The Birth of a Giant (a.k.a. Corban's Birth Story)-- Unabridged

Around 36 weeks, I really started feeling ready to have my baby. I’m sure most mothers feel that way near the end of their pregnancies, but I think I was especially feeling it simply because I knew my baby was going to be big, and getting bigger every day. Plus, the “false” contractions, by this time, were starting to become more and more frequent and difficult to ignore. I knew my body was gearing itself up for labor, and guessed I’d probably have my baby by 38 weeks at the latest. In fact, as 38 weeks approached, I was so sure labor was imminent that I started doing everything I could to help the process along. 38 weeks came and went, though, and I was pretty disappointed. And exhausted.

 In the middle of the night on February 28^th I woke up with abdominal pain. I was having a contraction, but the pain did not go away for nearly and hour and my abdomen was also tight the entire time. I was also a little worried that the placenta might be tearing away. I called my midwife and she said I could come into the hospital if I was worried.

 I figured I was not actually in labor, but we went into the hospital for testing and monitoring. Of course, as soon as we were headed to the hospital, my pain went away completely. But I decided to go in anyway. I’m glad I did. My urine test came back normal, and the baby was fine. I explained to the nurse how I had been having a lot of contractions, some pretty uncomfortable, but nothing regular. The nurse checked my cervix, and said I was only 1-1.5 cm dilated, which surprised her considering how many contractions I was having. She was in contact with my midwife over the phone, and the midwife suggested giving me a shot of morphine and phenergan to stop the contractions for a while so I could rest. The thought was that the shot might give my body a chance to “reset” itself, and that when the contractions returned they would become more regular and more effective. So I got the shot, and soon after we returned back home.

For nearly a day, I had hardly any contractions, and the few that I did have were much milder. March 1^st and 2^nd, the contractions started getting more intense again, but still spaced hours apart. By this time it was getting really hard to wait, and I was pretty much a hormonal mess waiting for things to happen. I was so ready, and quite frankly amazed that I was still pregnant at this point.

On the morning of March 3^rd, though, I noticed a marked difference in my contractions. I had only two or three that morning, but they definitely felt harder than they ever had before, especially in my tailbone area. I was fairly certain labor was starting, though it would still be a while before it was time to head to the hospital, and I made sure to have Nick load most of our stuff in the car before he left for work at his parents’ house. I spent the morning at home with the boys, making sure I spent some quality time with them. After lunch, we, too, headed to “Nana’s house” as we had all been invited over for a family dinner to celebrate my brother-in-law’s birthday.

My in-laws have a treadmill in their basement. I had had several more contractions by this point. I decided to walk—slowly—on the treadmill for a little while, thinking that if I did something rhythmic with my body, it might help the contractions to become more rhythmic, too. I walked from around 3 to 3:30. The contractions continued to come closer together, but I did not officially start timing them until around 5:30 and after a half-hour of timing they were regularly 5 minutes apart. I called my midwife a little after 6:00, and she said to head in. I ate a little dinner, careful not to overeat. Nick ate some dinner, too. But I was ready to go before he was, and he couldn’t help chatting with his family while they all ate. I knew we needed to get to the hospital soon, though, so I could get started on the antibiotics for the Group B Strep, and I finally said to Nick, “All right, you’ve got five minutes and then I’m driving to the hospital myself.”

By 7:00, we were headed to the hospital. It was a half-hour drive to the hospital where my midwives practice (and the only hospital in the valley that provides a water birth tub, which I wanted). We got checked in, met our nurse, and soon I was on my first round of antibiotics. The contractions were getting a little harder by this time, and I especially felt them as I was sitting in the bed hooked up to the IV. I was glad when the first round was over and I was free to walk around. As long as I was moving, the contractions weren’t as bad. Nick and I took a walk together for a while, and back in our room he read Harry Potter out loud between contractions. By this point, I really had to concentrate during contractions, moaning and swaying through the pain.

When I finally let my nurse do an internal check (she wouldn’t call my midwife in until I was at least 3 cm), it was close to 9:00. Through no fault of hers, this nurse had massive hands (she was kind of “masculine” all around), and was not very gentle, either. Fortunately, she said I was 3 cm and she called my midwife.

While my midwife was on the way to meet with me, I used the bathroom and noticed some “bloody show” which continued to show through the rest of labor. Nick and I had a nice visit with my midwife, chatting about this and that between contractions. My midwife commented that I seemed pretty “chipper” for a woman in labor; she also commented on what I good job I was doing managing my contractions.

