It’sA……

GIRL!

**sniff** Magdalena is growing up WAY to fast for my liking. She turned two on the 21st and was able to blow out her candle all by herself without any help. Oh, so bittersweet! So here are some highlights on the little girl.

• She loves loves loves Elmo aka Belbo and can spot him anywhere.
• She can walk up and down the stairs holding the rail.
• She uses forks and spoons like a pro.
• She is now really getting the hang of language and picks up at least 2 words a day.
• Erich and I really like to here her say “morning!” when we say good morning. It makes us both smile.
• She is having a bit of separation anxiety now that she has put the expanding belly and the talk of baby together in her mind.
• She still loves to nurse and asks quite often. A few days back I tried getting her to ask and say please. Now she comes up to me and says “durse, pease!” Melts my heart everytime.
• She can count to two.
• She gets the jokes on Sesame Street and on the tapes.
• She loves to hug and kiss and will actually let other kids hug her now.
• She’s all girl. She squeals with delight, runs to her Daddy when he comes home, dances, sings and is 100% sugar and spice.
• She loves babies. And she mothers her dolls like a little Mommy should. I find her wiping bottoms and faces and hands and putting cloth diapers on the dolls. She’s going to be a fabulous big sister when she figures out that the baby will demand our love and attention too.
• She still sleeps with us. Though she is now sleeping the entire night in the crib attached to our bed. My belly kinda pushed her away from snuggling up to me. Heh.
• She can put herself to sleep. So “neener neener neener!” to all the people who told me if I nursed her to sleep, she’d “never learn to do it on her own!”
• She loves the bathtub and she loves to sing “that’s belbos world!” at the top of her lungs in the bathroom.
• The only thing she doesn’t really like is being told “no” heh.
• Her last appointment she appeared perfect and came in at a petite 24# and 31.5″ tall.
• She can pee on the potty when she is left naked. She still can’t tell the difference between panties and diapers, but I never showed her to pee on the potty, so she’ll get there eventually. With a new baby on the way, I’m not exactly holding my breath.
• She loves to eat. There isn’t anything she’ll turn away. She is not picky and happily tries new things. (**knocks loudly on wood**) When people ask me how I got her to “do that” I always tell them it’s because I never pushed her to start solids and let her tell me, even if that meant exclusively breastfeeding her until she was 8 months old.

That’s all I can think of right now, but believe me she gets cuter and smarter every single stinking day!

Tomorrow is the big U/S for Neo! Coincidentally, it falls on January 31st which was Magdalena’s due date back in 2004!

Long time no see, eh? Well, life seems to just be flying by. Wasn’t it just October? Hyperemsis has really gotten the best of me and since Christmas I’ve been hovering near bathrooms with little vials of pills that promise to take the sickness away. They don’t really, but they do give me hours where I feel “normal” whatever that is.

The Wednesday before Christmas I started feel woozy, tossed my dinner, and thought nothing of it. Thursday I spent the day feeling as if I was going to die and how on earth do you take care of a toddler while feeling like this? Friday, I actually looked like death and decided that I better go to the doctor. I could barely pick Magdalena up, it was bad. Upon arrival, they discovered that not only had I lost weight (which I still am) but that my bloodpressure was 80/60 and my heartrate was 130. I was really dehydrated. They tried to find babys heartbeat, but couldn’t distinguish whose heartbeat belonged to who. So Dr. B pulled out her portable ultrasound and within a minute we were looking a fully formed baby just hanging out. Baby appeared to be sleeping and when nudged, turned the other way! Ha! Just like his/her father!

I was given the Hyperemesis label and sent to the hospital to be rehydrated and receive some IV anti nausea drugs. My mom was called in to watch Magdalena and apparently M wore her out running all through the hospital.

Since then I’ve been hanging out trying to not puke every day and take care of Magdalena.

She turned 2 on Saturday! But I’ll write about that next post.

Today I had an OB appointment. I’ve lost about 20 pounds so far into this pregnancy. I’m 18 weeks 2 days gestated. I’m measuring a little large at 21 centimeters, but I’ll take that with a grain of salt considering Magdalena measured large the entire time and look how tiny she was! Dr. B said it was probably because of being a bit short and because this is my second pregnancy and your uterus tends to make the second one feel much more welcome. heh. She was finally able to catch bambino on the doppler and baby sounds good, kicking, and having a grand old time.

We talked about the fact that I’ve been much more worried about this baby then I was with Magdalena. For some reason I feel like I should be LESS worried since this is my second go around, but my anxiety is much worse. She said I didn’t have to wait for my next appointment with her to get my ultrasound and that I could schedule it for next week. So next Tuesday, send us some legs wide open vibes! And um, I should figure out how to place some bets as it seems everyone is torn between boy and girl. I actually have no idea. Erich says girl (but honestly I think he is just preparing himself **wink**). My mom says boy, my MIL says boy, and a friend says girl. What do you think?

We also talked about the csection. We are not going to be trying labor this time for various reasons and since we aren’t going to try, I’d like to avoid going into labor. She said she likes to section at 39 weeks, but that she’ll do it at 38 weeks. I’d like to avoid being in the hospital on Erichs birthday so it looks like we may schedule the section the week of June 12, towards the end. That will make me 38 and change and I’m down with that. It’s very odd to be scheduling someones birth by the way. But this is how it has to be. I’ll talk more in detail about why we will be doing a repeat section in another post.

Anywho, we talked about the spinal and about giving her warning if I dry heave on the table (so she can be prepared to hold my guts in, heh) and I asked about nursing in recovery. Apparently now, as long as baby is okay, they ALWAYS bring baby in to nurse. Thank goodness! She knows I’m a major lactivist and I think she has a clue that we are still nursing, but I’m still dancing around that subject with her since I know her views on it. heh. She says that they don’t push formula, and she thinks they push people who want to formula feed, to breastfeed. To which I say, GOOD FOR THEM! Heh. So yay, nursing in recovery (which is less than half an hour from birth, which is cool) Erich will again stay with baby the entire time and I’m finally starting to believe that there will be another baby here in *gasp* 20 weeks! Yikes!

I’m currently still trying to figure out how to take care of a toddler and get the hang of this hyperemesis stuff. I’ll be back in a few days with a giant update, promise.

In the meantime, how about a little Magdalena fun? She recently learned to put her finger to her mouth and say “shhh!!”

Today, she was reaching for something she is not supposed to have. I tell her “no Magdalena” and she comes over to me and says “shhhhh!” heh.

Her birthday is on Saturday!!!

It’s national delurking week!

I would say I “know” about 60% of the people that stop in on this blog. So if you are in the 40% who I don’t “know” or who don’t comment, please leave me a comment!