When I was pregnant with Magdalena, I practically devoured every breastfeeding book or article there was out there.  Friends like Beanmom and Rachel pointed me to terrific books.  I felt solidly prepared for the journey we were about to start.

And then Magdalena was born.  It was a really long labor followed by a csection.  Erich did everything I asked, and stayed by her side the entire time they did their assessments.  When they got me back to the room, I was anxious to see her, hold her, but most importantly, I was anxious to nurse her. After asking about when she would be done, a nurse casually mentioned that she appeared to be tongue tied.

Tongue tied? It seemed like such a curve ball to be thrown.  Erich wasn’t tongue tied, and I wasn’t either.  And all the literature said that tongue ties were usually hereditary, so where did this come from?  12 hours after her birth, I asked if they would clip her tongue.  I was lucky that there was no hesitation and the pediatrician immediately clipped her tongue in the hospital.

Our walk down breastfeeding lane started as a rocky one.  By the time they clipped her tongue, I was already sore.  Then she was super sleepy on day 2, as most newborns are, and she seemed to not know what to do with her newly clipped tongue.  By the time I left the hospital I was bleeding and blistered and using a nipple shield. But I was determined! Some might say I was stubborn.  And after a couple of weeks, Magdalena and I fell into a routine and breastfeeding became that wonderful journey that so many talk about.

When Carmina was born, it was the first thing on my mind.  Was she tongue tied?  And while she was a lazy nurser, she was not tongue tied, and breastfeeding was a smooth journey.

With Kevin, I never really thought about him being tongue tied.  With all the drama surrounding his birth, then his respiratory difficulties, it was honestly the last thing on my mind.  The few times I could really look inside his mouth when he was crying in that first week, I saw what I thought was a tongue tie. When he was 7 days old, he came off of all respiratory support and I was allowed to nurse him for the first time.

Kevin was born to breastfeed! He was a champion nurser right from the start, an impressive preemie with a great suck.  He seemed to do okay with his tongue tie, but he had his moments.  I asked the NICU nurse if someone would be available to clip his tongue before we left, but I was told it was unusual to clip tongues in the NICU.  Everyone seemed confident that it would stretch and he was doing well- gaining weight.

But he did have some issues latching.  This time though, with two other breastfed children under my belt, I was able to help him latch better and change up positions.  But he still seemed to have a shallow latch at times and sometimes had issues fully extending his tongue under the nipple.  I asked our dentist if he would clip his tongue, and he agreed!  So on Tuesday we had his tongue clipped.

Before:

And after:

The procedure was simple and I assume painless because he did not cry at all. Best thing of all, about half an hour later I nursed him and found him to have a perfect latch.  Clipping his tongue was an instantaneous fix to his latch issues!

I have lot to write out. This is what I sent out via email this morning.

We had our baby boy on Monday, September 15 at 4:57pm. He came 24 days early (10 days earlier than our scheduled section). I woke up in horrible pain in my side and shoulder and started contracting. By the time I got to the hospital it was determined that I most likely had appendicitis and that he needed to come out. Kevin Clayton was born at 4:57pm weighing 6# 11ounces and was 19″ long. (He’s a big boy for a 36weeker!) He is named after his Grampy Kevin, who died in 1992.

He is currently in the special care nursery requiring oxygen. He does not appear to be sick, just early. The hope is that he will start weaning off the oxygen today and hopefully go home soon. We are all anxious to hold him and love him (and you know me! I want to nurse him!) All prayers and positive thoughts are greatly appreciated.

The general surgeon came in to talk to me a bit ago. The pathology on my appendix is not back, but it was enlarged and the tip looked “thickened” which he said is generally a sign of early appendicitis. He thinks that my body was just sensitive and that being pregnant made everything more agitated. Kevin’s heartrate was in the 180s when we got to the hospital, so he was a bit distressed as well. The surgeon thinks that we absolutely made the right decision and thinks that we saved his life and mine.

6 lbs, 11 oz.

19 in.

