August 29, 2004  
I've been trying to get on here and write for the last week at least. I'm sure this will be a long journal entry. I can't guarantee it's going to make much sense in flow though; I'm having a hard time thinking in complete sentences, let alone writing in them!

Ethan is a great sleeper - except that he sleeps during the day. Whenever he sleeps I try to get some Natalie time in, so it's a much different situation now than when Natalie was a newborn. I can't just nap when Ethan naps. Sometimes -okay, lots of times- we put in a movie (I'm singing Wiggles songs in my head, and in my sleep, all the time these days) and let her zone out to that while I doze off on the couch. I've discovered an irritating little thing about adding a second child. Though it's just one more child, the Mommy Guilt has increased by at least tenfold.  When Natalie was a baby, I worried that I wasn't stimulating her brain enough and interacting with her. Now, I'm just hoping I'm not ignoring Ethan too much, and hoping the intellectual stimulation will somehow happen on its own.  It's definitely a blessing that Ethan doesn't have reflux like Natalie did, because he can actually be put down in his crib or Pack n' Play for naps. (Natalie had to be held all the time because whenever we'd lay her down she'd vomit.) Though now, there are so many times I look in on him and he's just laying there, wide awake, looking at nothing in particular. And more often than not, that's the way he stays for much longer than I would have ever let Natalie sit around looking at and doing nothing. If he starts to fuss and I can't pick him up right away, in goes the pacifier. He's a much easier baby in that way, but man on man, guilt guilt guilt. And then on the other hand, is Natalie, who is doing so very good with the whole adjustment, but I still feel like I'm yelling at her way too much, and I'm sure the majority of what comes out of our mouths these days directed toward her is negative attention instead of positive. I know that I should be focusing on what she does right most of the time, and verbalizing those positives to her, but the reality is, when you are sleep deprived, so many things that are normal for a two year old to do, especially when that two year old is adjusting to a whole new world order, are just plain irritating and before you stop and think about it, you are yelling out yet another "stop it" or "no, Natalie!". She's never really been very defiant, but that has changed. Before the last couple weeks, she'd have lots of two year old moments, but in general, she seemed to like pleasing us and following directions. Now, we tell her to do something, or even tell her after repeating a direction several times, to "please obey mommy and daddy", and she looks right at us and says plainly, "no". She's suddenly learned that she has her own will, and she's been using it. Overall though, she really is doing very good with the whole thing. She adores her baby brother. She wants to kiss and hold him all the time (yet another oft-"no" situation, because she has the tendency to press in on him too hard). This has definitely been the hardest part of the post-partum adjustment so far, though. I about had a fit last week when I discovered that I was missing my small (8 mg) camera card, and that the photos that were on it were from the last 'Natalie and me only' outing to the fountains at Easton the week I delivered. I still hope I find those pictures that I took of Natalie, because we had a fun time that afternoon. I had a few days of the baby blues about a week ago (nothing at ALL like I felt after Natalie though, thank goodness), and most of my tears were not about feeling overwhelmed with the baby, but with the sudden change in how we relate to Natalie. Suddenly she's not the lone center of our attention anymore, and that's a hard adjustment to make. For me as well as her. Sometimes first thing in the morning, when Ethan finally has drifted off for a while (he tends to finally fall asleep for a good amount of time once the sun starts to come up), I've put Ethan back into his bassinet, and I have Phil get Natalie, who has started to stir or make semi-awake sounds, and bring her in to snuggle in next to me for a little while. We used to almost always bring her in with us for cuddle time when she first woke up in the morning, so this is close to that.  And of course we still snuggle up together on the couch to watch Elmo every morning after Price is Right. Except now, most of the time Ethan is there nursing as well.  Oh, that was one thing I was wondering how would go with Natalie, and as it turns out I didn't have to worry at all. She completely accepts that the baby nurses, and she doesn't seem jealous about it at all. I really think that's because I didn't rush Natalie with weaning; she stopped just when she was ready. A couple times, she's pointed to Ethan while he's nursing and said very matter-of-factly, "Natalie eat table. Ethan eat mama's boobies". I thought that was cute. Natalie is also very helpful when it comes to throwing away dirty diapers and getting Ethan's pacifier. Except she tries to give him his pacifier all the time, even when he's currently sleeping or nursing. She says "Ethan need pass-er-dier" and attempts to force it into his mouth. He doesn't always like that so much. :-) 

