She's Here!

Another unplanned trip to the hospital ensued Friday, but this time we came home with more than glue on a forehead. Our beautiful daughter was born at 5:54am on Saturday morning weighing 8lbs 13 oz and measuring 20 inches.First Photo

At 40 weeks and 2 days I went for my final OB appointment on Friday afternoon to discuss scheduling inducement. By the end of the appointment the doctor did not want to wait until the next day and she sent me off to the hospital. It was a combination of a few minor things but at my age and since I was already over 40 weeks she wanted to be cautious. Of course once I was hooked up on all the monitors they found no "variables" with the baby's heart rate and she was just fine.Dr. Kathleen Schwartz, my fabulous doctor, who has delivered all 3 of our children.

I spent the night laboring with the help of some Pitocin and having had my membranes stripped at my appointment earlier that afternoon. Our room happened to be on the south side of the hospital and we had a great view of Chase Field and the after game fireworks! JP and I played Scrabble and some cards but once we figured out it was going to be a slow labor, I told him to put in his ear plugs and hit the couch. He got several good hours of sleep. I slept off and on and finally agreed to get my epidural which was just what I needed to be able to get a few hours myself. Similar to my other two labor experiences not much progress was made and I kept suggesting to the Resident and nurse that they just break my water. Finally they did just that at 4:15 and by 5:30 I was well-beyond ready to begin pushing. It took only 8 minutes of pushing and she arrived just as the gorgeous day dawned.Boy, do I look tired or what?

We are truly blessed to have another healthy beautiful baby. JP and I agree that she looks just like her Bubba when he was born. Baby and I were able to come home on Sunday (Mother's Day) and we have all been adjusting to life as 5 instead of 4.

It was just a matter of time

So we are indeed still without a third child. This did not prevent us from making an unscheduled trip to the hospital though. Monday night was going along just fine with dinner on the stove and the finishing touches to the salad being made when Pickle decided to conduct a number of physics and density tests using her head, a chair, and the coffee table. She quickly determined that her head will, in fact, not break the coffee table, but the coffee table will split open her head. You know how those pesky head wounds bleed and this was a gusher. I quickly scooped her up and called Christi to arrange for a meeting at the ER. Although Bubba was shaken by the experience, even asking "did she poke her eye out?!", he did a fantastic job of getting stuff to take with us to the hospital and then entertaining his sister in the car so she paid no attention to her new third eye in the middle of her forehead.

Holding the ice on her head on the way to the hospital.

We went to Phoenix Children's which as you can imagine is well suited to seeing children. the entire hospital experience was pretty easy. Our good friend CeeCee came and took Bubba to dinner and then brought him home so he didn't have to hang out the hospital.

In the waiting room.

We got ushered to a bed in the hall and just hung out. I tried to make Christi as comfortable as a full term pregnant woman can be and Pickle asked everybody that walked by to "talk to me." A nurse came to clean out the wound and then the Dr. came to glue it together. Pickle did a great job. As you can see below she had a smile on her face almost the whole time and never once seemed troubled by her new forehead smile.

I am hopeful next time we head to the hospital we come home with another little girl to add to the brood.

Garden

Onion box . . . JP doesn't think these are going to turn out but we sure have an unlimited supply of green onions in the meantime!
Tomatoes are just starting to appear . . . hope the birds stay away so I can enjoy them!
Strawberries . . . very thick with many berries but the kids don't let them get very big before they are picking and eating.
Sunflowers and cantaloupe! I am so very excited that JP finally got this planter box irrigated. It has been an eyesore in our backyard for years but now we have beautiful sunflowers that are very near blooming

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May 1st

We are very happy and somewhat relieved that we have made it to May 1st without giving birth. For a few different reasons we really wanted Flora's birthday to be in May and now we have at least that much guaranteed. We are also happy to tell you that we will almost definitely have our little addition by next Sunday - Mother's Day appropriately. When we saw the doctor yesterday she indicated that she would like to schedule the inducement for next weekend if nothing happens before then (I will be officially 40 weeks on the 5th.). Although I am very uncomfortable I am happy to wait another week as that will extend my maternity leave further into the summer and allow us to follow through on our vacation plans.

A week ago I was already dilated 2-3 centimeters, 50% effaced, and she was at -1; as of yesterday nothing had changed. This was a surprise to me as I have had a lot of contractions over the last week and there were a couple of nights where I thought we were headed to the hospital. I also did not gain any weight during the last week nor did I measure any bigger . . . still measuring a tad small so I'm thinking she will stay under 9lbs.

Here are some pictures of Flora:

Keep checking the site as we will provide updates and pictures as soon as we can. We have not had a lot of other stuff to report as we have been doing very little other than getting her room ready and staying on top of the general chores. Bubba will be wrapping up baseball in the next two weeks so I'll get some more pictures to share. He has had the best time and has really improved . . . in fact he and JP are out playing catch right now.

