baby weekend.

we're slowly making the transition from a family of three to a family of four. it has been a little more difficult than i expected, but we're getting there. i've been really happy to have husband home for a week to help and spend time hugging and relaxing with our kids. we haven't been doing much of anything at all and it is so, so nice. 

i mean, sure, there has been plenty of poop and screaming (mostly from ellie) and almost zero sleep, but that's okay. there has also been lots of chocolate and cuddling and cherry coke and i'm happy. 

a couple of (phone, sorry) pictures of our lazy life:

a little blur reading by the window.

she and daddy spent some time hunting for rocks in the woods to make a fire ring in the yard. it was probably the highlight of her week.

mama and ellie time - taking pictures of feet...

and dinosaurs...

and ourselves.

and yes, that is chocolate cake on my shirt. we shared a giant slice and watched a dinosaur show while playing with the phone.

little gas smiles all day long.

poppy is so relaxed and sleepy all the time. she's a dream of a baby so far. we have really enjoyed snuggling her, especially since ellie doesn't hold still for anything (she won't even sleep in our bed with us).

we'll be getting back into the swing of things and (gasp!!) starting to get ready for christmas in a few days. it's hard to believe there is another holiday coming up. our baby was our big holiday for this year. christmas is really no big deal to me.

for today, we're going to enjoy having daddy home and we're going to cuddle his brains out. 

it's baby boo!

introducing penelope elizabeth

november 23, 2011 

3:46 pm

8 lbs 6 oz

21 inches

poppy is here! 

we're still in a whirlwind, so i have really let the blog go when it comes to the big news. sorry.

but are you ready for a story?
here's all about how our new little life started (caution: the mommy kind of "graphic details" follow).
(also, all times are approximate but as close to the truth as i can figure.)

wednesday, 9:15 am:

at 40 weeks, 4 days, we headed in for our appointment with the doctor. they wanted to check boo on the monitors, so we got hooked up and waited. she's not very active in the morning, but the doctor was more concerned about her lack of reaction to the three lollipops i ate... although i did tell her that three lollipops hardly even shines a candle to my normal sugar intake. but then, when the doctor reached in and tickled her head (yes, yuck!), she still didn't really move much. we peeked at her on the ultrasound, too, but not much was happening. her heartbeat was steady, but it should have been fluctuating more. her little fluid bed was starting to decline as well. it wasn't necessarily dangerous, but we decided it was time to call it quits.

i was dilated to a 5, her head was at +2 and my mucous plug had been gone for several days... but the contraction monitor had showed almost nothing going on in there. to sum it up, my body was ready for labor but it just wasn't coming. i thought they would give us a time and date to show up at the hospital next week. instead, the doctor went to make a phone call, came back and told us to head to the hospital. they would be expecting us. i was nervous, mostly because it seemed that they wanted to get boo out as soon as possible to make sure everything was still okay. i didn't want to expect the worst.

11:30 am:

after running home, grabbing our things, changing one last terribly sore bum and kissing our bean farewell, we signed in at the hospital. we mostly just waited for a while - they got a room ready, put a "just-in-case" i.v. in my arm and we settled in for what we thought was going to be a long, rough night. the plan was to break my water with the hopes that we could avoid the use of pitocin (and the eventual epidural to deal with the hell that is pitocin making contractions happen).

1:45 pm:

the doctor came in to check me and to break my water. i wasn't expecting her to come and break it so quickly, but there she was to work her magic. and the water gushed. wow. gross. i slipped into the mobile monitors so that i could pace around for what i thought would be a slow, uncomfortable afternoon.

2:00 pm:

the contractions started. and hurt. like crazy.

2:30 pm:

i got progressively more and more miserable and decided to try and get in the shower to relax.

2:40 pm:

in extreme pain, i started to hyperventilate and quickly got out of the shower.

2:50 pm:

i started whining like a baby, because the pain wasn't really letting up between contractions. i was not expecting it to go from zero to one hundred in one hour. with ellie, i had over 12 hours of time to get used to the building contractions, but this pain hit me like a bus. the monitor wasn't working, so the nurses couldn't see exactly what was happening. that is when i started telling them i couldn't do it, i didn't want to do it and to help me. help me!

2:55 pm:

they put an oxygen mask on me. i begged for and they refused to give me the i.v. pain medication because they couldn't get a good read on the baby's heartbeat. there wasn't really time for medicine anyway.

3:15 pm:

nononononononononono!

3:25 pm:

i couldn't keep from pushing anymore. they had called the doctor at some point, and she came in and checked me and told me to go ahead and push.

3:35 pm:

they kept telling me i was close, which i thought was just their way of trying to keep me from giving up entirely or passing out. i asked why they couldn't just reach in and get her out for me. the husband had been continually telling me that i was doing a great job (which i knew was a lie), reminding me to breathe and trying to get me to squeeze his hand... but i couldn't feel my hands. they said they could see her head, but i still didn't feel like that meant anything at all.

