Rosie's birth photos

How many newborns have you seen within minutes of their birth???

Rosie's birth story

Before I delve into Rosie's birth story, I should recap on Henry's a little, just 19 months ago...

July 2010, I didn't feel great all day Sunday; we sat around and played cards. Late afternoon Danny went to get my folks from the airport, I cooked dinner. We started timing the contractions around 10pm. We went to the hospital at 1am, when contractions were 2 minutes apart and had been for 1.5 hours. They sent us home the next day at 2pm. I cried in the bath. I laboured alone all day Tuesday, with contractions still 2 minutes apart. We went to the doctors office at 5pm because I refused to go back to the hospital, he confirmed 5 cm dilation and we walked across to the hospital. Waters broke as I was pushing. We had Henry just before 9pm, after the doctor threatened me with a c-section.

Roughly 48 hours of labouring.

So I was in it for the long haul this time also. Or so I thought.

I had been having contractions on and off for extended periods of time for the past two weeks, particularly around 2 am. So when I woke up with mild cramps Thursday morning, I thought nothing of it. The only thing different from the past two weeks was that I had to pee after every cramp, I would guess at every 10 minutes, but I wasnt timing them at all. I was looking for a bloody show like last time and there was nothing. They started to hurt around 6am and I had to groan through them, though Danny didnt wake up until 630am and asked how I was. I told him we were probably having a baby in the next day or two. He got pretty excited!

I got up to pee around 7am, walked back to the bed, stood over it for a contraction and there was a pop and my shorts filled up with fluid. "Er, Danny, something just happened". "What do you mean, something just happened? What happened?" "I think my waters just broke, Im going in the shower". "Oh". It wasn't a lot of fluid, but enough to notice; the baby was pretty low. Danny wanted to call the midwives, but I said there was no need. He played with Henry and felt compelled to set up the birthing tub. I laboured on the toilet, on my own. He decided, against my wishes, that it was time to call the midwives; thank goodness! When Missy arrived (about 1030am) and heard the noises I was making, she ran straight into the bathroom and insisted she check me. I of course cried that I didn't want to hear it if I was only 2 cm (because of the mean nurses last time) and sort of refused to get checked! She was going to check me whether I liked it or not and it would be easier on the bed so I had to move. It took several contractions to make it to the bedroom, but we got there; 6-7 cm! yeay. I balanced myself on the birthing ball (so comfy!) and poor Missy ran between comforting me between contractions (1-2 minutes) and trying to change the bed, set up the oxygen, yada yada yada!

Our friend Lana came to pick up Henry about the same time Missy arrived and Danny continued to fiddle with the birthing tub. He had filled it up without the sterile lining, drained it and was furiously boiling water to fill it back up with the sterile liner, since he had used all of the hot water!

Jamie and Martina arrived about 1050am and now every one was in the bedroom, getting things ready. Suddenly I announced that I could feel the babys head and they told me I had to move to the bed. Indignant that they thought I could move in that much pain, I told them they were crazy. They informed me that I could not give birth sitting on the ball so I had to move. ugh. I made it onto the bed on all fours, holding Dannys hips and burying my face in his belly. It only took a few pushes and the head came out a little but they told me I couldnt wait for a contraction to push more because the head was stuck at the eyes, so I had to push with no urge to push, and that was a feat against nature! With the head out, the shoulders were stuck as they announced that it was a large baby. Someone tried to wiggle the shoulders out (I later found out that was Missy) but then someone else took over (Martina) and the agony ensued as I was jiggled up and down by someone else's shoulders! All of a sudden the baby was released (I was trying to crawl away from the pain across the bed!) and I realised how much my throat hurt from screaming. 20 minutes after our main midwife arrived, our beautiful little girl was born. I couldnt see her and was distraught because she wasnt crying. I could just see this little blue foot. I asked several times why she wasnt crying and people just went about their business. Turns out it was less than a minute, but it seemed like an eternity. I managed to turn myself around and she started to make some noise, though Im not sure if she really ever cried, as such. She scored an 8 and then a 9 on the 1 and 5 minute Apgar tests.

