Life interrupted

Hello again, dear readers (if there are still any of you out there)!

I am here to announce that I plan to start blogging again. After Nora was born, life got (expectedly) hectic and I decided to give up on it (save for a couple of brief, photo-less posts), and eventually even took the blog down from public view. (I always kept it active, but only visible to me, in the hopes that I might get back to it someday.) Well, that someday appears to be now. I have been reading through the years' worth of posts the past couple of days and it was so much fun to go back and reflect on time gone by. It reminded me of how special it is to document the milestones and funny, memorable moments in my family's life. And how cathartic it is to just write again. It's been a couple of years since I've written anything substantial, but I'm feeling the pull to get back at it, so... here goes!

(And hopefully I can get photos to upload again. I was having issues with that...)

So, just to dive right in, we have moved. Again. We are currently living in Johns Creek, Georgia (near Atlanta) and have been in our new home for about six weeks. So far, I really like it here. There's a lot of things to do with the kids and the town we live in is pretty affluent, so public spaces are clean, schools are excellent, the people are friendly and educated, and life moves at the pace with which I feel comfortable. Things were beginning to feel a little stagnant for us in Muscatine and, although we loved many things about our life there (namely our friends, church, kids/moms groups, and proximity to family), we decided it was time for a change. So, here we are.

We bought a two-story house (which I've always wanted) and did so sight unseen (for me anyway). Ryan was here working out of a hotel since the beginning of June and, although I did come down for one house-hunting visit at the end of June, it wasn't until July that we found one we love. I got to "meet" the house for the first time only hours before we went to closing (a daunting task that really tested my faith in my husband!) and I am happy to say that I couldn't be more pleased with the house. It is lovely and we are having fun adding our own little personal touches. Hopefully I'll have more to share on that progress in the coming weeks.

Owen, who turned 5 in July, is doing very well in pre-K at a nearby preschool. There was a bit of a learning curve for me, adjusting to Georgia's school requirements (primarily their policy that if you're 5 by Sept. 1, you must go to Kindergarden), but we worked it all out and were able to "hold him back" a year, prolonging Kindergarden for another year. We struggle with lots of personality/behavior issues with Owen (these have been ongoing for the past few years), but he is certainly starting to mature and - although he's still quite hyper and LOUD most of the time - we enjoy more and more moments of intelligent conversation with our bright, and quite funny, little man.

Nora is 2 and is just as cute as can be. I am so sad that I haven't recorded all the milestones of her first couple years the way I did for Owen, but I suppose that's often how it goes for second (and subsequent) children. She is always smiling, plays quite well on her own (usually with baby dolls and princess costumes), and loves her big brother. Her vocabulary is superb, just like her brother, and we always get lots of "oohs," and "ahhs" whenever we go out because, I must say, she is absolutely adorable!

That's about all the time I have for now. Just wanted to get some of the basics out of the way. I hope to be back soon with lots more good stuff to share, here in Peterson land (coming to you now from hot and steamy Georgia.) Stay tuned...

8 months old

Time for another "dump post" of random milestones in Nora's development. She is currently 8 months old and sometime between my last post (at 7 months old) and now, the following things have happened:

She crawls! This momentous event actually started shortly (as in just days) after my last post, and has evolved from a "stretch for an object until she eventually reaches it," to a belly wriggle, to a combination army crawl / regular crawl. (And it's still evolving every day.) But one thing's for sure...this girl is on the move! She definitely gets where she wants to go, and relatively quickly! Just today I had to make a quick dash to pick her up before she made it right up to the top of the basement staircase. Time to invest in a good baby gate (the one we have is terrible for everyday use) and make sure the house is up to par on baby-proofing. She definitely keeps me on my toes!

She can also push herself back up to a sitting position now, so really, other than pulling herself up to standing (which I'm sure will be part of my next post!), she moves every which way she pleases.

