Another year full of firsts

I know that people do it everyday, but adding another child to our family can be described with two of my husband's favorite words. Squirrel. Derby. I never imagined the chaos that would ensue once our second bundle of joy appeared. Ben has adjusted so well and really loves his little sister. Fortunately for Lily she doesn't know what life was like before he was around. (Read: quiet, calm and sometimes boring) The last year has challenged us in new ways as parents and also shown me that we can do things I never thought possible.

The first three weeks with Lily were rough and I struggled a lot. There's the constant tiredness and haze that you feel when you never seem to get enough sleep. And the fact that she never liked to be set down. Thank goodness Ben still went to daycare at that time or I think I would have been completely overwhelmed. I am very fortunate that my mom lives in town and holding babies happens to be one of her favorite past times. And thank goodness for that because I was really the only person that Lily wanted, but grandma came in a close second. As you may have guessed, my Lily was NOT a daddy's girl for the first 10 weeks of her life. Which is understandable. He doesn't have much to offer by way of milk. The nice thing about it, is that instead of cleaning closets and dusting I spent 12 weeks holding my baby (and watching really bad, really awesome TV on Bravo. I know all the Housewives of everywhere by name.) Lily and I did everything in my room. Slept, watched TV, ate lunch. And it was fabulous. At the time I felt it was trying, but looking back I wouldn't have had it any other way.  

By about three months, Lily really seemed to turn around for us. She went from fussy, hates the car, always wants to be held, to very content just taking in the world around her. And what a wonderful change that was! She's always done things on her own time and at her own pace, too. Ben was a textbook baby. Did everything right on "schedule", very predictable in sleeping patterns, got a tooth the day he turned 6 months old, crawled at 9 months, etc. Lily has been a lot slower with everything, and tends to just take things on when she is ready. She still doesn't consistently sleep through the night, didn't get a tooth til 9 months old and still hasn't mastered traditional crawling. She does her own version and gets around just fine. It's amazing to me just how different they are and they continue to show me examples of that every day.

The last ten months have been such a roller coaster for us. We knew what it meant to have a baby in the house, but we had to relearn a lot of things to. Learning what it means to have TWO people totally dependent on you for their every need, learning that nap time for one isn't always rest time for the other, learning how to use all the baby stuff again, learning how to function on 4 hours of sleep. There are also huge changes for us as a couple, learning to find time for each other, learning to step in when the other is exhausted, shifting responsibilities around the house. It's been a whirlwind to say the least. 

There are some nights when no one is sleeping and at least 3 of us are crying and I think to myself "what the hell have we done?!?" and then there are moments when I look at my kids and see the best of me and Mike in them and my heart is so full I feel like it will burst. Yup. My husband had it right. Squirrel Derby.

I'm Back.... for now

So..... It's been a while. I guess you could say we've had a lot going on. When I blogged last, I looked a little like this:

Shortly after the above photo was taken, I looked like this: 

Don't worry. I know I was not glowing. I was just bloated.  And I was also aware we had a bit of a cankle situation. That photo was taken about 7 hours before Lily Rae Gilbertson joined our world. It ended up being a whirlwind day and Lily was born 3 1/2 weeks early. So, for those of you that are interested, here's the story of April 27th, 2011.

It was a Wednesday and I had several calls and meetings scheduled for the morning. I decided to work at home so I could put my feet up (See above where my ankles look like softballs). Luckily I have an amazing employer who allows me such luxuries.  I took my conference calls and was making some plans with my boss for my maternity leave when the landline at our house rang. It was the doctor's office and my labs had come back from the night before. They weren't good. I was spilling protein into my urine and that combined with high blood pressure does not a happy OB/GYN make. They wanted me to come in at lunch and do some more labs. Boo. I wasn't too happy about this, but I figured I would grab lunch on my way to the clinic and make the best of it. Blackberry in hand, prepared to work while I was there, I started to head out the door and realized that something just didn't feel right. I started getting horrible pains in my stomach and I was dizzy. I knew that something just wasn't right. I got in the car and decided to forego lunch and head straight to the clinic. With a quick pitstop at BHS to tell Mike where I was going and that I thought something was wrong. I underestimated how crappy I was feeling and by the time I got to BHS, I knew I wouldn't make it to the clinic by myself. I tried finding him in his classroom, but alas! He was not there. I made my way down to the principal's office where I proceeded to scare the crap out of the secretaries, who thought I may give birth right there in front of the attendance office. While they went to find Mike, (Who was in the library with his students) I went into the bathroom and threw up. Luckily, there were several high school girls in there who are now scarred for life. But I think it was a good lesson in birth control for everyone involved.  Eventually Mike was found, the very organized school secretaries found subs for Mike's remaining classes and we made our way to the Center For Women. When we got there it was about noon. They put me in an exam room, took my very high blood pressure, and we did a few labs while I laid on my left side to try to get my blood pressure down.

Some of my labs came back good, and others not so good. I was still spilling quite a bit of protein and the top number of my blood pressure would not dip below 110. That's bad. Luckily, my liver seemed to be doing okay so they ruled out HELPP syndrome. That's good. You do not want HELPP Syndrome. Look it up. Anyway, my diagnosis: pre-eclampsia. The treatment: delivering the baby. My doctor came in and told us to go home and pack our bags and meet her at the hospital. We needed to induce labor before my blood pressure got any worse. Okay.... Not what we expected to hear at 37 1/2 weeks, but I guess we'll have to deal with it, right? She felt everything would be okay because 37 weeks is considered full term and every indicator that we had was that Baby Girl Gilbertson was healthy.

We checked into the hospital around 3pm and the process began. I won't bore you with the details of an induction, but things progressed pretty normally for the rest of the day. I felt gross because I had to be on magnesium sulfate to lessen my risk of seizures, stroke and other bad stuff that happens when your blood pressure gets dangerously high. It made me feel a little loopy, but other than that, labor wasn't too bad. The nurses were great and I got in several episodes of Extreme Couponers. I had a few visitors. Ben and both grandmas stopped by to check things out. It was good to see Ben before the baby came and get one last look at our family of three. After everyone left, I got an epidual (Halleluia!) which actually helped drop my blood pressure a little. Things were going pretty good. My mom was there with me and Mike, which was really nice. She was able to talk me through some of the really rough contractions at the end. I was having horrible back labor for the two hours before she was born. When things really got going, it wasn't as smooth as it was with Ben. With him, I slept through the hardest part of labor, woke up at noon, starting pushing at 12:20 and had a baby by 12:46 and I felt great. With Lily, I was in a lot of pain for about two hours, and was sure there was no way that I would be able to push her out. It hurt so bad I couldn't move. It was 11:30 and I was exhausted. Ben had gotten us up at five am that day. I told Mike and my mom that I couldn't do it and I honestly believed I couldn't. Luckily, my doctor and nurses were there to assure me that I could and Mike and my mom stayed calm through the whole process. Once I finally decided that I was going to have to push this baby out, it only took about nine minutes and three pushes to do so.  After a super long day, at 11:49pm on April 27th, Lily Rae Gilbertson entered the world at a healthy 6 pounds 14 ounces and 20 inches long. And our lives and hearts have never been the same! Love you sweet girl!