barely starting to feel contractions when I got the epidural. We were very blessed to have the best anesthesiologist (according to my doctor and the nurse) that evening. Because of my scoliosis, that was one thing I was a bit nervous about, but she did an amazing job. Troy left the room, so we had no near-fainting episodes this time around. The epidural was perfect! I could still feel and move my legs from the knee down, and felt like I had control, but couldn't feel the contractions. Whoever invented these is a genius!

After another hour or so things continued to progress. I had been alternating between laying on my sides when the nurse asked me to lay on my back. Suddenly two other nurses and my doctor came quickly into the room because the baby's heart rate started to drop. It went from 140 to 90 in a short amount of time. They gave me some sort of shot to stop my contractions, and stopped the pitocin. I wasn't super nervous at the time, but looking back it was a bit scary. Thankfully after 30-45 minutes or so baby's heart rate was stabilized, and they put me back onto pitocin. They don't know why the heartrate dropped, but it was more than likely because he descended quickly or didn't like the position I was in.

That ordeal slowed the process down a bit. I was fully dilated and ready to push around 12:30 am. At 12:56, Silas Allan was born! Of course all of the initial comments were about how big he was. My doctor said she thought he was at least nine pounds. I was slightly shocked when they weighed him and he was 10 lbs. 2.2 ounces. What? I knew we wouldn't have a little peanut, but over 10 lbs is a bit ridiculous! His head was extra large too, so I had to have an episiotomy and I had a third degree tear (sorry, but it happens!), but overall I was so thankful he was able to come out naturally.

Silas was slightly jaundiced and had to go under the bili bassinet for about 18 hours. I was really worried we'd have to be readmitted like we did for Ian, but thankfully we didn't!

We're at home adjusting to life. My mom has been a huge help, and has done a million loads of laundry and cooked all of our meals while my dad has been playing with Ian. Troy had surgery on his meniscus yesterday, and honestly it's a bit annoying to have to care for your husband right after having a baby, but chalk that up to bad timing.

I'm slightly terrified of what life will look like once my parents are gone and Troy is back to work, but I know the majority of people in the world do life with more than one kid. I can too! I just don't do well with lack of sleep, and I start to get paranoid that everything I do will ruin Silas' schedule for life, but I'm trying to be a bit more laid back. This too shall pass. It's a hard balance between enjoying the precious few moments of having a newborn, and wishing for the first few months to pass quickly because they are so exhausting and mentally draining. And even though we're praying for a baby who sleeps a lot at night quickly, I'm trying to be truly thankful for a perfectly healthy baby who has no complications or conditions.

Oh, and Silas is a nursing champ. At his one week appt. he was 10 lbs 8 oz. He's nursing A LOT, but hey, I guess a 10 pounder needs a bit more milk than the average baby!

Helloooo Baby

It's been 7 months since my last post. Oops!

Well, a bit has happened since then. I'm now 35 weeks pregnant with baby boy #2! One funny thing about being pregnant is that people like to comment on your appearance. I've noticed it more this time around, maybe because I dance around in front of a lot of people three times a week at Zumba in a tight tank top (that's now a reeaaaaally tight tank top). I think I've been told I look cute more in the last few months than in my entire life combined (I must not have been very cute last time I was pregnant). People also like to comment on how big you are. During one Zumba class several months ago, a couple of people told me I looked tiny, and other person asked if I was having twins. Just this weekend someone at church told me I looked small, and then another person asked when I was due, shook her head and said "you must be having a ten pound baby!" Um, thanks??

Note to self: It might not be the best idea to make such comments to hormonal, overly emotional pregnant women who aren't feeling great about their appearance in general.

In some ways this pregnancy has flown by, and in other ways it feels like I've been pregnant FOREVER! I think I'm enjoying pregnancy less in general, not because it's been super hard, but because the newness and excitment from the first pregnancy has worn off. And honestly, though I'm so thankful for the blessing of another child, especially after having a miscarriage, it's taken me a while to get excited about having another baby...and I think I'm still working on that excitement a bit for a couple of reasons.

Most of you know that Ian was a difficult baby. The doctor called it colic, but I think that's just what they say when your baby cries a lot and isn't very happy and they don't know why. As a perfectionist who likes everything in order and relatively scheduled, it was a humbling experience to have a newborn who would barely take a nap, no matter what I did. No amount of baby books helped, and I felt like a failure as a parent. The mention of Babywise practically brought me to tears...tried it. didn't work. Six months down the road Ian finally fell into the routine I'd desperately longed for, and has been a great sleeper ever since. I told Troy I'd take an incredibly fussy baby for six months again if it meant having a great sleeping toddler. But I'm still traumatized from that long half of a year, and I'm hoping to have even an average baby on the sleep scale!

Another reason that it's been hard for me to get really excited about having another baby is the Zumba class I teach. It's been a huge blessing and a much needed outlet in my life, so giving it up for a while will be difficult (though it will be in the extremely capable hands of the lovely Courtney Fair). People will probably have to drag me away from teaching, and then I'll be sneaking back before my doctor really okays it...please don't tell her! Of course, this thinking just points to my selfishness, which parenting in general has a way of doing...hmmm.

Here's one think I'm hoping doesn't happen in the next 5 weeks:

Ouch! That was actually taken a couple of days after Ian was born. I was induced because he was measuring 6 weeks ahead and my BP was going up and my feet were swelling (no kidding!) No one tells you that huge cankles might be as uncomfortable as a third-degree tear :/ We're taking bets on how big this kid will be since at three weeks early Ian was 8'10''. We grown em large in our family. I guess if he's 10 pounds that'll be less weight for me to lose!

One other area of excitment in my life is that I'm taking an exam on Friday through AFAA (Aerobics and Fitness Association of America) to become a certified group exercise instructor. The knowledge in general will help me be a better Zumba instructor, but I'd love to eventually start teaching another class, maybe kickboxing or soemthing like that. The test will be pretty strenuous, and though I'm fairly confident in my knowledge of the material, being 8-months pregnant will make some of the practical demonstrations interesting (envision me doing crunches on the floor). But I figured it's now or who knows when I'll be able to get this certification once the baby is here. Wish me luck!

Hope the seven months was worth the wait as you've read about the excitment in my life :)