Christmas!

So this year's Christmas was especially cool for us. Ari was very excited for Santa to come this year so that we could open all the presents under the Christmas tree. Cara and I were just as excited to see him so excited. It was all I could do to keep the two of them from opening presents a couple of weeks before Christmas. Although I did give Cara her big Christmas present early so that she could use it. I got her a six month membership to Massage Envy so she could get some prenatal massages. So far I haven't heard any complaints. We decided to open all of our presents Christmas Eve morning because we go to Nana Mary's house Christmas morning with all the cousins. Plus it's not like Ari knows what day it is so two days of presents is better than one! We also spent Christmas Eve evening at the Laird extended family Christmas. Ari was the life of the party being that he was the last munchkin there as all the others went to other family gatherings. Then we spent this morning with Nana Alexis as she brought over her presents for us. All in all the weekend went pretty smoothly sans one nap for Ari which led to a not so smooth evening. But enough talking lets get to the good stuff.

Santa was listening this year. This has been the big hit of the Christmas presents! He hasn't wanted to leave it's side! I'm not sure about this Santa guy stealing the thunder of the best present.

Opening one of his presents from Uncle Jon and Aunt Laura. He loved the car transporter!

Rocket ship from Mom and Dad!

The Kitchen with additional appliances and pots and pans courtesy of Santa, Aunt Metri and Aunt Jamie!

The closest contender so far to the kitchen, Nana Alexis hooked him up with Legos galore!

We neglected to take our camera to Christmas morning with all of his cousins. We knew we were forgetting something. My sister Renee had her camera rolling so I know she'll send us some pictures to post. We'll see how long it takes her to read the blog and know that we need some.

Baby Boy #2 Update

I am a little over 30 weeks now and we had a prenatal appointment today. All is good and healthy with mama and baby! He is head down (he was at the last appointment too, so hopefully he just stays put). His heart rate was good. I am measuring a bit ahead belly wise at 32cm, but my midwife isn't concerned. I didn't do the traditional one hour glucose test but she did draw blood at the last appointment for a couple of tests and included a glucose screen, and all of my blood work is normal - normal sugar levels, iron levels, etc.

At 30 weeks in my first pregnancy, I had been swollen for weeks and my blood pressure started reading high and I was put on home bed rest. No swelling this time around, and my b/p today was 120/58. :) I have gained a lot more weight this pregnancy - about 30lbs so far - I only gained about 23-24 total with Ari (by 36 weeks when he was born). Again since I'm all around healthy in every other respect, it's not a concern (well, not a medical concern, but I hate the scale anyway :P). I attribute it to the fact that I actually have an appetite this time and have also been striving for the protein recommendation my midwife gave me of 70g a day - that's quite a bit of food.

We got some more info about preparing for the home birth and will get even more details in another month or so when she does a home visit. I hired a doula last week - she happens to be a ND (naturopath) who did homebirths in Tucson for 20 years. She doesn't deliver babies anymore but she does work as a doula in addition to working part time at a naturopathic clinic in town. What's cool is that unlike a typical doula, she can do cervical checks and listen to the baby's heart rate. She will be able to tell us when I am in active labor and making progress so that my midwife doesn't make an unnecessary trip for a false alarm. ;) So I will be trying to schedule a time next month when both the midwife and doula can visit on the same day so they can meet each other.

Anyway, we are excited and happy to that everything is still going swimmingly with the pregnancy. I know the next 10 weeks are going to fly by!

Rocket ships!

I have decided to redecorate Ari's room in a rocket ship theme (also keeping in mind it will be shared with his baby brother eventually). He likes rocket ships thanks to Curious George and Little Einsteins, and I think it's just a cute theme. I haven't bought much yet but I have found a good list of potential stuff in the right colors - blue, yellow, and orange, we're keeping the same paint colors we already have in there.

Awhile ago, a mama friend of mine in IL offered to make baby boy a quilt if I sent her fabric that I like. Couldn't refuse that offer! She sent it to me this week and it is *adorable*. The patterned fabric has rocket ships, planets, and robots, and she stitched a big rocket ship across the middle of the quilt and stars all around the edges. So cute and all the more special to have something for the baby handmade by a friend.