Nora has already voluntarily given up her pacifier, just about a month or so earlier than her brother did as a baby. Neither one of them was ever a big user of it anyway, except at nap and bedtime. Both of them just started to reject it when I would offer it, so I decided not to push it. If she doesn't need it, why force it on her? She is not, however, the rock star sleeper that her brother was (and still is). While she is sleeping through the night (and thank God for that!), she often ends up crying herself to sleep (if she doesn't fall asleep while nursing) rather than lying quietly and contentedly in her crib like her brother did. And if she does wake in the night (or at nap time), it can be tricky to get her back to sleep. There's this odd balance of waiting to see if her crying will subside on its own, versus going in there and sometimes picking her up, other times just stroking her back and soothing her, and other times nursing her, that I'm still trying to figure out. On the nights when she does wake (which I'd say is about 50% of the time), I just dread it because I have no idea what is going to work! It's really just trial and error, I'm afraid.

She's been babbling for quite some time now and I'm not sure when we first heard her say that same first word that Owen said, "dada," but it was a while back. Anyway, it seems like it was a long time before Owen assigned meaning to that term, but I'm fairly certain that Nora actually knows who Dada is now. She starts saying it whenever Ryan walks into the room and even when she hears the garage door open when he comes home at lunch time. So cute!

Another greeting she learned recently was the wave. I don't recall trying to teach her this, so she must have just picked it up on her own, but she'll give me this cute little wrist roll when she sees me from across the room and I just die. Love it!

Nora LOVES her big brother. LOVES him! (And he loves her, too!) I could never have imagined how much they would adore each other at this stage. Both of them simply light up with joy at the sight of one another. And, while there is the occasional incident when I need to intervene, they actually play together pretty well. The other day, I witnessed her tackle him (in a sweet way) and climb all over him. And to Owen's credit, he is super sweet and patient with her when she does that kind of thing. He totally tolerates her pulling his hair and seems to understand that she is doing it as an act of affection, not violence. I just melt whenever they put their little faces right up next to one another (they both initiate this!) as if they are trying to hug and kiss one another. Heart melting!!!

And while I'm at it, here are a couple things going on in Owen's life these days...

He seems to be doing well in preschool and his teacher appears to really enjoy him (which is fortunate!) He also started his very first gymnastics class today at the Y. It went ok — he has A LOT to learn, not the least of which is to pay attention to his teachers! — but I think it will be good for him. He tried peeing while standing for the first time today. (Sorry if that's TMI. This is my life, folks.) Although he led me to believe that this is the way he does it at school, so perhaps he learned that one (by watching the other boys?) on his own.

And something interesting I finally tried this week (I've been meaning to do it for some time) is to organize all his toys into a "toy rotation" plan, where I only leave out some of his toys to play with until he grows tired of those and then I pack those up and bring out some other ones. The idea is to 1.) contain the clutter, 2.) eliminate toy burn-out (getting tired of the same old toys), 3.) create a sense of fun and excitement when the old toys come back out (like getting new toys!), and 4.) create space and opportunity for him to fully enjoy the toys he already has. I used this link to help get me started, but then I kind of just winged it (is that the correct past tense of that phrase? Or is it, "wung it?" LOL!) to make it work for us. We'll see how it goes, but so far, I have to say that he does seem to be getting much better use out of the few toys I left out. And I do mean "few." I was a bit apprehensive at first because, despite what Ryan always says, he really doesn't have that many toys, so I was afraid that only having out a dozen or so playthings at a time would be boring for him. But we've gone downstairs (where I have officially moved all of his toys) every day since doing this and he has played with almost everything that's out — some of it stuff that he hasn't touched in months! It will probably also be a good way to weed out some of the things that he really never plays with (Goodwill, here we come). And other than a minor meltdown when he saw me packing the other 2/3 of his stuff away in Rubbermaid containers (I had planned to do this during naptime, but it wasn't long enough that particular day), he hasn't missed his other toys at all. He's not asked about a single thing that's packed away yet. It's only been about three days now, and I don't know yet how often I will switch things around, but I think we'll just play it by ear and see how he does with what he's got and go from there.

