This was like the pregnancy that would never end.  I had mentally prepared myself to deliver a couple of weeks early since all the others were that way and as the days ticked past with no sign of labor in sight, my nerves began to fray.  My body was exhausted and in pain and the uncertainty of each day thinking it would be “the day” was almost too much to bear.  So Wednesday night when I went to bed, I figured it was another day lost and I would go on to see a third day past my due date.  You can imagine my great surprise when a strong but not painful contraction woke me up and broke my water at 12:30 Thursday morning.  Not a massive gush like William’s birth but a very small trickle that at first made me wonder if that’s what it really was.  I sat up in bed for about 30 minutes to see if another small amount would come out and sure enough, about 20 minutes later there was another little gush that made me realize this was it!  I woke up Dave, who woke up my mother to let her know we were on our way, and we threw our bags in the car and headed out to the hospital.

I wasn’t having any painful contractions yet and they were few and far between so I figured it would be somewhat of a long night.  After checking in, we headed up to L&D and I was 4cm and 90% effaced – not bad for not having a single painful contraction!  The only problem was that the baby was extremely high and I was unable to walk around because of the risk of cord prolapse.  So they hooked me up to the monitors and started the IV (after 4 attempts!) and David and I just watched TV and relaxed.  The hours ticked past and I still wasn’t having any painful contractions, which started worrying me a bit.  I REALLY didn’t want to receive Pitocin and I figured since contractions weren’t getting painful, I wasn’t progressing.  But when the doctor came in, he checked and I was 6cm and 100% effaced but my bag of water was so full still and in between the baby’s head and my cervix, keeping him from dropping down.  He tried to break my water but the membrane was so tough he couldn’t do it and said we would just wait a couple of hours and see if things worked themselves out (I LOVED my doctor’s low-key and compassionate demeanor during my labor).  Actually, his exact words were, “I cannot break this water!  This membrane is a tough son of a bitch!  Hahaha!”  The nurse looked at me funny and said, “Do you normally not feel your contractions until you are in transition?!”  Whatever the reason, I was thankful!

After a couple of hours I could feel all the water coming out of me and the contractions picked up on the pain scale but were still manageable.  My biggest fear was that the baby was still high though and that I would be stuck at this level forever.  After an hour of being at 7cm, I said I would have an epidural.  I was too scared that I would be stuck at 7cm forever waiting for the baby to come down and the fear got to me.  BUT things took a drastically different turn than I expected!

The anesthesiologist came in and I sat up so he could place the needle.  As soon as I sat up things skyrocketed!  I went from 7cm to 10cm and the baby was almost starting to crown in 10 minutes flat!!!  He could barely get the epidural in and there was no time to hook it up.  I heard the anesthesiologist say to my husband, “I think we are going to have a baby here in just a couple of minutes!”  My doctor flew into the room with some other nurses and the anesthesiologist gave me a bolus of medication in hopes that ½ through pushing, it would kick in.  I was in a great deal of pain at this point but the nurses and my doctor were wonderful.  Far different from my experience with Colin’s birth in LA.  They were so calm and patient and every time I screamed “Wait!  Don’t touch me!” while I was having a contraction, they all stopped and said they would wait until the contraction had passed to get me into position to push.  There was zero irritation, zero impatience, and nothing but reassurance from my doctor.  It was wonderful and eased my anxiety SO much.  I started pushing and kept asking when the epidural was going to kick in (having no idea they didn’t have time to actually hook it up) and the doctor laughed and said, “When this baby is on your chest!”  Thankfully, as I pushed, I started to get a bit of relief from the medication.  I could tell that something was going on as the nurses began shifting my position and the doctor started getting quiet and concentrating.  Nobody said anything but I knew the baby’s shoulder was stuck and we had a case of dystocia going on.  Thankfully, there was no panic and it was very mild and everything worked out easily with a few adjustments.