We are happy.

it’s a bit irrational.  Every where I look online someone is talking about food and I’m thinking, man that sounds good!  I don’t need to eat more nor do I need to go to the grocery store and try and find the ingredients to make all of these things people are talking about.  Sheesh.

This week was eventful.  We had an ultrasound and appointment.  Little Dude is guesstimated to weigh about six and a half pounds at this point.  Since ultrasound guesstimates this late are usually a little high, and because my husband seems to create children with really long legs that really mess up their calculations (I think), my guess is that in two weeks he will be no bigger than eight pounds.  Really I’m guessing about seven and a half pounds.  He has super super chubby cheeks.  He frowned at us when we were putting pressure against his head to get a nice face shot, he’s not a fan of the ultrasounds!  He also blew us a little kiss.  He looks like his Daddy.  We are all really excited to meet him.

I also received all of my pre-op paperwork.  It’s insanely bizarre to me to see this stuff.  They already have my appointment made to come the day before and get my blood drawn.  I have the lab work orders, and they type and screen two units of blood and reserve them for me in the blood bank.  That’s weird.  I’m glad it’s there (obviously) it’s just odd.  It made me think of all the preparation that the hospital staff will go through the day before my surgery, all this preparation that *I* used to do for others is now being done for me in anticipation of this Little Dude’s birthday.  I’m excited and nervous and a wee bit scared, ha! Only 14 days to go!

That would be the reason for the silence on this blog, at least that’s what I’m claiming.  I recently had to shut down my business to customs.  It was a hard decision, because I have major issues telling people no and I enjoy the knitting. But I realized that time was going much quicker than my fingers.  I have this long list of stuff to do for the Little Dude who will be here in 3 weeks (!) and I couldn’t work on all of it, unless I give up something, like sleeping.

So I shut down my store to customs and hope to open it again by Halloween.  I woke up one morning with the incredible urge to either knit every yarn I have in my stash, or to sell it.  So I sold a BUNCH of stuff and started knitting a bunch of stuff.  If you frequent my Flickr account, you probably see how much stuff is coming off of my needles.

I also decided that I needed to work on a homeschooling room.  It turned out really nice and Magdalena is very excited about it.  I have plans to order the rest of her books for this quarter of her curriculum on the next payday.

We are also excitedly anticipating the local Pork Festival.   Magdalena has been talking about going to parades since the festival ended last year.  It’s also the last thing on her calendar before her baby brother is scheduled to make his appearance.  She’s a very experienced and excited big sister you know.

Carmina is also seems to be understanding that their is a baby in my belly.  And I think she gets that he will want to nurse and that she will have to share. Of course, telling her that the baby will nurse, just makes her want to nurse right away.

Anyway, a busy month.  Hopefully I’ll get better about posting.  And Erich will be posting here and there and will also update when the Dude makes his arrival.

What do you think? Does this make you want to vote for McCain more or less now? Does it matter? Should we care?

Usually, when you hit 30 weeks, people pat you on the back and say “oh the home stretch! Not long now!”  Well, I’ve entered my home stretch at 28 weeks!  Why you ask?  Because for a month or two now, we’ve had babies birth on the books.  He’ll be making an appearance on September 25, 2008 and not a moment sooner (or later– holy heck it’s getting hot outside!)

My method of birthing my children does not really jive with my whole outlook on the pregnancy/nursing/childrearing perspective.  But for new time readers I assure you that I tried with all of my ability to make M march out the right way, but it didnt’ happen.  And when C was miraculously conceived, after long debate, it was decided a section would probably be our best route.  And it turns out it was.  So I have no fears in scheduling Little Dude’s section.  In fact, I’m a bit comforted by it.  It’s the only thing that is comforting on a 90* day with 60% humidity in Indiana.  Little Dude will no longer be in me after 10 weeks.  Very comforting.

We had an ultrasound this week and the dude is most definitely a dude.  yay!  Better  yet?  He’s healthy, gorgeous, has hair, and 100% perfect.  He’s measuring overall about a week ahead of my dates (measuring around 29 weeks) and his legs measure 31 weeks! Again, that tall Daddy passes on some really long legs!  They estimate he weighs about 3 pounds at this point putting him in the 7ish pound range at birth.

