Day in the Life Summer 2012

So I took all the pictures and got 3/4 wrote the night of the deadline and mama duty called so it never got posted with the rest of them but after all that work I couldn't let set unfinished.

Saturday August 11, 2012

I wake up.  It’s still dark, but I don’t hear Will making any noises so I lay there for a minute trying to figure out what woke me.  I roll over to look at my phone and am shocked to see it is 5:35.  Will rarely sleeps through the night, like once a month or more .  He normally wakes up between 12:30 – 1:30 to nurse and then sleeps till 6.  (He did wake up at 10:00 when we went to bed but if it’s before 12, he gets the pacifier.  )  I think it’s a combination of I normally wake up at 5:30 during the week and since Will didn’t wake up, I am a bit uncomfortably engorged.  I know I am going to have a hard time going back to sleep so I get up and get Will to feed him.  I figure he’ll wake up soon anyhow

5:45 : I crawl back in bed and find a blanket.  Brian opened a window last night and it got to 59 degrees so it’s pretty cool in the room.

6:05: Grr I am still awake.  It’s Saturday I need to fall back asleep since I can sleep in.  My eyes still are heavy, but I can’t fall asleep.   Since Will’s tummy is full, he’ll probably sleep a little longer than normal too.  I match my breathing to Brian’s and sure enough I’m only awake a minute or two.

6:58: I wake up to Will’s stirring.  I ask Brian to go and give him the pacifier.  He comes back and says I doubt he’ll go back to sleep at 7:00 and I say I know but maybe it’ll give us 10 min to lounge in bed

7:52:  I realize Will is ‘talking’.  Again I roll over to see what time it is and am surprised to see 50 minutes has gone by.  It only felt like only a couple minutes, but apparently I fell asleep.  Will must have too after getting the pacifier, because I am fairly certain he wouldn’t have laid there for almost an hour awake.  Brian and I reminisce for a couple minutes about past Saturday mornings when we’d wake up at 8:30 and lay in bed for another hour talking.

8:00 I get up to go get Will.  I bring him back to Brian in bed so I can put my contacts in since Will likes to grab at my glasses since I don’t normally wear them.

8:10 Change Will and get him dressed for the day.  For most of the summer, he went through the whole day nearly naked, but for once it won’t be 100 degrees so he actually gets a short sleeved shirt and shorties.

8:15  He fussed through the whole diaper change which leads me to believe he’s hungry even though it is a bit early than I would have thought so I nurse him.

8:20 (yes he typically only nurses for 5 min)  I get dressed and we all head down stairs.  I put Will in the living room to play while I get something to eat.  He isn't crawling so he stays put where we put him, I know that will change soon enough but right now I'm loving it.  We had bacon and eggs for supper last night and there is left over bacon so I have the same thing for breakfast plus a bagel and coffee with milk and hazelnut syrup. Brian just has bacon and coffee.

I wear business casual clothes M-F so on the weekend its shorts, a tee & ponytail.

8:30  Will is still playing in the living room pretty peacefully so I let him continue while I pick things up around the house.  By the weekend stuff starts piling up from the week so I try and put a few things away.  Brian reads the paper and we discuss the plan of attack for the day.  Hay needs mowed, beans need picked, potatoes, onions & garlic need dug and wall boxes need built for said potatoes, onions & garlic.  Beans need done while Will is sleeping  so that will either be during afternoon nap or after he goes to bed for the night.

9:00 Brian goes out to dig the hay bine (implement that cuts the alfalfa & grass without shredding it) out & goes to mow hay.  I move Will out to the kitchen so I can load the dishwasher.  We have different ‘stations’ around the house with different toys so the new toys will keep Will entertained for a little bit while I get something done.  This time it only lasts 10-15 min so I join him on the floor and he’s satisfied having me sit beside him while he plays and help him stack rings.

Hay bine is buried in the back so multiple other things need moved out of the way.

Bye Bye, be back in about 4 hours.

9:40  Will is getting a fussy so we go upstairs for a diaper change and nap.  Maybe all babies are like this but he has a 10 minute window where he does down for naps easily by giving him a pacifier and lying him in his crib otherwise he can be a bear to go to sleep. 

9:45 When I get downstairs I realize the monitor isn’t working.  It does that sometimes, it just needs the base power turned off and then back on but I’m not about to go back into his room and risk him not going to sleep.  We can sort of hear him if he cries out from downstairs without the monitor so I just keep an ear open.  I do some Facebookin’ & put a load of towels in the washer and do some diaper folding during some Chopped episodes that are DVR’ed that I haven’t watched yet.

