Guess what!

As you may have deduced from the recent lack of "ugh, I'm still pregnant" type posts... I had the baby!

And she is a girl! And pretty flippin sweet!

May I present...

Violet Lousie LaMartina
born May 16th, 2010 at 4:55pm
weighing 8lb, 5oz
20.5 inches long

I am working on getting the birth story all written up, I probably won't post it up publicly here cause you know, tmi and all that, but if you're actually interested in hearing all the gory details, just let me know and I am totally cool with sharing it privately. But I will give the basic gist of how things went down.

Last Friday I was.. ugh. Feeling very ugh. Was supposed to go to this mom's night out thing, and totally ended up bailing cause I was so anti-social. Went to bed crazy early (like, seriously. I was in bed by like 8:45) and woke up Saturday feeling much better. We headed out to Warrenton for the day, for a friend's graduation party. And that was very very nice. It was just family, we all just chilled out for the entire day, it was great. Pregnancy-wise, there was a big ole NOTHING going on. No contractions or anything. Saturday night I decided to continue with the niceness of the day and not get all worked up about "argh when is the baby going to come" and stop browsing the inane STUPIDNESS of pregnancy message boards where people agonize over "is this a contraction?" and "how can I tell if I'm in labor?" and crap like that. Nate and I had a nice relaxing evening- ate some pizza and ice cream, caught up on some tivo'd shows, I even had a small glass of red wine. We went to bed as normal, at a decent hour, even, because we had to get up for church in the morning.
Sunday morning at around 5:15am I woke up to pee (for the fourth time). Noticed some cramping. Noticed that it was coming and going. Considered timing it on my handy dandy contraction timer app that I had downloaded to my phone, but quickly realized that this was most likely the real thing and that I should probably grab a little more sleep if I could. I dozed off and on until I heard Fiona waking up at around 7:30. I brought her into our bed for a little morning cuddle time, and I let Nate know that we were probably going to be seeing this new baby by tonight. We still planned on going to the 10:30 Mass though, cause the contractions, although they were coming at about every 3-4 minutes or so, were fairly mild still. By 8:00 Nate had Fiona downstairs in her highchair eating breakfast, the contractions had gotten a smidgen stronger, and I suggested that maybe we should try and hit the 9:00 Mass instead. So I jumped in the shower real quick. When I got out of the shower at 8:30 and started to get dressed, I decided that maaaaaaybe going to Mass was not in the cards for this morning. I started timing the contractions for real on my phone, and we made heads up calls to our baby/dog watching support team.
For the next two hours I timed contractions while we ate breakfast, started packing up what we needed for the hospital, gathered up Fiona's things, made t-shirts (seriously, I had designed these big sister/little sister/brother tshirts and I had never gotten around to printing them onto the transfer paper and ironing them on, and it became very important to me that I get this done before we leave.), fed the dog, etc. We called the doctor at around 10:30. At this point contractions were about 2-3 minutes apart, lasting 45-60 seconds each. Fiona was just playing with some toys during all this, but she was also interested in what I was doing, and definitely started copying me when I started concentrating and breathing through each contraction. Which was adorable.
We headed for the hospital at around 11:30. We dropped Fiona off with some friends of ours on the way over, and the minute we pulled away from their house I burst into tears because, "The next time I see her she'll be a big sister and she won't be my baaaaaaaaaby anymore..."

At the hospital, the abridged version:
Got to the hospital around noon, got all checked in, got situated in the room by 12:30, and then we did the whole labor/delivery thing for a few hours. Baby was born at 4:55.

Annnd it was great. When she came out, nobody did the whole "It's a girl!" announcement thing, they just sort of slapped her up onto my chest and I was trying to look and check if this child was a boy or a girl... and so I think I was the one that got to announce that it was indeed a girl. I then turned to Nate and said "Oh crap, we haven't agreed on a girl's name!"

As they cleaned her up, we all discussed possible name choices... we really didn't have that moment of "when you see her you'll just know what her name is". It took us maybe a half hour before we decided that she was, in fact, a Violet. And the middle name... well, that one took us two full days to think of and agree on.

On Monday Nate brought Fiona to the hospital to meet her baby sister, and there was some SERIOUS cuteness overload happening. Fiona kept wanting to hold and kiss the baby, and to snuggle with me in my bed, and then we all sat together on the bed and ate dinner from the caf and watched some tv and snuggled some more before Nate brought Fiona back home.

Things got a little tricky towards the end of our hospital stay, as Violet developed a bit of jaundice, which required some phototherapy and supplementing breastfeeding with some formula, all of which was very overwhelming and confusing but which turned out just fine. We had our second follow-up visit at the pediatrician's office yesterday and everything is looking great. She's still looking a tad yellowy, but the doc said that will it should clear up in time.

We are still settling in, Fiona has been super extra clingy for the past few days, and has had some trouble sleeping through the night. But its a big adjustment, learning to share Mama and Daddy with this new little thing that cries. I don't expect it to be easy.

Even with the lack of sleep and the craptasticness of recovery, things are really really great right now. So I'm gonna go enjoy my little girlies. Who would have thought that I, of all people, would have two girls. I was the tomboy, the one who took the babysitting jobs with the crazy boys, NOT the one who dealt with cute little outfits and pigtails and hairbows and all that nonsense. I don't even wear pink! And yet, here I am with two little girls, loving it. Life's funny.