Sure enough, as the doctor predicted, once the baby was on my chest I had pretty much complete relief from the bolus of medication the anesthesiologist gave me.  So even though I labored completely without it, and did ½ my pushing without it, I was still thankful for it in the end because I did need some stitches and was able to concentrate on just pushing effectively to get the baby’s shoulder out instead of being paralyzed by fear from the pain.  Overall, I’d say this was my easiest labor even though it was my longest by a couple of hours.  At 9:41, Owen Ryan Horner arrived weighing 8lbs 10oz and 19 inches.  As always, I fell completely and instantly in love and the whole tortuous 9 months of pregnancy was worth every single second!

During this whole experience, David was at his best.  He was so attentive, relaxed, and sweet during the entire process.  If ever there was a perfect birth partner, David was it.  I was so happy to have him by my side every second of the way!

Nothing brings me more peace and happiness than having a baby.  It’s like magic.  When David came with all three boys to pick me and Owen up from the hospital, it suddenly hit me that we had FOUR children.  I immediately started sobbing.  Having four boys is a dream come true for me.  It’s all I’ve ever wanted.  I am soaking up every second of Owen and all the boys absolutely adore him.  There’s been no fits, jealousy, or anything other than excitement and love for our new family member.  Love just overwhelms me.  May it always.

 

Last week all three boys and my husband dropped like flies from the stomach bug on Monday morning.  Thankfully, David wasn’t hit as hard and was able to help considerably with caring for them.  I’ll spare you the gory details but let’s just say it was brutal.  They were all out from school for the entire week and William didn’t bounce back until Sunday.  Thank God I stayed on my feet until Friday when the worst was behind us and had the weekend to recover.  I crashed hard Friday morning, felt a lot better Saturday but then Sunday felt terrible again so it was a bit of a roller coaster.  But am now back on my feet completely and feeling much better 🙂

Oddly, everyone getting sick and having to go into caretaker mode reset my mood a bit and I’ve been able to muster the energy to get more prepared for the baby.  I am packing my hospital bag next week and really hoping that I can make it until the end of February when my dad gets here.  Either way, it won’t be much longer!  I have been listening to my birth meditation tapes (yay for sticking to the goal this month!) every night in preparation for the big day.  I swore after my last delivery that I would never again have another natural childbirth but I’m trying to be prepared for anything.  I usually just go with the flow and if I decide I want to get an epidural then wonderful, if not, then hopefully these meditations will help me through it.  I don’t make up my mind about getting an epidural until the last minute anyway and go through the vast majority of labor without it so these tapes will hopefully help me through the bulk of the process whether I decide to get one or not.

Once a month William’s school hosts a Parent’s Night Out from 6-10pm and it is pure bliss.  We drop the kids off at 6pm and the school feeds them, entertains them and gets them all in their PJs and ready for when we pick them back up at 10pm.  They take all three boys and will take the baby too when he’s about 8 weeks.  It’s our lifeline to having date nights, which David and I desperately need with how hard he works and how demanding having multiple children is on both of us.  Having time to reconnect without the kids is imperative for any relationship but it has been especially true for the two of us.  We look forward to it every month ❤

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m 33 weeks now and finding a comfortable position to sleep in is getting increasingly difficult as is the simple act of breathing and moving around.  The good news is that I am only measuring 1 week ahead of schedule now instead of 2 so things are leveling out a bit.  But despite all these complaints, I am generally feeling ok during the day and well enough to get some things done before I completely crash in the late afternoon.  As I get closer to the finish line, time is starting to go by pretty quickly.  And like all the others, I simply can’t fathom what it’s going to be like for another baby to join our family.  I’m sort of shutting my eyes at this point and hoping it all works out ok!