10:45  Will tends to sleep in ½  hour increments so I go up to very quietly open his door to see if he’s awake and just laying there.  It’s quiet so I even quieter close the door and go back downstairs after getting our sheets off the bed to wash.

11:30  I still haven’t heard anything from upstairs so I go back up again to check on Will.  This time when I open the door I hear stirring.  When I go to him, he is still rubbing his eyes very sleepily so I know he must have woke up when the door opened.  It’s been over 3 hours since he ate last so I’m sure that had something to do with it too.  We nurse again and change diaper.  I put my work clothes in a laundry basket along with Will and go downstairs.

he found his pacifer stash!

11:45 Will plays again in the living room while I fold the towels and watch more Chopped

12:15 Lunch:  I get Will’s lunch of 1 oz of green beans and about ½ oz of quinoa and 1 oz of apricots out of the freezer and put the green beans and quinoa in a bowl to warm up.  While that’s warming, I reheat some of Thursday’s supper of Chicken enchilada casserole or I like to call it Mexican chicken lasagna for myself.



Side note: Quinoa is not very well known around here, my babysitters and mom had to ask what it was and said they have never heard about it. May they would if they seen it spelled, either way I'm pretty sure they think I'm wierd



1:00 It’s not very sunny or warm today but I washed the sheets so they are getting hung on the line.  Like most of the country we have had record temperatures so this 64 degrees at 1:00 is crazy cool.  I put a jacket on Will to go out.  One thing about having babies, they make things take longer than they normally would.  I can’t just go out to hang up the sheets, I have to bring him with me and that usually involves an extra trip to and from.

1:15 While Will has a coat on we go out to gather eggs.  When we get in there, one of the hens is still sitting in box so we leave without disturbing them.  We normally don’t gather eggs until the evening anyhow.  We go over and check out the pigs.  We had the vet out earlier in the week because several of them were coughing weird.  We lost a pig last year doing something similar so I certainly didn’t want to take a chance with 4 or 5 pigs this year.  They aren’t doing any coughing so I’m happy.   The mail came while we were in the chicken coop so we got that too.

1:45  I put Will down for a minute when we get back in the house to wash my hands and he wasn’t very happy about it.  We play at the learning table for a little while before afternoon nap.

2:15  It’s that time again: Diaper change, nurse, nap.  Falls asleep nursing, but I make sure I can hear the monitor working downstairs this time.

2:25:  Facebook check and I start typing this up since it has to be done by tomorrow night.

3:00 Brian gets home from mowing hay.  He has the same lunch as I did and he tells me how it went.  Not good but he got it done.  There is a small field behind our house he has to finish and then he can work on stuff for me.

3:30 Will is still sleeping so we watch a little of the Olympics for a while

4:20 Dude is still sleeping!!  He usually takes 2 hour naps during the week at the babysitter but on the weekend I’m lucky to get an hour at a time.  Since he normally goes to bed at 7, I decide to get him up.  I don’t want to mess his night routine up too much.  I love the first 30-45 minutes after a nap, he is so happy and good humored.  Brian goes out to finish mowing the last 3 acres of hay.

4:30   More playing and laundry.  ( I don’t do much during the week can you tell??)  Put some back bone (pork) in the oven for supper. 

5:30  Nursing time again.

5:45  We have neighbors who have honey bees so we take a gator ride down to get some but they aren’t home.  But they have 3 buffalo and some different cattle they raise for meat so we check them out.  When we get back we start talking about the potato boxes and find wood lying around to make them.

6:30  Brian left to go down to his dad’s to work on the potato boxes.  His parents live just ¼ mile from us so he’s down there frequently and they have a wood shop.  Wow later than I thought, must have spent more time outside than I thought.  Good thing Will took a late nap since supper is later.  He has corn, quinoa & peaches.  We usually eat after he goes down for the night

6:50 Normally we’d be heading to bed about now but since he woke up from his nap so late I let him stay up a bit longer.

7:30  Upstairs for bedtime.  Final diaper change of the day and nursing.

(Got to this point typing Sunday night but Will wakes up crying at 10:15 so I take it as a warning to go to bed.  Nights when he wakes up at 10 or so usually mean he’ll be up several times throughout the night instead of just once or twice so I guess it won’t be posted with the rest of the Day in the life’s.  I don’t have time during the week to do any more writing since my only free time is after Will goes to bed and summer is a busy time.  We picked beans Sunday night, snipped the ends and canned them Monday night, froze some corn Tuesday, cleaned the house from the corn Wednesday, Thursday watched Big Brother (important I know), and I did nothing Friday night while Brian baled hay.  I’m finishing this Saturday morning during Will’s morning nap so my memory is a little foggy with some of the smaller details.)

