5 months!

Lily Bean is 5 months old!

 

 Her newest trick is getting her foot in her mouth! 

 

It's getting a little squishy in here!

Check out how long my legs are! 

A Baby Story

So my due date, December 18, came and went with not much fuss.  I hadn’t quite had the end of pregnancy feelings most women seem to have – the ‘get this baby out of me now’ feelings – so I was pretty sure that meant I had another month to do since I’ve heard the last month is supposed to be miserable.  I was still enjoying the perks of pregnancy – people holding doors for me, looking at me with that “aww…poor thing” look and the husband rubbing my swollen feet every night! 

On December 20, I started developing a rash on my belly, which was quite itchy.  THAT was the first moment that I thought it was truly time to get that baby out me!  So on the 21^st, we did ALL the things (short of Castor Oil) that they say you do to induce labor naturally.  Amongst other things, I ate spicy Mexican food for lunch, drove over speed bumps, jumped and walked all around the neighborhood, even stomping some, frequently sitting on random benches on stranger’s porches.  Believe me; you can pretty much get away with ANYTHING when you’re pregnant.  Earlier in the pregnancy I had gotten pulled over for speeding, only to ‘learn’ that my inspection was expired and my tail light was out.  I got a ticket for the tail light, which I got dismissed by taking in the receipt for a new light.  ALSO, I walked into a stranger’s house at a Christmas parade to use the bathroom!!  ANYWAYS, at 2 am on the 22^nd, I awoke with a pretty sure sign of labor, but maybe it was the Mexican food, so I went back to sleep.  At 5 am, I awoke to use the bathroom, something I’d been doing about 5 times a night for the last month, but this time, when I sat on the edge of the bed, I felt my water break!  Statistically, I did NOT expect this to happen.  Apparently only 10-15% of peoples’ waters break prior to going into labor, and since I’d had 2 close friends who this had happened to, I was sure mine would stay intact.  But no...  My plan was to labor at home for as long as possible and go to the hospital at the last possible second.  So while I was really excited that the baby was really coming, I was a little disappointed to have missed out on the home labor experience.  I had big plans to labor ‘comfortably’ in the tub & shower, walk around the neighborhood, all things I’d learned in our Bradley Method of Natural Childbirth classes and rehearsed in my head.  I was tempted to stay home for a little while after, but my doctor was adamant I be in the hospital if the water broke and I couldn’t feel the baby moving, so after loading the car and a quick rinse in the shower (I was moving quite slowly, while Michael was rushing around like crazy!), we headed to the hospital. 

When we arrived at the hospital, the door we had planned to enter was shut down under construction.  We ended up going into the day surgery entrance, where the nurses were unsure what to do with me.  They told me to sit in a wheel chair and that Michael should park, and then meet me over there.  Well, I did not want Michael to leave me, so I made them wait, telling them I would jump out of the wheel chair if they tried to wheel me to L&D without him.  I think that was really their plan.  They nervously agreed to wait for him.  When we got to the L&D unit, they informed us that due to the storm there were already 2 other women who had come in before me.  This is a pretty small hospital and very small unit, so that was a lot for them.  Thankfully for me, who didn’t want to be hooked up to monitors quite yet, they let me be, so I walked around.  I was having Braxton-Hicks contractions pretty regularly, which I was hoping were the real thing, but when they hooked me up to the monitors an hour after we arrived, around 7am, nothing.  I was dilated to around 3-4 cm, but at my appt 3 days before, I was dilated to a 3.   Around 9, I started having some friendly real contractions, but not necessarily at regular intervals.  Turns out, I never really had contractions at regular intervals.  My mom also arrived about this time.  We played Scrabble on the iPad and started the labor play list, which included ridiculous songs such as “Sexy and I know I,” “Like a Virgin” and “You’re having my baby” from the Glee soundtrack.  We had 3 hours of “fun” music, which meant that each song played at least 4 times!  Labor progressed strangely for the remainder of the day.  I felt like I had complete control over the contractions.  I would do things to encourage them, such as rock side to side on the exercise ball, they would come kinda strong and then would slow down significantly until I changed positions.  When one was really strong, I would ‘take a break’ and have weak ones or none, until I did something else to induce another.  Eventually they were strong enough that I had to abandon our Scrabble game, though I was definitely winning when we quit.  Michael was amazing throughout this whole process.  He held my hand as I squeezed his tightly, rubbed my back with great force ALL day long, and let me hang on him while I worked through contractions.  At one point, there was a nursing shift change.  When my new nurse came in, she said, “I know you have a birth plan, but I couldn’t find it, so all I read was the C-section part, but we’re going to have to get things going…what’s it gonna be Pitocin? An epidural?...” I was about ready to cry, then miraculously, her husband ended up with kidney stones, so she had to leave! Then Kayla, an angel nurse, arrived to take over.  At some point, I cried tears of joy, telling Kayla how glad I was to have her!  At around 6 pm, I was dilated to about a 6/7 and my doctor, Dr. Tynes, came into to let me know she was going to another hospital across town to check on a patient there.  I was sure I would have the baby before she got back.  At 7, she called to have the nurse check me to see if could go to dinner with her family before coming back.  I was still dilated the same, so Dr. Tynes had dinner.  I was sure I’d have the baby before she finished eating.  When she got back to the hospital, I was still dilated 7ish.  Slowly, I got to almost an 8 and when Dr. Tynes checked me, she said my cervix was really stretchy and she thought she could stretch it over the baby’s head.  This was VERY painful with me practically kicking her away, so she would stop.  She thought starting Pitocin was a good idea, which I was stressed about mainly because I had had control over my contractions up until this point, and I thought I would no longer be able to control them, but the doula, Michael and nurse seemed to think it was a good idea, so she started 2 of Pitocin at 10:30 that night.  By this point, I had been in labor for 17 ½ hours!  But the time had flown.  So with Pitocin, the contractions picked up a bit, but I still had control over them, though I was feeling more motivated to stop taking breaks.  At this point, I thought that I would consider an epidural at 11:30 since things did not seem to be progressing, since I could not relinquish control over these contractions.  When the doctor came in to check me at 11:30, I could tell I hadn’t progressed much and was still dilated to almost 8 cm.  Dr. Tynes said she thought she could stretch the cervix around the baby’s head and I could push, but she didn’t think I could tolerate the pain.  I told her that if we could do that for a specified amount of time, I felt like I could handle it.  So with Kayla, the sweetest nurse ever, counting, Dr. Tynes stretched the cervix around the baby’s head while I pushed.  I was so hot.  My mom was putting wet rags on my head, while Michael held my hand and leg.  After each 10 seconds of stretching and pushing, I needed new, cool rags.  Dr. Tynes showed my mother a trick…flinging the rag around in the area to re-cool it.  This also created a nice shower for me, but watching the doctor fling that rag around was pretty funny.  The whole time this was going on, I had to keep telling myself…"it is normal to push for 2 hours, and judging by the way everything else has gone, I’m likely to have to push for 4."  My Bradley instructor, Maureen, had said that pushing was a relief, but it was by far the hardest part of it all.  When the baby started crowning, my mom, Michael and the doctor acted like this baby was really getting born any second, but I kept telling myself I had hours left to go.  We started the whole pushing process at 11:30 and Baby Lillian Marie Henry arrived at 12:32 am!  Thank God I didn’t have to push for longer!  When she came out, she had the most perfect round head, great big eyes like her daddy and a beautiful complexion that must’ve skipped Michael and I’s generation.  She took a moment, even before taking her first breath, to look around the room to see who was there.  She looked everyone in the eye and as I held her, I swear she had a little grin on her face.  The dry erase board in the room still said “December 22 – Happy birthday Lillian!” 

