MUCH BETTER

Here are some recent pics of Kylianne.

The kids LOVE LOVE LOVE her.

Brooke says about 50 times a day, “You’re such a cutie little BAAAAAAABY! HIIIIIIIIIII!” When she says “baby” the upward inflection of her voice goes up about 2 ½ octaves – about 2 C’s above middle C – very literally!

She also says, “Cutchie Cutchie COOO!” as she does a rather bizarre imitation of someone tickling the underchin of a baby to her sister.

Tyler says about 20 times a day, “I wanna see KYWEEE! AHHHH!”

So far she only wakes up usually about once a night – but when she wakes up it usually takes me about 45 min at least to make sure she gets a full feeding – it definitely takes discipline!

I have found with this baby, I am enjoying the newborn stage the most I ever have.

I think it helps that I have two kids willing to just jump at the chance to give me a diaper and wipes, or to find a burping cloth or a hat.

Or if I need help keeping Kyli awake, Brooke and Tyler are THRILLED!

Actualy having my mom around for a few days helped immensely.

Also it has helped that its not my FIRST baby with all that anxiety, AND it helps that we are not in the middle of moving – like last time,

AND it helps that I have recovered much quicker this time. I am not 100% yet, but I feel much better when I compare recovery times.

So I feel like I am savoring the cute newborn moments THAT much more. Moments I think I took for granted before waiting for a SMILE or recognition that the baby knows who I am. This time I am just LOVING the sweet innocence that only little newborns have!

Going O - NATURAL: Read at your OWN risk

Saturday night I had TOTAL déjà vu. In 2003 When I was pregnant with Brooke when I was 40 weeks +2 days my water broke at 1 a.m. - RIGHT after I had gotten into bed.

Fast forward to 2008: On Saturday night at 40 weeks + 2 days I had JUST gotten in bed right before midnight. I had a few contractions during the movie "TRANSFORMERS" we rented that were difficult and I was exhausted. I said my prayers and cleared my mind and I felt a big “WHOOSH” of a kick after lots of little kicks. Then I felt a weird movement and then “GUSH” – I let out a little scream and I jumped off the bed with Olympic Speed, vaulted over the bed pillows, and sprinted to the bathroom leaving a Hansel and Gretal type of trail.

COMMOTION ENSUED– My mom woke up Brian who had fallen asleep during the movie (It took her about a full minute to bring him around). We called the midwives to let them know what happened, got ready in lightening speed and were all set to go to the hospital when…..we were told to get some rest until the contractions were at least 7 minutes apart. I thought HOW in the world will I get sleep with fluid still gushing? The answer? “Put a towel on the bed.”

So all night long I had HARD contractions…but every 15 minutes apart still. How depressing! They hurt to where I had to vocalize during them, then it would take me about 4 minutes to recover, and I would have 4 full minutes off drifting to sleep before ANOTHER contractions would JOLT me to be awake…and write down the time, etc. This went on until 6 am. GREAT! Brian slept like a baby.

The plan given to me by the midwives to avoid Pitocin was a bright cheery glass of fruit smoothy with Castor oil to get labor going before arriving at the hospital. I chugged that baby down – DISGUSTING!!

On the way to the hospital, I had ONLY 2 contractions in 50 minutes. They seemed to by dying away....NOT GOOD!

At 7:30 AM I was 0n the monitor at the hospital I had only 1 GOOD contraction and 1 little one in 25 minutes. NOT IMPRESSIVE! The verdict? WALK! DÉJÀ VU AGAIN - but this time just from last Saturday.

The only difference was the contractions that I had during the walk (still 7 to 10 min apart) hurt so much I would have to lean against the wall and vocalize during the contraction.

We stopped walking at about 9:30 A.M. The contractions were then 5 to 7 min apart…but not really active labor … The midwife didn't want to come in with LACKLUSTER action like this!

