2 weeks in

Charlie is two weeks old and I'm so thankful to be done with pregnancy and enjoying my sweet newborn.  Last night he did two 4 hour stretches, which felt like heaven after several nights of two or three hour stretches.  I'm enjoying this sweet, short-lived newborn stage so much more this time around.  Even though I'm still carrying around a lot of extra weight and living in leggings and yoga pants, I'm so glad this is done...

12 weeks.18 weeks.20weeks.24weeks.35weeks.38weeks

It's interesting... I feel like I didn't get much bigger towards the end of my pregnancy and several people told me I looked smaller towards the end then I did weeks before.  (I mean.. check me out the day I delivered giant Emma baby....)  After reading more about cholestasis, I'm convinced Charlie's small size was due to the lack of nutrition he was getting towards the end of my pregnancy.  Cholestasis can be very dangerous and even fatal to a fetus because they stop getting nutrition from their mama..  PRAISE THE LORD we caught it in time and were able to safely bring him into the world.

In other news, remember the other major issues I had with Emma?  I was terrified that my body would way overproduce again and guess what?  It did. I was super painfully engorged for the first couple of weeks.  I did some serious online research, desperate to avoid a  full month of engorgement again.  I came across this case study  which gave a detailed description of how to handle overproduction.  I'm happy to report that it WORKED!  I'm finally feeling better and I think the engorgement is behind me.  Whew!

I survived my first outing with all three kiddos this morning.  We met friends at the mall play area and it feels good to have that first outing behind us.  Next week is the true test, though, as Justin will be heading back to work.  Having him here has been SUCH a blessing.  The girls have been getting plenty of attention, he has finished lots of house projects, and I haven't lifted a finger in the kitchen.  (Other than putting a frozen pizza in the oven last night. ;)  Hoping and praying for lots of extra patience next week and thankful for friends who are delivering meals for us.  ;)

The Merriest of Christmases

Holy WOW!!  The past 28 hours have been an absolute roller coaster!  I'm sitting here, on Christmas Day in my hospital recovery room next to the sweetest newborn I know.  My son!  I have a sweet little boy.. what?!  Here's how it all went down...

Last Saturday (4 days ago), I woke up in the middle of the night itching and scratching like crazy.  Every part of my whole body itched, but particularly my hands and feet.  It was the strangest thing but I didn't really think anything of it.  I couldn't sleep through the insane itching so I decided to look at my baby center app on my phone... because what else do you do at 2 am when you can't sleep?  I was just randomly reading people's posts and came across one that said 'extreme itchiness.'  So weird... that's what I had.  I read the girl's post and found out that this can sometimes be related to pregnancy... I had no idea! The condition the girl was posting about was called cholestasis so I googled it and started to read about it.  (Read more about it by clicking on that link but basically - pregnancy hormones cause your gall bladder to stop functioning properly, which can be dangerous for both mom and babe). I had another night of itching on Sunday night which made me start to wonder if maybe I had this rare condition. Luckily I had a doctor appointment scheduled for Monday morning.  I brought it up to my doctor and she did blood work to check some levels in my gall bladder and liver.  She said she would call me if anything looked abnormal but left it at that.  We went about the rest of our day Monday, grocery shopping and making final plans for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with our family of four.  Monday night was AWFUL.  I was wide awake from 11pm -2 am scratching my feet.  I felt like I was going insane from the itchiness.  I really felt like either I had this condition or I was going crazy.  I tried telling myself it was all in my head... my feet really didn't itch... I tried to stop scratching... but nothing worked!  It was horrible...

Tuesday morning (Christmas Eve) was a normal morning... we were starting to get food ready for our Christmas Eve dinner, had Christmas music going, everyone was happy and excited about the day, etc..  Then at 11:30 am my doctor called me and said, "Your lab work came back and shows that you have cholestasis.  You need to come in ASAP and we need to induce you today."  I got off the phone, ran downstairs to tell Justin, and started bawling.  The last thing I wanted was to be away from our girls on Christmas and have a baby on a holiday.  After a few minutes of freaking out, Justin calmed me down, we called our amazing friends who left their family party to come and pick up our children, and packed our bags.  By 1:15, we were on our way to the hospital.  Everything went really quick once they started pitocin, and by 11:10 pm, we were crying tears of joy as we cuddled our new baby boy. A true Christmas miracle!  We've been rejoicing all day over this special gift to our family.  In Claire's words, "God gives the BEST gifts!!"