The midwife left for home around 10:30 to get some sleep (she lived only 5 minutes away), and encouraged Nick and I to get some sleep, too (or at least rest as much as possible, in my case). Before she left, though, she did another check of my cervix (because I preferred she do it rather than the nurse again—ouch): 5 cm and 90% effaced.

I laid down and rested between contractions; the nurse also set up the waterbirth tub during this time. Nick slept, but after a half-hour of laying down, I felt like I needed to be moving again to manage the pain. I also ate some during this time. The nurse warned me that I’d probably be throwing it back up later (I never did—so there!). But I was listening to my body, and my body was telling me to eat. And drink.

The nurse came in around midnight to administer the second dose of antibiotics, and I rocked in the rocking chair, still moaning through contractions, while I was hooked up. After that, I decided to try resting in the bed a little more as I was very sleepy. Eventually, though, the contractions were too strong again and I had to move.

Nick had been sleeping for a couple hours at this point, but eventually I had to make him get up as I was finally starting to experience some back labor in my spine. I would lean over a chair through a contraction while he pressed on my spine to ease the pain. We did this through a few contractions, when the nurse came in and saw what we were doing and said, “It’s time to fill up the tub.” So she got started on that. She had already told me earlier that I shouldn’t get in the tub until I was at least 8 cm, but when she asked me if I wanted her to check me yet I put it off for a while longer, remembering the previous experience.

After a very short while, though, I really wanted to get in the tub, so I let the nurse check me around 1:00. When she said I was 6 cm I wanted to scream—but I didn’t. She said it was good progress, but I was just upset that I couldn’t get in the tub yet!

After that, Nick and I worked through the contractions, and I just focused mentally on relaxing and dilating as quickly as possible. An hour later, I asked to be checked again and thank goodness I was 8 cm! I got in the tub, and the nurse went to call my midwife back in. It was 2:10 in the morning.

The relief after getting in the tub was incredible. I knew being in the water was supposed to ease labor pain, but I still didn’t expect it to help this much. The back labor went away completely, and the contractions now resembled what they had been in earlier labor. Easiest transition ever.

 I stopped paying attention to the time at this point, and just allowed myself to relax and enjoy myself before the pushing started. I had Nick sit in a chair with his lap accessible for me to lean on, since there wasn’t much of a lip on the tub. Sometimes I semi-squated with my feet together in front of me, and sometimes I knelt with my knees apart (like doing the splits), whatever felt most comfortable and kept my pelvis more open so the baby could feel free to move down.

My midwife came in, and we all chatted for a while. As the baby moved down and turned in preparation for birth, I could actually feel him, and my midwife said she could see the bulge on my back (because the bag of waters was still intact) moving down. My midwife had a bucket of ice water in which she was soaking washcloths to place across the back of my shoulders to keep me cool.

The contractions got more intense again and the back labor returned, though still not nearly as bad in the water as it had been out of the water. I started pushing, but was clearly making little progress with my bag of waters still intact. My midwife got an amnio hook and during contractions tried several times to break the bag. It was difficult, though, and took several tries. When the bag finally broke, though, the water rushed out in a roar, and I roared, too. The pressure was incredible. I pushed through a couple more contractions and could finally feel the baby reaching the crowning position.

I had to turn around at this point, which was difficult as there wasn’t a whole lot of time between contractions. But I managed with some help, and then the really hard part began.

I can’t say for certain how many times I pushed, or how long it took. I did my best to take my time, though, despite the pressure and the burning that accompanied crowning. I remembered my experience pushing out my second baby, how I had been so desperate and had pushed him out way too fast; so I was determined to make myself slow down this time and hopefully reduce the amount of tearing. It was excruciating to wait, especially when I could feel the head halfway out already and my whole lower body burned with the pain. I didn’t remember my other two babies being nearly this difficult to push out. My midwife assisted as much as she could, turning the baby as I pushed. Whenever my cries became too high-pitched, she reminded me to lower the pitch. I moaned and yelled long and loud as needed; my survival instinct was taking over, and I focused only on getting my baby out.

At one point, my midwife invited Nick to reach down and feel the head, and he did. She invited me to do the same, but I was clinging so hard to the lip of the tub with my arms, and I was afraid to let go as I imagined I might slip into the water. I simply said—more like cried—“I can’t!” Probably the most irrational moment of my entire labor.