We didnt use the birthing tub!

Henry saw Rosie when she was just 30 minutes old!

Danny made the comment that evening, as we sat at our kitchen table, alone, to eat our dinner in a surreal state of shock, that it was a good thing that we planned to home birth as he was pretty sure that I would have refused to go to the hospital and that it would have been an ambulance crew delivering our baby, and he is probably right. I had no intention of leaving this house!

Its silly that we were taken by surprise because I was pregnant for 40 weeks and 1 day! But I certainly didnt expect a 4 or 5 hour labour, thats for sure! Though I am super glad it was so fast!!!

Immediately post-natal photos to follow as I have to go get Henry up from his nap...

Thanks a lot full moon

Well, the full moon has been no help to me this month, eh! No contractions at all today. Blood pressure is a bit high and my lower legs and feet are swollen. I am very uncomfortable!

On a different note, we bought Henry a potty today, it was just $3 so we thought we would give it a try. He lifted up the little lid, sat down and pee peed in the potty. Good boy!

Henry's sleeping habits are rather off kilter for some reason at the moment and he didnt take an afternoon nap yesterday, so we went to visit Lana and Knox and play in the huge 'sand pit' at the end of their road...

Im going to be pregnant forever

Like most people, I had a thousand due dates. Well, just two, but still, that's annoying enough. So one due date passed on Saturday and one is Wednesday. I have lost all hope for the full moon to bring the baby because its Monday afternoon and Im not in labour, so tomorrow is pretty much out of the question now. I have resolved myself to the fact that I am going to be pregnant forever.

I got pretty excited yesterday as I had 2 minute contractions all morning, then 5, then 7 and then they stopped early afternoon. Fantastic. So disappointing.

I go through bouts of being incredibly uncomfortable and periods of feeling normal (pregnant, 50 lbs heavier than usual, normal at least).

Im guessing there is still a two week window when this baby could show up. yeay. Oh and to boot, all I want to do right now is climb into bed, (yes, I realise its 2 in the afternoon - Im tired, alright) but Henry is talking away in his room, refusing to take a nap and stressing either that his socks are on and he needs them off, or that they are off and he needs them on. Please go to sleep little man.

Here are some pictures from our stomping around in the puddles Saturday... It was all fun and games until Henry stepped into a puddle that went over his boots. He was no longer a happy camper after that and screamed until he was running around the house almost naked, as is the way he seems most happy. Roll on warmer weather so that he can live naked the whole time, though a winter of 50s and 60s really is nothing to complain about!

Its decided!

Well, we just looked it up and the full moon is February 7th, so we have booked our birth in for next Tuesday, as births often coincide with storms or full moons! Yeay! I am so glad it is decided!

Im rather ready to have my body back!

Some family pics

We took these pictures about a month ago, so Id have been 34 weeks pregnant and Henry was coming up on 18 months old. Danny was 30 years and 9 months.

Henry and I have had a lovely morning doing NOTHING! Its been fantastic. We watched the rain, read books in bed, played hide and seek, cars, chase, play-doh, had lunch and now he is napping, and Im probably not far behind. Rainy days at home are good every so often!

Very pregnant

Some random pictures of my little monkey first!

I just realised that when you are this pregnant, is when people are most interested in you, and I havent been blogging at all! So sorry. Reason is, I keep wanting to put pictures up, so Danny takes them and then doesnt make them available to me. Good job I didnt pay him, mind you, if I had paid, perhaps I would have got some photos! I mean seriously, why should some family who has paid thousands of dollars to have a professional photographer cover their wedding, come before pictures of my fat belly!?! Ridiculous!

So I have taken matters into my own hands and used my phone to take a profile pictures of my belly at 38 weeks. I know a black dress isnt the way to show how huge you look, but I just thought of doing this, so Ill get an actually belly shot tonight and post it.