Then at our recent trip to the mall to see Santa, Ari wanted to go "in a store." So we walked into Ross and lo and behold, found him a rocket ship comforter/sham set! It was only $18 after tax, I was so thrilled. Target has a rocket ship theme bedroom set but it is much pricier. Ari still doesn't sleep with a blanket over him, but I figure he will eventually and last night he was thrilled to sleep on top of the comforter, haha. And it does the job to fill in the gaps between his mattress and his bed frame which were previously stuffed with random blankets. This is a phone pic but you get the idea... this rocket ship room is coming together!:

Santa!

We decided to take Ari to the mall this year to see Santa for the first time. We have been reading The Night Before Christmas, The Polar Express, etc. and he was very excited to see Santa. We even printed his Christmas list which included photos of what he wanted so he could have a reminder of what to tell Santa.

We went on a Thursday afternoon, because we are smart like that. No line at all. But once we got there, he had zero interest in talking to Santa. I think partly he got shy, but partly it was because Santa was hanging out next to the mall play area so Ari wanted to play. We let him play for a bit then I talked him into seeing Santa if mom would walk up there with him. So I sat right next to them and he did fabulously. He said hi, told Santa everything on his list, and even sat for a photo with him although we weren't quick enough to catch his smile. (We didn't pay the $10 for them to take the photo since they let us take two for free. Especially because you pay beforehand, and I didn't even know if he would sit with Santa or throw a fit or what!) He was very excited after it was all over and very proud of himself. :)

Afterward with his free reindeer hat:

Prenatal Appointment & Change of Plans!

I had my most recent prenatal appointment on the 19th at just over 27 weeks. I think everyone has heard about the results of this appointment, but I figured I would document it in detail for the sake of keeping up with blogging and looking back on this exciting time later down the road. ;)

Before my midwife Claudine even started the exam, she said she had something to talk to us about. This birth center is fairly new, only opened in February of this year. She has her state accreditation but has been working on getting a national accreditation since August. The national certificate is not required, it just looks better for the birth center and also enables more insurance companies to contract with the center. However Claudine was just informed - despite having several VBAC patients on record since the summer, like me - that the center won't be approved if she serves VBAC patients there. This is silly for a number of reasons, including the fact that *after* she is certified she could apply and be approved for an exception to the rule, based on their most recent guidelines (http://www.birthcenteraccreditation.org/2011/07/cabc-vbac-policy-adopted-june-2008/). But she has to get the certificate first, and then apply for exception, and this process won't be complete until after our baby is due.

So she said we have several options. I can transfer care; she can hide my file and essentially lie and still let me birth at the center; OR, she can simply attend my birth at my home. She does attend home births and as a CNM is legally able to attend a VBAC at home. Previously she did not wish to go so far to attend a birth, but she would rather do this than drop me as a patient or fudge her paperwork.

When I first became pregnant with this baby - even before - I looked into the home birth option. The more educated I became about my different options and best chance for a successful VBAC, the more I wanted a home birth. The problem was finding a provider; there are only three CNMs in Arizona who do home births (most CNMs work in hospitals, while LMs - licensed midwives - attend home births, but cannot legally attend VBACs). Out of the three CNMs, one is in Tucson but chooses not to do VBACs. The other two are in Phoenix; I contacted one and her schedule was full. So I contacted Claudine. She is running a birth center as well as doing home births in the Phoenix area, so she did not wish to commit to a home birth out of town. But she was also running the only birth center in the state that would accept VBACs, so we chose that as our next best option as it seemed we just couldn't make a home birth happen.

So needless to say when she offered to attend our birth at home, Sean and I jumped at the option. (Sean, incidentally, is almost more adamant than I am about staying out of the hospital for this birth!) I know it is less convenient for her, but I am so grateful she offered to do this rather than just telling us we had to transfer care, as she could have done.