7:45  Will was still awake when I laid him down.  I didn’t give him the pacifier because I like to give him the chance of falling asleep without it.  It used to work more often than not, now it’s almost never.

8:00  He’s still awake and starting to fuss harder.  My policy is I let him whine a little bit but I don’t let him get pissed off without going up to him.  I give in and give him his pacifier; he needs to go to sleep. 

8:10 I haven’t heard a peep out of him since I came downstairs so I figure it’s safe to go out and get some corn for supper.    I go through the 1^st corn patch and try and find the biggest ones, I meant to only get 8 but lost count and got 9.  I shuck them in the garden and carried them to the porch to silk.  I have plenty of feline help. 

We put food scraps out the back kitchen door so they have learned to hang out there for snacks.

8:30 I just got the corn in the pot steaming and Brian comes back with the 2 potato boxes.  He goes down to install them on the wall of root cellar.  It’s just a room in our basement that I had him insulate the walls and ceiling.  I have visions of having it temperature and humidity controlled for best vegetable storage, right now it’s just a room without a door.

it's nice having a hubby who is so handy to whip these out in a couple hours.

8:45  Done in the basement so I come up to put supper on the table while Brian washes up.  He said he needs a beer after doing the boxes, I just have water, such is the life of nursing mama. 

8:50 Finally sit down for supper, we normally eat between 7:30 and 8 so we running about an hour behind.  I think the meat would have been ready earlier too since it’s a little crunchy in places.  You win some, you lose some.

I thought about doing potoatos too but the only ones we had are in the ground in the garden yet and it was late enough so no starch.

9:10 Done eating so we put stuff away and go out to do chores.  I take care of the chickens and Brian does pigs, cows, dogs & cats.  ( I don’t remember how many eggs I got but it’s usually between 6-8, at least half of which are pullet eggs) which isn’t that good for the number of hens we have.  We have 12 chickens, 6 are about 6 months old and 6 are about 18 months old.  We were getting 6 consistently from the older hens all spring then in June they stopped laying so well.  I’m not sure if it was the heat or the arrival of the pullets or what but they totally started slacking.  I can tell which are pullet eggs because they are about ½ - ¾ of a normal egg.  I’m hoping in the fall I start getting more when it cools down and the hens and pullets are fully acquainted with each other.

9:20  I clean eggs and put them away while Brian finishes up with his chores and we sit down and watch more Olympics.

10:00 I’m calling it a day and go to bed.  I don’t believe last night’s sleeping through the night is a new trend and Brian follows me up stairs.  (for the record I was right, he woke up twice early Sunday morning)

Will's Birth Story - Part 3 - Labor & Delivery

Wednesday, September 21 - I work full time in an office so it was a work day for me.  I was unable to get comfortable in my chair, but attributed it to my growing size.  That night we had our 3rd class on labor/delivery/breastfeeding and I still wasn't able to sit still in the chair.  We went home and to bed not thinking that tomorrow would be any different

