Kiera Claire was born January 19, 2011 at 1:15 AM. She was 6lbs 10oz and 18.5 inches long. A “big” little girl! She went straight to the NICU for observation. She was on a CPAP machine shortly but was off all breathing support by later that day. She is now about 4 days old and off all machines and IVs. She is still in the NICU because she is a sleepy little girl and having trouble staying awake while taking a bottle. She is getting some small portions of her milk through a feeding tube. We will probably be going home before she does, which breaks my heart.

As for me, I’ve had all kinds of complications. I’ll write more details a out everything once I vet home and on my own computer.

I dealt with it all evening and all night, getting VERY little sleep. Falling asleep between stomach pain. Trying to figure out what was going on inside of me. By this morning, it was still going on and I decided to just call my OB. It took me FOREVER to get a call back from them so we were packing our hospital bags (just in case!) and getting ready to head to L&D at the hospital to be checked out. Better safe than sorry. At this point my suspects were three things: constipation, gall bladder, appendicitis. I was REALLY worried that they were going to tell me I was just full of shit (literally) and send me home and was imagining how horrifying that would be for my ego.

The nurse called and we spoke and we finally decided I should just go to L&D and have them monitor me. I got there and they put me on the monitors and instantly a contraction showed up on the screen. And another. And more. I was having pretty strong ones that I was having to breathe through, about every 2-3 minutes at pretty regular intervals. Crazy. So it WASN’T my gall bladder or my appendix or my intestines.. It was contractions!! I had no idea. I felt like such a dork for having a child with me and not knowing that these were contractions. I explained to the nurse that I carried Zoey low my entire pregnancy and only had lower back labor with her.

This time? Every time I would contract I would get this basketball shaped lump right under my breasts in the middle and it would be hard as a rock and make it so hard to breathe. I had no idea my uterus was / could be that high up? I know, I feel like such a dork. But seriously, could two pregnancies be ANY more different than this?? I could write up a HUGE list of how absolutely opposite these pregnancies have been.

So anyway, they sent my urine down to be analyzed (who gets THAT fun job?) and called my OB. Gave me a shot of Brethine to stop the contractions and monitored me for 30 minutes. Contractions kept coming, but definitely slowed down and most of them lost intensity. She came back after talking to my OB again and gave me another shot of the same medicine and started me on a bag of IV fluids. She said I was dehydrated and they brought me a big Hospital Cup (you know the ones!) of ice water to start drinking. She also mentioned showing traces of infection in my urine pointing to a bladder infection.

After a good 6 hours in the hospital, they finally discharged me after my contractions stopped and sent me home with a prescription for an antibiotic to help with the bladder infection. The whole time we were there, we had our 21 month old daughter with us because a whole plethora of bad luck in the universe landed on my family in the last 24 hours, where my Mother and my Sister both came down with a TERRIBLE stomach bug that has them feverish and throwing up. Of course! Zoey did REALLY good, except for one MAJOR (and I mean MAJOR) meltdown around her normal naptime. Lots of screaming and crying. I was almost begging Gene to just take her home and get her out of there. Baby’s heart rate jumped pretty high when she was throwing that tantrum and I was laying there crying with her, because I felt so stressed out. After she calmed down from that, she conked out in Daddy’s lap and slept until it was time for us to be discharged.

So far I haven’t had any contractions since I’ve been home. Drinking lots of water and trying to take it easy. Hubby is going to work tomorrow so I think Zoey and I will be spending lots of time chilling out around the house and being lazy. Here is to hoping this baby girl stays put for at least another two weeks!

The last couple of says Ive had a lot of energy and have been working on things around the house. I think this is the nesting instinct kicking in. Excited to get ready for the baby! I’m mostly readying our room for the baby since she will be spending the first 6 moths or so in there with us. I’m planning on Zoey and her to share a room so I am interested in how that is going to turn out.

We went to see my perinatalogost yesterday and the baby is measuring big. She’s measuring about 5lb7oz which is more than what Zoey weighed at birth at 36wks lol might have a normal sized baby this time.

Ok I’m typing this up on my phone and it’s starting to annoy me. I’ll write more later!

I’m in the process of getting Zoey’s room ready (anchoring her armoire to the wall is the first major thing that needs to be done) for a transition to a big girl bed. I’m keeping the crib in her room and going to possibly have the girls share a room later on down the line. Thinking of turning the 3rd bedroom into a toy room, if I can ever get it cleaned out. She has been pretty easy to transition for most things since she was a baby. Table food, formula to cold milk, no pacifier, etc.. so I am hoping that this whole big girl bed thing is as easy. However, she is not familiar with sleeping in a regular bed. I’ve never once let her sleep with us in our bed and she doesn’t even really go IN our bed, so I hope it’s not too foreign for her.

