Comparisons

I had wondered if my kids were going to look alike… but I was totally not ready for the reality. Evie is like a little Ian clone. In the hospital I kept thinking of her as a he and calling her Ian. It really is amazing.

Here are a few comparative pictures. The best one is the official hospital picture they take, but I don’t have that electronically so I’ll have to post it when I get near a scanner.

The first pics I have of each of them does not show how much they look alike, it shows how much more beat-up Ian was, despite being a C-section baby. Poor kid!

The others… can you tell which one is Evie and which one is Ian? Okay, okay. The pink kind of gives it away. But take my word for it… they look alike. :)

Welcome Evelyn Emma Ariana Cage

Evelyn was born at 12:22pm on Sunday morning. She weighed 8.4 pounds , was 20 ¾ inches long, and was absolutely beautiful.

When we got to the hospital thy checked me out and were a little nervous about Evie’s heart rate and the fact that I wanted a VBAC (vaginal birth after C-section). They hooked me up to an IV right away which was kind of disappointing because it made it hard to walk around. And I definitely could have used the distraction of being able to walk around.

By 8am I was 7cm dilated and totally ready for the epidural. Evie’s heart rate was fine as long as I stayed on my side so the VBAC was still on. The epidural made things so much better. It made sense to do it just in case I needed another emergency C... but in fact it made the whole experience so much better. I could think and talk and understand instructions again. I had been worried that the drugs would put in the same state I was in during Ian’s labor but it didn’t. I was lucid and aware the whole time. It was amazing.

Okay it was gross and painful… but still amazing! By the end of Ian’s labor I was completely out of it. I could barely see, could barely think – couldn’t even write my own name. My reaction to Ian’s first cries was some thing along the lines of “Ah, that’s nice.” By the end of Evie’s labor I was still me. I could talk and laugh and cry. I could see the tears in JD’s eyes.It was amazing.

Hearing Evie’s first cry made me realize just how badly Ian’s labor and delivery had gone. Ian’s first cry was weak and sad. Evie’s was loud. Loud and MAD. The NICU team was there because there had been some miconium in the amniotic fluid when my water broke, indicated potential complications. Her first scream made them all laugh and exclaim in relief. They didn’t even have to suction her out because her first cry pushed all the fluid out of her lungs.

The first thing someone said about my daughter was “She is fierce!” The second thing someone said was “She bit me!” 1 minute out of the womb and she had no problem latching on to anything that came near her mouth. As I got sewed up (ouch) the NICU team did their thing and pronounced her healthy and perfect. JD was able to pick her up and bring her over to me. She was beautiful. Plump and smooth and quite disgruntled.

After the doctor was through with the cord blood stuff and getting me all cleaned up I got to hold her. She watched me with dark eyes and a serious expression. Since I wasn’t going anywhere until the epidural wore off I decided to nurse her. She was a natural – latching on strongly right away. She nursed for about an hour before drifting off to sleep.

It was one of my life’s most perfect moments. I remembered holding her brother for the first time. Watching him breath as he slept in my arms. And being completely, perfectly happy. How lucky I am to have that twice. How wonderful my life has turned out to be.

Saturday, November 21st: Baby update

The day before this (Friday) I was only 1 cm dilated and had pretty much no progress on the ‘getting ready to give birth’ front. I was grumpy, frustrated, crampy, and generally on a rampage.

To cheer myself up I left Ian with JD and made a trip to Hebert’s candy mansion. This is exactly what it sounds like: a huge mansion house where they make and sell all sorts of candy, mostly of the chocolate variety. It’s a happy place.

My boss had told me that she kicked off her own labor by eating apple pancakes, a whole chunk of almond bark from Hebert’s, and an orange soda. I didn’t do this all at once but I did have apple pancakes in the morning and ate a whole chunk of almond bark on the way back from Hebert’s.