Monitor time – NOTHING IMPRESSIVE! I had 2-3 good contractions in 30 minutes. WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY BODY??? I thought to myself. Does my body NOT understand what it needs to do? Did two prior births with PITOCIN mess up my body’s know how to know what to do?

I was then checked – and I was a JUST a 4. YIPEE – in the past 48 hours I progressed ONLY a full .5 of a cm. FABULOUS! This had ALL THE SIGNS OFF BEING A VERY LONG ARDUOUS LABOR...with possible Prolonged rupture of membranes (more than 18 hours of broken waters). That would mean pitocin - again - no waterbirth, and all the stuff I was trying to avoid. HOW DEPRESSING!

Brian was good and kept on massaging the acupressure pulse points – on my little pinkie toe especially. That seemed to help BIGTIME. IT was the only time I would actually get a good contraction! He was being a great labor coach so far! I was impressed!

The midwife showed up just in time for a big juicy contraction – I was VERY vocal and it was much harder. I heard myself say, “I HATE THOSE!” and she said, “Well, we LIKE those! ....We need to see some more of those in a consistent pattern to get you into the Alternative Birthing Center (ABC room). I pictured walking around for another hour, or staying on that darn monitor in TRIAGE for another hours......UGH!!!

GREAT! It didn’t look like that would happen to me ANYTIME SOON!! Then I had another big hard juicy contraction. I could hear Brian and the midwife AMIABLY chatting and I heard myself say, “DON’T TALK! DON’T TALK!” Then the blood nurse came in to draw the blood…during this same seemingly NEVER ENDING contraction. “C’MON! GET DONE ALREADY!.” Well, the blood nurse thought I was talking to her so she said flusteredly, “OK, and whipped out the rubber band and vials.” “NO,” I said through clenched teeth,” I’m TALKING TO THE CONTRACTION.” I heard laughter, and then the contraction was done and we proceeded.

After one more like this – Hillary my midwife- said she would check me. She looked very surprised and said, “OH, you’re a SEVEN!”

So I went from a 4 to 7 in only 20 minutes. She said, “Lets GO to the ABC room!”

I doubted my desire to walk, but when I got off the bed – It felt AWESOME to walk down the hall. I felt so FREE!

At 10:45 AM We got to the room and like some crazy magnet was PULLING me I went to a tiny section of wall and rested my head against the wall for the next 3 contractions.

I heard the preparations VAGUELY around me –the tub filling up with water, Brian rushing to get our stuff out of the car, tables being set up around me with instruments, the baby cart portion of the room being set up.

Hillary encouraged me then to get into the tub. I didn’t really want to – standing was the ONLY thing I really wanted to do –but I did. Brian brought me the bath pillow and managed to get me on tape between contractions. I calmly told him to turn it off because I didn’t want my “screaming” on the tape (which I never did scream, I just vocalized loudly). I thought a couple of time in the tub – why don’t I just GIVE UP and do an epidural right now? It sounds so much NICER! Then I told myself to toughen up and that it was almost over.

The water pillow I was resting on all of a sudden bounced off the ledge and suddenly became this pester y enemy and kept bumping into me in the water. During a contraction I heard myself say, “GET THAT THING AWAY FROM ME!!!!”

Then I felt pressure like Hillary said I would, but she had gone out of the room to get latex gloves. I heard myself calling for her to hurry up. When she came she told me I was a 9 – but I could push if I needed to. With that next HORRIBLE contraction I told myself, “TRANSVERSE IN” and I pushed for a solid MINUTE. I heard Brian telling me to BREATHE and I heard, “You’re almost there babe! “ and “Here’s the head, keep pushing!” and “Ok, the head is out keep pushing!!!” I heard myself crying a little and realized it was DONE! ONE GIGANTIC PUSH was all it took! (thank you strong TRANSVERSE MUSCLE!) I looked done and realized the baby had popped up in the water and Hillary guided her into my arms. I didn’t hear crying or anything so it didn’t really register that I was holding the baby. After about 2 1/2 minutes I unfurrowed my brow and looked down at her. I felt not totally present in the situation yet. I felt myself still wanting to cry.