Finally, with one final push, I felt my baby’s head push through, and then the rest of his body slithered out. It was 3:32 AM. Even before I saw him, I could tell he was big and long from the way he felt coming out. My midwife placed him on my chest, and I half-laughed and half-cried. And I held him close to me as one of the nurses suctioned out his mouth and nose. My midwife placed a towel over us to help keep the baby warm as he looked rather purple.

My midwife helped Nick cut the cord, and soon after I pushed out the placenta, which felt almost as hard as that final push with the baby had been. I still burned a good deal, which told me that I had probably torn again—a little disappointing, since I had hoped being in the water would help me to not tear at all. But several minutes later when the nurse announced his weight on the scale, I felt justified.

He weighed 11 lbs. 6.5 oz. at birth. He also measured 22 ¼ inches long. His head circumference was 14 inches—big head! No wonder I had had such a hard time!

Corban was struggling to breathe and was still quite purple. The nurses started giving him oxygen to get him pinked up.

I rested in the tub, my legs still spread out, not wanting to move at all because of the burning. But I had to get out so my midwife could stitch me up. So Nick helped me out and to the bed, where again I lay with my legs spread open, feeling physically weak and vulnerable—and worried about my baby who was still struggling to hold in oxygen.

As bold and as brave as I may be through labor and delivery, I always feel like a coward in comparison when it comes time for the stitches. This time was no different than the other two times before. It didn’t matter whether or not the midwife was actually stitching or tugging at anything, I shrieked and moaned and winced indiscriminately through the whole procedure. When it comes to needles piercing my skin, the anticipation is just as bad as—if not worse than—the real thing.

Finally, I was stitched up, but still winced at the thought of moving. Eventually I managed to put my legs together and rested for a little while as Nick and the nurses came in and out bringing me news of my baby, who was now under an oxygen hood and being prepared for transfer to the NICU at another hospital in the valley. The on-call pediatrician also came in to explain the situation to Nick and me. They believed our baby to be suffering from the effects of a Group B Strep infection (despite my treatment during labor), with excess fluid in his lungs and mild pneumonia. Once in the NICU, he would be put on antibiotics and oxygen.

Eventually I couldn’t stay in the bed any longer as I really needed to use the toilet. The nurse helped me, and it wasn’t nearly as painful as I had anticipated, so after that I was less anxious about moving around. As it turned out, being in the water had helped me to tear less than I had during either of my other births, despite this baby being at least two pounds bigger. Once I realized that the discomfort this time around wasn’t nearly as bad as before, I felt pretty confident to move around as I wished.

Nick went right to sleep once things settled down. I tried to sleep, and managed to get myself into a half-daze for about an hour, but then I couldn’t rest anymore and got up. I ate, and visited Corban in the nursery. It was hard not being allowed to nurse him right away like I had my other two.

Eventually, I felt tired enough to go back to bed again. I was having some pretty bad afterbirth pains, though. My midwife had said earlier that the afterbirth is typically a little more painful after each subsequent delivery, especially with such a big baby. I took something for the pain, and resisted the urge to over-massage my uterus as it contracted.

Sometime during all this I called my parents and my in-laws to update them on what was happening.

Finally, I did manage to drift off—just in time for an EMT to come in to let me know that they were there to transfer Coby to the NICU now. Nick was still knocked out on the daybed. I had originally planned to see Coby off, but I felt so exhausted and sleepy I just said thanks to the EMT and said we’d probably come to the NICU in a couple hours after we’d rested and washed up and had some breakfast (the cafeteria opened at 7 and it was currently around 6:00).

As it happened, it was more like 9:30 by the time we were ready to leave the hospital to head back into town to see our baby boy. My midwife had me completely discharged based on how well I was doing physically, and we were free to go.

What a blessing it was for us to have a small NICU right in our own hometown. Only two years ago, our baby would have had to be transferred 2-3 hours away. Corban made such a rapid recovery, and was off supplemental oxygen within four days, which led the NICU doctor to change his initial diagnosis of Group B and pneumonia to simple water retention around the lungs. This excess fluid had drained quickly, though the doctor decided to keep administering the full antibiotic treatment to be safe.

Coby also suffered a broken clavicle during delivery due to his size; the doctor told us to just be careful and gentle, and that the shoulder would heal itself in about four weeks.