Thursday, September 22 : 31 weeks 4 days
4:30am - (this is a guess based on how fast everything else went as I didn't actually look at the clock) Some sort of twinge woke me up, I thought to myself that that was a weird sort of feeling and went right back to sleep.
4:45am - I woke up again to another strange feeling in my belly.  This one was strong enough to really wake me up and so I looked at the clock.  I say strange because it did not really hurt and was unlike anything I'd felt before.  I was somewhat familiar with Braxton hick contractions because I got them if I didn't drink enough water in the day and it didn't feel like them. 
5:15 - I had about 3 more contractions about 10 min apart since 4:45.  I woke Brian up to tell him something was going on and I was having some strange feelings that I've never felt before.  They still didn't hurt too badly, more like a mild period cramp. 
5:30 - We talked about it for a little bit and I finally decided to call the OB office. Since it was after hours I got the answering service and then one of the midwives called me back.  She asked how long they are lasting but I had not timed any so I guess 15 seconds.  She said that wasn't really long enough to be a contraction so drink some water and take a shower and hopefully things settle down but I should stay home today.  When I hung up with her I timed how long a contraction actually lasted and it was like 60 seconds long, I probably should have called back but I didn't.  I drank a big 28 oz cup of water and I went up to take a shower after we decided that I actually would go in to work for 2 reasons.  1) Brian was going to go to work so if something happened he would be 1/2 hr away and 2) I work in the same town as the hospital that we wanted to deliver at so either I would be 5 minutes away from the hospital if I went into work instead of 30 if things didn't settle down or I would be at work if things did settle down and not waste a sick day.
6:00 - I got out of the shower still planning on going to work even though the contractions were still coming.  In the time of getting out of the shower and starting to dress, I decided something is not right and we need to go to the hospital because the contractions suddenly started getting a lot stronger.  I told Brian this and I continue to get dressed in between contractions. I am guessing they were around 5 minutes apart. I didn't pack any sort of bag because I was hoping they were going to be able to stop whatever was happening.
6:20 - We left for the hospital.  With stopwatch on my phone, I started timing the contractions and they are approx 2 minutes apart and 1 minute long.  One thing Brian says on the trip over is "what we don't want to hear is 'you're going to have a baby today'"  About half way, the contractions started getting super intense and I was bracing myself for each one by lifting my butt off the seat.  I was also becoming vocal during the contractions.
6:50 - We arrived at the hospital.  I had called the OB office to tell them I was coming and they called the hospital so the nurses were waiting on me.  They had me go into my room and want me to give a urine sample to test for UTI (possible cause for contractions) but I couldn't go during the contractions so I went to the bed and the nurse came to check dilation.  Her exact words were "Oh crud, you're going to have a baby today".   Those are words neither one of us will ever forget.  I was fully dilated and my waters were bulging, which explains why I was more comfortable not sitting during the contractions in the car on the ride over. 
    At that, the room became a whirlwind.  They put a call in for the the actual OB to come in for my delivery and hooked me up to prenatal monitor and insert an IV.  They brought in the warmer for the baby and a bunch of others stuff.  A pediatrician came in and introduced herself.  She said she would be taking care of the baby when he was born and that the hospital is a Level II NICU so it can keep babies born 32 weeks or later.  I was just under that but she said there is a possibility that he could stay there depending on his condition rather than sending him to the Level III NICU 1.5 hrs away.
7:15 - The OB arrives and suits up.  She broke my water.  Brian said there was a big splash and it was just like a water balloon breaking.  There was a great relief of pressure for me.  It was amazing.  After that the Dr. tells me that at my next contraction I would start pushing, doing 3 pushes 10 seconds each for each contraction.  The next contraction came and it took a little bit till I started doing them right and making them productive.  Up until this time, Will had been doing fine during the contractions.  During the first contraction after my water was broke, his heart beat dropped during each push, it rebounded when I quit pushing but dropped for each push.  Will’s head appeared in the second contraction.  Again his heartbeat dropped during the pushes.  Between the 2nd & 3rd contraction the OB said that because his heartbeat keeps dropping, she's going to use the vac to keep him from slipping back in between pushes so he comes out faster, she said he needed to come out soon. 
7:33 - At the end of the 3rd push of the 3rd contraction, the OB said his head was half out.  When she said this I decided that he was going to have to come out now, so I pushed him the rest of the way out without a contraction.  The nurses and pedi wisked him right away to the warmer in the room to check him out.  I orginally wanted the baby to be brought to my chest immediately after birth but special circumstances call for special measures.  He was crying, it was faint over all the other noise in the room but he was crying!!!  The OB asked if we knew what it was and since we didn't she said, "What was it Dad?".  Brian said in a sort of question tone 'boy?'  Yep we had a little boy, William Joseph.  They took him out of the room before we could see him.  We were told someone would come back in and update us soon on his condition.
     I should have said earlier that we both felt it was going to be a boy.  I had feelings it was going to be a boy in the 1st trimester and then didn't have any other feelings for the rest of the pregnancy.  We had a boy & girl names picked out since before we were married.  We are very traditional when it comes to names, Brian's middle name was William and my dad's name is Joe.  I can't imagine any future children not having either first or middle name not coming from one of ourselves or parents or grandparents.

    I delivered the placenta right away.  When that was done, most everyone left the room execpt my delivery nurse who was cleaning things up a little.  During the whole labor & delivery, Brian was right beside me doing what good husbands do; helping me focus and breath during contractions, holding a leg up during delivery while encouraging me and telling what I good job I was doing and watching our son come into this world.  While I was still pregnant, we often talked about how he'd be during labor & delivery and we always joked that he'd be on the floor, passed out but adreline is powerful thing and he stayed up right the whole time.  After Will had been taken from the room he said he needed to sit down, so he did and kind of put his head between his legs and took some deep breaths.

After the nurse left, it was time to let our family know what had happened.  We called my mom first and then his mom and then our siblings and they all had pretty much the same reaction: WHAT!?!?!?  My mom was especially freaked out because my dad was having some out patient procedure done later that morning and my sister was getting married on Saturday, as in 2 days later. My sister's wedding was already nerve racking for her and I guess I just thought I'd put the icing on the cake.  My mom and Brian's mom and sister came to the hospital within the hour.