3:46 pm:

she was out! she didn't make any noise, though, and she looked so purple to me. she also looked exactly like ellie did when she came out. she had pooped on the way out and i think they were worried that she had swallowed something. they hurried to get her under the lights and cleaned up. finally i heard her cry but it was still a minute before i got to cuddle up with her. they said she was just quiet because she was shocked. "it's like she just got off of a rollercoaster and then fell off a cliff," the nurse told me.

i couldn't believe it was only two hours later. i couldn't even believe it was still that same day. i couldn't stop shaking uncontrollably for a good hour afterward. i can still hardly believe it even happened! it was a totally unmedicated birth, even more so than i had expected it to be. she is just perfect and there was no need to worry about her, she is just a sleepy girl and very calm. i'm glad she's here, though, and we're all healthy and happy. the timing couldn't have been better.

so that is that. she came wednesday, we got home thursday and spent friday having a little bit of a make-up thanksgiving with family. it has been pretty quiet but not exactly relaxing - ellie bean makes sure of that. she's a wonderful (but wild!) big sister. daddy is home for a little while and has really stepped up his game. even judge is being mostly well-behaved... but that doesn't mean anybody is getting any sleep around here. 

stay tuned to the new adventures of the fowler family.

and there will be better (not-from-the-phone) pictures eventually.

two.

we're still waiting on boo, although according to the doctor she should have pretty much fallen out of my body by now.

we (well, mostly me) are trying hard not to go absolutely off the deep end while we wait. it is getting hard for me to be pleasant.

we'll let you know when the situation changes. hope that it is soon.

can you believe we're going to have two of these things?!

(p.s. - posting from my phone for the first time. hope it works.)

getting closer.

if you're looking for an update,
we are somewhere between "keeping busy" and "hanging in there."

it will be 39 weeks on saturday.

luckily we have one little girl right here to distract us from the waiting game.

i could do without her running from diaper changes,
but it's all worth it when she tells me "i love you, mama" when i put her in bed at night.

thanks.

this week i'm thankful for

ultrasounds
the end of daylight savings (gosh it is dark outside!)
children's books
photographs
the color yellow
pumpkin
ellie songs
hot chocolate
my warm bed
a husband who goes to work before the sun comes up to take care of us
coupons
french fries
friends, here and there and everywhere


along with many other things.



here's something cute for your weekend:

i went to get bean out of bed and she had her pants off and her arm out of her sleeve and she was jumping around like crazy. the first thing she says to me?

"where da arm go?"

i love her face.

last friday we had a chance to take one more peek at our baby boo through an ultrasound.

i didn't have an ultrasound past 20 weeks with ellie, so it was really strange to have the doctor moving the wand all over my stomach from my ribs to my hips (which is a rather large area these days) and seeing only parts of her at a time. "and wayyyy over here is a foot... and over on this side... a hand... and down here, just above your right thigh, is her face."

i watched her move her little fingers, making a fist and then wiggling each finger separately.

and we got pictures of her face:

i think it is hard to see it if you don't know what you are looking for, so here's a little map:

i know, it pretty much just looks like some kind of white noise, but that's a baby in there!

i think her nose looks like ellie's nose. 

i can't wait to see what she looks like up close, not on the radar screen.

happy hallooooweeeeeeennnn.

("mama, i runnin'!")

husband and i decided that this was probably our best halloween ever, 

including the halloweens when we were kids. 

we did the trunk-or-treat on wednesday night and it only took bean one or two cars to get the hang of it. she loved the idea and soon had a bucket full of candy. it was pretty late when we started, though - about an hour past her bedtime - and she made her rounds with her paci in her mouth. when we got home, she took all of her candy out and looked at it, piece by piece, and then put it back in the bucket again. she cried when it couldn't come to bed with her.

 (the face in the second picture totally explains how much she loved this holiday.)

we had another chance to go for real trick-or-treating with some friends in a wonderful neighborhood. we had dinner and the kids ran wild in their costumes and everyone had a great time.

(this is the only picture i got of her holding still and looking at the camera at the same time.)

  (she tried to invite herself inside every house we visited.)

 ellie was a little slower than the big kids and a little faster than the little kids while making her way through the neighborhood. she even fell down a couple of times (the pumpkin bucket broke her fall), but she was determined to walk the whole way. when she realized we were at one of the last houses, she started to get sad. daddy carried her during a section of the street where there weren't any houses, but she refused to relinquish the bucket. that thing was heavy, too!

 (the whole trick-or-treat gang.)

it was just so much fun to see our sweet little ladybug run from house to house trick-or-treating. we never could get her to say "trick-or-treat," though. instead, she told everyone "i gettin' tandy!" 

(hey, she's honest.)

 (baby and daddy halloween mug shot, brought to you by my phone.)

after we got home she was exhausted, but she still wanted to hang on to that bucket and take it in her bed. she even woke up at 4 in the morning and asked for her "pumpkin bucket." she cried herself to sleep when i wouldn't let her go crazy with candy in the wee hours of the morning.

...and i almost forgot a picture of my "costume" (really, it's just a glorified t-shirt, but still) (also, i may be in love with freezer paper stenciling). bun in the oven. get it?



being a mom is the best. being my girl's mom is even better.
we seriously had the time of our lives. 
it just makes me all the more excited for the holiday season with ellie bean...
and little boo, too.


(special thanks to all my friends who took most of these pictures.)