 The story of Corban’s NICU stay, though, is better left for another time, as this story is long enough. For now, I will just say how happy we all were to finally bring Coby home on March 10^th, six days after his birth. The boys are excited. Gabe is eager to show his baby brother everything—especially his video games. Zac delights in hugging and kissing his baby brother, though we have to remind him constantly to be gentle or he gets overly affectionate very quickly.

Welcome to the world, Little One.

The Birth of Corban Nicholas-- Pictures Edition

This post is for pictures of Corban's birth. I'm still working on the write-up of the complete birth story.

 Just a couple days before labor. Yeah, my belly's big, but does it really look that big?

 Resting on the birthing ball.

 Moving through a contraction.

 Ahh, the glorious birthing tub!I would not have survived without this.

 Nick was a great support near the end, mentally, physically, and emotionally present for me the whole time (which can be difficult for him with his ADD).

Does this one need words?

 First afterbirth photo!

 First "family pic"

 Finally pinked up a bit.

 The scale never lies...

 The happy (and very tired) Daddy!

 The massive placenta, cord, and sac, which housed and nourished my baby well (too well?) for the first nine months of his life.

 Getting hooked up to the monitors; as you can see, he was not happy. But oh-so-cute.

 Big Brothers "meeting" their new baby for the first time. Can't wait for them to actually hold him.

 At the NICU.

 He has to have O2 blowing near his face when he's not under the hood.

 Close-up of our beautiful boy.

Finally got to nurse for the first time... :)

38 Weeks

All right. This is the point in the pregnancy where I reeeally start getting antsy to get this baby out!

I know it's bad when I start viewing videos like this: http://youtu.be/wnEcLSHTI0s

Generally, I can't stand having anyone touch my feet...Even watching that video makes me wince. Yet I'm still tempted to try it...

Then, there are the times-- when I have my hands entirely full with the two boys I already have-- where I start to think maybe it would be best for everyone if this kid just stayed put until he's, oh, six years old...haha.

Mym ind is pretty preoccupied most of the time with thoughts about labor: Is it happening? Is it not happening? Where will it start? When? Who will I be with? What if we don't make it to the hospital? What if he's born at home? What if he's born in the car?! Because this is the way my mind works: I can't help considering every single conceivable possibility, because then I can be prepared for anything and surprised by nothing. Theoretically.

Psychologically, I believe that the mind can have a powerful influence over when and how a pregnant woman experiences labor. When I was pregnant with Z, for instance, my in-laws (who were going to take care of G for us while I was in labor) had a week-long trip to Massachusetts planned, flying out on midnight of the morning of my due date. I had a tentative backup plan should they have ended up being away when I went into labor; but I really wanted to have the baby when they were in town (and I didn't want to wait until after they got back). Well, my water broke the morning before they were to leave; they watched G at their home as they packed; when Z was finally born that evening, they brought G to the hospital, met the new baby, and G stayed the night with us at the hospital. Everything worked out perfectly. I've always wondered since then, did I somehow psych myself into going into labor when I did? And if so, maybe it'll happen that way again.

Lately, although physically I have felt ready-- and my body has given me many many signs that it's pretty much ready, too-- I have had lots of valid reasons for putting off labor. Nick and the boys had the flu; then I had the flu. My mother-in-law was out of town and just got back in late last night. Nick was very busy with tax season and it would have been a hardship on his coworkers for him to take much time off (thankfully, it looks like things are finally slowing down now). I still had a few last-minute preparations to take care of (made five freezer meals the past two weeks!).

But now, finally, I'm starting to feel more ready. Like, this weekend would be good...Really good.

Think I can make it happen? Maybe a good foot rub will help...or not...

"Dark Side" ramblings #4

Yep. It's the middle of the night and I can't sleep-- again.

Poor Nick has been sick. Z is sick, too. G and I seem to have avoided the worst of it, though. But yeah, Nick has had an especially hard time, probably from being overworked the last two weeks. He stayed home from church yesterday to get some extra rest, and hopefully he'll be able to take a day off tomorrow, too, as he still seems to be getting over a fever. He told me yesterday morning, "Please, please don't go into labor until I'm over this." I'll do my best.