It was about 9:30 before they brought Will back in to our room.  He was all wrapped up ready to go to the Level III NICU.  It was so hard to just see his face and hands and only be able to touch his hand. 

With him were 3 women, a regular NICU nurse, a respiratory nurse and a very quiet third woman that stood in the back.  I just thought she was the ambulance driver but Brian said drivers normally stay withthe ambulance and noticed that she was armed so we figured that he had also had an armed guard with him while in transport.  The nurses explained how he was doing and what was being done for him.  He was breathing on his own but had extra oxygen being supplemented.  Even though he was so little he could still grip.  When it was time for them to head out, he was still gripping my finger very tightly and I had to pull away from him...talk about heart wrenching!!!
  When we arrived at the hospital before, the OB nurses were also waiting on another pregnant woman who was having contractions.  This mama was 31weeks 2 days and was pregnant with twins.  She had to deliver via C-section because one of the twins was presenting breech.  All 3 babies were taken to the same NICU at the same time so there was a caravan of ambulances leaving the hospital.

After that our visitors soon left and it was just the two of us.  It was so strange to be in the hospital after delivery without a baby. 

I knew through my whole pregnancy that I wanted to breastfeed, so without a baby to nurse I had asked several times when the lacation consultant was going to come in and talk to me.  Finally about 1:00 the LC finally came in with a pump.  She had me do a series of breast massage, hand expression and using the pump.  The first time I think I only got a couple drops, but she was thrilled with what I got out.  Massage, hand expression and pumping became my routine every 3 hours around the clock and my supply the first day was measured in drops but I was told every little bit helps.

That afternoon my OB gave me the option of going home.  Brian and I talked about it and decided that I would stay the night since this was my first time giving birth and not totally sure what to expect.  However we did decided that we wanted to leave first thing in the morning so we could go and see Will in NICU for a couple hours before coming back home for my sister's dress rehearsal.  We decided that Will would be receiving all the care he needed and wanted to still be at my sister's wedding.  So Brian went home to do chores and get us a change of clothes since we didn't bring anything with us.  The night went uneventful except for me getting up to pump every 3 hours.  We kept telling the nurses we wanted to leave as early as possible in the morning and we ended up leaving the hospital around 8:15am to go to see Will in NICU.

Will's NICU story....To be continued.

Day in the Life Feb 2012

So another Laura at Navigating the Mothership does quarterly or semi annual posts of a day in detail is like an invites others to do the same, since that's sort of what I'm trying to do with this blog I thought I'd try it out.

Thursday Feb 16

5:00am Yep even with a almost 5 month old my day starts out at 5.  This is a fairly new phenomon, just last week Will was waking up once at 2-3 for a middle of the night feeding.  He has been sleeping all night for the past 4 days, hopefully that continues.  We still have him sleeping in the rock n play because it seems like he's constantly stuffed up and the couple times I've put him to bed in his crib, he wakes up super stuffed up, so we keep his head elevated.  I nurse him as soon first thing when I get up.

don't pay attention to the non-centerness of the picture, I had others that were centered but he was waking up and rocking and my shutter speed wasn't quick enough so I ended up with blurry pictures as will be more evident with the next couple pics that were taken in the morning.

5:25am  After nursing Will hangs out again in the RnP outside the bathroom while I get ready for work.  No shower today but the other days he just sits and looks around the bathroom.  He loves the sound of running water.

Will is such a happy baby in the morning

5:30am  Brian gets up and starts getting things put together for the day.  He's in charge of packing his lunch, making sure the diaper bag has diapers, wipes & a wet bag in it, filling my 3 water bottles (takes a lot of water to keep this mama hydrated enough for a good supply), putting my pumping bottles and a yogurt in my pumping bag and doing morning chores.

6:00am I'm ready for work so I change Will out of his pj's and his diaper and head downstairs.  If Brian has everything ready to go I sit and talk with Will otherwise I finish getting things around.

It's harder than it looks to take a self portrait, I think I'll take mainly pics of the baby



Baby loves to kick his legs during diaper changes



6:10am  We get Will dressed and into his carseat and pack everything in the car.  We both work at the same place but for different companies.  I work as an accountant for a large corporation and he is the head electrician for the company that does the maintenance on the building that I work in so we drive together most days. 

From closest: the green gift bag has Will's 3 bottles for the day in it with his diaper bag in front, then it's my pumping bag, then the bag to carry my water bottles and purse in and then Will in his carseat.