Charlie James

12/24/13

11:10 pm

7 lbs, 21 inches

Same or different?

Pregnancy is on the brain, folks, so please excuse all these blog entries about this pregnancy.  I really can't believe we didn't find out (have I said that already??) this baby's gender.  Not knowing has me comparing this pregnancy with my other ones like a crazy person.  In some ways they are all similar...

-I'm giant with an enormous belly.

-I didn't get sick during my first trimester but was starving all the time.

-I've craved fruit and carbs like crazy.

-Baby's heart rate is always high.

But in other ways, this pregnancy has been pretty different from Claire and Emma's (which were identical)...

-My blood pressure is low (was SO high with both girls).

-My belly sticks out far out front but isn't wide.

-No linea negra this time.

-No cankles (can you believe that??).  I know there is still plenty of time for them to rear their ugly head but with both girls, they were in full force by this point of my pregnancy.

-No heartburn 

This all has me curious because my pregnancies with Claire and Emma were exactly the same.  It could be another girl but just a really different pregnancy or it could be different because it's a boy.  We shall soon find out.  Such an exciting surprise!!!

I'm nesting people

We are counting down the weeks, folks.  There are approximately 8 of them left.  Within those 8 weeks we have tons going on... Claire's birthday, a visit from the Dill fam (woohoo!), Thanksgiving, Justin's birthday, Christmas, and New Years.  I'm thinking it might just fly by!

Justin and I are BOTH officially in nesting mode.  The last few weeks and weekends have been spent getting stuff done around here.  We finished getting the nursery ready - fixing the crib and sorting through baby clothes (p.s. I went through my 0-3 month tub and found 2 gender neutral outfits and approximately 100 girl outfits).  We painted the girls' room, took down an ugly wall-sized mirror in our playroom, painted the playroom, sold a bunch of junk stuff that we didn't need anymore (mostly toys and clothes), and got five trees cut down in our yard.  There are many more things I'd like to have done before baby comes but with everything else we have going on, I'm realistically thinking we might only get one or two more things checked off the list.  I was recently reminded of the ridiculous list we tackled when I was pregnant with Emma.  What is it with pregnant women and working on your house like a crazy person??

Last week we toured the hospital where I will have the baby.  It was a family tour so the girls got to come with and see everything.  They were both mesmerized by the teeny tiny newborns in the nursery and have been playing being pregnant, having a baby at the hospital, and mommy ever since.  ;)  I am just SO SO excited to have a baby around here again.  After having the girls so close together and then having a much longer gap this time, it feels like forever since we've been in baby mode.  With the girls so close in age, I feel like I didn't look forward to or enjoy the newborn/baby stage as much as I could have.  I feel so different this time and am genuinely excited for a newborn again.

It's so fun to look back at my blog and see what life was like when I was 32 weeks along with each of the girls.  I've been having fun reading old blog entries again!  With Claire at this point, I had massive cankles, was going in for weekly non-stress tests, and was just three weeks away from giving birth.  With Emma, I was road-tripping with toddler Claire and our BFFs!

Anyway.  8 weeks-ish left!!

Thoughts on Baby Shoe's Gender

I still can't believe we didn't find out this baby's gender.  If you know me well, you know this is very unlike me!  I will say, it does make the anticipation of baby's arrival just that much more exciting!  WHO ON EARTH IS IN THERE??  I can't wait to find out!

It occurred to me today that our baby with be the gender tiebreaker for both my parents' grandchildren and for Justin's mom and stepdad's grandchildren.  My parents currently have four granddaughters and four grandsons and Karen and Carl have six granddaughters and six grandsons!

This pregnancy has been pretty similar to my previous pregnancies so far. I have craved sweets and carbs with all of my pregnancies and I have gained a lot of weight (especially in the first trimester when you really aren't supposed to gain anything).  I didn't have morning sickness... although when I was pregnant with Claire and Emma, I had random bouts of nausea and threw up several times with each of them.  This pregnancy I didn't throw up even once.  (Sorry sickies...) Baby's heart rate has been high in the 160's the whole time.. just like my girls.  I think I'm carrying a little lower this time, but that could be because it's my third??

All of this leads me to believe that this sweet one will be another girl.  It's honestly hard to imagine a boy in our pink-loving, drama-filled, princess-everything home!  We were having some friends over for a play date the other day (two of which were boys) and Emma said, "But Mom!  We don't have any boy toys!"  That being said, we truly would be thrilled with either gender (I know everyone says that but it's really true)!  I am just dying to find out.

