One Month Check-up

Last night, Caitlin and Brigid decided sleep was for the weak. Or, maybe they didn't decide sleep was for the weak, so much as they decided sleep WASN'T for our family. Because between the two of them, and their various wake-up schedules, I got maybe three hours of sleep during the entire night, including one incredibly refreshing stretch of TWO WHOLE HOURS straight, before Caitlin woke me up for the day, and her doctor appointment this morning.

And because I don't do well on little sleep, so I was already on edge when we got to the doctor's office.

So, when our pediatrician informed me that even though the rather large and squishy hematoma Caitlin has had on her skull since birth has finally shrunk enough that you can actually feel the bone beneath it, she still couldn't feel that bone where she should? And that she wanted us to go get an x-ray to determine if maybe Caitlin had a skull fracture? Or even something worse?

I may have started crying on her, immediately. And I may have called Steve in tears from the examination room, while waiting for them to set up our referral to the imaging center. And I may have taken to Twitter with my general hysteria.

And after we went and had the x-rays taken? While we were waiting for our pediatrician to call us back with the results?

I may have gone off to eat my feelings at Waffle House.

I apologize for nothing.
Waffle House notwithstanding, we got the call shortly after this that the x-rays were fine, that the radiologist had seen bone, all intact, that we had nothing to worry about.

Just once, I'd like to have one of these check-ups pass with no drama, because I don't know WHEN the last time was that we were able to go to the doctor without having to worry about SOMETHING when we left. Once again, I'm convinced these kids are trying to make me crazy.

It's a good thing they're both so cute, is all I'm saying...

Remember me?

Brigid the big sister has been having a little bit of trouble adjusting to the changes around the house since we brought baby Caitlin home. We've done our best to try to make this whole thing special for her, to remind her that she is still our favorite girl, and for the most part, I think she's handling it as well as could be expected.

Knowing I'd be home for most of December this year, I figured it would be the perfect year to introduce an Advent activity calendar into our list of Christmas traditions, just so Brigid would have a special 'big girl' activity to do each day. I tried to keep it simple, knowing that I'd also be trying to work the activities around the schedule and sleep-deprivation fog that comes with a newborn, so some of the activities are such exciting events as get a new set of Christmas stickers, but some of them required a little more effort.

Exhibit A: The candy cane hunt...
Do you know who isn't super observant? That would be my favorite little three-year old, who could literally stare directly at a candy cane hanging from a bush and still not have ANY idea that it was there.

We've also found two new Christmas books, opened an early Christmas present, made a few super easy Christmas treats involving ALL of the white chocolate in the world and those candy canes we found on the hunt. And we've walked the neighborhood to look at lights, as well as driven through the light display at a local university. And since Brigid was actually awake for those lights this year, I'd say we're a step ahead of where we were last year.

Seriously...Christmas with a three-year old? It's kind of the BEST THING EVER!!!

I can't wait to see her face on Christmas morning.

Baby's First Photo Shoot

We have this amazingly wonderful photographer that we've been to several times, for solo pictures of Brigid over the last few years, as well as family photos from last fall. And even though we already have more pictures in our house than space to display them, I'm going to try really, really hard to keep Caitlin out of the second child zone (you know...been there, done that, take pictures of yourself, kid, because I wore myself out with your big sister...). So, we scheduled a newborn photo session.

And while Brigid's session lasted something like four hours, and while she, in her naked, newborn photo shoot state, peed on me (and worse) five or six times, Caitlin's session was a breeze. Two and a half hours (and one pooped on moment each for Steve and I) later, I'm pretty sure we ended up with some of the cutest photos ever taken in the history of baby photography. Not that I'm biased, or anything...

(The actual photographer's pictures are on Facebook, and they look much better than this, I swear...this is just one I snapped with my phone in between scene changes...)

I've seen three of the pictures so far, and I want them all, which I think means I might be in trouble when our photographer gives us the other 10 or so proofs she's working through. I'm thinking a bigger house might not be out of the question at this point...

And then my heart exploded...

I think this, right here, is why people decide to have more than one kid.


Well, this, and that ridiculously awesome newborn smell, anyway...

Well, hello there...

On Thursday, 11/29, I went into work with a full day of meetings ahead of me. About mid-morning, I noticed that things were starting to feel a little...funny...with the false contractions I'd been having off and on for the last couple of months, so, around noon, I started tracking the contractions to see if maybe we had moved out of the false stage and into the actual contraction portion of the party.

Sometime, between 3:00 and 4:00PM, the contractions were moving along at a steady pace and starting to get a little painful, so I called Steve to let him know I'd be heading home early. Oh, and also that we'd most likely be heading to the hospital that night. Because, yeah...
By the time 6:30-ish rolled around, I was bent over the kitchen table, with a heating pad pressed to my lower back, trying to breathe through the pain. And you know what?

I am TERRIBLE at breathing through the pain.
We got to the hospital around 7PM, and I was already 5cm dilated, which was a much better result than the first time I went into the hospital with Brigid, when they sent me home for not really being in advanced labor. I immediately asked for some kind of pain medication, because again...breathing just doesn't cut it for me. I am a wimp. And surprisingly proud of it. By the time they actually got me into a labor and delivery room around 9PM, I was 8cm dilated and begging for an epidural, since the initial pain medicine they'd slipped into my IV was starting to wear off already.

I am a BIG fan of the epidural. Big. Fan.

The final centimeter was a long time coming, and my water never did break on its own (since I managed to avoid pain-induced vomiting this time around), and we were even starting to wonder if the baby was going to make it on the 29th or hold off for a birthday on the 30th. But where I spent at least an hour pushing with Brigid, baby number two came in about six minutes flat. Second kids, man.

Of course, it probably also helped that this kid's head is measuring in the 8th percentile, instead of the 80th percentile, like some OTHER kids that I know. Not to mention any names or anything.
  
*coughBRIGIDcough*

And at 11:40PM, Caitlin Rose made her appearance, weighing 7lbs 11oz and measuring 20inches long. And she is absolutely perfect. The nurses were a little concerned with her ability to breathe when she first came out, because she seemed to have a lot of fluid in her. And they heard a murmur when listening to her heart, which put everyone on alert, given Brigid's heart history, and earned baby Caitlin her very own heart scan. Everything cleared up, though, and as of today, she's even regained enough of her birth weight to satisfy the doctors.

See? Perfect.
(Yes. We named the baby Caitlin in the end. Brigid got her way, after all. This surprises absolutely no one, does it?)