If it weren't for the illness, though, I'd be pretty eager to get going. The Braxton-Hicks contractions I've been having for the last few months have started making way for more intense prodromal labor, inlcuding the occasional contraction that feels so close to the real thing (radiating back pain, pelvic pressure) that I start to get a little excited. But then it goes away. Because my first labor was induced, and my second labor required a membrane rupture to really get going, I'm almost afraid I won't even recognize real labor this time when it starts. Maybe with any luck my first sign will be my water breaking-- that's a pretty obvious indication, I think. Only with Z, when the midwife ruptured my sac, it only took 3-4 hours and the baby was born! So if my water does break first, I'm going to have to pretty much book it to the hospital just in case this labor goes even faster.

Tonight at dinner, Z let out a little toot. I turned to him and said, "Did you toot?" He said, "Yeah. I can toot like this" And then he did it again-- on purpose! Great. My two-year-old can toot at will...Now all I have to do is get him to poop at will, on the potty...

G was playing in his room last night before bed and all of a sudden he came running out, screaming about a tiny fly trying to get him. We kept trying to calm him down, explaining that little flies don't hurt anybody. But he was not convinced. He would not go back into his room and instead hid under a blanket on the couch; of course, then Z imitated his big brother and it almost turned into a game, hiding from the baby fruit fly...Eventually, G got up his courage to try going back into his room, only to freak out again when he said the fly was poking his foot. We thought it was probably something in the carpet, so Nick came along with the vacuum and "vacummed up the fly." Then, I took G aside and had a discussion with him again, now that he was a little more calm. I encouraged him to use his imagination to make the situation less scary. I made up a story for him, telling him that the fly was probably just lost and ended up in our apartment when where he really wanted to go was the unit upstairs to visit him mommy and daddy. That elicited a laugh. Then I told G I thought we should probably let the fly out of the vacuum and open the front door so he could go upstairs. It took a good deal of prompting to get him to actually open the front door-- I think he was still a little scared. But he did it, and I "coaxed" the "fly" out of the vacuum hose so he could go out and visit his mommy and daddy.
Later that night I was reading books to the boys in their room, and I did actually see the fruit fly fly across the book I was reading a few times. Fortunately, G didn't seem to notice and I didn't say anything. At least I know he's not hallucinating, though.

I'm at the point in my pregnancy now, that whenever I pass someone in the hall at church their eyes seem to go directly to my belly. And if anyone says anything to me, there's a 95% chance (at least) that their first words to me will be either "how are you feeling?" (polite and considerate, albeit a little annoying when I've heard the same thing about ten times already), or "when is that baby going to be here?" (to which I answer, "I don't know." I mean really, I don't know. So what's the point in asking?). Also, being asked over and over-- sometimes by the same people every week-- "When are you due again?" and "It's a girl, right? Or is it a boy? Or do you know?" Okay, I understand that it's hard to remember everything you hear. But if you're going to go to the trouble of asking me about my personal life (and yes, my pregnancy is personal) at least you could go to a little more effort to actually remember the gender of my baby the first time I tell you.

Can you tell these pregnancy hormones are making me a little more irritable than normal? Only a little, though :P

Ugh, baby's pushing on my stomach right now and giving me heartburn...Drop, baby! Drop!

Emotionality and Deep Thoughts

G has been in quite an emotional stage of his development lately. Small things can really set him off. And the "big" things...well, they can seem pretty traumatic judging by his reactions. It's all part of growing up, learning to understand, label, and deal with budding emotions. I can only hope I'm doing the right things to help him through this period so that he can come out confident on the other side.

On the other hand, once in a while he amazes me with his maturity when there are times where I get overly-emotional about something...He's right there to comfort me and tell me it will be okay, in just the same way I am there for him when he's having a hard time. It's very sweet and quite gratifying to see him modeling that behavior; he does it with his little brother, too.

I am often surprised, also, by the depth of his thoughts. He blindsides me constantly with real-world questions that sometimes I am at a loss to answer adequately. Nick says-- and his mother concurs-- that he was like this as a child, too. Mom? Was I like that?

Haha, I'm remembering now the home video clip where my brothers and I are doing puzzles on the ottoman and my puzzle has a yellow pig in it and I'm asking over and over with increasing intensity until I finally get an answer, "Mom! Some pigs are yellow and some pigs are pink, huh?!" Finally, in the video, my mom says something exasperatedly like, "Yes, Sylvia, some pigs are yellow and some pigs are pink." And then life resumes. What my mom probably didn't realize then, was that that question was really important to me. Of course, I don't remember what was going through my head at the time, but after witnessing/dealing with my son, I imagine it was something like, "Hey, this pig is yellow. But I thought pigs were pink! Hey wait! This doesn't make any sense. *world as I know it comes crashing down momentarily* Unless...*lightbulb* Maybe some pigs are yellow and some pigs are pink! I'd better ask Mom..." Now my question, after telling that story, is, Who in their right mind would make a puzzle for preschoolers with a yellow pig in it?!