I've already done all of my "homework" she requested: I verified that our insurance will cover the home birth, I collected the pertinent phone numbers for the hospital we will use in the event of an emergency transfer, and I spoke with the fire department about response times and helicopter availability just in case. (This is all "just in case" really, she wants us to be prepared for the worst although none of us have any reason to anticipate anything going wrong.) Most women who end up transferring their home birth to a hospital do so by choice, rather than it being a true emergency. The reality is, pregnancy and birth are not nearly as dangerous as tales of western medicine can make them out to be! ;)

So, that was long winded. And we are having a home birth, possibly a home water birth as we will rent a birthing tub in case I want to use it. We are thrilled to say the least - after wanting a home birth from the beginning I had given up on the idea. But I still felt cranky and grumbled about it every time we had to make the hour and a half drive. ;) Speaking of, this also puts my mind at ease as far as logistics of the birth center being an hour and a half away and how to handle that while in labor, finding child care for Ari possible in the middle of the night, etc.

Oh, and the actual exam went fine! Mama and baby are healthy. Baby was head down, we'll see if he stays put or flips a few more times, and his heart rate was good. :)

Halloween

We realized we never did a Halloween post so I am back dating this and sliding it in. ;)

A couple days before Halloween we carved pumpkins. Or, I carved pumpkins while Ari watched. He wanted very little to do with scooping seeds out or the general messiness.

On Halloween we took him trick or treating for the first time. He did so well, I wasn't sure if he would really participate since it involved talking to strangers, but he said "trick or treat" and "thank you" at every house! He was a monkey aka Curious George and Sean was the Man in the Yellow Hat. :) He had a really good time and wanted to go trick or treating again the next night. We let him have one piece of candy after dinner for about three nights afterwards then he pretty much forgot about it and the candy, uh, mysteriously disappeared.

Proud of his pumpkins.

Mad because he wanted to GO trick or treating already, not pose for pictures!

Homemade Paint

I am trying to fill our schedule with more enriching activities and less TV. We got in some bad habits over the crazy hot summer during which I had the first trimester yucks, so time to change things up. I recently discovered pinterest.com and have found tons of fun toddler-friendly activities to try.

Today we made homemade puffy paint. The recipe is one cup flour, one cup salt, one cup water, + food coloring or tempera paint for coloring. I doubled the recipe to fill five squeeze bottles about halfway each. Ari had a blast helping to make the paint and actually painting with it, so all in all it was a success. :)

Our Breastfeeding (and Weaning) Journey

I started actively weaning Ari a few weeks into this pregnancy. He was almost two, nursing was painful while pregnant, and I wanted to be done nursing him before baby #2 arrives. (Some women choose to tandem nurse their toddler and newborn, and while it is perfectly safe and fine to do so, it was not my preference.) Now, after two years, three months, and nine days of nursing - and no nursing for three days - I think I can say he is weaned.

Let me start at the beginning though. As in, July 9, 2009. Ari was born at 7:05pm, at 36 weeks, via c-section. I got to see him for a few seconds and then they whisked him off to the NICU because he had a spell of apnea during his exam. I didn't get to see him again, hold him, or try to nurse for him about 5 hours. Anything you read about breastfeeding will tell you this is a less than ideal start; you want to try to get baby to nurse within an hour of birth.

Ari fortunately was healthy overall; he didn't have any more apnea spells. He could maintain his temperature on his own. The problem was that he was so sleepy. Due to being a newborn, due to the meds they had given me in the 24 hours before his birth, and due to jaundice, this little man would not wake up to eat. He had an IV of sugar water for the first 24 hours to try to help flush his system of the medication. After a day and a half or so, the NICU pediatrician said we needed to start feeding him either via bottle or nose tube. My milk had not come in yet, although I had colostrum (it took five days, that can be typical with surgical birth). Well, for one, I knew enough about breastfeeding to know that we shouldn't introduce a bottle this early, and for two, I don't think he would have woken up long enough to eat from it anyway.

We opted for the nose tube, as sad as it was to see it in his tiny face. We had to supplement with formula as his weight was dropping and my milk was taking its time (I was pumping round the clock every 2-3 hours, so he also got the colostrum that I pumped). He was in the NICU for nine exhausting, somewhat traumatic days. Many of the NICU nurses were the opposite of helpful when it came to me trying to breastfeed; some of the LCs were helpful, but they were also only available during the day. Nurses would continually give him pacis with sugar water - not helpful for a baby who barely has energy to nurse for five minutes, for him to expend all that energy on pacis. I rarely felt like they listened to our questions or concerns or took us seriously as parents. Honestly, I didn't feel like a parent; the way we were treated, he didn't feel like *mine.* The whole experience definitely prolonged our initial bonding.