Obviously, I am huge! I have booked myself a manicure for next week to make me feel better about weighing the most Ive ever weighed. To be honest, the weight doesnt bother me so much, its more the aching hips in the evenings, or the sore ribs in the mornings, or the peeing every 15 minutes. I think my cold of the past 6 weeks has finally gone. Though now Henry has a cold and Danny may possibly be getting one. Poor newborn coming into this unhealthy climate.

I walked 4 miles on the trails Sunday, 3.5 miles around town yesterday and have plans to do the same today during my lunch break.

Next week is probably going to be my last week of work.

I fell over again. This time just from the couch. But this time I cried, because it actually hurt. I landed on the side of my ankle and took a baby to the lungs, which really winded me, and shocked the bageebas out of the baby.

A month has passed

Here is a picture of Henry in the Kroger parking lot Saturday. He cried when I made him get out of the little car. He had had an all out kicking and screaming tantrum that morning because I tried to put his rubber boots on him so we could splash in the rain. Some battles just arent worth the fight, so I didnt make him wear them. Royal waste of money they were.

I have lots of pictures for you, but as usual, Danny is away and I dont know where they are. We took some family pics on timer the other day and then some of my 36 week watermelon.

36 weeks. Isnt that insane.

Henry has gone through a two week spout of refusing to eat and is back into gorging himself on whatever you put in front of him. During that two week period, he got his top two canines. He has a daily pre-dinner snack of frozen peas and corn. He has developed his fondness of his Papa and misses him terribly when he is gone. He ran naked around the house tonight holding the phone because Danny was skyping on it. He has cultivated a love of his Uncle Jonathan to the point where you cant mention his name or Henry will call it out for about 10 minutes incessantly. Jonathan is staying with us this week, so he is getting his far share of Henry kisses. He has lots of new words; purple, blue, yellow, orange, cookie, raisins, strawberries, NO (often proceeded by Mummy), trust fall (Tosh.0 watchers will understand this one), Beep Bo (belly button), Neigh (horse sound), Moo (cow sound), shoes, lights, drink, milk, please... there are many more. He is a thorough pleasure to be around the majority of the time; a lovely young man. He has pee-peed in the potty several times and knows that if he successfully pee pees in the potty, he gets one little jelly bean, so he makes sure and pee pees in the potty every night! He pee pees everywhere else as well, but realises that doesnt get him a piece of candy!

In the past month I have turned 31 years old. Become more and more pregnant, and more and more tired as a result! I have taken to napping whenever I can. I have gained 45 lbs since June of last year. Shocking. I have had lots of Braxton Hicks contractions, and if I were a first time mum, I probably would have thought I was going into labour, they were so frequent last weekend. This past Saturday I fell over, straight on my butt, whilst holding a cup of water at the candy store. Yes, I know what you are thinking, having gained 45 lbs already, like I need a candy store. Whatever. I actually look smaller (in the face and arms - not the massive belly) than when I was this pregnant with Henry. The baby continues to jab me in the ribs and painfully stretch its legs out. Oh and I may have accidentally found out that the baby is a boy, though I am trying to ignore the comment. The business desk lady at the doctors told me this past visit that I had to pay for HIS circumcision next visit. I looked at her and asked what if it wasnt a boy. erm. She looked a little surprised and said, well then you will get your money back. And she also likes to make a point of telling me its more expensive at the doctors office than at the hospital, like that is going to convince me into a hospital birth. Its more likely to convince me not to circumcise woman. Anyway, I dont know if the people at the desk even see your medical records, maybe Ill ask next time I go, but either way, I am trying to forget she said it!

I thought Id been doing well; I walk to work and back, I walk an hour or so on my days off. But I just did the prenatal yoga dvd for the first time in months and it about killed me, no lie. And if you dont believe that I am all belly, imagine that to do a lunge I had to manual maneuver my belly into position with my hands and even then it was resting on my leg. Or the fact that to do a forward fold I had to have my legs wide apart and still my belly rested between my legs. Not long now folks!