I was only in the ABC room 34 minutes and she was born. So much for not really being in LABOR!

I went from a 4 to a 10 in about 1 hour! A little bizarre, but I'll take it!

Then after 5 minutes Brian cut the chord and they cleaned up the baby. They helped me out of the water and I realized “ Oh MY GOSH – my LEGS WORK!!” It had never happened post birth that I could actually use my legs. IT was awesome! They helped me to the bed while I watched the nurse clean up the baby for what seemed like the LONGEST time.

Kylianne Angel Wayne – is the name we chose for her. She latched on RIGHT away and nursed enthusicatically for about 25 minutes. Then they took her and weighed her – 7 lbs 0 oz, and 19 inches long.

Then the question I was DYING to know, “ DID I TEAR?” That was my WORST after Brooke and Tyler was that I had episiotomies with both AND I tore on top of that with both and it was EXTREMELEY painful for me for about 2 weeks. The VERDICT “Nope, just a slight abrasion. You don’t even need a stitch.” I was EXTREMELY happy with that. FASTER RECOVERY. That is one nice thing about the water births – MUCH lower incident of tearing.

Then, I felt the Castor oil kick in and I was able to RUN to the bathroom , which was unthinkable that I had that much control over my body. I will always wonder – did that horrible stuff that I could still taste on my lips help things speed along, or did it really kick in ONLY now? I will ALWAYS WONDER!

So while going O NATURAL with a water birth sucked BIGTIME DURING the labor and birth, afterwards I felt GREAT!! I just wanted an ice pack. Not even IB profen – No perkeset like with the other two, not catheter to take out, not waiting 2 hours to use my legs, no bloated limbs from IVs, no machines to be hooked up to, no sore back from the epidural, no episiotomy, no tearing, and I wore my own clothes before during and after the birth. So would I do it again. YES (with a great deal of mental prep to get me in the frame of mind, but YES!

BONUS: We were told we would have to leave the large nice ABC room with the large bed about 5 hours after delivery. Since it was a weekend and quite dead, no one came to use the OTHER ABC room (in which case they would need ours open) so we stayed the FULL 48 hours in this very nice posh LARGE room. AWESOME!

Kylianne Angel

Born May 17, 2008 Oak Park, IL West Suburban Hospital. She was 7 lbs. 19 in. born at 11.21 a.m. Everything went great! Bonnie will write more later. She was a trooper!

And Still....

I get a cute call from our Compassionate Service leader yesterday, "So, what kind of baby did you have? The boy kind or the girl kind?" "I didn't." "Oh, I thought you did." "Not yet." "Ok,...Well...do you need anything?" "Since the baby hasn't come AND my mom is here...then no."

I felt worse for her since that has got to be the worst when you are comp service leader.

The midwives gave me a LOVELY sheet of about 20 things to do to induce labor. In fact, at WHOLE FOODS where I was going for some herbal stuff, 2 of the employees were like, "Hey, can I see that sheet?"

We are going down the list:


*LOOOONNNGG walks

*Blue AND black cohosh

*Castor oil (which we will do again tommorow)

*ACUPUNTURE - which I have to say was pretty cool - I have gone twice (I actually got some GREAT contractions during my 25 minute sessions. They put needles 3 fingerwidths above the ankle bone,between the webbed part of the thumb and pointer finger, and the tailbone area - with electric stimulation. I didn't hurt at all - but the areas are a little sore afterwards- like muscle soreness)

S**

Eggplant Parmesan (Yes, that WAS on my sheet!)

Mezclan lettuce with Balsamic vinegrette (Suprisingly this was ALSO on my sheet)

Acupressure (same points as acupunture)

Evening Primrose Oil

Bumpy roads (NOT on the sheet, but suggested by MANY people)

Going over Railroad tracks (not on my sheet, but not hard to do around here!)