Okay, so what else about Ethan? He's already getting roly-poly. I had the nurse home visit on Wednesday, and he weighed in at 9 pounds 13 ounces. That was up from 9 pounds 2 ounces on  Monday when we had a visit with Dr. Kern. I'm sure he's over 10 pounds already by now.  I'm SO glad he came early!!! He loves to nurse, and he's very good at it. That's been a definite difference, and a relief, this time. I've only had to pump a couple times, and that was just because of engorgement. His cord fell off after one week, and he's going to be a cute innie. We're starting to get the hang of changing a boy's diaper, though I still get sprayed every couple of days. We just can't take as much time, talking and such, during diaper changes as we did with Natalie!  He's already had his first cold, which he is starting to get over now, I think. We were happy to see that he continued to gain weight (and how!) during his cold, even though he had a few bad throw ups. Oh, and I've been really losing weight already! As of the middle of last week, when I last checked, I was down 25 pounds already. My tummy is still bread dough of course, and probably will be for the foreseeable future, but it's definitely shrunk down from looking pregnant a lot faster than it did with Natalie. Probably because Ethan started nursing better and sooner - the afterpains I had this time were SO much worse than the first time. I hardly even remember having them with Natalie. 

I'm going to attempt to write up my birth story now. I'll post that as soon as I get it written. Also, here is a link to the photos from the hospital, on ClubPhoto.  I don't know if it's password protected or not, because my sister and mom uploaded the pictures and not me. If they are, you can get to the album at ClubPhoto.com by entering the password 'Gerth'. The album is called Ethan. They don't seem to be in any particular order on the website, so there are pictures of his first couple days home mixed up with labor pictures and hospital room pictures.

August 15, 2004  
We're back! Yes, Ethan arrived at 1:21 in the morning on August 13. He measured in at 19.5 inches long and 8.76 pounds - and he was two weeks early still! We're (particularly me) very glad that he came when we did, otherwise he would have surely been a ten pounder. He's a big boy! And very healthy. And he LOVVVVVVSSSS to nurse. The boy latched right on after delivery and has been going strong ever since. Such a big difference in that area!

Of course more will be posted later, but I just wanted to get this posted up here and also get a couple photos up. I'm going to try to get all the hospital pictures uploaded (from my mom's house, it would take three days from here) to ClubPhoto in a couple days too.

(See the picture of the day section below for one more picture for right now.)

August 11, 2004  
I spoke - wrote - a little too soon yesterday. I took Natalie over to Easton to play in the fountain, then after that we walked around just a little bit. By the time I got back to the car and got the stroller, and Natalie, all loaded back in, I called Phil to tell him we were on our way home, and that I was "probably not going to be doing that again by myself any time soon". I was in a lot of pain. Then last night, about 6:30, I started feeling really nauseated. I thought it just might be hunger nausea, so I ate a little snack and Phil started making dinner. It just got worse. By the time Jeopardy was halfway over, I was having contractions that were coming very close together, and I felt like I was going to throw up momentarily. I also got the chills and started to shake a little. As Phil finished getting dinner on the table, the smell was really getting to me so I went upstairs. I was just going to put on a long sleeve shirt and then come down to try to eat something, but by the time I made it upstairs I just wanted to lay down, so I did. About 15 minutes later, Phil called up to see if I was okay. He thought I was just up here playing on the computer or something. Nope, I was curled up on the bed, with a heavy shirt on, shaking, under covers. That's a sight he hadn't seen in awhile! I don't know how fast the contractions were coming at that point, but I started to think maybe this wasn't hunger nausea. I don't remember feeling sick to my stomach until after they gave me Pitocin last time, but this is only my second time doing this so I'm no expert. So, we decided to go in to the hospital. By the time I got there, the nausea was a little better but the contractions were definitely coming faster. Turns out, they were coming about 5 minutes apart!  They checked to see if my water had broken; no, not yet, and also to see if I'd had any cervix change. Not really too much. So, I just sat there and contracted about every 5 minutes - sometimes a little less frequently, sometimes a little more, but 5 minutes apart was about the average - for about an hour. They also were a little concerned that the baby hadn't been moving too much, so about halfway through the hour of monitoring, the nurse came in and put this buzzer thing on my belly - probably right on Ethan's bottom - and buzzed it, to try to wake him up, and it worked! He jumped so big. Then I was given a little button that I had to push every time I felt him move, and it tracked his movements with how well he was responding to the contractions. According to my doctor (my favorite one, Dr. Parks, happened to be there last night), he responded perfectly. After about an hour, she checked my cervix again and said there probably wasn't any change. Ugh.  She told me I could stay and do this for another hour, or go home, whichever I wanted. Since my nausea was going away, I was feeling a little hungry since I hadn't eaten, so I decided to go on home so I could eat. I was definitely in labor, but it was early and this was going to probably take a long time. Dr. Parks told me to come back in when I felt the contractions getting stronger, because the frequency was already just fine. Also we wanted Natalie to get to bed - she was acting very tired by this point! We stopped at Walmart (the first time we'd been there since Natalie's accident) to pick up a few things. Natalie fell asleep on the way there, so I pushed her in her stroller around the store! My contractions continued the whole time we were walking around the store and got very painful, too, just from walking around through them. By the time we got home we didn't know if we should bother going to bed or not! After eating, we sat on the couch for a little while and the contractions continued to come but the intensity started to go down, and I was feeling very tired, so I decided to go to bed and try to sleep. I slept so good last night! I was woken a few times with contractions through the night, but was able to fall back asleep. When we got up this morning, they started right back again, and are now coming again about every 5 minutes or so. 