Easter

Yes, I am a little behind but we have been busy and I'm a little worn out at the end of each day right now! We had a really fun Easter as our good friend Gomero (Jason) came to visit us. It has been 3 years since we last saw him (very briefly) so we were thrilled to have him here for a few days. We also got to meet his girlfriend who stayed with us for one night and spent Easter Sunday with us.In honor of Jason's visit we hosted several of our friends for Easter lunch and we had a fabulous brisket and lots of good food.

The Boy

As promised (although a little late) I wanted to share my thoughts of my son. At six years old he is probably one of the most unique children I have ever met. He is at times a complete loner - loving to play alone and be by himself, and at other times he craves attention and must be sitting RIGHT NEXT TO US (he still doesn't understand personal space). His intelligence blows us away every day and I am beginning to think he has a photographic memory as he can spout off information about the most random subjects. Last night when JP was reading his bedtime story - okay, we don't get to read stories anymore - when they were reading about the planets, Bubba was beside himself that the book was incorrect in how many moons Jupiter has. He demanded to know when the book was written. We have recently completed these books:

The Human Body was a few weeks ago and I put my foot down and said I was not reading a bedtime story about the pancreas . . . just doesn't leave you all warm and fuzzy to go to sleep. JP has been doing most of the reading the last few weeks especially since he has moved on to the Solar System. Of course he can read these books without our help but he still likes the companionship of having one of us read to him each night which I am not ready to pass up.

Last week he participated in the school district's gifted testing so we can determine if he qualifies for the Self-Contained Gifted Program. We are very excited that the PV School District may be adding another classroom for this program at the elementary school right down our street. This is where we want him to go to school regardless and we will be extremely lucky if this program pans out. It will give him the additional challenges he will need to keep him motivated since he is far beyond the average first grader in terms of reading and math (not to mention general knowledge about science and geography). I don't know when we will find out if he is "gifted" but I know he is and I really don't need a test to tell me that. They gave us this great check list to help parents determine if their child is gifted and what I figured out is a) I was not a gifted child and b) JP was clearly gifted. I was what you would label a "Bright Child." This means I was smart and I enjoyed school but I was more motivated by accolades and grades than about learning. Gifted children are not typically motivated by grades; they enjoy learning. There are several more criteria and Bubba fits them all.

Beyond reading his passions are Legos and baseball. He can play either for hours at a time and has even created a baseball game out of his Legos. He is sensitive and loving and can be very emotional when something goes against him. He loves his sister and will play baseball and Legos with her and be silly with her. Just yesterday he gave up 50 cents so she could ride in the Mickey Mouse car at Babies R Us (in fairness he thought he was going to get to ride but figured out quickly that he didn't fit in the car). He also paid her $5 to poop in the toilet . . . .

Bubba's Birthday

Yesterday was The Boy's 6th birthday. It was an interesting day that left me so exhausted by night time that I was not interested in getting on the computer to blog or share pictures. I really don't know where to begin my reflection on the last 6 years as it has gone by so quickly and he has developed into this amazing person.

Let me start by telling you about his day . . . . It started around our usual time of 6:00 when I heard him in his room reading (not out loud but I could hear the pages turning). Once everyone was up we opened presents in our room and then got ready to go out to breakfast. He has been requesting breakfast at Denny's for a few weeks now so we figured this was a good day to do it. Well, we picked the wrong Denny's. The service was awful but the food was good and we left with full bellies. Pickle had swim school at 9:30 so we went home to gather our stuff and head out again. Bubba spent the 1/2 hour playing in the play area and sitting in the "castle" listening to princess stories with a bunch of girls. Luckily I am confident he was way more interested in the book than the girls . . . .

We ran over to Target and then JP had to go to the Dentist . . . pretty mundane stuff for a kid's birthday. The Boy and I spent most of Pickle's nap playing Monopoly. It was fun and I have given him fair warning that when he is 7 I will no longer tell him when I land on one of his properties. Maybe I'll extend that to when he is 8 since the game is recommended for 8 year olds and above, but we'll see if he learns to pay attention.

When Pickle got up I took them to the library as most of the day JP spent painting in Flora's room so I needed to get them out of there for a bit to leave Daddy alone. Now all of this brings us to dinner . . . which was chaotic to say the least. You see, The Boy requested crab for his birthday and not lump crab meat or imitation crab but crab. I know it was all about having the actual crab in front of him to study since he started talking about this 3 months ago when they bought whole lobster for my birthday. Unfortunately we live in a land locked state and getting crab (for a reasonable price) is not easy. So we settled for Raclette which is a thing JP's family did when he was growing up and we have adapted it to our growing family. It is a Scandinavian tradition of cooking your own food on the table. Bubba loves it so it was a good consolation for not having crab.

After phone calls from all his grandparents and his cousins and some brownie and ice cream, we finally got them both in bed. Now looking back on it the day doesn't seem so busy but being 35 weeks pregnant, I am much more relaxed sitting at work today!

I will get some pictures up tonight or tomorrow from his birthday party and the few we took yesterday and I will also tell you a bit more about him and his shining abilities.