Fiona taking her little sister Violet home from the hospital. She left her hand on the carseat like that the whole ride home. It was way too freaking adorable.

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Yep.

The scene: A doctor's office.
The characters: Me. A doctor.

DOCTOR: Oh, hai. You're still pregnant.
ME: Yup.
DOCTOR: See you next week.
ME: Peace out.

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Non-post.

This is a non-post. It is merely to say that I had my 39-week OB visit, annnnnnd... I may as well not have gone. It was a direct copy of last week's appt. Weight, measurement, blood pressure, baby's heartbeat, all movements toward labor... everything exactly the damn same. We are officially in a holding pattern. But, that's good, I guess.

Last night we had movie night with the sibs that are here visiting. We watched Star Wars, which we had decided on before I even realized that yesterday was some sort of "Star Wars Day"... well, Nate and the kids watched it anyways. I sat down and tried to. We did up the movie night right, got pizza and soda and popcorn and ice cream and everything... but I sat there for like 5 minutes, ate a half a piece of pizza, and then couldn't sit still any. more. I originally was just having a panic attack at how wrecked the living room was, so I real quick picked up all the toys and books and stuff, hoping that would be enough to allow me to sit and enjoy the movie. Buuuuuuut nope. Not even close. Had to move from there into the kitchen, then to bringing the past month's worth of recycling out to the curb, then to bringing all the dirty laundry to the basement, then to the pile of "hand-wash-only" laundry that has been sitting on the basement floor for seriously the last 3 months, and then I was able to sit for a few minutes. But then there were diapers to fix leg elastic on, and emails to send... ended up going to bed around 2am.

Getting up at 6:00 this morning to shower before work was fun, after that... but I had to. Cause had to be at work, and can't go to the doctor appointment all stank smelling. Got out of the shower, did makeup, was about to get dressed and run out the door... and the phone rang. They didn't need me today after all. Well, shoot. Now I'm literally all dressed up with nowhere to go. But I was already awake, like actuall awake, not even close to that groggy "Cool, I'm going back to bed" frame of mind.

So I went downstairs, made a pot of coffee, and attacked a project I've been putting off for weeks- sewing cloth baby wipes. Got a good chunk of it done before I had to leave for the doc.

Now I'm thinking I'll attempt grocery shopping again? Here's hoping it goes better this time. I've got reinforcements to protect me from mean old people this week, so I'm hopeful.

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The number 9

Today's post is brought to you by the number 9.

Also, by other numbers that may or may not be loosely related to the number nine.

Firstly. I am nine months pregnant. That means I am very uncomfortable most of the time. However, I recently have been really trying not to complain so much, I really have. Most of the time that doesn't work so well and I'm still whiny. Buuuuut I'm so close to the end. It's seriously almost here. There are 9 days until my due date. That is a very small number. It is a single digit number counting DAYS and not weeks or months.

Sooooo yeah. Very very close to the end. Very very close to having to do the whole newborn thing again. Oh, and the whole labor and delivery part. Whiiiich was not exactly the funnest thing I've ever done. On account of the lack of pain meds, which apparently means that I was able to fully enjoy my birthing experience? Whatev. Alls I know is, it went pretty well last time (I've been told), and so I plan on doing that again. Cause I hear that 5 and a half hours of labor for your first baby is actually pretty good, and that it will be less this time around? Okay, cool. I can do that. I've been reading up on my birthing techniques. Sitting on my exercise ball. Encouraging this baby to move on down into the birth canal and Get. Things. Going. At my appointment last week, the doc told me that things have started shifting around and preparing to open up in there, but that hey. That means basically nothing. It means I'm pretty pregnant and I'll be having a kid soon, and guess what, doctor? I already knew that! Also at my last appointment- found out I actually LOST a pound between weeks 37 and 38, and she said "oh that can sometimes signal impending labor" and I was all "yeah, my first wasn't born until 41 and a half weeks" and she was all "Oh, okay. Maybe not then." And since it's been 5 days since that doctor appointment and this kid is still in utero, I'd say that the 1lb weight loss was not, in fact, a sign of impending labor.

Another 9. This one is 9x2=18, which is how many months old my little chickadee is. (I told you some of the 9s were a stretch, didn't I?). Fiona had her 18-month checkup today, she's officially a year and half old, and officially still tiny. She measured 30.5inches long (when the hell do they start being "tall" instead of "long?" She definitely stands up most of the time these days.) and weighed in at all of 19.7lbs. (see, another 9!) Sooo that keeps my peanut on the 20% for height, and >5% for weight. I was really rooting for her to hit that 20lb mark at a year and half, but no. Still a bit less that 19 and a half. Which is nice for me, actually, since I am also currently required to tote around 30 pounds of kid and kid habitat in my abdomen. Once again, the doctor assured me that she is totally healthy, we don't need to worry about any special weight-gain diets or anything like that. She's just straight up little and that's okay. Developmentally everything checked out, too. She doesn't have a TON of words yet, but she's coming along. She recently learned the sign for "Please", and how to say "Help" and that has improved my quality of life GREATLY. More on that subject in another post.

That's actually all I wanted to cover tonight. It's 10:59 and I am le tired.

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