Goofy kid

It was an ugly day for me, so I thought Id post some funny pictures.

Having recently consented to giving up cycling for exercise (several dogs ran out to 'greet' me on my last ride because of the cooler weather), but still wanting to enjoy my hour alone three days a week, I turned to jogging today. Im going to clarify that I said, JOGGING (not running). It was a lovely jog in the mid-day sun with bright blue, almost autumnal skies, but not quite, since it was still over 80F! Then I tripped, on nothing at all. Nothing at all. Thankfully, wearing sunglasses, I was able to cry the next 5 minutes down the road without anybody noticing. Well that is, unless they looked at the blood pouring out of both of my knees and my hand, thankfully the left hand. I did complete the rest of my 50 minute jog, having stopped crying (reasonably) quickly. So now, with a swollen twisted ankle, a gash out of my left thumb (which is going to be a bi-tch to heal because of its location - cant even tie my own hair up), a huge divot out of my right knee, a graze on my left knee and a serious feeling of self-pity, I wonder what the next 20 weeks has in store for me if I cant get outside and exercise... its going to be a grim winter. Id take being huge through the summer with the outdoor pool right there at my finger tips over a winter of feeling like a beached whale, most likely in her husbands clothes with no physical activity except workout dvds, any day. I love being pregnant, but I HATE not being able to exercise, and Im not an overly nice person to live with without exercise, so please all of you, pity my wonderful husband. It cant be time to be stuck with walking already, not with as much energy as I have and not with this beautiful weather.

Maternity clothes

I just unpacked my maternity clothes from last time... so excited to wear some of those tee-shirts again, but a little surprised I am using them again so soon after last time! I sure hope its not a cold winter like the last one as I dont intend to spend lots of money on sweaters and have just two pairs of maternity jeans, one of which I may have purchase too small. Its so warm and beautiful out, Im really having trouble imagining that I will need sweaters anytime soon... Can I make through the entire winter...

First time for everything...

Tonight is the first night that we are trying the go to bed hungry thing. Henry didnt eat much of his dinner tonight and we didnt offer him a second option. We shall see what happens at 3am.

He does have another tooth, so thats what last weeks upset tummy must have been about. A molar on the bottom left jaw. He just has the middle two and the one molar at the back, nothing in between! Goodness knows how many other teeth he has in there, Im scared to stick my fingers in because he chomps down!

We had a fun day today. H played in a metal tub full of water. After nap time we went to the pool and then for ice cream. I went riding to the lake all on my own! Totally embarrassed myself as I was leaving the house though. The neighbours were sitting on their stoop so I went to tell them we were going to the pool later if they wanted to come. My new clips are stiffer than the old ones and I couldnt unclip my foot and ended up laying on my side under my bike in their front yard! I blamed it on pregnancy balance issues but really Im a dumb arse! At 16.5 weeks I have already gained 15 lbs, can you imagine if I didnt do as much exercise as I already do!

You never knew we had a private jacuzzi did you!

Busy week ahead. Lots of good bye events at the lab tomorrow, visiting with a midwife in Memphis Tuesday as we are considering a home birth, and still the painters will be here so no afternoon napping in his room. Going to be another tiring week! Oh and did I say my rib cage was hurting, sorry I meant my entire torso aches every morning and Im not sleeping. When I do sleep I have horrid horrid pregnancy nightmares. Will I ever get some rest!? NOPE

New kicks

I dont know why I ever worry about my son's eating habits. He had some gnarly diapers friday and then he ate like a champ. I need to just realise that he will eat if he is feeling ok. Unfortunately the most gnarly of them all was sitting outside the library and it came out of the diaper onto the very white onesie and all over the overalls too. Thankfully mummy had a bag for the ickiness and a spare onesie in the stroller.