For the record, I'm guessing GIRL and Claire, Emma, and Justin are guessing BOY.  So, what do you think?  Are we going to stick to our all girl pattern?  Or will Justin finally have someone on his team?

Baby Shoe has a room!

We are finally starting to prepare for the fact that we'll be welcoming a fifth member of the family into our  home soon!  We finally had a name discussion on our way to Iowa a couple weeks ago and I think we've got our girl and boy names narrowed down.  It's hard coming up with two options that you absolutely love!  But, I think we're there.  We also finally cleared out the soon to be nursery that was filled with random stuff junk and got the furniture put together.  MAJOR props to Grammy, who was in town last week and whipped up some darling decor for the room.  We decided to do something different this time since we don't know the gender of Baby Shoe yet.  My mom created all of this with no patterns and pretty quickly, too.  Who votes for Grammy Rho starting up her own custom nursery business??








Everything turned out so cute and I am so excited about it!  Thanks Mom!!! Next step, fix the crib that was broken in our move a year and a half ago!  We haven't used it since we moved to Georgia but hopefully Justin can figure out a way to attach the side that broke off in the move.  I'm fairly confident he'll figure something out.  ;)

11 weeks and counting...

Baby Shoe.. third edition

We did it!  We made it through the ultrasound without finding out Baby Shoe's gender.  It really is a miracle!  Everything looked great and it was super fun watching baby move and squirm and yawn and wiggle.



Only 19 more weeks until we get to meet this little love and find out who it is!

Halfway Baby!

I can't believe we are already halfway through this pregnancy!  Time flies when you're having fun.  ;)  I'm officially 20 weeks and today is the big ultrasound.  Thanks for all your advice and responses to this post.  We have decided we're definitely going to go for the surprise... as long as we can make it through the ultrasound without changing our minds!!

Here's a picture of me at 20 weeks...


This pregnancy has been pretty good so far!  The first trimester was rough.. not because of sickness but because of sheer exhaustion.  I was completely and totally wiped by noon every day.  After an afternoon nap, I was usually good for the rest of the day but I was going to bed super early too.  I didn't have much nausea to speak of (sorry sicky preggo friends) and never got sick.  I did, however, pack on more pounds than they recommend for the first tri... but hey, instead of puking my guts out, I was constantly eating!

The second trimester has been great so far!  Other than my weekly progesterone shots which leave me with a stingy, burning, and sore bootie for a couple of days, it's been pretty good.  I can make it through a day without a nap and have even managed to clean my house a couple of times... and that, folks, is progress.  I've been feeling the baby move since about 17 weeks.  I love this stage of pregnancy... when you are constantly reminded of the little life inside by jabs and kicks and turns.. so fun!

Here are some progress shots from earlier on...



Looking forward to seeing our little babe on ultrasound in a few hours!

To find out or not to find out

So, I'm 16 weeks pregnant now and just a few weeks away from THE ultrasound.  You know the one where they can tell you the gender??  THAT one.  Since this is likely our last baby (at least last baby coming from this uterus), we are considering not finding out.  With both girls we found out (I was a freak about wanting to prepare and despised the idea of 'gender neutral stuff'  i.e. green and yellow clothing. I couldn't imagine dressing a baby girl in green and yellow.  Lame, I know.  #firstworldproblem)

Anyway, up until this point, I've been pretty solid in our decision to go for the surprise.  I have thought I might regret it if I never get to experience that moment of true anticipation in the delivery room when they say, 'IT'S A... (girl, most likely in our case)!!'  But yesterday I had a minor major freak out.  I realized we literally have ONE baby boy outfit.  And, as previously stated, zero gender neutral outfits.  WHAT IF WE ACTUALLY HAD A BOY??  You can't even make it through a few hours in one outfit with a newborn, let alone an entire day.  And then I started thinking about prepping for the baby.  Do I wash and hang the girl clothes in the closet?  Do I buy boy clothes?  Do I put the girl bedding on the crib?  Or the boy bedding? (I did buy a used crib bedding set from a friend so I at least have that.)  Do I just get NOTHING ready and then come home with a possibly naked newborn with zero clothes in the closet and no bedding on the crib?  How do people actually do this and feel somewhat prepared?

My other major stress is names.  I can't imagine having to go to the hospital with two names we absolutely love ready for whichever gender we have.  YIKES.  All this to say, I still kinda want to experience the surprise.  So, talk me into or out of it, friends.  What should we do?  And if we don't find out, how should we prepare?  HELP!

Shoe News