Night time feedings were the hardest, emotionally, for me; trying to keep him awake, trying to get him to latch and suck for the "appropriate" amount of time, with no help from nurses or LCs. Sean was my lifesaver these frustrating nights, getting up every feeding with me to try to help. Around day 5 my milk came in and he also finally started to wake more reliably to nurse. He was born at 5lb7oz and when we left the hospital nine days later, he was around 5lb2oz. He got down to just barely over 5lb, so when we left he had started to gain again, which is what they were waiting for before recommending that he go home.

Even after we got home, everything was harder than I imagined. After being on bed rest so long, I felt like I was hit by a truck every day for several weeks just trying to adjust to being active enough to care for baby and myself. The c-section itself healed quickly, but recovery from bed rest was hard. I found that having ginormous boobs meant nursing always took two hands, I always had to position my breast with one hand and hold it the entire time he nursed. Made it hard to do anything else but watch TV while he nursed - couldn't hold a book, etc. However, for me, whether or not to breastfeed was never a choice. I was breastfed until over the age of two, and I always knew I would nurse my kids. I hated nursing in those first few weeks; his tongue tie made his latch painful and my nipples were sore for far longer than I thought they would be. (Although I am grateful I never had any bleeding/cracking etc.) I had a bad case of hormonal "baby blues" that finally started to list around 4-6 weeks. At this point I stopped *hating* breastfeeding, but I didn't like it either. It wasn't until around 3 months post partum that I felt much better, nursing didn't hurt anymore, and I looked forward to feeding my baby.

I'm happy to say it was pretty smooth sailing after that. I had a couple of plugged ducts but that was about it as far as challenges. Nursing in public was a little challenging as he refused to nurse under a blanket or cover (and I didn't have a third hand anyway, since as I mentioned nursing always took two hands), but we adjusted and learned how to nurse discreetly without one. I'm happy to say I never experienced anyone being rude to us about nursing in public. Things I loved about nursing included the sweet milk coma face afterward, the smiles and giggles at the breast, the fact that it could calm him down always. Oh, and that my tiny 36 weeker quadrupled his birth weight in the first year!

I knew we would minimally follow the AAP recommendation of one year minimum of breastfeeding. I also knew I would be ok with him nursing longer- which turned out to be a good thing, because he not only didn't like cow's milk after he turned a year old, but he had a bit of an intolerance to dairy. I knew that the WHO (World Health Organization) recommended a minimum of two years of breastfeeding, as breastmilk is still so beneficial for a child's developing brain and immune system during this time. I also knew he needed some type of mammal milk until he was at least two, and he wouldn't drink cow's milk. So, no worries, we continued on.

We had intended to wait until he was 2.5-3 years old before we tried for another baby, but we were surprised earlier than that; I found out I was pregnant shortly before he turned two. I knew I wanted him to wean before next baby arrived. He often slept through the night at this point but when he did wake he would want to nurse, so we started with Sean taking over the nights and completely night weaning. After a few weeks he was used to that so I slowly started cutting out day time sessions. A month before he turned two, he still nursed 6-8 times in 24 hours (5-6 during the day, more if he woke at night). We slowly took it down to three times a day, and then two times, and then only at bed time, over the first four months of my pregnancy. When we initially cut out "extra" day time sessions (mid morning, mid afternoon), he was definitely upset. Even though he didn't tantrum too much, he became extremely clingy for a couple of weeks while he adjusted. I just gave him lots of extra snuggles whenever he wanted, since that is what he needed. He is still super snuggly all day long and that's ok with me!

Last week, he suddenly and randomly decided to start falling asleep all by himself at nap time. And this week, three nights ago, he did the same at bed time, and stopped asking for milk. My supply has been gone for weeks and that didn't dissuade him initially, so I am not sure what happened in his little head. But something clicked, and I imagine even if he asks for milk at some point in the future, he won't be too disappointed if I deny him.