So story time at the library wasn't overly successful for us and it turns out we didn't even make it to story time, we were at toddler time. Henry just kept taking other children's shoes. The little girls would kick him demanding their shoes back and sometimes he even wanted little girls who had taken their shoes off, to put them back on. So despite the fact that he doesnt need any shoes as he isn't walking, and the fact that he wont wear the sandals he has, we went straight to Neilson's to buy H some new Kicks. We debated the Toms but the soles were a little hard and they are supposed to learn to walk barefoot, so we went with the Pedipeds - hand made with leather soles so its almost like not wearing shoes at all. Henry absolutely loves them and wants to wear them all of the time! Which is great because they cost a small fortune. Papa loved them when he got home too, then I told him they were $35.50 before tax and he about had a heart attack. The thing is, kids feet are important and at the rate H grows, he will be wearing these shoes at least until he needs to start wearing socks around October time. Pediped also had some 18-24 months sheep skin lined moccasins for the fall, so Mummy is already eyeing those up! He loves his new shoes and the good thing is, I dont feel guilty letting him play on the dirty pavements on the square or out and about.

Henry and his new shoes:

We had another fantastic day today. I just love being Henry's Mummy, we have so much fun! He woke up at the usual time, 645am on the dot; Mama, Mama! My rib cage has been aching first thing in the morning so usually at this calling of my name I sit up instantly and just sit there a few minutes, let the aching go away. We had an early breakfast today then walked the dogs. Knox and Lana came over and we walked to the farmers market where they had sweet potatoes for the first time. Pretty exciting as Papa loves sweet potatoes. Because they were dug this week, you are supposed to not use them for 2-3 weeks so I had to inform Danny we couldnt have them this week. Zion Farms also had ground lamb which will be a nice treat this week; we talked about ordering half a cow from him too. Its pricey but I wont buy meat from the supermarket so you get what you pay for in my opinion. We then walked over to Square Books Junior for story time where the little guys played with a thousand other little guys! After a nice stroll home Henry had fun walking behind his walker thingy and playing on the couches, which were returned to us a littler earlier than we needed them, but at least Danny didnt have to go get them. We had leant them to Ibrahim who had some folks staying in his unfurnished house. It worked out for us because we dont have room for them right now, but they gave them back today, so we are little cramped in our living room/bedroom.

Speaking of, the bedrooms are coming along nicely. Its taking a whole lot longer than we expected but you cant rush beauty I suppose. Its actually been really hard for me because Henry hasn't been able to sleep in his bedroom during the day. The first day we cycled for two hours and he slept 40 minutes. The second day we walked for 2 hours and he slept 35 minutes, so exhausted, the third day I tried getting him so sleep on my bed. It took me about 40 minutes but then he (and I) slept 3.5 hours, so it was blissful rest! Friday was eventful for us because we looked after Knox and Jayden came over to visit, so we had a full house and H didnt take his nap (usually at 1pm) until 330pm! Little trooper. And we had to wake him up at 515pm to go get some dinner - the new baby wanted a cheese burger! So today Mummy was exhausted! It was so nice to put H in his bed for his nap rather than struggle to get him to sleep on my bed and then have to lie there with him so he didnt fall off the bed. Mind you, I was so tired I ended up collapsing into bed too, and I slept HARD! We played a little while then went across the street to visit with our neighbours and Henry played with the side walk chalk with Darden (3 yrs old). After some delicious home made tomato soup and grilled cheeses (with bread from Lana) and a nice bath, we did some walking and bouncing on the bed like we do every evening and H is now soundly asleep in bed. For some reason I am still exhausted so Im going to clean up after the day of destruction, sweep, mop and settle down to some ironing. Danny has a wedding in Clarksdale and probably wont be home til after midnight - that man works so stinking hard! Trooper!

Henry and Knox giving Mummy a hard time!

Oh and it seems at 16.5 weeks pregnant I have reached the stage where I no longer look like I have a (very fashionable) muffin top; two women asked me when I was due today, so hooray! I look pregnant and I guess with all this tiredness today, I feel it too, though its probably about time!