6:20  We drop Will at the babysitter's.  It is my aunt that watches Will during the day.  She has 4 kids of her own, 2 girls that are graduated and living on their own and 2 boys still in high school.  I guess she watched my sister and I when we were little.  She watches about 3-5 other kids during the day but it varies each day how many are there and a couple more get off the bus at her house after school.  It's so nice to have someone help get Will and all his stuff in the house.  I've done it by myself but it is much easier with a second person.

6:50:  We arrive at work.  I'm lucky that I sit by a window but below is a picture of what I see when I stand up and look over my cube wall.

7:10am  We have a cafeteria at work so I go down and get oatmeal for breakfast and add walnuts from home.

8:00am  I go to the mother's room and pump for Will's bottles for tomorrow. I'm on the 4th floor and the mother's room is on 1st floor It takes me about 30 minutes round trip to take the stairs to and from the room, pump, clean my pump parts and get back to my desk. 

9:00am I get a text from my aunt telling me Will woke up and took his 1st bottle by 9:00.  She usually sends me a couple texts a day telling me how he's doing.

11:00am Pump again

11:45am  2nd text saying Will is taking his 2n bottle at 11:45

12:15pm  I go to the cafeteria for lunch.  I always bring my lunch back to my desk and check Facebook and blogs while I eat.  I always get a salad of spinach and mixed greens with shredded carrots, cheddar, chicken, sunflower seeds and then either oil & vinegar or french dressing...I'm trying to eat healthier since I'm nursing Will but sometimes I can't ignore the call of the hot pretzel and fake nacho cheese and today is one of those days....at least I get it without the extra salt.



2:00pm Pumping again.  The yogurt Brian packed along with some walnuts is my afternoon snack that I have after my 2:00 pumping.

3:45pm Brian and I leave work for the day and head to pick up Will

4:15pm  We pick up Will from my aunt's

.   

4:25pm Even though the trip home is less than 10 minutes, Will always falls asleep.  I let him sleep in his carseat.  Sometimes he wakes up in 5-10 minutes other times I have to wake him up when it has been 3 hours since he last ate.  Him sleeping when we get home allows me to get the diapers in the washer.  We only have enough for 2 days and the washing & drying take most of the night so they need started as soon as we get home.  Next time they go on sale I'm going to buy enough for an extra day or two.  I also wash Will's bottles if he's still sleeping or I do that later.  Brian puts wood in the wood burner and feeds the animals for the evening.

5:00 pm  I take Will upstairs to change his diaper and nurse him.  Afterwards we sit at the kitchen table and Will plays a little.  Right now his playing is trying to grab different objects.  About an hour after he eats I put him on his tummy for tummy time, any sooner and he tends to spit up a bit.  He's doing pretty good with his head control.  Even though he's 5 months old, he was 2 months premature so his milestones go by his adjusted age of 3 months.  There is really only enough time for 1 session of tummy time at home during the week.  We do it on the table so Mommy doesn't have to lay on the floor, at least until he starts rolling over consistently.



6:30pm I start to get supper around thinking we can eat before Will needs to go to bed.  It is spaghetti tonight, and the sauce was left over from before and was in the freezer so it takes a little longer than I thought.

7:00pm No supper yet and Will is starting to get fussy so I take him upstairs to get ready for bed.  This means a final diaper change for the night and into his pj's (the same  every night so what he was wearing in the picture from the morning in the RnP).  He nurses one final time and I burp him.  It usually only takes about 30 min to change his diaper, nurse, burp and put to sleep.  He's pretty predictable, either he burps after 6 or 7 minutes of burping or he doesn't burp at all.  By that time he's really sleepy so I put him in his RnP.  He's barely awake when I put him down but he goes to sleep and we haven't had to back up stairs in several weeks.  We can hear him cooing and squeaking over the baby monitor but he doesn't cry out.

7:25:  I get the diapers out of the washer and the inserts (prefolds & fitted doublers) and wipes go in the dryer 1st on high to get mostly dry and then I add in the fitteds for another 20 minutes on low.  The pockets get put on the drying rack right away and I add the fitteds and their inserts when they come out of the dryer.  The pockets will dry overnight and Brian will stuff what is needed in the morning.

7:30 Brian and I finally eat supper and clean up the kitchen a bit.  Afterwards we watch some TV, usually the DVR'd shows that were on the night before.  Last night was Wednesday so we watched the premier of the new Survivor and then by time that is over The Big Bang Theory has recorded so we watch that.

9:00ish  After Big Bang, Brian watches a Pawn Stars episode but I go get read for bed and am in bed by 9:30.  Brian comes to bed by 10:00



Will's Birth Story - Part 2 - Pregnancy with Will

    Now for the happy ending part of the story.....