I refused my 50 gram test (glucose tolerance test) and had an A1C drawn, which came back perfect. No gestational diabetes and no anemia.  I’m cruising past those little pregnancy annoyances and enjoying my time with him in utero, though he’s starting to hurt me a bit more with his constant love kicks.

So that’s all the news.  We’re expecting a DUDE after two beautiful girls. Erich and I feel 110% blessed.

The last time I posted, I said we were going in for our “big” ultrasound and hoped to find out gender.  The good news was that baby is perfectly healthy.  Beautiful spine (am I the only one that loves to see the spine on those ultrasounds?), brain, heart everything turned out okay.  Baby measured about 4 days ahead of dates, but that is pretty typical with our children.  They all have long legs that I think throw off the calculations, but having a 6’5″ Daddy will yield long legs.

Unfortunately, baby had legs crossed at the ankles, tucked in my bladder with the cord pulled in between the legs.  It was impossible to see gender.  At first they said, oh probably girl, and then something round appeared and they said “well maybe boy?”  It was decided I’d sneak in in June to take another look.

So Monday of this week I went in for another look.  And wouldn’t you know that the first tech when we got in there said boy! It was crazy, but then another tech came in “just to be sure” and she said, no no it’s a girl.  But baby was (yet again!) in another tricky spot and really hard to see anything the way he/she was laying.  So they said come back later.  hahaha.

So on Tuesday of this week I headed back in again feeling a little… frustrated.  I wasn’t worried about not bonding with the baby, but I am not a waiter.  I am not patient.  And I am a knitter! I have lots of preparation to do for this baby! And I find it easier to get the girls ready for a baby if I can give them a name and we can talk about the actual person that will be marching out of me and rocking their worlds, instead of an abstract “baby”, you know?

So on Tuesday, the tech was saying “girl” but honestly, it just didn’t look like a girl *to me*.  I do realize that I’m not a trained ultrasound person, but I’ve stared at my fair share of ultrasounds of friends and family and heck I have two girls of my own.  It just didn’t look like a girl to me.  Baby was again sitting weird in there.  Legs were criss crossed (when I was little we called this sitting Indian Style but Erich has pointed out that that is probably not the most PC term anymore), and the cord was in between it’s legs still (I’m not complaining, better than around the neck!) and he/she just did not want to “give it up”.  Then baby turned and we realized that the “three lines” we were seeing were his little back end and out popped what Magdalena declared “his peenut!” The tech said she is 98% sure it’s a boy and that she is never 100% sure.  And you know, I’m pretty sure it’s a boy too but that doesn’t stop that nagging fear in my head that they’ll pull a girl out in September. hahaha

So see for yourself.

Tomorrow morning we have our big mid pregnancy ultrasound.  Honestly, I’ve never been  more nervous and anxious about an ultrasound.  I think this may partly be because the pregnancy just seems to be flying by.  We are so busy every day and I’ve tried not to dwell on bad stuff.  I feel baby move a lot but I’d probably feel LD more if I were able to just sit and relax sometimes.

The other thing that is making me anxious is finding out the gender.  I really really don’t care one way or the other, but many people are driving me a bit nuts.  Most say it’s a boy, and I can’t help but feel they may be disappointed if it’s a girl.   I’m just ready for it to be 9:30am tomorrow morning.

My no brain state has reached new heights. I stand by that whole theory of Momnesia being true. I’m a lot dumber than I was say four or so years ago. I had a conversation with Erich (so he says) that I have absolutely no recollection of. I went to get my laptop to take it downstairs and do a little cleaning (clean the screen etc.) and forgot in the span of about 30 seconds of when the idea popped into my head and when I got to the area of the laptop. It’s amazing and embarassing at the same time.

