Baby sister is here!

On 1/4 I had my 38 week appointment and the midwife said I was 4cm and 80% effaced. Say WHAT?!? And I wasn't in labor...how?

That night I felt crampy and went to bed thinking I would maybe just wake up in full labor.

At 4:53am on 1/5/12, I woke up to a really intense contraction. Since I'd been having contractions on and off for a couple of weeks, I wasn't sure that this was the real thing. But 20 minutes later, I had another big contraction that caused me to double over in pain. Then, 13 minutes later, then suddenly 7 minutes after that, they kept coming. At 6am I woke Jeremy up and told him I was prety sure this was the day!

Jeremy's parents were on their way to our house, but I was in so much pain and scared to death of giving birth in the car, so I called our fantastic neighbor Jennie to come sit at our house until they got there. She was so understanding (thanks again Jennie!).

We got to the hospital around 7 and I signed in and basically demanded my epidural - the front desk lady was like, "umm, ok." But when they checked me and saw that I was 8cm dilated, I felt vindicated - and not a little freaked out that it might be too late to get my epidural.

"No worries," my nurse and midwife assured me in calm voices, "you'll get your epidural. All we have to do is get this entire IV bag into you and run some labs and then you can get the epidural." Ahh, how reassuring. Did I mention I was EIGHT CENTIMETERS and moving KINDA FAST???

I have never felt pain like that in my life. And I hope I never will again. We're talking "clutching the rails of the bed, groaning, moaning and screeching pain." Not cute.

The good news is I did get my epidural, and by then I was already at a 9 or 10. So basically, I did labor unmedicated. Woot. Here's some advice - DON'T.

Luckily I did not have to push unmedicated, because it took an hour and 15 minutes. You see, as we learned moments before the doc yanked her out with the vacuum, she was sunny side up - the little stinker!! I am going to milk this for all kinds of guilt trips down the road.

Our beautiful Julianna Mae was born at 10:06am, 7lbs, 9oz and 19.5 in long. She is just perfect! Luckily, she was a great nurser right off the bat, and we haven't faced the challenges that we did trying to get Jonathan to eat those first few weeks.

Jonathan is a sweet big brother. He loves to run into the room after school and peer at baby sister. He knows that we have to be soft with the baby ("no hit it?") and likes to give her kisses on the top of her head. Otherwise he pretty much ignores her. That's about as much as we could expect from a 2 year old.

Now, how to change the URL of this blog to babydmakesfour.blogspot.com?

Fun December

We've had a lot of fun with Jonathan lately - so the photo chronicle of December follows. I have never been able to properly format captions in my blog, so I'll narrate the photos up here, then you'll have to use your imagination and powers of deductive reasoning to match the pics to the descriptions. You can do it. You're smart like that.

We took Jonathan to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens Holiday Lights Display. His favorite part were the cool trains, including Thomas(!). He enjoyed the lights too, and was especially fascinated by some green and purple lights strung in the shape of a Christmas tree over a reflecting pool. "Lights go down deah in da wawer!"

A couple of times over the last month we've taken him to a nearby place along the Chattahoochee where you can almost be guaranteed to spot some ducks and/or geese. It's the poor man's zoo, minus the drive, expense and crowds. Plus, there's a playground right there for play afterwards.

Jonathan absolutely loves feeding the geese, although he was quite obsessed with the concept that we had apparently drilled into his head that the geese might bite him if he didn't stay close to mommy and daddy. Poor kid. Randomly we'll be sitting at home and he'll inform us that "Geese BITE you."

Christmas was a blast. He didn't really "get" the concept of Santa, but he enjoyed the Christmas tree, talking about Santa and the reindeer and singing Rudolph and Jingle Bells. Next year he will totally get it.

We celebrated the morning of at our house with just the 3 of us (3.5 of us??) then went over to Grandma and Papa's house. Jonathan had fun playing with cousins and opening presents. But he and Will were absolutely giddy rolling around in the discarded wrapping and tissue paper.

Happy New Year!! Will the next blog post include a birth story? Considering my current once-monthly blogging frequency, it is a safe bet that it will. :)

So...yeah. My blog.

It's been a busy month-and-a-half since I last wrote!

On November 16th, I got the news that I was laid off. :( It was hard to deal with at first, but honestly the timing isn't all bad since Baby D#2 will be arriving soon anyway. Since then, I've kept extremely busy fixing up the house, running errands, and setting up networking lunches to try to position myself well for getting a job next year.

The last couple of weeks have been a mad scramble to get the baby's room ready (it is!) and to get everything bought and wrapped for Christmas (I did!). Now, at 36+ weeks pregnant, my goal is to lie around and send this baby girl vibes to stay in there as long as possible. Of course, by "as long as possible," I mean "until like 38 weeks, and then you're free to join us" because our latest ultrasound shows that she is BIG - 80th percentile!

Jonathan has been continuing daycare since I've been home over the last month. He loves it and it allows me to get everything done and rest a little bit too.