N***** S***********

Stripping of membranes - twice (Wasn't that bad)

Spicy food (not on the official list)

Fresh Pineapple (shish ka bobs for dinner tonite baby!)

Blessing of Comfort (baby will come in "due time" were the exact words during the blessing....) (not on the list - but MUCH appreciated!)



Yeah....you can see we have our bases WELL covered - and for being 2 days overdue I guess thats not too bad to have covered ALL of those.

So is any of it working ? - You could say definitely YES. I was barely a 1 and not effaced- now 50% effaced and dialated to a 3.5 - lots of contractions...just not TRUE labor.

I am beginning to doubt my ability to actually KNOW if its true labor since I have been SO sure about 7 times now, to the hospital once, and baby still in tow.

So for now - I must ignore all the questions, my dad whining to my mom to come back home and telling me to WALK MORE (there is only so long you can WALK AND WALK) and that feeling of waking up in the morning thinking - Ok...still nothing!

Worst case scenario they will break my water on Monday and hope for labor to kick in on its own (which has not happened with my other two kids). Cross your fingers for me!

ADVENTURES IN WAITING

Yeah, so basically I can’t eat scrambled eggs again….probably EVER!

One of my favorite snacks is making an egg and putting in cheese and sun dried tomatoes.

Not Anymore.

Yesterday was “Castor Oil Day.” Yep – you guessed it. I scrambled the egg up with the 2 oz of castor oil and then made the egg (by a book’s suggestion I have). It didn’t even taste gross, its just that I mentally KNEW it was in there.

Then I had it later with Mango Passion fruit juice – that was the weirdest glass of juice I EVER had. WHEW!

The contractions were coming on big time. By the time Brian and I had our date night – we went on a LOOOONNNNNGGGG walk – I did not want to talk through the contractions. And during KING KONG the contractions were getting strong. SO we dropped the kids off and went to the hospital.

As I entered TRIAGE I had to squelch up my face and close my eyes during the contractions and squeek out“Yes, its spelled W-A-Y-N-E…no not VONNIE, it Bonnie, with a “B.”

The contractions were 2 ½ to 3 minutes apart. Dialated…to a 3, and only 50% effaced. But to stay in the Alternative Birthing Room (which is my plan) I have to be at a 4. Still much better than a couple days ago – barely a 1 and not at all effaced. So, amidst the crazy contractions, which were pretty strong – we were instructed to walk (jump and stomp)around the huge maternity floor for 1 HOUR…this was at midnight.

I asked if I had to wear the gown – YES – but they would double gown me so they didn’t see any “Butt.” (THANK YOU)

After 1 hour of lots of jumping – (Yes, I felt a little strange jumping around in a hospital gown as we walked by the staff several times...especially DURING a contraction when I had to close my eyes WHILE jumping…trying to help things along) …STILL no change.

We were told to go home and given a prescription (I am NOT kidding here) for S** (its a G rated blog here people). It was actually on a PX pad, and underlined MANY times. Also they said to try and get some rest since we would probably be back sooner than later.

So we got home at 3 AM – EXHAUSTED. Well, at least I know the castor oil gets things rolling…I just can’t bring myself to do it again. The next order from the midwife after the “Px” given, is black cohosh drops. I CAN’T WAIT!

weird moment

So I hear a knock on the door at 3:00 P.M. It was some guy with a memo board in his hand. He looks at me and asks in a business-like way,

"Hi, is your Mom or Dad home?"

I looked at him from my 9 month pregnant body and just stared. I really was caught quite speechless...especially in my CONDITION....

Finally I mustered, "I AM the Mom."

He looks again at me...rather sheepishly I might add... and says very quickly, "I'm sorry, you just look so young."

It was weird, but as he was asking me about our gas bill and what we pay, I actually FELT like a little kid. But more than that I felt like, "OK...did he just TOTALLY miss by extremely large belly...or did he think...well...?"

