Halloween and two young 'uns...

We are all alive and well....I think.  Ainsley is a good baby, pretty much just being a normal baby, eating, sleeping, eating, sleeping…and we are settling into the routine of life with two little babies! Wythe is having some issues dealing with an expanded family but that was to be expected.

We had a low key holiday this year. Our neighborhood doesn't really do anything since all the kids are grown and gone. But now that there are 3 little ones people may have to start stocking up on candy!  We dressed the kids up for Halloween but only went to one neighbors house. There we sat and visited for a while, the other little girl in the neighborhood came over also. Wythe and Ainsley weren’t too happy about dressing up in costumes. Wythe was an elephant and Ainsley was wearing Halloween themed clothes.

"my kids aren't into this holiday"

"my little elephant"

"my little elephant and his giraffe neighbor"

'til next time...

Waiting for baby...waiting....and other stuff...

The first part of the month we were eagerly anticipating the arrival of our new baby! I was expecting her to be born around the 12th but that day came and went with no baby. So we waited...maybe tomorrow...but no baby...waiting....

We did get out of the house a few times and had some fun! The first weekend of the month we had dinner in Tyson’s with our friends Gary and Amy. We hadn’t seen them in almost two years so it was great to see them while they were in town.    Still waiting....

We also went to the yearly open house for the Smithsonian Zoo Research Center in Front Royal. It was a beautiful fall day and we enjoyed the views from the top of the hill. Wythe was just standing on his own at that point so we took some cute pics of him.  (waiting....)

"I can stand by myself !!"

"Wythe and his 9 month pregnant mommy"

"Wythe and Peter"

By the middle of the month I was starting to get anxious. It is hard when you are just....waiting. It was different this time because we had to make arrangements for Wythe while we were going to be at the hospital. My mom was planning to come stay with us but that didn't solve the issue if we ended up going to the hospital in the middle of the night. We talked about asking neighbors to come to the house but most of our neighbors work and we weren't going to ask them to take off work to watch Wythe. My doctor was perfectly o.k. with inducing me, he actually suggested it at the beginning of the month thinking if we had the baby earlier I wouldn't have to deliver a big baby. I wasn't crazy about being induced, I really wanted everything to go naturally. But as the days passed the idea seemed more and more appealing. My doctor and I decided that if the baby hadn't come by the 21st then I would be induced...so now I had a date. I knew that this pregnancy was actually going to end at some point! It was nice to be able to plan things accordingly, we made plans with my mom for her to come up the day before the big day. Then we just...waited!

Wythe started walking the week the baby was born. It was as if he knew mommy needed him to walk instead of being carried everywhere! It was so cute to see his stiff, little zombie walk as he toddled around the house!


'til next time...

An addition to our family...

THE BIG DAY...

Since the baby was overdue they scheduled me for an induction on the 21st. My mom came up the night before to keep Wythe while we were at the hospital and to help afterwards.

The evening before I was scheduled I started to have contractions, I thought I was going to have to go into the hospital that night because they seemed to be getting very regular. It didn't really matter one way or the other, my bags were packed, my mom was there to take care of Wythe, so if we had to dash out of the door that would be fine. I wasn't sure if they were getting bad enough to go to the hospital. Even though this was my second baby it was a different experience. My first time I had all back labor so I didn't feel the normal feeling of contractions. I decided to try and go to bed and get some sleep knowing that if I went in at 7am as schedule or earlier due to necessity I would need my rest either way. The contractions must have stopped in the night because I was able to sleep and wait till the morning.

In the morning I was having some contractions but not as frequently as the night before. We got dressed, I tip-toed in and kissed Wythe goodbye, and we left for the hospital. It was really weird driving out of the driveway knowing that the next time you see your house you will have a little baby with you. I don't remember thinking that the first time, I guess I was in too much pain then!

We got to the hospital and since I was being induced I had to go through admitting, I realized later I should have just run up to the maternity ward and said I was in labor! we really didn't have to wait that long but it was still too long considering there was no one else there. When I finally got off the elevator on the maternity ward I saw my doctor, he said "I'm glad you decided to show up, we can't really start till you get here!" That is his typical sarcastic humor, just one of the reasons I love him! I went to the nurse's station and they told me what room I was going to be in, when I heard the room number I thought "that sounds familiar....", sure enough, same room as last time!

I am going to gloss over the next several hours, I am not going to waste your time (or torture myself with the memory) of the details of the epidural that didn't work, the person who couldn't get the IV in my vein, the epidural that didn't work, the dilemma of whether or not to have an epidural, the epidural that didn't work, the worry that they weren't going to let my son visit because of the swine flu, the epidural that didn't work, etc., etc.  Did I mention the epidural didn't work??   The good part it even though the labor was very intense it was short! I had the meds at 8:30am and the baby was born at 1:49pm!

The whole experience was so different and so much nicer than the first time. I didn't think I was going to die, there wasn't the same sense of panic that there had been the first time, in fact, at one point during delivery the doctor even made me laugh at one of his bad jokes! Even though the labor was intense, even though the epidural didn't work it still was a great experience, I felt like "wow, I could do this again!"

My precious baby girl was born at 1:49pm, a little over 5 hours after they started the meds, that was much nicer than the 14 hours I had the first time!

Later that afternoon my mom brought Wythe up to the hospital to see us, it seemed like we hadn’t seen him in ages even though it had only been since that morning. I stayed in the hospital for two nights, unfortunately we weren’t able to have any visitors except for my mom and Wythe because the hospital was on lock down due to the swine flu outbreak. We were very glad to get home and away from the germs of the hospital!  

On October 21, 2009 at 1:49 pm Ainsley Brooks was born. She weighed 8 pounds 8 ounces and was 20-3/4 inches long. Her delivery went well and we were so thankful to see our beautiful, healthy girl! Wythe is adjusting to having a sibling but he seems to be growing more accustomed to the idea all the time!

'til next time...