Finally, I just want to mention that Sean has been the most amazing support throughout our entire breastfeeding journey. It would have been so much more difficult to accomplish without him and I was so grateful every day for how much he cared and helped. Women who have husbands that are not supportive of breastfeeding are much less likely to succeed long term - thankfully I never had to worry about that!

I'll end with the only breastfeeding photo I have (I'm sad there is only one, we will do better with next baby!). We were nursing on the beach in San Diego in October 2010, a year ago - it was awesome and beautiful to snuggle and breastfeed right next to the ocean.

Apples!

On Saturday morning we drove to Apple Annie's Orchard in Willcox. Ari did well on the drive and he had so much fun picking and eating apples. He even loved the sour Granny Smiths! Plus of course Sean took him on the tractor pulled wagon ride - two of these in one weekend was so exciting! I was super bummed that I forgot my real camera, but we got some phone pictures.

He took a short nap in the car on the way to Sean's company picnic that afternoon. I didn't take any photos at the park though, but he had fun kicking a soccer ball, playing on the playground, and hitting his first ever pinata!

The next morning I went in search of an apple peeler/corer and found one at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. This thing is seriously awesome, since we brought home over 20lbs of apples.

Then I made about 4-5 pies worth of apple pie filling. I gave one portion to our neighbor (the organizer of my new bunco group), and made one pie last night, and put the rest in the freezer for the holidays. :) It was delicious!

Pumpkin Patch!

We had a fun filled weekend! Friday afternoon: pumpkin patch. Saturday morning: apple picking. Saturday afternoon: Sean's company picnic. Sunday: chores at home and I made a bunch of apple pie filling to freeze (and an apple pie for dessert last night!). Busy but awesome weekend.

The pumpkin patch is only 20 minutes from our house, so that was awesome. The one that is further away has more "stuff" - a real petting zoo (this one had maybe six animals and we couldn't actually reach them all), more festival food and craft vendors (we were bummed there was no fry bread at this one :P), etc. But, Ari doesn't know the difference yet and he would much rather have a shorter car ride, so it was a win-win for this year.

October is Love

This is my favorite month in Tucson. The mornings and evenings do start to cool off, and Tucson takes advantage of slightly cooler temps in a big way. There are lots of community events in October - beer festivals, car shows, food and culture festivals (like Tucson Eat Yourself - er, Tucson Meet Yourself), plus all the Halloween fun. I adore Halloween and I love going to the pumpkin patch and all that fun stuff.

So October is always pretty busy for us. This starting weekend we didn't do anything specifically October related, just ran errands and did chores, watched Kaitlin's soccer game, etc. But starting this next weekend we are going to be busy! Our list of things to do this month:

- Go to the Marana Pumpkin Patch. I am excited to have discovered this farm this year, because it is pretty close to us; we usually drive much further to a different one south of us.
- Go to the drag races in Phoenix (Sean's Father's Day present). This is on the 15th. We already got Ari's noise cancelling head phones and we will be there with Christina and her guys, so Christina and I will be able to entertain each other and the toddlers when any of us are bored with the racing. ;)
- That same weekend as the races is Tucson Meet Yourself and we always go have dinner one evening and catch some performances.
- *Maybe* go apple picking in Willcox at Apple Annie's. It's a bit of a drive but I haven't been in years and I really want to go. I think Ari would love it!
- I have a prenatal appointment in Phoenix on the 22nd, followed by a 30 minute prenatal massage!
- We will go to a community Halloween carnival that same evening in Phoenix where our 6 year old niece will be doing a dance performance; we'll spend the night up there since the carnival doesn't start until 6pm.
- Halloween weekend we will probably go to the YMCA trunk-or-treat with Ari's cousin's like we did last year, and we will take Ari to do a little trick or treating around our block this year too!

Between all this plus the consignment order and regular sales picking up, there will not be much rest for the weary - but it will be so much fun! Hopefully we find time to blog about every new adventure. :)

Drum roll please....