What else has been going on? Oh, dealing with the defiance, ‘tude and independence thing from Little Miss. Lots of Throw Your Body To The Ground And Scream tantrums in public. Lots of crying because you offered her something that she didn’t want. Lots and lots of Parental Frustration and Headaches. Fun times! Luckily, the good times with this little girl far outweigh those frustrating and often insane times. Zoey is not a girly girl, at all. She loves to play with dinosaurs and doesn’t seem overly fascinated by princesses and dresses. Her two absolutele favorite toys are the magnadoodle and play cell phones. She still isn’t saying a lot of REAL words but she will babble in her language with fierce emotion and conviction. Sometimes she throws the phone down after a heated conversation and I so badly wish I knew what was being said on the other “line.” Something I’m sure I will be wondering for many years, especially the dreaded teens! Her real words are mostly: Where’d That Go, What’s That, Bubbles, Please (with LOTS of coaxing), Buzz, Melmo (Elmo), Mommy, Daddy and so on. She’s a beautiful little girl with a great budding personality and I love getting to know her more and more every day that we are together.

As far as baby number two.. I have mixed feelings. I kind of want her to be here NOW and I kind of want time to slow down. I feel like I’m not READY as far as having the house ready but I also feel like I am ready for her to be here now because I am pretty much DONE with pregnancy right now. I can’t believe I am 30 weeks pregnant now! We’re in the home stretch now. I will definitely be having a baby in 8-9 weeks, maybe sooner, we’ll see! It’s exciting. This time I will for sure pack my hospital bag around 33-35 weeks just to be safe! I am nervous about Zoey’s reaction to having a new baby in the house and hoping the jealousy isn’t too bad. I know there is going to be a transition phase and hoping it doesn’t last TOO long. I’m kind of hoping that since she is still so young that it wont phase her TOO much in those areas. My biggest concern is going to be jealousy with Gene. Zoey is a hands down Daddy’s Girl. She loves her Daddy so fiercely and wont let him leave her side once he comes home from work in the evenings. That will be the biggest obstacle, I’m guessing! I got her a baby cabbage patch doll to open up as a gift from the baby when we have the baby. I know she will be too young to REALLY know what’s going on but I hope it helps a little. It scares me having two under two! Even though it is only for a couple of months.. I know it is going to be difficult. However, totally worth it for them to grow up together so close in age, I think.

Pregnancy is going okay. I failed my 1 hour glucose test by 6 points. Blegh. I gotta find time to go take my 3 hour next week sometime, I am dreading it. I’m starting to notice a trend of sweets making my heartburn flop out of control. Bummer! Baby is moving and kickings and being so rambunctious. I absolutely love it! I am sick of how my body feels out of my control and weighted and icky so I am ready to have this baby and get back to normal. It’s hard for me to walk too long because I either start getting BH contractions or the baby is pushing so hard on my bladder that after 5 minutes I feel like I have to pee so bad. It’s frustrating and like I said, I just want to have her and be done with this. Otherwise things are going well and normal and baby is doing just fine. I’m seeing a perinatalogist every 4 weeks for detailed ultrasounds and check ups (due to the fact of having Zoey 4 weeks early and also the possibility of having GD again) and at 28 weeks the baby was measuring almost 3lbs and looking very healthy.

That’s my update for now. I really need to get my DSLR out and start taking more pictures of my little girl and our days together. I’ve been SO bad with picture taking every since I got pregnant. Something about being TIRED almost all of the time. I’m getting a lot of sleep at night but it’s interrupted, non-restful sleep. With getting up to pee every hour or so and then drinking water every 30 minutes or so due to the heater drying out my mouth.. It is NOT a fun night’s sleep for us!

When we were on vacation, I was laying on my side in bed with my hand on my stomach and I felt the kick from the outside and I wanted to jump out of the bed with excitement! I grabbed Gene’s hand and put it on my tummy and the baby ceased to move. Of course! Either way, I’ll never forget where I was or when it happened because it was such an amazing experience.

When we got home from vacation I had my iPhone sitting on my stomach and I was typing on the laptop when I saw my phone moving. I looked down and we both watched my phone twitch here and there. Silly girl (?) is an active one! On a daily basis I have to make sure to keep my bladder empty because there have been several occasions where I am seriously concerned that I am going to pee my pants from all of the punches and kicks to the bladder.

Last but not least, in utero hiccups? I thought that was a total lie when I was pregnant with Zoey. Never ONCE felt any rhythmic movement that could be considered hiccups. This time? I feel them every single day, usually in the early afternoon! I can tell they are hiccups because they’re the exact same movements, they’ve got a certain rhythm about them and they are usually pretty short lived.