Right now Phil is at work getting a few things done. This afternoon, we're going to go for a walk for a little while and see if the intensity picks back up like it was at Walmart last night. If so, we'll be heading back over to the hospital. I'm feeling lots and lots of pressure right now, so hopefully that means these contractions are doing SOME thing. If not, then I'm going to ask about getting this jump started - breaking my water maybe. If they will do it. I see a lot of walking in my next day (or two), just like with Natalie.

August 10, 2004  
No news to report, really. Contractions are coming with the same intensity and frequency. I'm getting so worn out.  Late yesterday afternoon, I took Natalie out for a walk around our block to see if I could get them to start coming 5-10 minutes apart instead of the frustrating 10-15 that I've been stuck at, but then after our walk they almost completely went away for about the next hour! That was NOT the desired effect! I'm going to keep walking though, because it's supposed to help...

We had sort of hoped that Ethan would be born yesterday, because it was exactly 6 months from Natalie's birthday. Now I'm shooting for this weekend, when the Olympics opening ceremony is on TV. Way back when we found out that we were due in August and that the 2004 Olympics would be coming the same month, we laughed that wouldn't it be funny if I went into labor during the opening ceremony. I was in labor during the 2002 Winter Olympics opening ceremonies, and missed the whole thing. I've always loved watching the opening ceremonies, and was under the naive impression that I'd be able to watch the program during labor, "between contractions". HAHAHAHA!!! I kept the front page of the newspaper from Natalie's birth day, and it is a picture of the opening ceremony. Wouldn't it be funny if her baby brother came during the Olympics opening ceremony too? Though if he just decides he wants to come before that, well by all means I'm all for it.

Natalie turned 2 1/2 yesterday. She's getting so big! We took her to see Dr. Kern for her check up, so here are her latest "stats": Her weight is just a little over 30 pounds, which is the 50th percentile. Her height has slowed down some too - she's 3 feet 1 inch, which puts her at 75th percentile. Her head circumference is still off the charts, though - 20 1/4 inch.  We've decided that almost all her length is in her torso, because her legs are still so short that she has trouble reaching the pedals of her tricycle. She has a smaller one too; one that is marketed for ages 18 months and up. She didn't get short legs and a long torso from me, that's for sure; I've always been just the opposite. When she got her bike for her second birthday, I thought for sure that she'd be riding it all over by the summer, but her little feet just can't quite reach the pedals in order to push them all the way around - her feet fall off when the pedals get to the far side of the rotation. It's frustrating for her, because she loves to ride her bike. She just wants us to push her all around on it...