The 2011 New Year was here and we could start trying to get pregnant. We ended up pregnant pretty quickly and were looking at a November baby.  This time we both felt this time was going to be different, don't know why we just did.  Brian had a new job that had him working second shift so he was able to go to the first ultrasound.  (I'm a little fuzzy anymore on the exactness of how far along I was but close counts...)    This ultrasound showed that I was 8 weeks along and everything looked good and this baby was due November 21.  Given our past, I pushed for another ultrasound before 12 weeks and so they had me come back in 2 weeks.  At 10 weeks we had more pictures of our growing baby.   They scheduled for me to have a normal OB appt in 4 weeks which will be at 14 weeks.  The first trimester was pretty easy as far as first trimesters go; nausea wasn't too bad but was worse in the afternoon/evening than morning.  I only got sick once and I blame that on the fact I took my pre-natal vitamin in the morning on an empty stomach.
  On the Saturday before Mother's Day which was right around 12 weeks I started spotting again...actually I passed a rather large blood clot.  Brian was not home at the time, working I think.  Given our past I debated on whether to call the doctor right away or not because I figured at this point in the pregnancy there is nothing they can do to stop whatever is happening.  I think I called Brian to let him know what was going on.  I decide to call the doctor's office which is an answering service since it is after hours.  Obviously they told me to go to the emergency room for an ultrasound. 
    We went to the same hospital as before.  We had wait 30-45 min before getting called back.  All I wanted was an ultrasound to see what was going on but apparently an ultrasound is not at the top of the "bleeding pregnant lady" protocol.  First I had to have a catheter put in for a urine test and a vaginal exam....fun, fun... All of that didn't explain anything so guess what they ordered next....an ultrasound.  Except it was Saturday night so they had to call in the ultrasound technician.  We waited another 60+ min for the ultrasound technician to come in and get us.  Again she couldn't tell us anything as she was doing the ultrasound but she did make the heartbeat audible so we knew the baby was still alive.  I think another hour passed before the doctor came in to talk to us and told us everything looked fine except for a small spot where it looks like the placenta had tore a little.  The ER doc put me on bed rest and told me to call my OB Monday for follow up. 
    The next day was Mother's Day Sunday and I tried to stay down as much as possible, but spring is not a good time to try and be on bed rest.  We were planning on planting the garden that weekend so Brian dragged out an old recliner from the basement and took it outside by the garden so I could watch him plant it.  I wasn't a very good patient, but it turned out ok.  When I went to the OB the next day she told me I didn't have to be on bed rest, that they've found it doesn't really help anything, either the placenta is going to tear or its not.  Thank goodness!!!  Even though I didn't have to be on actual bed rest, we decided that I should take it easy and not anything strenuous like carry anything more than 15 pounds. She had me schedule another ultrasound in 4 weeks to check and make sure everything looks ok.
     The next 4 months of pregnancy was pretty uneventful.  Between the regular OB appointments and the follow up ultrasound and the anatomy scan at 20 weeks, I got to know that the baby is ok by either ultrasound or Doppler every other week for the whole 2nd trimester which is great!  We decided not to find out the baby's gender at the 20 week ultrasound.  To be truthful, I didn't want to know but Brian did.  Since it would be hard for one spouse to know and not spill the beans by using he/she, Brian agreed that we wouldn't find out this time.
     Because of the slight uterine abnormality diagnosed in my first pregnancy, the midwife wanted to see another ultrasound at 30 weeks to make sure baby was growing properly.  I went to that appointment and baby appeared healthy and the correct size.

September 21.....

Will's Birth Story - Part 1 - Pre Will

I was planning on putting the whole story in one post but as I was typing it kept getting longer and longer so I thought I'd better break it up....

Warning...This story has all things pregnancy/miscarriage/birth related and those are not always pleasant experiences....