My attempts at cleaning up my lifestyle are going along slowly but surely as well.  We got a Berkey water filter for all our drinking and cooking needs and so far I love it!  I am still too tired to make my life-saving green smoothies every single day but at least I’m whipping them up more often than I did before.  I’m also adding a healthy dose of chia seeds, ground flax, coconut oil and brazil nuts to my daily diet along with my Red Raspberry Leaf tea.  I drank the tea during the third trimester of my last pregnancy and while I have no idea if it made labor shorter/more efficient (although the labor did progress beautifully), I can definitely speak to its ability to dramatically reduce postpartum bleeding.  It’s also supposed to help with milk supply and is an overall good tonic for pregnancy in general.  Plus, it helps keeps me hydrated since I absolutely hate drinking plain water.  I bought the herb in bulk and brew it in big batches every couple of days just like I did with green tea before the pregnancy.  I’ll keep on making small but manageable changes as time goes on but I’ve discovered that if I try to do too much, too fast then I end up abandoning all of it.

As far as my other goals, apparently meditating for 20 minutes a day is just too much for me to handle.  I tried to change the goal to just 5 minutes but that didn’t work either.  Reading a book?  No.  Practicing piano?  Nope.  Writing poetry again?  Not exactly.  And the sad part is that these are things are really love.  I want to meditate and read and play piano and write.  I’ll have to re-evaluate things and perhaps start out making these weekly goals before jumping into daily goals.  Right now I feel like it’s a huge accomplishment if I actually manage to keep my sanity until the end of the day… which is not exactly happening either.  Ugh.  Baby steps.

But here are some pleasant pictures of our picnic with the peacocks to make everything seem happy and jovial.  This is one of Colin’s favorite activities and mine too.  When life gets stressful, go see some birds!

Well the new year is off to a far more chipper start than the end of 2016 and I’m thankful for that.  I’ve found my footing after a severe rough patch and hopefully things stay manageable!

The weather has warmed up considerably again and as long as it’s not hot (think 70’s), I’m happy.  A few cold days here and there are good too but after a number of cold days in a row, it’s always nice to have a brief break!

Nathan has adjusted very well to being back in school after the long break. We all do well when we have a schedule and this is especially true for Nathan.  William has had a bit of a harder time getting back into the swing of things and has been sad when I drop him off at school.  He says he just wants to stay home and snuggle with mommy, which is so sweet and just makes me want to keep him home with me sometimes J  But he always ends up having a good day when I pick him up so all is well in the end.  And Colin jumped right back into school with glee.  He loves it 🙂

Lately I’ve been feeling like an elephant seal.  I don’t know if you’ve ever seen those things move around but it ain’t pretty.  The baby had a massive growth spurt over the holidays and at my 30-week appointment last Monday, I was measuring 32 weeks.  Normally I’d be pretty freaked out over this and the prospect of birthing a big baby, but I seem to remember this with my last pregnancies.  The babies would have huge growth spurts and then things would settle down a bit.  The doctor assures me that my history of having babies 7-8lbs is a far better indicator of the size of the baby than what I’m actually measuring.  Let’s hope that’s the case!

Since I’ve always delivered 10-14 days early, my dad is arriving 2.5 weeks before my due date to stay with us for a couple of weeks so he can take the boys when I actually go into labor.  After he leaves, I have my mom coming out for a week just in case the baby is late and/or to help out with things right after the birth.  I am so thankful they are able to do this for me and it eases my mind greatly knowing I’ll have some extra help around that time!  David’s parents have always done this for us in the past and my water has always broken on the same day they arrived so the timing could never have been more perfect 🙂  I am hoping that we have a similar situation this time around and the baby doesn’t decide to stay put and come way later than in the past, but you never know!  We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it I suppose!  I am just hoping my water doesn’t break while I’m out somewhere with a massive gush.  At least with William and Colin, I was home when my water broke (although with William it really did break with a massive gush like a bucket and I screamed with horror/surprise).  I keep desperately praying that I’ll go into labor in the evening when David is already home and the boys have been picked up for the day.  That way Dave and I can just calmly drive to the hospital without him having to scramble home from work in traffic and then leave my dad to pick up all three boys from school.  Ah!  Must stop worrying about these things and just let events unfold as they will.  Pre-labor jitters I suppose!