.....and the winner is, it's a Boy! After a bit of consideration between Cara and I, we decided not to find out the sex of our newest bean. Unfortunately, we had our 18-20 week ultrasound today. The tech although seemingly knowledgeable, just didn't have a lot of common sense apparently as we told her we didn't want to know the sex. Cara and I both at separate points during the ultrasound had some tell tale signs however. Mine was a little less obvious than Cara's and I could have convinced myself that I didn't see what I thought I saw, when the tech all of the sudden commented that she just saw "it". Cara's sign was after the tech had us turn away from the screen so she could capture a picture of the sex of the baby. When we turned back there it was at the bottom of the screen, the captioning they associate with all the images "XY". Now I'm no doctor but I play one on tv, so it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out. Amazingly enough the tech had no idea what she had done. We are disappointed because although it would have been fun for everyone to guess, we don't have the surprise to look forward to anymore! And that was the whole point of not finding out, was for us to be the first to know once he was born! I'm sure as Cara will tell you, maybe this is for the better as I am apparently the pickiest person in the world when it comes to names and I would have had to come up with a name for each gender!

Baby #2 Appointment (& Shower!) - 17+ weeks

After some confusion with the birth center about my appointment date... again, sigh... I had an appointment this morning. We left Ari with Sean's mom and sister (thank you guys!) and drove to Mesa.

The nurse (who is also the midwife's daughter) weighed me - I've gained maybe 6-7 lbs? total so far - and took my blood pressure. She used this electronic wrist cuff thing and immediately I wasn't nuts about it, because when I was on bed rest for pre-e in the hospital, the electronic monitors always got higher BP readings than the manual ones. She took it twice, the screen was facing away from me, then left to get the midwife without really saying anything. But I saw the reading as she walked out of the room - 143/89 - and freaked out. I started crying and shaking. That was how high my blood pressure was the last pregnancy when I was put on bed rest and I had a total PTSD/hormonal preggo reaction. The midwife came in and calmed me down and talked to me. She reassured me I *am* going to have a vaginal birth this time and everything will be ok. (Gawd, I am crying again just typing this, kill the hormones please.) After we had talked a bit she said she would use the manual BP monitor as she trusted it more anyway. It read 110/73. Holy relief Batman.

We listened to the heart beat which was nice and strong and she said my belly growth looked good. They are going to fax an order for the 18 week anatomy ultrasound. We still don't want to find out the sex though! ;)

I told her about the postpartum thyroid issue I suspected I had last time and she was very pleased I had figured it out (as opposed to any doctor I know who would shudder at self diagnosing from the internet, LOL). She said she is going to research it, figure out the exact blood test that is required to test for it, and she will be monitoring it and make sure that we stay on top of it postpartum this time. More relief. I don't need another year of chronic joint paint.

Overall a good appointment. It still frustrates me to drive so far but I still absolutely don't want to settle for the closer option of UMC. At least we can do Saturday appointments, makes it much easier. And right now she is ok with spreading out the appointments to 5-6 weeks in between, which is nice, although eventually I will have to go in every two weeks. I like our midwife (Claudine) better and better with each appointment too, and so does Sean.

This afternoon my sister threw me a little baby shower. :) We had good munchies and played a fun Goddess game. It was nice to spend an afternoon with other women and no kiddos. (Well, Kaitlin was there but at 12 she is so grown up now!) I got a couple awesome baby things and lots of awesome bath/spa type stuff for me! A lovely ending to a Saturday all about baby #2. :)

It's Hot

We haven't posted tons recently because not much has been happening! It's been so hot and we are just trying to get through the summer at this point. I cannot wait for better weather, Ari and I will be at the park and the zoo every week!

Despite the heat Ari wants to play outside as much as possible. We've been trying to oblige him as much as we're able. I decided he didn't really have enough outside toys to keep him occupied though - since I am not about to get off my butt and actually the kick the ball with him when it is 100+ degrees. :P So I found some good craigslist deals and now he has a scooter and a tool bench to help keep him entertained outside.

This was a great $10 deal - brand new they are $70+. He already had the tools and he loves the whole set up!

We also do some outside painting.

His new scooter - $5 - complete with a clearance priced helmet for $4.

On Labor Day we took a family trip to the Children's Museum. I've taken Ari a number of times but he has always wanted Sean to go too, so we took advantage of both Sean being off work and a free entry day. Ari had a great time showing Sean everything at the museum. The photo below is from story time; they read 'If You Give a Pig a Pancake' and there was even an employee in a pig costume to complete the fun. Then they made pig masks for the craft after the story.