That night was game night (Star Wars RPG) but some of our players were not there so we went out to dinner instead. That was amusing – we went to the Blackstone Valley Shoppes for dinner on a Sat., during Xmas shopping season. A mall that has a movie theatre by the way, and it was opening night of the second Twilight movie – New Moon. It was a mad house.

We went to the Mexican food restaurant and I had spicy tacos and about 4 sips of beer (suggested by my mom to get labor going). And would don’t you know…

All day I had been feeling a little crampy and was not looking forward to the next week. I was scheduled for induction the next Friday and it was going to be a long, long week. At the restaurant the vague ache turned into a very definite ouch. JD was sure I was in labor. I was sure it was just cramps. By 12pm I admitted it – I was in labor. And man, it hurt!

With Ian I was vaguely uncomfortable. The contractions were like a vise closing around my body, an intense feeling of tightness. I had back labor so the worst of it all was the pain in my lower back. With Evie it was sharp cramps that made thinking impossible. Between 12am and 3am I tried to repack my overnight bag several times and finally gave up. I couldn’t focus on anything but breathing through the cramps and trying not to panic.

I called my mom and she said she would come look after Ian. Until she got there our upstairs neighbor Ken agreed to watch him and we transferred Ian upstairs into Ken’s daughter Hannah’s bed. Then, 3am on a cold November night, we drove to the hospital.

Friday, November 20th: Baby update

So the Friday after Evie was due she was still happily ensconced and I had a doctor’s appointment to check the progress (aka, to see whether the cervix was at all dilated). For your amusement, here is the email I sent to my coworkers shortly after my appointment:
________________________________________
From: Hanna
Sent: Friday, November 20, 2009 1:45 PM
Subject: Baby report

So today’s baby report is that I almost strangled the OB/GYN I saw today. He came in, sat down, and asked me “So why are you still pregnant?” GAH! After giving him the evil eye for a moment I told him I have a very stubborn daughter. This was the same OB/GYN who told me three weeks ago that I had a ‘very unexciting cervix.’ His sense of humor is odd. His bravery in joking with huge, grumpy, pregnant women is extraordinary.

The good news is that I DID get my 1 cm back. The bad news is that I ONLY got my 1 cm back. *grumpy* If I make it that long I will be induced at 9am on Black Friday. My poor kids are doomed to be holiday babies.

So this weekend I will be cleaning my whole house, making JD take me out for a steak dinner, going shopping for comfy button-down clothes, and power walking the whole Worcester-Millbury bike trail. I also might drink one (or several) of the following things:

o Glass of wine (per Cynthia)
o Beer (per Mom)
o Raspberry tea (per Mims)

If baby is still happily ensconced on Monday I will be back at work, burning up the VPN. :)

Hanna
________________________________________


For added amusement (and a little more context) here is the slightly edited version I sent to my friends and family:

________________________________________
From: Hanna
Sent: Fri 11/20/2009 4:00 PM
Subject: TMI email on baby status

So I thought I’d share. I don’t remember if I told you, but my due date for the next little Cage was November 19th. Yesterday. Sigh. My doctor visits over the last month have shown that baby Evelyn is quite happy… and that is about it.

Due to timing I’ve seen three different OB/GYN docs in the past four weeks.

o The first one examined me and said “You have a very unexciting cervix. See you next week.” (???)

o The second one (my usual doctor) said “You are one cm dilated!” (Yay!)

o The third one said “Nope, no dilation at all.” (wtf?)

o The fourth one said “Why are you still pregnant?” (*growl*)

Not surprisingly, the ‘unexciting cervix’ and the ‘why are you still pregnant’ were from the same guy. His sense of humor is odd. His bravery in joking with huge, grumpy, pregnant women is extraordinary.

The good news is that I DID get my 1 cm back. The bad news is that I ONLY got my 1 cm back. *grumpy*

So… any day now… or not… I’ll be sending you pics. At the very latest I have an appointment to be induced at 9am on black Friday. Poor kid.