I know this has all been said before. I know this is all mundane stuff to experienced Mama’s. But this is a HUGE deal for me because like I said, I never experienced any of this with my pregnancy with Zoey and I really felt like I was getting the short end of the stick when it came to my pregnancy with her.

So yay for new experiences and double yay for an impending baby (or doom, you choose)! :-) I am nervous as all get out about having a 21 month old and a newborn and I know it is going to be challenging.

Last night while we were in bed, I looked at Gene and said “We need to make a pact for when this baby is born. That we wont go insane. That we’ll remind each other to stay sane, through the insanity.” and we high-fived. It was a high-five fail, so we re-did our high five to make it perfect.

Sunday started with a bad runny nose. I chalked it up to teething and we went about our day. By Sunday night it was getting worse and all Sunday night she coughed in her sleep. Monday was a TERRIBLE day for the both of us. She got worse and worse throughout the day and I cried all day because my poor baby was so miserable. Gene came home sick with a vertigo attack. We took her to urgent care around 8 PM and she had to get a breathing treatment because her oxygen levels were so low. The doctor at urgent care sent us home with a prescription for an anti-biotic so I filled it on the way home but didn’t give it to her because there was NO explanation of why she actually needed it.

Tuesday morning we went in to see the pediatrician (ours was out of the office so we saw the other one, which she was amazing!) and she tested Zoey for RSV. Thankfully that was negative so she gave us a steroid and an inhaler for Zoey’s lungs. She said not to give her the anti-biotic unless she started playing with her ears and spiked a fever because there was fluid in her ears but it wasn’t infected… yet! We filled those and had a pretty rough day. Wednesday and Thursday her runny nose had almost completely dried up and she seemed to be doing a lot better and on the mend.

Friday morning we went to our 22wk OB check up and my Mom watched Zoey for us and we came home to a snotty, congested little girl. It was like taking two steps forward and eight steps back. So frustrating!! Friday night she started pulling at her ears and had a low fever, so we started giving her the anti-biotic. This evening she spiked a fever of 102.5 so I spoke with the on call nurse to get some information and amazingly enough, she has been acting better this evening since she spiked a fever than she has in the last 6 days!! This morning I thought we were all going to go crazy and nuts after listening to the non-stop crying and whining and fussiness.

I guess we can say Zoey has had her first cold. I wish I could say it was the LAST.

So that’s a quick update on where I’ve been. Our OB appointment went great. Baby bean is doing fine. Going for my glucose test in 4 weeks, fun fun. I’m ready for a break from this madness. I’m ready to get OUT of the house. I think we’re all getting a bad case of cabin fever!

Otherwise this pregnancy is going great. We had our Level II Ultrasound last week and Baby Bean was not cooperating at all. For the two hours that we were in there, she (or he) never ONCE spread her (or his!) legs. The sweet girl doing the ultrasound could never even get a good view of the baby’s legs but when my Perinatalogist came in, he was able to get a better view and was pretty sure there were no boy parts and that it was a girl! So.. I’m sticking with that for now. I’m so excited for Zoey to have a baby sister and have someone to grow up with that is so close in age! Yeah, there will be plenty of fights and arguments and spats but I am hoping that we can work as a family to keep their relationship great and that they will grow up to love each other and be great friends.

So.. other than being pregnant and not having as great of a time this time around.. we have been enjoying our new Fall-like weather and spending as much time out doors while we can!

What is more fun than Daddy holding you and running through the yard like crazy??

The differences so far: morning sickness started pretty early this time around and lingered through the entire First Trimester. Never really got sick but felt nauseated and icky the entire time, lost almost 10lbs! Last time I think the day I was inducted into the 2nd Trimester, I immediately had a burst of energy and felt better.. Here I am about 3 weeks into the 2nd Trimester and that energy is nowhere to be found. I am exhausted and have to nap with my kid almost daily.

Mom, Zoey and I walked the fair for a few hours yesterday morning. It was miserably hot. I was sweating so bad that I just did not feel like eating much! Booo. Because of our walking extravaganza, my sciatic nerve issues have flared up pretty darn bad! Right now I am sitting on an ice pack hoping it will help the pain go away and cool me down at the same time. Drinking a gigantic glass of cold water, doing anything I can to bring my body temperature down so that I can get back to Snooze Land where I like it best.

Zoey and I are going to a friend’s house tomorrow morning for a little play date. I’m excited! I just hope Zoey sleeps in a little bit in the morning so Mama can get some much needed rest.