I worry about how his new little sister is going to change his life. He is going through a "mommy stage" and I think it will be rough on him when I am majorly occupied with breastfeeding and baby care. It should be a good chance for Jeremy and him to develop even more of a special bond though.

Finally, no blog entry is complete without the "cute things that Jonathan is doing lately" section:

- He likes to sit in his car seat and sing the ABCs at the top of his lungs. At the end, he likes to be tickled and will specifically request it if we don't act quickly enough.

- He loves our Christmas tree. Every day after school, he runs into the family room and asks for the tree to be turned on. He gets this amazed, wide-eyed look every time the lights go on. Then he runs around, pointing out the Santa Claus ornaments, requesting to touch the tree and reminding us that the train ornament near the top came from Grandma and Papa.

- He sits at the table each evening and colors while we make his dinner. Inevitably the first thing out of his mouth is, "Mommy, Daddy, come sit right heah. Next to Shashan."

- If there is football on TV, he volunteers "Gooo NOLES!"

- When we put him down to bed at night, we always ask for big hugs. He gives them, then says "KISS!" and puckers up.

- Sometimes I see him give our black lab Kahlua a big hug and say "K'lua a gooood gull."

Halloween!

Jonathan was a pretty darn cute Cookie Monster for Halloween this year. He was quite unhappy about the costume, but we cajoled him into wearing it. Of course, wearing the hood was even less appealing. We did manage to get him to put it on for a few pictures by using a bit of bribery ("Jonathan, leave your hood on and you can have a bite of pizza").

We went to the neighborhood Halloween party and he ran around throwing his football and generally having a great time. Then Grandma and Papa came over for dinner, which was a fun treat! We intended to go trick-or-treating, but we ran out of time, and honestly, it was just as well. Jonathan didn't know any better and I'm not sure how well he would have done with all the walking. He was totally fascinated with the kids coming to the door. He kept peeking timidly around the doorframe at them.

It was a fun night, and I look forward to next year when he will be old enough for trick-or-treating and young enough to not notice that we steal 3/4 of his candy.

Baby Sister

We are so excited that Jonathan's baby sister will be here in 3 months or less! We've been talking to him about her frequently, although he doesn't seem terribly interested. Typically when asked if he wants a baby sister, he says something along the lines of "No - OOOOH! I find da football, daddy."

But over the past few months he has taken an interest in babies at daycare.

"Baby! Das a baby right dere mommy. Hi baby!!"

He's also been quite sweet and gentle with little baby Denley, our friends' 7 week old. They were over last night and he "shared" (read: shoved towards her face) his spaceship placemat with her.

"Heah, baby Dee Dee, heah."

And it's very promising that he likes to kiss my belly goodnight before bedtime. All in all, he is such a sweet and loving boy - I know he will be a fantastic big brother to the littlest Duguid.

Two Years Old

Jonathan turned two on September 30th! The time has flown and our baby isn't a baby anymore. It was a very emotional day for me. But soon enough we'll have another little baby to remind us how hard having an infant is and how easy a crazy, wild toddler can be in comparison.

We had a few friends over to celebrate last Saturday and had a really nice time at J's "choo-choo train party." The kids played on the playset and in a bouncy house we had rented. Jonathan looked completely bewildered as people sang "happy birthday" to him, but really enjoyed the balloons. He halfheartedly ate a cupcake and two bites of ice cream - he just isn't that into sweets. We MAY need to conduct a maternity test with this one.

Here are a few pics from the day:

Our Chatterbox

Jonathan is talking up a storm now. He has always been a talker, but now you can tell he is really speaking in full sentences, even though 75% of it is still unintelligible.

Here are a few of the cuter (and more understandable) things that come out of this kid's mouth:

"Thank you daddy. Thank you mommy" (sometimes unprompted, when we hand him a toy or some milk)

"MOVE Emmy." When the dog is in his way.

"Hippo Thomas" When referring to a hippopotamus (I think he thinks the hippo is named Thomas, like his current fave, Thomas the Train).

"No, daddy." When Jeremy attempts to sing.

"NO Gus. Not NIIICE." At random times, unknowingly tattling on his friend from school.

"Heh Heh, Dee Dee pizza?" Said all the time. Apparently we have pizza too often with our friends Jeff ("Heffay") and Jaime.

"Daddy's juice." Beer.

"Fire truck! WEEEEEEOOOOOOOWEEEEEOOOOOOOO!!!...Uh oh...where fire truck go?" Just talking to himself in the backseat of the car.

"One, two, three, four, five, six, favan, ett, nine, ten, 'leven, thirteen, thirteen, thirteen..."

"A B C D E...mumble mumble...Q R S!!!!...mumble mumble V! W X!!!! Y and Z!"

While he is giving us a little more resistance now that he's really entering the toddler years, we are also enjoying him more than ever now that he can communicate so well. And his personality is really shining through. He is so full of joy and energy!