Ok – here’s a long overdue belly shot.  As I said – elephant seal.  And I still have 2 months to go.

Welcome 2017!

I usually end my year by setting intentions for the next year and then kind of sit around and hope they will come true.  This year I decided to get a bit more specific and set five goals that I want to work towards in the new year with steps for how I am going to reach them.  I also began a habit tracker to start a handful of good habits I would like to adopt in in order to make some changes to my lifestyle.  We’ll see how it goes but I like the idea of being a bit more proactive than I have in years past!

Christmas is over… thank goodness.  It was not a good Christmas for me and I couldn’t wait to get rid of the tree and move on from the holidays.  For New Year’s Eve we went on a long hike and then had a party with just the five of us that night.  Nathan actually made it 30 minutes past midnight, William to about 11pm, and Colin to about 9pm.  Not bad!  Overall it was fun and I always look forward to New Year’s Eve and Day J

I start my 30^th week of pregnancy this week so the official countdown has begun!  I have always delivered my babies 2 weeks early so I am really keeping my fingers crossed this one happens the same way.  That way, I really only have 8 weeks to go!  It’s time to start getting the baby’s room together a bit more.  I have some artwork that I got off Etsy to hang (little ants with balloons and playing cricket), and we set the dresser up yesterday.  Very exciting!  The baby will sleep in a pack-n-play in our room for the first six months or so like all the others did.  That gives us a bit more time to keep Colin sleeping in his crib before we switch him to a toddler bed.  He seems in no rush to escape and come down stairs in the middle of the night so as long as it’s working, we’ll keep things as they are for as long as we can!  But other than that I am really looking forward to this pregnancy being over.  I am uncomfortable, exhausted, and have generally really struggled this time around.  I feel fairly certain that this will be our last baby.  Mama isn’t going to put herself through another pregnancy again!

So that about catches you up!  I hope you all have joyous New Year’s Day and happy birthday to my beautiful sister!

We survived our first holiday in our new house!  Thanksgiving was a great success!  I got some special plates and a table runner for the occasion and pulled out the Waterford glasses and everything looked really nice for a first run.  There was a brief moment of panic when the turkey was done way faster than I thought it would be but it turns out I had the meat thermometer in a bad spot so that was easily fixed.  And then of course there was the moment my dad and I were scrambling around in the market the night before because I forgot brining bags for the turkey.  Of course they didn’t carry bringing bags so we decided a thick trash bag would suffice.  Dad kept accidentally picking out Febreeze lined bags because they had ties at the top.  Thank God I noticed otherwise we would have had a very weird tasting turkey!  But all was well in the end because the food turned out great and the turkey was perfectly cooked and moist.  Phew!

I am 26 weeks pregnant now and starting to get tired again.  I am really hoping it’s just a passing phase and I get a little bit of energy back.  I feel like I had about 5 good weeks where I had energy, didn’t feel horrible, and was able to get out and do things but now the pendulum is starting to swing back the other way and the fatigue is creeping back into my day.  Another possibility is that Christmas is approaching and I have never been a fan of Christmas.  It drains me completely and I hate the whole gift-giving aspect as strange as it sounds.  Of course it’s much more fun with kids but also more exhausting.  Still, I much prefer Thanksgiving to Christmas.  Either way, time will tell if I can get a few more good weeks in before the third trimester starts and all the discomforts that accompany it!