So expect some kind of news, pics, or continuous b*tching, in the next week. :P

________________________________________

Halloween!

My first back in time post is all the way to Halloween. This year Ian was a storm trooper (big surprise), although we nearly had a last minute switch to Darth Maul. It was averted with the promise that NEXT year he would be Darth Maul. Don’t know what we are going to do when we run out of bad guys.

Here are some pictures of him in his STORM TROOPER costume (he says it in all caps too), during this year’s trick-or-treat in the cubicles. Don’t ask me what he is doing in the first pic. Looks like some sort of preschool gang sign.

And for the real star wars geeks, I KNOW that is a clone trooper mask, not a storm trooper mask, but the ST mask that came with the costume was horribly warped. We had to scavenge. /grin

Also, pregnancy mistake #326: Don’t wear these boots while trick-or-treating with your 3 year old if you are 8.5 months pregnant.

They were very sexy... like 8 years ago when I bought them. Now... they've been relegated to Halloween-only status. When I tried to put them on I had to go find the maint guy and beg a screw driver from him. Apparently the heels are held on by screws and one of them was making an escape attempt.

I switched to the sneakers as soon as I gimped back to my office.

On Saturday we were invited to Erin’s for a Halloween party. It rocked, as usual! Tons of games, awesome themed food, and the chance to sit and chat with a whole bunch of other moms. It was great. Afterwards they invited us to stay for dinner and trick-or-treating on their street.

It was Ian’s first ever actual trick-or-treat and he had so much fun. The weather was amazingly warm and the moon was just about full. All of the people on the street knew Neil and Jenny and gave out great loot. I love my friends. :)

1/11/10

So. Hello.

My resolution for this baby was to become a functioning human being a lot faster this maternity leave than I was able to after I had Ian. It worked, as far as getting up, showered, and out of the house was concerned but not so much as far as the blog was concerned.

Part of this was the usual – so many things were just more important at the time – but part of it was the fact that I had a series of sad computer issues. My video card died, taking my USB hub with it which meant I no longer had any free USB ports to hook my camera to… which meant no pictures made it onto my PC. Then when that issue was resolved we made the long awaited jump to windows 7.

My Creative Memories picture program was compatible with Windows 7, or so we thought, but after the reload the program no longer recognized my backup or recovery files. As in, 4000 pictures of Ian and vacations and events… gone.

Or maybe not. I just have to manually locate them, import them, and erase the duplicates… and pray they are all there. So I have been doing that for the past month every free moment until my eyes have bled. I am pretty much scrapping the idea of using the CM software to back up my pictures and am going with a manually created file system. Back to basics seems the best approach.

As an aside, as I write this I have Evie in my lap, perched on her boppy pillow. Every now and then she distracts me with her little laughs. Her smiles are still new enough, and laughs BRAND new enough, to warrant instant attention and interaction. So far it has taken me 30 minutes to write this much of my post.. and I’m not complaining. :)

Anyway, back to my excuses and complaints! So now that I have been sorting pictures for about a week and crying about the humanity of it all, I am ready to start posting again. The next few posts will be going back in time to show the events of the last 4 months. I hope you enjoy!

So it's been a while...

I still don't have time to write anything, but I DO have a big pile of material I want to post up. Pics of Ian and JD carving the pumpkin, pics of Ian in his Storm Trooper costume, pics of trick-or-treating, etc. Expect to see a Halloween album soon.

BUT since I do have some lunch time left I wanted to put up this thought.

Top reasons you know you are READY to give birth:

This sight of your untied shoelace makes you cry.

I haven't quite reached this phase but I did spend several moments yesterday regarding my shoelace in deep depression.

Sitting on my butt in the middle of the cold parking lot to tie my shoe was not very good for my professional image. Getting back up, after sitting on my butt in the middle of the parking lot to tie my shoe, was even worse.

Note to self: Must teach Ian to tie shoelaces.