Lily's Pad

The nursery is complete!  Now all we need is an adorable human being to put in it!!!!!! 

Thanks to everyone who contributed letters to Lily's wall.  She already feels loved from A to striped Z!

Green Baby

In an effort to go green, we're planning to use cloth diapers.  We're also borrowing several things instead of buying them.  Reduce, Reuse!  I've borrowed maternity clothes, baby clothes, a car seat, and a bouncer among other things.

We're also planning to use cloth diapers and doing a cloth diaper trial with Jilliansdrawers.com.  It's actually quite a great idea.  We're using their diapers for $10 for 21 days.  We get to try out several different types and brands, pay for the ones we want and give back the ones we don't.  Even if they're stained!  So our plan is to do the newborn trial, then do the big baby trial and then buy some.  To practice using them, I tried them on the stuffed animals.  Michael's response when he saw the animals posing in their diapers, "Well, that's disappointing.." 

While we were at it, I let Harvey try out the infant seat.  It looks like he's just about the exact size of a newborn baby, right?

Chair Lift

Before pic of my glider.  Both pieces were found on Craig's List, but from 2 different people.  When we went to pick up the glider, the owner was reminiscing about how she used to rock her adopted daughter to sleep in it every night when she was a baby, so she was never able to get rid of it.  Now that she just bought her daughter her first car, she figured it was time to get rid of the chair.  Of course that story made me cry at the thought of Lily driving! 

After a paint job by Michael and some adorable new fabric and new cushions, it looks like this!  Don't you just LOVE those crazy birds?!

Craft Project Weekends

Mickey and the nieces and nephew came into town for a weekend of crafting for the baby. 

Sewing, Sewing, Sewing!

 Audrey made this hat with her knitting machine!

Audrey and Nicole made this fabulous blanket

The bumpers turned out super cute!

 Beginnings of a crib skirt

 Michael and his father spent my birthday weekend installing a chair rail and painting the nursery.  The top color is called Water Lily.  Appropriate, right?

Before:                                                             After:

 

Turned out beautifully!  That piece of furniture is a hutch my mother bought me at a yard sale to benefit the AIDS Lifewalk.  Isn't it pretty?!  

While the boys were painting, I covered the switch plate with fabric to match the bumpers!

More Backblogging: Northeast Weekend Getaway

While living in the Northeast, a lot of great cities are just a short road trip away. From Staten Island to Washington DC and to Philadelphia takes only about 3 hours, and it's about 5 hours to Boston. However, the weekend we went to Boston was Memorial Day weekend, so we spent about 8 hours on the road, plus took a quick side trip to Rhode Island just to say we'd been there!

In Boston, we went to a Red Sox game. We sat in wooden seats that felt like they'd been there since the beginning of time. The viewed sucked, but it felt like a truly authentic baseball experience. We took the Duck tour like any good tourist as well. Did you know the book Make Way For Ducklings took place in Boston?

We also walked the Freedom Trail. We downloaded a free app and took turns reading to each other all the exciting history that took place at different spots along the trail.

Paul Revere!


"One if by land, Two if by sea..."


Did you know the first subway station in America is in Boston?

Somehow, my mother made taking pictures with donkeys a family tradition.



We took a road trip up to Gloucester, Maine, about 45 minutes north of Boston, to go on a whale watching trip. We stayed in an adorable B&B with Dora that overlooked the ocean and had a beautiful garden. Thanks to a Groupon, we went on the Cape Ann Whale Watch, where they guarantee you'll see a whale or it's free! We saw at least 20 whales. HUGE majestic creatures. Dora got to go on the boat ride as well! She even saw a whale, but she didn't care too much. Everybody on the boat thought she was adorable, and the kids were much more excited about her than the whales.