At 2 1/2, Natalie's favorite thing to do is still to "play people". "Play people, daddy!" "Play people, mama!" We've gotten her several different little people sets from garage sales, including cars and play houses, and that's always the first toy she goes for every day. She also likes playing with cars, though it's usually within the "play people" games. One thing that continues to amaze us every day is how many songs she knows and how she just sings all the time. She knows almost the entire Bob the Builder theme song (it's pretty long), and sings it all the time, along with Elmo's song, lots of Sunday School songs from her tapes, and whatever other song she happens to hear. She picks them up really fast. I think it's so cute, when we hear a song we sing at church, like on the radio, she says "church sound!" We also recently figured out that whenever we pass a traditional looking church, with a steeple, that she points it out and says "castle!" For a long time we couldn't figure out what she was saying, because it sounded almost like an obscene word (she doesn't pronounce the 'C')  but eventually realized that she was equating church steeples with the castle at Disney. Of course! Natalie also likes playing with stickers a whole lot. A couple days ago, we had gotten some letter stickers in the mail, and she was putting them all over herself and her coloring books. Earlier, we'd gone through some of the letters, and I had told her "M is for mama", "D is for daddy", "N is for Natalie", "E is for Ethan", etc. etc. So, a little while later, she took the E sticker off and put it on my belly, right smack in the middle. I asked her why she put the sticker on my belly and she said "Baby Ethan, mama."

I'm off to take Natalie over to Easton to play in the water fountain. I've been promising her all day - we went once last week and she loved it. Ever since then she's asked to go back and play in the "sprinklers". Let's hope that this time the nice long walk around Easton won't stop my contractions entirely again. They are wearing me out because they are so very painful when the do come, but after 3 days now of them coming almost continuously at this intensity, I'm ready for them to get a little closer together so that I have a reason to go on in to the hospital.

August 8, 2004  
Happy 6th anniversary to us! How did we spend our day? Well, Phil just finished mowing the lawn, and I've spent the entire day having contractions. More about that in a second. I've been wanting to get an update written all weekend, since my doctor appointment on Friday, but I've just been keeping really busy so I haven't gotten on the computer. This weekend my grandparents had a garage sale to get ready to move to a condo, so I helped out with that. On Saturday we brought over some stuff to contribute to it, and because of that had a few dollars to go out to eat today after church. Plus we got more junk out of our basement!

This is going to be a relatively short update because I've been having really painful contractions pretty often, so it's hard to focus for too long. On Friday, I found out that I wasn't dilated much more - she said I'm dilated to about a nickel's size, but it's gotten more thinned out, around 70 - 80 percent. As of Friday he was measuring a week early, 38 weeks, which is pretty much how it's been all along, and she estimated (feeling through my tummy all his parts) that he was around 7 pounds. His head is very, very low. Also, they did a ferning test to see if I had a "slow leak" from the bag of water, but that came back negative; as of Friday it was still intact. My plug is gone, though, so it must have come out during one of my many middle of the night potty trips when I stumble to the bathroom in the dark. I asked her, with the continual contractions that never become completely consistent (they never did with Natalie either, until when Pitocin was started there was never a single lull between one), how we should know when it's time to go to the hospital (unless my water suddenly breaks), and she told me that if for a half hour I have more than a couple contractions that I can't talk through, then I should come in. I've had lots of those off and on, but most of the time I have two or three that are strong but "breathable", then the next one will be so bad I can't even think. Until last night, though, I had yet to be woken up with contractions in the middle of the night. Last night at around 4:30, I woke up with really painful contractions that were coming about every 10-15 minutes, and it went on until a little after 6:30, during which time I couldn't sleep at all. Along about then, I was about to wake Phil up and tell him I thought it was time to go, but then they starting settling back down enough that I was able to fall back asleep around 7 am. All through church this morning and all day I've been having very painful ones (they bring tears to my eyes), but they are closer to 15 minutes apart and not 10. So, still we wait and wonder what is going on. I'm not going to try to encourage these to come any faster tonight (by walking around, climbing stairs, whatever) until after it isn't the 8th anymore - this is the one day I said I just didn't really want to share with my child's birthday! - but I have no idea what will happen tonight. I'd be fine with him coming tomorrow, but if I follow along the pattern I've been living since the last week in June, they might stop again and not pick up again for several more days. I would really like to not go the Pitocin route again this time, but if I'm going to have contractions this bad that still don't seem to be progressing (other than just getting more painful), I'm going to start considering it again.

The last thing I wanted to note today, my feet and ankles have once again become sausages. It looked like I might be able to avoid that this time since I hadn't swelled up so bad yet. Even my sandals are hurting because the straps are digging in, so now the shoes that I'm wearing are a pair of Phil's shoes. At least I can still fit into those, so I'm not going with the house slipper look yet. Though all fashion is way out the window these days. I'm wearing whatever I can get to fit me!