So that’s that!  I am off to try and get my photography assignment done!  I take classes at the Austin School of Photography and love everything about it.  The teacher is amazing.  I have 1 more class left and then will likely go through withdrawals.  Next I’ll have to sign up for his Documentary class, if I can 🙂

We had almost a week of non-stop rain here in Austin and I loved it.  It’s so nice to have the cooler temperatures and an end to the horrible dry spell that we’ve endured lately.  Unfortunately, our camping trip was cancelled due to the mud and they will not be rescheduling it L  Boo.  To help alleviate some of the disappointment, David set up the tent upstairs. All the boys stayed in it for a short while but eventually only David and Colin remained to stick it out.  Nathan and William ended up crawling into bed with me to watch a movie while David and Colin tossed and turned in the tent all night 😉

We’re getting excited about Thanksgiving coming up!  It’s our first holiday season in our new house and for the first time I am actually excited about celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas!  Yesterday I spent hours putting away the last of the boxes and storing the clothes the boys have outgrown.  Now all we have to do is hang the pictures and decorate and we’ll be all set!  I’ve never been able to decorate before because there was never enough room in our apartments without feeling cluttered so this is a new chapter!  Grandpa is coming to visit for Thanksgiving this year and I’ve been busy planning a menu and getting tabletop décor in order.  Last year was my first year making everything myself and I loved it, although it did require a ton of work!  But to me, that’s what the holidays are about.  Family and cooking!  I hate ordering things and having them catered – it takes away from the spirit of it all.  But I must confess that my attempts at homemade gravy failed miserably last time so we’ll be buying it in advance this year!  I don’t want to kill myself over the stress of cooking either so if I know it will cause me anxiety, I’ll buy it.  After all, I want to be able to enjoy myself too!

I am 23 weeks pregnant this week and have a definite bump now.  People don’t hesitate asking me when I’m due or if I know the sex now.  I have been working out steadily for the past four weeks and my endurance is slowly increasing.  I’ve never been able to exercise during any of my last pregnancies because I suffered from horrible dizziness so this is something new for me.  I have to plan my exercising days carefully though because it exhausts me so much.  But I’ve decided that it’s worth it because I do feel a lot better in general and have more energy on the days I’m not working out.  I’m just trying to enjoy this stage while I can because I am not huge and overburdened, I feel pretty good, and generally have no physical complaints.  Since this is almost certainly my last pregnancy, I am hoping that it remains a good one!

So nothing major to report this week but now that I am a bit older, I’m of the mindset that no news is generally good news.  In my 20’s this lull would have driven me crazy.  Now, I love it.  But let’s face it, with three wild boys and another one on the way, even the dull days are packed with everyday drama!

 

Have a good week!

Hello!

I hope everyone had a great Halloween!  Ours… not so much.  I got excessively angry with Nathan for not saying thank you after he received his candy and after about 15 minutes, he wanted to quit and go home.  He now says he hates Halloween and never wants to go trick-or-treating again. 😦  I feel horrible.  I didn’t mean to ruin the kid’s entire experience this year.  William found the whole ordeal somewhat boring and wanted to go home too.  So after 20 minutes of getting everyone in their costumes and ready to go, we were home 15 minutes later with both Nathan and I mad at each other.  He was still mad most of the day yesterday and Tuesday’s morning routine was a horrendous experience.  Thankfully by nighttime we seemed to have found a common ground and were happy with each other once again.  After a string of really rough mornings and drop-offs, today went exceedingly well and everyone went off to school happy and calm.  Phew!  Sometimes we seem to get on a string of negative days and I am convinced it will never end.  Then they lift as suddenly as they descended and we are all in a good grove again.  I have a habit of assuming that when something is hard, it will be hard forever and nothing but misery is to be expected.  Thankfully, life has proven me wrong time and time again but I still can’t seem to break the habit and keep things in perspective.  Yesterday I was sure all my kids would end up drug dealers and in jail but today I feel like they may actually make it!

This Saturday we are going to a neighborhood camping in the park event.  The boys (including David) are extremely excited about it.  I got us all sleeping bags and we have our tent ready to go.  I have also been on Pinterest a lot researching good picnic foods to take camping.  I have decided on tiny cheeseburgers on skewers, pasta salad, and sliced fruit on skewers in addition to cookies and some other snacks.  Be prepared for lots of pictures!  I’ll let you know how it goes!