So yeah. Take a question like mine above, and multiply its import by ten and those are the kinds of questions I often get from my preschooler. Questions about life, death, crime, justice, God, humanity...How do you explain some of these things to a preschooler?! Before I was actually faced with this situation, I firmly believed that I-- as a parent-- should always do my best to truthfullyand thoroughly answer any question my kid might ask me. For instance, with the pig question above, I would have first tried to understand why my kid was asking the question and then would have answered honestly, "Well, it's true that pigs come in different colors-- pink, brown, white, black... However, I've never seen a pig in quite that shade of yellow before; I think the people making this puzzle just thought it would be fun to make a yellow pig." But then of course, that would have inspired a whole new stream of questions from a kid like mine: "What's a "shade"? being probably first and foremost; my son is a nut for vocabulary. But now I understand why my own mom answered the way she did: it was just so much simpler! And less time-consuming to boot. And time was at a premium for her, with four small children under the age of five.

But back to my son. Like I said, he can get very emotional, and sometimes with good reason. Just this past week, he was playing at school and he and a couple other boys broke one of the class rules of not running around in the bathroom. They all got time-outs from the teacher; and after school, the teacher prompted G to tell me what had happened. He immediately broke down and his teacher had to tell me herself what had happened. Of course, it wasn't nearly as bad as G seemed to think it was. It's not like he'd been fighting, after all. He just got swept up in the moment with his friends and went somewhere he shouldn't have. I wasn't upset with him, but apparently he had been quite concerned about how I would react as he seemed pretty devastated. Well I comforted him and reassured him and we went home. He seemed to be fine by the time we got home.

But the next morning at breakfast, I mentioned that he had school again that day, and he told me and Nick that he didn't think he should go to school because he felt a little sick and didn't want to get the other kids sick. (He did have a bit of a cough, but nothing serious) Well at first, Nick and I were impressed that he would be that considerate of his classmates. But later, it became clear to me that the real reason G didn't want to go to school was that he was afraid after yesterday's incident. He allowed me to take him to school, but verbally objecting the entire way.

When we got to the door of the classroom, he melted down again. He wanted me to stay with him; he was afraid to knock on the door; he didn't want to be here. I continued to coax him, even as other kids trickled in past him (usually he's quite eager to go in all by himself while I wait by the car). Finally, he knocked loudly enough to be heard, but immediately cowered behind his hands before the teacher opened the door. Just as I had assured him would be the case, his teacher greeted him with a smile; I explained his behavior to her and that I had tried to tell him that she wouldn't be mad at him, that today was a new day, that he had a "clean slate" and all that. She was reassuring to him as well as she ushered him inside. When I came back later to pick him up, he was all smiles again.

We as adults often seem to remember our childhood as "blissfully ignorant," simpler times, carefree. But to the mind and heart of a child, it's really not that simple. Yet my hope as a parent is that, by the time my children are adults, they will also remember their childhood as happy, simple, and carefree-- at least in comparison to adulthood.

"dark side" ramblings #3

Apparently people keep asking Nick at church if we're sure I'm not carrying twins...Nope. Pretty sure I was about this big with my other babies, too. I just have big babies! And I'm small, so, they just make me poke out a lot.

On a related note, though, I already feel so big right now I can hardly believe I still have four and a half weeks 'til my due date!

I think we've finally settled on a name (yay!). And for those of us whom we told before, it's not going to be Asher. And I'm not going to share the new name here yet, just in case it changes again.

FYI: When a woman is pregnant, or just had a newborn, (or any other time, really) is not the time to ask her if/when she's going to have more kids. Seriously.

And if you do have the nerve to ask me, at the moment, I'd probably be more inclined to say "Never again," than, "Oh, yeah, I want to have about six more, acutally." Though of course the real truth of the matter probably lies somewhere between the two. But I'll take my babies one at a time, thank you.

This particularly appears to be on people's minds simply due to the fact that I am pregnant with my third BOY. Like I'm going to keep trying and trying and trying until I finally have a girl. And then I'll stop. Because obviously no family is complete unless it has at least one child of each gender; but then equally as obviously, if you do manage to have at least one of each gender now you can stop because who could ask for more?