Will was born on September 22, 2011 but really I consider his story starting almost 2 years earlier as he was not our first pregnancy.  He was the third...
   In fall of 2009 we finally decided it was time to start our family.  We had been married 3 years and had just finished building our house and were ready to start filling it.  I say "we" because I like to believe that I can control things when really I can only control what is in the Lord's already made plans.  It took us a couple months to get pregnant the first time but in February 2010, we found out we were pregnant.  Brian was working as a construction electrician at the time and was working on a job almost 2.5 hrs away and we decided that he'd only miss work for the 20 week ultrasound appointment so I went to my first prenatal OB appointment by myself at about 7 weeks and found out my due date was November 1 based on the size of the baby on the ultrasound.  My OB office is an OB-GYN and a couple of midwives that all share patients and rotate on call responsibility for actual deliveries.  It has the capabilities to do an ultrasound at the office and they have a TV monitor on the wall for me to view at the same time and technician tells me what is going on.  My next appointment was for 12 weeks and then they would try and find the heartbeat with the Doppler.   They couldn't find the heartbeat at that time but told me I was still pretty early and sometimes the baby is positioned wrong and it can't be found.  I was scheduled to come back at 14 weeks so I wouldn't have to wait and worry for the next 4 weeks.  On Friday of the same week I started spotting.  It was around noon when I called so they did not have any open appointments to do the ultrasound in the office that afternoon so I had to go to the hospital for it.  The ultrasound room at the hospital has no patient monitor and the technician was not allowed to tell me anything.  She had to do the ultrasound and then let the on call doctor read it and then that doctor would call my doctor who would tell me what was going on.  They said it may take a little bit to get all that done so I could either wait there or go home and they would call me.  I opted to go home.  I got home and Brian wasn't home from work yet.  I think it was shortly after I got home I got the call.  There was no heartbeat and in fact there hadn't been for some time, based on the baby's size I had lost it shortly after my first appointment.  They said it could have been due to a slight uterine abnormality that has a piece of tissue like a peninsula, sort of dividing my uterus.  Luckily Brian got home while I was still on the phone with the midwife so I didn't have to be at home by myself after we hung up.  I was able to miscarry naturally and was told we should wait for 1 cycle and then could start trying again.
    So we waited like we were told (I'm a pretty hard-core rule follower) and actually ended up pregnant the first month and would be due April 2011.  We were cautiously optimistic; Brian's mom, sister and sister-in-law all had miscarriages at some point but were able to have a baby the next time.  Again I went to the first appointment by myself only this time there were no ultrasound pictures of a little bean to take home.  This one they called a blighted ovum which means the baby never started growing at all.  Because I was already 7 or 8 weeks and hadn't miscarried naturally it was a bit more concerning because sometimes blighted ovums can turn into cancerous cells.  They wanted me back in a week or two for another ultrasound to make sure everything was gone.  I went back and the doctor wasn't happy with my progress so she wanted to schedule a D&C.  So we did.  At my follow-up appointment after the D&C, the doctor said we should wait at least 3 cycles before trying again.

Where we are now

I’ll go into more detail about most of this as time goes on but for here’s a summary of our lives thus far.

Brian and I have been married since fall of 2006 so 5 years.  We have 1 son, Will, born in fall 2011.  He went to bed and fell asleep easy so it gave me time to write this today.... He surprised us and was born the day before our 5 year anniversary, 8.5 weeks early.  I am sort of environmental friendly so this led to using cloth diapers rather than disposables for Will.  We live in rural Ohio on 40 acres that has been in Brian’s family for generations, as in since they came across the pond.  We both work outside the home but in our spare time do a little farming, growing corn/soybeans/wheat, raising cows and pigs for meat and chickens for eggs, and baling hay.  When I say we, I’ll be honest it’s mostly Brian doing the majority of the farm work especially now with Will taking up a lot of my time.   Last year was the first year for a garden at our house, but I definitely plan on continuing that.  When we got married, we moved into the house that his grandparents lived in, but soon decided that the house was past repair and so we built a new one in its place.  As far as traveling we’ve done a little;  a honeymoon to Mexico,  a cruise around  the Caribbean after we finished the house, a couple trips to New York to visit Brian’s brother and his wife and countless trips to Amish country.  I like to cook and bake so I suspect there will be posts on some of my favorite recipes.  Brian is part of the county fairboard so that involves time at monthly meetings as well as the actual week long fair in the summer.  We have pretty busy weeks but we choose it so we can't complain.

Why something else to do

  I was watching Brian clean out the wood burner today and thought, for us, right now, that is such a mundane task but would anybody care at some other point in time?  I definitely wouldn't mind reading about what daily life was like 50 years ago and pictures would be an added bonus.  I love the Little House on the Prairie books and history shows on TV for that reason.
  I mentioned it to Brian when he came in and we started talking about it and he said that it is crazy to think about the technolgy that has come around just in our lifetime and that our grandparents could not have even imagined most of it.  I told him I thought about starting a blog to document what we do now and then maybe yearly print it off in book form to read in the future and he didn't shoot it down so I thought what the heck, nothing to lose and lets face if I wasn't writing I'd probably just be watching TV anyhow.
  So this is me, posting maybe once a week, writing and showing pictures of something we do whether it be daily, weekly or once a year.