Nearly Five Months Ago...

our sweet baby Trinity was born. She has been an absolute delight and her older siblings adore her. Her birth was different than either of her sibling's births, but I suppose every birth is unique. I have written her birth story for her scrapbook but it's nearly three pages long so I may need to edit it down a bit (ahem) before sharing it here.


I can't believe how much she's grown from these tiny newborn shots taken months ago (okay, she was 9lb at birth so she was never "tiny" but you know what I mean...)

And the Scales Tip...Toward the Girl Side!!!

Our big ultrasound today revealed a beautiful, healthy, baby GIRL!!! We thank the Lord, first and foremost, that she is healthy and growing right on track. The doctor had absolutely no concerns and claimed that "Her heart looks gorgeous!" Music to our ears!

It seems Daisy truly did know it was a girl all along. Everytime she spoke of the baby she referred to her as a girl. I've spent the last how many weeks trying to explain that we didn't know the gender of the baby and it just might be a boy. Turns out I was just wasting my breath =) And I guess there may be something to my theory that if you can't think of a name for a certain gender it's simply because your baby is of the opposite gender (at least it is in our case anyway...).

We've decided on her first and middle names but the spelling of the middle name is still up for debate. It has lots of vowels and Hubby's toying with changing "I"s to "Y"s and other crazy things. I don't feel like I can squash his fun since I wouldn't be carrying a baby at all if it weren't for him =) I absolutely love her first name and would love to share it here, but for the sake of privacy I'll just be referring to her as "Trinity." Works with the whole third child theme =)

I have one ultrasound picture scanned so far. It's not the greatest but it's a glimpse of our sweet girl. I'll try to post more soon.

A Labor Day Meme-A Couple of Days Late

Shannon hosted this fun Labor Day meme, about all things related to childbirth and labor, over at Rocks in My Dryer. I'm a few days late but given I'm about 20 weeks or so away from my third "Labor Day" I thought I'd play along anyway.

How long were your labors?

Daisy-31 hours I had the privilege of being in labor with Daisy while I had Influenza A. Actually, I was just beginning to get sick before I went into labor. The extra special part was that my husband was sick too. He was the one who got me sick in the first place. We had an interesting experience to say the least. Coughing and hacking together, quarantined in the hospital with our newborn, wearing face masks to avoid breathing on our fragile baby. Definitely one for the record books!

Simon-17 hours Unfortunately, my mother-in-law became ill when I was about 36 weeks pregnant with Simon. She suffered from Alzheimer's and had begun to develop complications. Hubby spent about a month dividing his time between our home and his mother who lived about an hour and a half away. She passed away 4 days before my due date. I spent most of that month trying not to go into labor. Then, I spent more time trying not to go into labor before the funeral (which was held on my due date). After that, I still tried not to go into labor because I didn't want to have a funeral and a "birth day" so close together. I apparently tried to hard not to go into labor because I was eventually induced.

How did you know you were in labor?

Daisy-water broke at 39 weeks
Simon-induction at 41 weeks

Where did you deliver?

Both children were delivered at our local hospital.

Drugs?

Daisy-I tried desperately to deliver Daisy without drugs but after 20 hours of Pitocin induced contractions, and you know, having the flu-I caved and got an epidural.

Simon-I went in knowing all too well the pain of Pitocin induced contractions and the bliss of an epidural. I got an epidural as soon as I could. Which was 14 hours after the very first Pitocin induced contractions. My body doesn't understand the whole labor concept whatsoever. It took me that long to get from 1cm-4 cm.

C-section?

I was blessed to have been able to avoid a C-section with both my children. However, I'm convinced that Daisy would have been a C-section had I had an OB and not a midwife. I can't imagine how awful it would have been to have recover from a C-section while coughing my lungs out with the flu. My midwife was truly a Godsend.

Who delivered?

My amazing midwife, Lisa, delivered both my children. I may be out of luck this time though because Lisa is expecting her own bundle of joy in November and our baby is due in January. I've met the other midwife in the practice though, and I think we'll get along just fine if Lisa isn't available to deliver this baby.

Let me know if you played along with this meme. I'd love to hear all about your "Labor Days!"

6 Weeks Later~An Update

The last six weeks have been a big blur. It's summertime and life is busy anyway, but we received some very unexpected news that my brother-in-law has Type 1 Diabetes. That would be serious in any situation, but it greatly impacts his career in the Navy. At this point, he's been removed from the boat he was working on and has been given a desk job at a US base until January. The Navy is working to stabilize his condition and in January they will determine if they will let him remain in the Navy in some capacity or grant him medical discharge. The planned move overseas, for he and my sister, has been cancelled. He's simply too sick to deploy. There are many unanswered questions and the two of them are rather stressed. I've done a lot of listening and just trying to be as supportive as possible. This is a difficult situation for them, but I trust that God will use the entire experience to draw the two of them onto Himself.