That's it for now. Still haven't looked into the maxed out photo storage issue yet, so I'm sorry to report there will be no photos again this time (which is really too bad because I've got some good ones!) One of these days maybe I'll figure it out.

An apology to my daughter

It's no secret that I've been terrible at keeping this blog updated since Nora was born. But sadly, I also have been remiss in my documentation of her milestones elsewhere. She doesn't even have a baby book. And I am pretty sure that some day, she's going to be disappointed in that fact. So, this post isn't much, but I wanted to at least take just a moment to document a few quick things that she's done recently. And apologize. I'm so sorry, baby girl. You are SO loved! But I have been spending much more time enjoying you (and your brother) than writing about it.

At six months (sorry I don't have specific dates, sweetie), Nora was able to sit up on her own. This has been a huge relief to me because it means that when I set her down (although she still much prefers to be held!) I don't have to lay her on her back. Now she can sit up and play with toys within her reach. She is also starting to reach out beyond her immediate area and grasp for toys just beyond her reach. This sometimes results in her toppling over, but it also makes me believe that she's not far from learning how to crawl. (Although, as I recall, I thought the same thing about her brother and he ended up being a late crawler, so who really knows.)

She also started officially sleeping through the night (as in, no longer getting up one or more times before 6 a.m.) at around six months. Not to invest too much time in comparisons with her brother, but Owen was a rock star sleeper and had this down muuuuch sooner. But she's so sweet, I just love her anyway!

She's been spending much less time breast-feeding and has an increasingly growing appetite for other foods. I've made and fed her all kinds of fruits and vegetables and, with the exception of bananas and avocados (which I intend to keep trying), she likes just about everything.

And just yesterday (at 7 months old), I discovered her first tooth poking through. Just like her big brother (and right about the same time), it's just a sharp, jagged little thing on the bottom gum. You can't even really see it, but I can feel it. (I'm getting a little nervous about breast feeding someone with teeth, but I'm sure it will be fine...right?) I wouldn't be surprised if some other teeth aren't far behind this first little guy because she's ALWAYS got her hands in her mouth and you can just tell she needs to gnaw on something, like, all.the.time.

Ok, that's all I can think of for right now. I'll try to dump this kind of info on here every so often as new stuff happens, but don't hold your breath for regular updates, y'all. I'll do my best, but.....

I was planning to put a few photos on here, too, but apparently I've run out of storage space for images, so I will need to look into that before I can post anymore photos. Bummer. Who has time for that???

Nora's Newborn Portraits

Just a quick photo dump today...

Here are a few of my faves from a recent photo shoot with our little lady, Nora, courtesy of Jackie Petersen Photography (of course!) These were taken a few weeks ago when she was about 10 days old (or thereabouts). Can you believe she'll be 1 month tomorrow???

My little peanut! Love her to pieces!!!

P.S. In unrelated news, I came down with a nasty case of mastitis (again) over Memorial Day weekend. I had it with Owen, too, though with him it was earlier on and much worse. (And was part of the ultimate demise of my breast-feeding days with him.) Anyway, I'm half-way through my course of antibiotics and things seem to be on the upswing again. Nora's a great nurser!

And it's June today!!! My favorite month! Yay!

Nora's Debut

So, it's been nearly three weeks since Nora Cecilia's actual debut into this world and things have been pretty busy around here. I've actually sat down to draft this post no fewer than a half dozen times and have managed to put it together in bits and pieces. But I really wanted to get all the details of the big day right...mostly for my own keepsake. And it just seemed easiest to format it as a timeline of the day (with a bunch of pictures and random commentary smattered throughout). So anyway, here goes...

