Mabel's First Week

Our first week home with Mabel has gone about as good as you could expect with a newborn and 3 year old.  We got home mid-day on Thursday.  I pretty much holed up in the bedroom for the remainder of the day, but Jason's family had a nice time grilling and hanging out that evening.

The next morning, I took Mabel to the pediatrician for her first checkup.  (She's hiding from the doctor in the first picture below. 😛) She had a bit of jaundice in the hospital, but the pediatrician was happy with how she looked and didn't run any additional blood work for it.  Jason's family headed out that morning, and my parents arrived later that day.

Mabel has been an angel during the days.  Her naps have been pretty lengthy, to the point where I will wake her up after about 3 hours to eat.  We're trying to limit crutches (pacifier, swaddling, baby devices, etc.) as much as we can at this point, so during day she naps unswaddled on her topponcino. 

Nights, on the other hand, have been tough.  A few nights, I've barely slept at all because she's wanted to nurse incessantly.  We're trying to get in a better groove though.  Last night she actually slept in 2-3 hour increments (swaddled in the rock and play), so I'd be happy if she keeps that up.

Breastfeeding has been going pretty smoothly, thank goodness.  She's not the most enthusiastic eater in the world, so we're working on getting good meals in when she does nurse.  Usually, this means that I'll nurse her for a bit, burp her and change her diaper to wake her up, and then get her to finish her meal.  Seems to be working better for the time being.

On Saturday, we dressed the girls up and headed to our church/ Matilda's school's Easter egg hunt.  It was nice to get out of the house for a bit.

We just hung out at the house the rest of the day on Saturday.  Matilda enjoyed having her grandparents around to read books and play.

My parents left Sunday morning after a particularly rough night with Mabel.  Matilda was also pushing every boundary imaginable, so we just spent the rest of Sunday trying to recuperate and get into a groove of being a new family of four.

We also gave Mabel her first at-home bath.  She did pretty well, despite her grumpy faces.  Ha.  This girl has some pretty awesome grouch faces, even though she's been pretty mellow overall.

Yesterday was pretty nice.  After Matilda decorated her face while Jason brought me coffee in bed (teeheehee), we took a nice stroll to the park for a bit.  Later in the day, we met a friend for dinner and Matilda had a great time playing with her 2.5 year old son. I just have to be careful about not overdoing it.  I'm still not fully recovered from labor, and the pain catches up to me if I push it.

Mabel's Birth Story

Mabel Kay made her arrival at 11:04 pm on Tuesday, April 11th, weighing 6 lbs 12 ounces at 20.5 inches long.  If birth stories aren't your thing, feel free to skip this post.  (I mostly just wrote it so I wouldn't forget the details.)

Around 9 pm as I headed to bed on Monday, I started noticing infrequent contractions.  I tried not to get too excited since I had been having evening/ night contractions on and off for weeks.  I stayed up watching Netflix until about 11 pm when I finally fell asleep.  About 1.5 hours into sleep, I woke up with pretty painful contractions that felt like Charlie horses.  I couldn't fall back to sleep in between contractions, so I got up and headed to the couch for the rest of the night.  Around 4 am or so I started timing them, and they were anywhere from 10-20 minutes apart. 

Jason and Matilda eventually got up for the day.  At this point, I was pretty sure it was early labor.  Matilda had school that day and she wanted me to go with them to drop her off.  We were sure to tell her teachers that we thought I might be in labor and that one of Matilda's uncles would probably pick her up.  I was a bit worried at this point since my contractions hadn't got any closer, so I put a call into my doctor just in case.  They had me go ahead and head up to labor and delivery to get checked out. 

We headed home to finish packing our hospital bag, and probably got to L&D a bit before 11 am.  They said I was a centimeter dilated and told me to head home until my contractions were 3-5 minutes apart.  So, we picked up Chick-fil-a on our way home.  Jordan met us at the house to eat lunch and hang out for a bit.  Jason installed a car seat in Jordan's car in case anything progressed so he would have it for Matilda.  I ate and went to lay down to rest.  At this point, my contractions quickly dropped to consistently 10 minutes apart, and then all of the sudden, with little to no warning (around 1 pm), they were 3-5 minutes apart.  I had tried a heating pad to help with the pain, but what worked the best was me standing, leaning over, and Jason pushing on my lower back during every contraction.