This week, in a sudden flurry of determination, I decided to begin lacto-fermenting our own vegetables.  I bought a book and some air-lock lids from Amazon and tomorrow will start with making pickled carrots and sauerkraut.  I really am a bit overly excited about it and am once again wanting to move to Pennsylvania and start a little farm.  This happens to me a several times a year.  I really think I was meant to be Amish.  When my book arrived yesterday, I leapt for joy and jubilantly declared to the boys that we were going to start eating fermented vegetables to which William immediately replied that he hated fermented vegetables.  He’s never had one in his life and while I am sure that there is a possibility we may all, in fact, hate them – I refuse to be deterred and am hoping for the best!

So between lacto-fermenting vegetables and roughing it in the park we’ve got a lot to do for the remainder of the week.  I’ll keep you posted!

 

 

Hello!

Things have been fairly smooth around here lately.  I am starting my 19^th week of pregnancy this week and have gotten over the sickness and debilitating fatigue I suffered from in the beginning.  Thank goodness for that!  We’ve settled into the new house, although we still have some boxes to put away.  Unfortunately, we’re still suffering from heat waves here so I am impatiently waiting for the weather to cool off more consistently.  I loathe hot weather.  Anything that starts with an 8 or above is too hot for me.  I much prefer the 50’s and 60’s and love the snow!  I should really be living in Maine or Montana.

In an effort to be more centered and grounded, I have started up my meditation practice again.  I’ve studied meditation on and off for about 15 years, but never stuck with it.  I think the problem is that I’ve always done either mindful meditation or traditional guided imagery and that just isn’t my thing. But I’ve been looking for some new styles and tapes and so far I’ve found a couple that I like, so I’m going to start making it a daily practice.  Another thing that I’ve decided to do is delete any political post or violent image on Facebook that serves to sway people in one political direction or another. This made a tremendous difference in what I was seeing when I popped online.  I don’t mind differences in political opinion (I married a man who is my complete political opposite!) but I can’t take negative scare tactics or strictly religious posts.  My husband doesn’t chase me around the house with a cross or hang GOP posters all over our walls – Thanks dear! 😉

Another thing I’ve done to brighten my day, although this is quite trivial, is sign up for StitchFix!  After three pregnancies and never really investing in quality maternity clothes, I have been terribly short on things to wear that don’t look shabby or unflattering.  I am also completely fashionably challenged and can’t put an outfit together to save my life!  Once a month, I get sent an outfit picked out for me by a stylist and I can either purchase whatever pieces I want or send it back at no charge.  They send you five things (I got 2 shirts, a pair of jeans, a sweater, and necklace) for my first Fix.  You select the style and price range and based on your feedback, you slowly get things more tailored to your style.  I loved everything they sent me except one shirt and felt so much better about myself when I put on something that looked nice and cute on me even though it was very basic.  After three kids, I am starting this pregnancy weighing as much as I did when Nathan was born and frankly have felt fat and unattractive.  I may not really be overweight but I still have a lot of work to do once this baby is born as far as getting back in shape!  Getting a new, affordable and flattering outfit can really do wonders to perk up a flailing self-image.

Another fun thing was that my mother was in town this weekend and we all went to Boo at the Zoo again this year.  I LOVE our zoo and the workers and volunteers do such a great job putting together a fun Halloween night for kids.  Everybody wears their costumes and goes on the haunted train ride through the wilderness and gets to see the animals by flashlight at night.  They’ve also got a haunted house and lots of decorations and lights around the entire zoo to make it fun and festive.  The kids have a blast staying out late at night and we do too 🙂  It’s our second year going and has definitely become a tradition for us!

And lastly, I am thinking of returning to school to get my Masters.  My biggest dilemma is whether or not to go for my MFT now or wait a couple of years and begin the nurse practitioner program in psychiatric medicine at UT Austin.  Both have their positive points.  Something to sit and ponder for a while until I decide I suppose!