At my 41-week appointment on Tuesday, May 1, an ultrasound revealed that my amniotic fluid level (AFI), which had been holding steady in the 7-8 cm range over the past few weeks, was down to 4.5. Initially, I was so disappointed (think, crying uncontrollably in the ultrasound chair) when they told me the AFI number because I assumed it meant I would have to go have an immediate c-section, just like I did with Owen. (You can read more about that story here.) Instead, I was assured that we could still try to "induce" labor to the extent possible, given the risks for a VBAC (more on that, here), AND that I could wait until the next day to actually head to the hospital. (One doc even said that I could wait it out until the end of the week to see if maybe I'd go into labor on my own, but I felt a little uncomfortable with that and opted instead for the "tomorrow" plan.)

So, as Jack Bauer might say, "The following takes place between 6:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday, May 2, 2012." Ha ha!

6:00 a.m. — Drove to the hospital (after backing into our neighbor's mailbox and denting the back of our car...oy vey!)

7:00 a.m. — Checked into the hospital, dilated 1 cm (same as the past couple weeks).

10:00 a.m. — Midwife Jenny (love her!) broke my water and I started having contractions, but nothing too strong.

Sitting around, waiting for the show to get on the road. Ryan enjoyed keeping track of each and every contraction as recorded by the monitors, while I enjoyed a popsicle!

12:00 p.m. — Checked my cervix, dilated about 3.5 cm. Yay! Progress!

2:00 p.m. — Started pitocin and checked my cervix again, this time dilated 4 cm. (Yay! More progress!) Contractions started coming on stronger after this point.

Mom came to visit while things were still "fun," as I later remarked. Notice all the smiles.

4:00 p.m. — Checked my cervix, still dilated 4 cm, increased pitocin slightly. And by "increased," I mean bumping it from 1 mU/min (and I have no idea what "mU/min" actually means, but that's what I found when I googled the unit used to measure pitocin) to 2 mU/min. This is compared to the maximum dose of 20-30 mU/min that they would eventually give someone who wasn't doing a VBAC and running the risk of uterine rupture. 2 mU/min was as high as anyone was willing to go in my case.

Both my sisters arrived around this time, just as the contractions started getting much stronger. I asked Rachel to help me pull my hair back. She failed. (Ha!) But then, after these photos were taken, the trained cosmetologist (and photographer!) sister, Jackie, stepped in to help.

I love this photo, taken mid-contraction, and wish I had more like it. Unfortunately, as Jackie was about to snap another, I barked something about not wanting any photos right now and she politely obliged. Darn it if painful contractions don't make you say things you'll regret later!

Something that struck me throughout the labor process was that when I wasn't mid-contraction, I actually felt really, really great! Having never gone through it before, I don't know what I was expecting, but as you can see in the picture here, I was perfectly fine and dandy only moments (seconds, really) after the above picture of intense pain. Such an odd thing.

 

 Me on the birthing ball with nurse Stacy checking my blood pressure. She was awesome and so sweet!

6:00 p.m. — Checked my cervix again, still dilated only 4 cm. Blerg! I should mention here that apparently you need to dilate at least 1 cm every two hours to be considered making forward progress. And since I had been stuck at 4 cm for 4 hours at this point, the consulting doctor on call advised against going any further and wanted to do the c-section right then. But my awesome midwife, Jenny knew how badly I wanted to keep trying and managed to talk the doc into letting us go 2 more hours. However, I was extremely worried about the need to be put under full sedation in the event of a uterine rupture and emergency c-section, so we started discussing getting an epidural at this time.

7:00 p.m. — Got the epidural, partially to prevent the need to be put under sedation in the event of an emergency c-section, but also because of the pain I was in at that point. It got real, people!

8:00 p.m. — Checked my cervix again and, much to everyone's disappointment, I was still only dilated 4 cm. So after 6 full hours of no forward progress and a recommendation against increasing the pitocin any further, it was clear at that point that a c-section was the appropriate plan of action. I'm not gonna lie, I cried a little at this point. Maybe more than a little. But I was not going to jeopardize my baby's health (or mine, for that matter). I just needed a few minutes to mourn the loss of my final opportunity to birth a baby on my own. And then...we started prepping for the c-section.

This is possibly the least flattering photo ever taken of me. And check out Ryan's crazy hazmat-style get-up!