On the other hand - to be 30 and 9 months pregnant with #3 - in a way I had to take that and SORT of take it as a compliment. I just never expected that comment...being so VERY PREGNANT!

BRING IT ON!!

So, it seems that upon my last checkup, this baby would not come out on her own accord until October or some absurdity.

So, I am going to “fun” route of trying all those things women try to ENCOURAGE some action – Midwife recommended.

Let’s see – Evening Primrose Oil – always fun. I had to tell the pharmacist (because the head manager at Walgreen’s couldn’t find it) in front of a large line of people what it is for and he could help me find it. Excuse me, but REALLY – have they no imagination when a very pregnant women comes looking for a supplement?!? I used the vary vague description of “Prepares the body for labor.” And thought to myself, “Why am I explaining this to a Pharmacist?”

And there are the pulse points – little toe, behind the heel (none of which are withing optimal reaching ability for me at this point) so I chose the one between the thumb and pointer finger – where they web.

Lots of walking….lots of “other” things….

And of course, Tyler has taken to pushing hard on the belly (well, hard for a 2 year old) and making exhaustion sounding exertion noises and telling me, “Mommy, the baby won’t come out. Its TOO HARD!” It was sure nice of him to try though!

In a couple of days if…nothing…sigh…then I guess we’ll do the favorite Castor Oil route. YEAH!

OUR BALLERINA

Brooke just had her 1st official ballet/tap recital. She was front and center and had that "shuffle step" reigned and harnassed like it could not go anywhere but where she told it.

She was awesome and did a great job!

ALL DONE!!

PHEW!!

I am finally all done planting the garden! My goal was to get it done before the baby comes - MISSION ACHIEVED!!

What is on our garden menu this year?

(Can you tell I get bored with the same old same old?)

Romanesco (green geometrically pleasing cauliflower)
Cheddar Cauliflower
Red green onions
Purple Carrots
Ultra Sweet Orange Variety Carrot
White with pink bellies radishes
Spinach bushes (you have to put them in a cage)
Cucumbers - they will be climbing our chain link fence
Zuchinni - gold, light green, and dark green varieties
Tomatoes - heirloom - one called "sugary" - got the highest mark in the sweetness scall - Brecht
Leeks
Green Beans - two kinds
Sugar Snap Peas
Multicolored Swiss Chard
Summer and Spring Lettuce - Spicy AND non-Spicey
Purple, Orange, Yellow, Red and Green Bell Peppers
Strawberries
Rubarb
Raspberries
Herbs: Chocolate Mint, Oregano, Lemon Balm, Chives, Sweet Basil, Thai Basil, Rosemary, Cilantro, Thyme
Acorn Squash
Spaghetti Squash
Eggplant - Lavendar, Whopper, and Fairy Tale (white) varieties

PHEW! I think that's it. I doesn't ever seem like its that much - but when I see it all typed out I think "Man, thats not too shabby!"

THE BEST TANK TOPS

So I must post about these - I have worn under everything them my entire pregnancy - and I wear them under everything when I am not pregnant. They are the BEST tank tops EVER! When you bend over, they cling to you, so no one see nothing. They go down far enough, they are high enough, and they don't roll up on you. And they smooth everything out, if you know what I mean.

http://www.themodbod.com

For pregnancy clothes they are especially helpful because they expand with the belly. So when you would normally see stomach or gs toward the end of pg when that shirt gets a little "smaller" these cover the tracks.

When you bend over - no more seeing more than you care too.

Great for working out too!

So I had to spend some of our tax return (a very small chunk) to replace the ones I have literally worn out during pregnancy. I personally like these the best - called
"Camisole"

and "Camisole with lace"

as well as the

"perfect tank."

I noticed last night when I was joyfully spending some tax return money they have a buy two, get the third free.
LOVE THOSE MORMON COMPANIES!!