We had Jordan head to pick up Matilda and since we were nearly an hour into the 3-5 minute contractions, we made the call to go ahead and head back up to L&D before Jordan and Matilda got back to the house.

We got to L&D between 2-3 pm.  We were only in the triage room for a very short bit before they sent us to our labor room.  I tried to labor as long as I could without the epidural, but by 6 pm, I was exhausted and fighting the contractions rather than relaxing through them.  I pretty much just sat with my eyes closed, cross-legged on the labor bed, afraid to move, with Jason pushing on my lower back until I asked for the epidural around 6 pm.  My water also broke around this same time.

As crunchy as I am, the epidural was the best decision I made that day.  It took them about an hour to get everything ready, but once it was in, I felt like a human again.  I was surprised how much feeling I still had with the epidural.  I could feel my legs and feet, the tops of the contractions, and could change positions on the bed if needed.

Mary, our L&D nurse, left Jason and I to rest for a bit.  I put on a podcast and tried to rest, but within 30 minutes or so, Mary rushed back in to start monitoring the baby a bit a closer.  Within minutes, we had 10-12 nurses and doctors in the room.  Mabel's heartbeat had started to dip to the 90 range during contractions.  They assured us this is not uncommon when a labor is progressing quickly, but because of my previous C-section, they needed to make sure I wasn't experiencing a uterine rupture or anything else that could be causing the baby distress.  Sure enough, I had dilated from about 4 centimeters when they administered the epidural to 6 centimeters within the hour.  Within about 30 more minutes, I was 7 centimeters dilated.

I was fairly calm through the excitement.  Besides some pretty bad shakes, I was feeling ok.  They put a heartrate monitor on Mabel's scalp, added some more "amniotic" type of fluid back into me, and had me rotate from side to side during contractions to see if maybe her cord was getting compressed in certain positions.  At this point, I was so thankful I had gotten the epidural.  I would have been miserable trying to labor naturally through all of that.  Also, in case they did need to make the decision to head to an emergency C-section, I wouldn't have to be put under general anesthesia.

Mabel's heartbeat finally stabilized and my doctor arrived and made the decision to let me continue to labor.  About two hours later, around 10 pm, I asked Mary if she thought Mabel was going to be born on the 11th or 12th.  She said it was hard to say.  I told her I had been feeling pressure down low and my contractions had been about 1-2 minutes apart, so she went ahead and checked me again.  Sure enough, I was fully dilated and Mabel was sitting low enough for me to start pushing. 

She set up delivery table and within an hour, Mabel was born.  I had been worried about her being sunny side up for delivery since she had been crazy active during labor and I had thought I had felt some kicks in the front.  Luckily, she was in a good position for delivery.  There was some meconium during the final phase, but the NICU nurses quickly checked her out and handed her back to me for skin on skin time.  She took about 15-30 minutes to be interested in feeding, but eventually made a decent attempt. 

I think the hardest part of the whole experience was going into labor in the middle of one night and delivering in the middle of the next.  By Wednesday morning, I realized that I had only had 1.5 hours of sleep since Sunday night. 

The rest of our hospital stay was relatively calm. Matilda meeting her little sis was one of the happiest and cutest moments I've ever experienced.  She was so excited to finally meet her.

Here are some pictures from the rest of our hospital stay...

All dressed up and ready to head home...

And in case you were wondering, newborn Mabel and Matilda look nothing alike...

It will be interesting to see if they have any similar features as they continue to grow.

My Pregnancy with Miss Mabel

This poor pregnancy has hardly been documented.  It's kind of sad compared to how detailed I was with my first pregnancy.  Last time I took such great weekly pictures with monthly blog updates; this time I was lucky to have snapped a few pictures of me in PJ's in the dirty bathroom mirror.

And I can't say it's been because this pregnancy has been so similar to the last.  In fact, this pregnancy has been very different. 

The first trimester was pretty similar overall.  I was just very, very tired the entire time.  (Jason kept saying he didn't remember me being this tired last time, but I reassured him I was.)  This time however, I had some morning sickness between weeks 10 and 18.  It was always first thing in the morning, and usually triggered by smell (like freshly brewing coffee).  I could usually curb it by eating Cheerios in bed before I even stood up.  Luckily, it went away a bit into the 2nd trimester, and it never lasted into the day like some women's do.