I think the look on my face in the picture below says, simply, "nervous." An intense moment lying there on that operating table. One other thing I remember feeling was cold. It seemed freezing in there! Not sure if it was the epidural making me so cold or if it really was frigid in that room, but I remember just wanting to be warm.

8:42 p.m. — Nora Cecilia Peterson was born! (Although, she was not officially named until the following morning, so she was just "baby girl Peterson" at that point.) She weighed 8 pounds, 2 ounces and was 20 inches long. But the thing I remember noticing first when they held her up over the screen for me to see was all her dark, dark hair. It was such a shocking sight since Ryan and I have fairly light hair.

Love at first sight. I couldn't wait to get my hands on her!

The funny thing about these next three photos is that my whole body was still so numb from the epidural that I could tell I was falling over to my left side, but I could not actually do anything about it. I kept saying, "could somebody please prop me back up?" I actually didn't even have the strength to hold my new little bundle very securely. I also wanted very badly to nurse her ASAP, but when I finally did get the chance, my hands and arms were so locked up that I wasn't able to. So frustrating!

The grandmas! Grandma V (my mom) first, followed by Grandma J (Ryan's mom). I cannot tell you how sweet it was to know that we had a waiting room full of loved ones anxiously waiting to get their hands on our new babe. What a completely different experience from Owen's birth out on the West coast, with nary a single family member present.

Auntie Rachel adoring her new niece.

The rest of these were taken the following day, when big brother Owen came to meet his little sister.

We heard him outside the door before he came in saying shouting, "we brought you a balloon!" He was so proud!

Some other stuff worth mentioning...

I had stated in a previous post that I was kind of concerned about the "baby blues" that I experienced very strongly when Owen was born, but I am so pleased to share that I have not really felt them at all this time around. In fact, at one point, I wondered aloud what I had been so afraid of three years ago. Granted, Nora seems to be a much calmer and more content baby than Owen (so far!) and I now have nearly three years of parenting experience under my belt. But honestly, I feel like things are falling into a nice little groove and I am just loving how precious and sweet our newest family member is. I'm just so in love with her and don't wish away a single moment of this newborn stage.

Part of that sense of peace is surely related to the fact that breastfeeding is going SO.MUCH.BETTER this time around! Nora is a great nurser and my milk supply seems to be doing well at this point, too. No sore nipples to contend with (praise God!!!) and based on her weight at her 2-week doctor appointment, she seems to be thriving. The goal is for a baby to have at least gained back to their original birth weight by two weeks, which for her, was 8 lbs, 2 ozs. Instead, she was 8 lbs, 14 ozs! So, yeah, I'd say it's going well!

Physically, I'm feeling very good after the repeat c-section. I was concerned about how recovery from surgery was going to go with not just a newborn, but also a 2 1/2-year-old in tow, but as of this week, I feel absolutely great!

A big thanks (as always) goes out to the great Jackie Petersen Photography for many of the amazing photos in this post. And here's a few more photos from the past few weeks...

Papa Vern meeting Miss Nora (his first granddaughter) for the first time.

Squishy, squishy cheeks!

First day at home...

Cuddling with Daddy on her first night at home.

First trip to the grocery store. (She slept the whole time.)

Tummy time...

First trip to the park with big brother, Owen. (Again, she slept the whole time.)

Mother's Day (and Nora's baby dedication at church)...

So squishy!

I am so grateful for all the help we've received from family and friends in these first few weeks. And I know Owen appreciates all the extra special attention he's received, like this fun trip to the park with Grandma V.

Baby smiles!

Since life has been hectic enough that it has taken me almost three whole weeks to get this post published, I think I will probably take a brief hiatus from blogging so that I can fully enjoy my new family and not stress myself out about keeping up with regular updates. If something comes up that I can quickly post (or share photos of), I will sure try to do that, but in the meantime, just assume that we are all enjoying one another's company and living life to the fullest. Oh, and hopefully doing some of this in our downtime...