Sure, I'd like a daughter. But I LOVE MY BOYS! I truly believe I was born to be a mama of boys. And that's A-OK with me. I will raise them to be "good catches" and look forward to meeting my future daughters-in-law.

The only problem I see with having more boys is that they're getting so hard to name!

By the way, my glasses broke. Again. This is my fourth pair in almost as many years. *sigh* They're all taped up with duct tape right now. Yes, it's the latest fashion. For the next week or so. I'm replacing them with plastic frames this time; we'll see if they hold up any better than the (apparently) flimsy wire frames I've been getting. How come Nick's glasses never get broken? Oh yeah, because he's not home with two (soon to be three) rowdy BOYS all day every day (Did I say I was okay with having all boys? Oh...).

Speaking of my boys, they sure do eat a lot! Nick occasionally will ask me where all our "extra" income goes each month, and why I keep having to dip into our savings...I forget he's not home all day to hear the incessant "I'm hungry!" And by golly, I'm hungry, too! I've got another boy curled up inside me apparently telling me the same thing as his older brothers.

Thank goodness for tax season and tax returns. Though I hear the latter is going to be greatly diminished over the next couple years...

Speaking of tax season, right now being a peak time at H&R Block, Nick has been working overtime this last week. Which means time-and-a-half (yay!). But it also means he doesn't get to be home much. It's to the point now where if the boys are up in the morning before he leaves for work, they (especially the toddler) will do everything in their power to get him to stay "just a little longer," or even not go to work at all (sorry kiddos, not happening). Just the other morning, Z sat on Daddy's lap and said to him, "You shouldn't go to work. You should stay home." (Did I mention this kid is only two-and-a-half years old? His verbal skills astound me sometimes.) All day yesterday (Sunday), whenever there was help needed, or attention wanted, Z insisted on Daddy doing it.

Z has recently discovered how to scream. And I mean scream. Before it was just wailing and thrashing we had to deal with. But now, every so often, we are lucky enough to be serenaded with an ear-splitting, hair-raising song to the heavens.

G is an emotional mess lately. It started a few months ago, but has been getting increasingly worse. We are doing our best to help him understand his newfound overwhelming emotions and learn to deal with life more rationally. Generally, he's such a sweet, amicable, intelligent boy; but when those strong emotions take over, it's really tough! For all of us, but especially for him. It's hard to be rational all the time-- even for adults! So I really do sympathize with his plight.

G has also started taking his role as "oldest brother" very seriously lol. He reminds me of the stories my mom used to tell of me as a little girl, thirteen whole months older than my younger (twin) brothers. He has decided to take on the role of "enforcer," not only at home but everywhere we go it seems. If there is a child being disciplined, he wants to "help." And he is all too eager to remind other kids (and sometimes even adults) of the rules, even when he may be forgetting to follow them himself. Just yesterday, we were over at the in-laws' for a little while and my niece and nephew were also there. At one point, my mother-in-law put my niece in a time-out and told her to stay there; G witnessed this, but then eventually went back to the playroom (after we told him to stop trying to help Nana lecture his cousin); when my niece was let out of time-out and went back to play, G said to her, "Did Nana say you could be in here?"

Okay, I'm finally starting to feel sleepy again. I'm going back to bed now.

Difference between me and my husband

So, I am obviously not much of an artist. But the cartoon below attempts to illustrate the difference between my husband and me when we go to bed-- particularly in the wintertime. He is almost always too cold, and I am almost always too hot. He tries to crank up the thermostat in our room right before bed, and I always want to keep it turned off (the heater is right behind our bed and it makes my pillow too hot!). I win, of course, based on the fact that he can always add more layers to his side of the bed, but there's only so much I can remove...I've also explained to him that if it ever gets too cold in our room even for me, at least then he'll have a much better chance that I'll want to snuggle with him and sleep closer. Otherwise, I tend to want to shove him as far to the other side of the bed as I can so I don't have to feel his body heat when I'm already too hot to sleep. But even when he keeps the thermostat off, it is still often a little too warm for my liking...poor guy can't win. I still cuddle with him on occasion, but it usually doesn't last long before I start to sweat and have to scoot away. It's especially a problem when I'm pregnant, i.e., housing a little furnace inside me.

Hopefully the words are all legible. The first panel shows a little "x-ray vision" for the purpose of showing what I usually wear to bed, vs. what he wears.