Daisy and Simon are doing well. God has surprised us with some developments Hubby's music ministry. Yet another thing that has been taking up some of our time. We have some decisions to make and are patiently/impatiently waiting for the Lord to reveal His perfect plan to us.

Blessed Baby Number 3 is happy and well. We weren't able to hear the baby's heartbeat with the Doppler machine at 11 weeks like I'd hoped. I did end up in tears and with another "emergency" ultrasound. (My midwife doesn't perform ultrasounds unless absolutely necessary, so in my book they're "emergency" ultrasounds). The baby appeared on the screen healthy and very active. My midwife thinks she was unable to find the baby's heartbeat with the Doppler simply because he/she was so active.

The little weasel was just as active at 15 weeks and my midwife struggled for 15 minutes to track down the heartbeat with the Doppler machine. I keep thinking it should get easier as the baby gets bigger. We never struggled this much with my other two children. We have a 20 week ultrasound in early September. We're hoping to be able to find out the gender of the baby. I'm just too impatient to wait and I think it will help Simon and Daisy if we can call the baby by name and make it more personal for them.

I think we have a girl's first name, the middle name is still up for debate. But we have no boy's names what so ever. The interesting thing is that's what happened when I was pregnant with Simon. We could not come up with a girl name for the life of us. Turned out not to be an issue =) Maybe we can't come up with a boy's name this time because the baby is a girl???? I'm convinced I have no Mother's Intuition at all. I had the gender of both my children wrong. I was sure Daisy was going to be a boy and Simon was going to be a girl. I'm simply going to rely on the ultrasound technician and the doctor to let me know =)

This update is ridiculously long. Have a good weekend, everyone!

Hooray! It's Naptime and I'm NOT Napping!

This sweet baby of mine has successfully zapped all my energy. In fact, it was just after I commented to my midwife "I really haven't been that tired" (at 6 weeks pregnant) that I became extremely exhausted.

From weeks 6-9, everything I did took huge amounts of effort. Our home crumbled around us as I struggled just to prepare some sort of nourishment for my husband and children on a semi-regular basis. Clean clothes became a negotiable (how sad is that?!?!). I tried hard to keep up with our regular schedule of summer activities and found myself struggling desperately. I truly did nap with my children every day for almost three whole weeks. Of course, I also went to bed as soon as they'd fallen asleep each night. I simply could NOT get enough sleep!

Alas, it seems we have turned a corner. I have been "nap-free" for over a week. I've finished seven loads of laundry in the last two days and even made a grocery store run yesterday. We have a relatively quiet holiday weekend coming up which I am very much looking forward to. Hopefully, I'll be able to accomplish even more without having to break up our day by running to various activities.

I head in for another midwife appointment next Friday. I'm hoping I'll be able to hear the baby's heartbeat. We heard Daisy's heartbeat at 10 weeks with no problem but my midwife struggled to find Simon's at 10 weeks and I ended up being rushed back for an ultrasound. It was a very scary experience I'd rather not relive. I'll be just over 11 weeks so maybe that extra time will be advantageous.

How I Shared the News With Hubby-Pregnancy Number 2

After learning I was pregnant for the second time, I created a slide show illustrating the history of our family. It began with pictures of my husband and I from our engagement and ran through the present.

Just a quick back story, for those who may not know, my husband and I were foster parents before we had our daughter, Daisy.

The slide show was laid out like this…

-engagement pictures
-wedding pictures
-“It’s a boy!” followed by pictures of our first foster son
-“It’s another boy!” followed by pictures of our second foster son
-It’s a girl!” followed by pictures of Daisy
-“Did we get all the kids??”
-“Hmm…”
-Fade to black
-“Another blessing is on the way!”

I didn’t think of it at the time but you could easily do another title page with the estimated due date etc. I just created mine in a program on our computer and burned it onto a CD. Pretty easy and didn’t take a lot of time. My husband loved it!

How I Shared the News With Hubby-Pregnancy Number 1

Of course, the excitement over my first pregnancy was unlike any other. I COULD NOT WAIT to share the news with my husband. After I got a positive pregnancy test, I created a paper jigsaw puzzle. I hid the pieces throughout the house while Hubby took his morning shower. (We were foster parents at the time and our one year old foster son thought hiding the pieces was the best thing ever. Added to my excitement even more!)

On the back of each puzzle piece, was a clue directing my husband where to look next. I hid them in crazy places like inside a cereal box and between plates stacked in the cupboard. The finished result looked like this...

Sorry for the poor photo quality. I had to take this from my daughter's scrapbook.

Top left: January

Top right: 16th

Bottom left: Please save the date to meet your son or daughter

Bottom right: 2005