November 12th - 19 weeks

Another thing that was different from our pregnancy with Matilda is that we chose to do some genetic screenings at 14 weeks.  We just did one of the basic blood work screenings that showed a low likelihood of chromosomal disorders.  We also found out through the blood work that we were having another girl.  While we would have been happy with a boy or a girl, I think both of us were leaning towards a girl because we already knew what to expect and we already had a bunch of girl stuff.

November 22nd - 20 weeks

The 20 week anatomy scan was good other than the fact that they thought she might have a hole between the two lower chambers of her heart (VSD).  We had a fetal echocardiogram a few weeks later.  It didn't note any major heart defects, but apparently it's not detailed enough to pick up small holes like the one they thought she might have had.  Plus, small holes can close themselves either before or after birth.  The doctor just recommended that the pediatrician check for a murmur at birth, and we'll go from there.

 December 13th - 23 weeks

I don't remember many huge complaints during the second trimester, other than a sinus infection around 23 weeks.  I've had some hip discomfort, but not the sharp/ throbbing sciatic nerve pain I had with Matilda.  Usually, if I don't sit on the floor for long periods of time or overdo it physically, my hips are ok this time around.

December 22nd - 24.5 weeks

Another bump in the road in this pregnancy was that I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes around 28 weeks.  The test was the day after I came back from a work trip where I had indulged in too many sweets.  Based on my blood sugar levels (they had me testing 4x a day, and now 2x), I am highly skeptical that I actually have it.  I've just had to watch my carbs, but as long as I eat reasonably, my sugars have been fine.

Another weird symptom that started around this point was swelling ankles.  I already have hardy enough ankles without the swelling.  I've learned that keeping my feet elevated or wearing compression socks has helped.

January 14th - 28 weeks

Matilda grabbed my phone one day at the park and took the pictures of me above. :)

 January 24th - 29 weeks

Since I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, they have me alternating between ultrasounds and fetal non-stress tests (NST)'s at every doctor's visit.  They've all been A-Okay.  The ultrasounds check the amniotic fluid levels, do a biophysical profile, and check her growth.  She's still been on the small side during all of the ultrasounds (less than 25%), so they haven't been worried she's getting too big (which is a complication of gestational diabetes).  The NST's just monitor her heart rate for a bit and make sure she's active.

Another plus of the frequent ultrasounds, is that we've been able to confirm she's been heads down pretty much the entire pregnancy.  No extraordinary attempts to flip this baby have been necessary!

February 8th - 31 weeks 

February 10 - 31.5 weeks

At 34 weeks, I had a bit of a scare and ended up in labor and delivery for 2-3 hours.  I was having contractions every 2-5 minutes.  Since they weren't painful and I wasn't dilating, they just made me drink a bunch of water and sent me home.  I've had contractions on and off since then.  They'll usually last a few hours, but don't intensify and usually dissipate after awhile.  Other than a few sporadic Braxton Hicks contractions with Matilda (usually when working out), I never had anything close to consistent contractions or labor. 

February 25th - 34 weeks

Good thing Miss Mabel didn't come early, because my office threw me a sweet baby shower at 35 weeks.  It was beautifully decorated, the cakes were delicious, and the gifts were so generous.  :)

March 6 - 35 weeks

 

March 10th - 36 weeks

As far as weight gain, I think I'm up about 24 pounds at this point.  I gained a lot of weight early on with this pregnancy (probably due to not being as active this time around), but once I started monitoring my diet with the gestational diabetes, my weight gain plateaued a bit.  I've only gained about 3-4 pounds the entire third trimester (which is usually when women gain most of the weight).

 March 22nd - 37.5 weeks

I'm at the point in this pregnancy (39 weeks) where I am ready for Miss Mabel's arrival.  Her movements have become painful, I'm not sleeping great, my legs have been cramping, and we're just generally anxious to meet her.  Matilda comes into our room every morning and peeks into the pack and play and asks, "Is Baby Sister here yet?"  It's so sweet and pretty much captures all of our sentiments. 

March 26th - 38 weeks

We're hoping for a successful VBAC this time around.  If I don't have Mabel before my due date, my doctor will let me go to about 41 weeks to try to have her naturally.  If I'm not showing any progress, we'll have to schedule another C-section.  She won't induce unless I'm already in labor and have just stalled.  That's one reason we'd be perfectly happy if she decides to make her appearance this week.  Last time around, this is when we had our scheduled C-section with Matilda, so playing the waiting game is new for us.  We can't wait to meet Miss Mabel.