Magdalena, who is four, has lately been really hard to handle. TONS of tantrums and crying and fighting and just really random behavior so unlike her. After about a week of this, I finally figured it out. She *needs* a nap, but has not been napping. I’ve been making her stay in her bed and read books at naptime in hopes that it will help, but I’ve had to focus on Carmina so much because she gets up and walks around, that I’ve really overlooked getting Magdalena to take a nice nap. I have been able to lay both down and leave and everyone goes to sleep. Today I decided that I needed to probably lay down with them. I can’t lay down with them together though because that just does not seem to work. So we go up to take naps, I tell Magdalena I will be in there in a few minutes. I lay down with Carmina, she falls asleep. I slip out and get Magdalena situated and lay down. She was out in literally 2 minutes of just being able to lay still. That little light bulb went off in my head. She’s just been *tired*. She knows she doesn’t want to go to sleep, but she really does need lots of sleep. She’s like her Mommy, we need our beauty rest. Unfortunately, Carmina woke up and I went and laid back down with her where I fell asleep for like 45 minutes. Oops. I lost my nap quiet time!

We have got to get naptime figured out and without me laying down everyday because come October it’s not going to be so easy me thinks. Hopefully Little Dude will be easy going and lay down with me if I need to lay with either girl.

The only thing I don’t like about pregnancy, besides my hyperemesis issues, is the beginning. The unknown. Yes I’m sick. Yes I’m tired. Yes I have major food and smell aversions. Beyond that though, I have no reassurance that everything is O.K. There is no kicking from within or a big round belly to remind me that yes, things are fine. And that is what I hate about early pregnancy. I suspect that I do some overreacting as many other infertility patients do. I have no reason to believe that things aren’t okay, but at the same time I really don’t feel like I have good reasons to believe that they are okay beyond the sickness and faith. I must have faith. Faith in God. Faith in my body. Faith. OB appointment tomorrow… let’s hope for some reassurance.

8 weeks! We’ve seen the heartbeat (twice! long story.) and Little Dude as this fetus has come to be called is doing fine and making me very very very sick.

Time seemed to stand still for a few days last week as we digested the fact that we are expecting our third child. Considering the work that went into conceiving our second, this seemed miraculous for sure. But now it’s over a week later, and as fast as a blink of an eye we are into the 5th week of pregnancy. I imagine this pregnancy will go just as fast if not faster than my second.

I’ve already started knitting for the little one. We have an appointment on the 28th to see a heartbeat. I love those early u/s where you get a glimpse of that tiny heartbeat and the miracle that is a forming baby. I have daily reminders of his/her presence though. Currently I can smell dinner in the crockpot and while it smells good, it also makes my stomach turn. I’m tired by 9 or 10 am. I gag easily. My face has broken out into a million little reminders that my body is working. I beg for naps. Magdalena says “growing babies is HARD work Mommy!” Yes my love, it is. The nausea comes in waves but makes a bigger appearance each day. And with all of that, it’s wonderful. I’m thankful. I’m blessed. I know this. I do.

10-10-08

I looked like this.

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It’s 66* outside! It’s practically jacket weather, or at least it feels that way. I was just thinking that last year at this time, Erich and I got up at the crack of dawn to evaluate our reproductive organs. I had that super painful HSG and Erich had the specimen collection that would have made the worlds funniest sitcom. The story was hilarious. Anyway, after that I was getting up at 5:30 just to make it to my daily ultrasounds and bloodwork. It’s amazing that a year later I’m rolling over at 5:30am to nurse my 8 week old baby. It’s awesome and amazing and wonderful. And I can’t believe she’s been here 8 weeks already. It’s just going to fast. Luckily I’ve talked Erich into a definite third. I’ll wait until I’m pregnant again before I start asking for a fourth. Hahaha!

Carmina Gabriela made her debut at 8:16am Thursday June 15, 2006. She weighed 7 pounds 4 ounces, 19 inches long, and has lots of dark dark black hair. She has long fingers and toes and giant skinny feet. She looks just like Erich and Magdalena is in love.

She nurses well, but it takes her a few times to figure out what to do at the breast. More details to follow later…

oops! She only weighs 7#4oz, so not much bigger than 6#.