She's Here!

There is such a story to her birth. But first, She's Here!
Norah Rose was born at 9:11pm, weighing 3 pounds, 14 ounces, and 17 inches long.

With the two other kids and *life* I didn't always notice Tiny moving around, but always when the older two napped and I could slow down, I would feel her wiggle. Saturday morning Josh and I took the kids to the park in the next subdivision for a change, and we spent a good hour playing. When we got back and put the kids down for nap, I laid down too. But didn't notice Tiny wiggling. So I drank a glass of orange juice (yuck!) and laid on my left side and still didn't feel anything. In a panic, I called the on-call OB and she said to go ahead and head to the hospital, just for monitoring to make sure everything is fine. We dropped the kids off with a friend and sped over. On the way I felt one good movement, so I felt more at ease, but decided to head in just in case.

When we got there they hooked me up to do a non-stress test. Basically, they monitor heart rate and movement, making sure that baby moves at least once in the 20 minutes, and that when she moves the heart rate changes for a couple seconds. Though her heart beat was strong the whole time, it never changed, so she failed the test. So they ordered a BPP (biophysical profile) where they do an ultrasound and measure a dozen or so different things like fluid level, movement, and size. She failed that one too. And because the docs couldn't figure out why she failed, they decided she needed to be born. Immediately. They told me I needed an emergency c-section at 8:55, I was wheeled into OR at 9:01, and 10 minutes later we met our beautiful daughter. She was so tiny and had the cord wrapped around her neck twice.

She went directly to the NICU where she received a blood transfusion due to her levels being very low. The neonatologist theorized that she had a fetal-maternal hemmorage, where for some unknown reason, her blood traveled backward and into me, leaving her lacking. After the transfusion she pinked right up and was stable.

After I regained feeling, the nurses wheeled me into her room so I could see her for a little bit, and then I was settled into my room for the night.

Over the course of her 11 day NICU stay, she had ultrasounds on her head and belly to make sure her organs weren't affected by the lack of blood, and they discovered she had extra fluid in her belly. The nephrologist isn't concerned and will just check it again at about 6 months. She had trouble regulating her blood sugar, so they eventually moved the iv from her arm to her belly so they could push more fluid in at once. She started on oxygen but was weaned off that quickly. They then moved her to the isolette to provide her a consistent ambient temperature. She initially took feeds through an ng tube in her nose, and that was the last thing to get dc'd. Having adjusted to room air and temperature, stabilized her blood sugar levels, all internal tests came back fine, and learned to eat entirely by mouth, she was ready for discharge!

We eventually learned that the reason she was so small was because she had IUGR (intra-uterine growth restriction). There's no for-sure cause for it, but for whatever reason babies with this just stop growing in utero, and need to be born early in order to grow. I read somewhere this happens in about 5% of pregnancies. The fetal-maternal hemorrhage, if it's not caused by a trauma to mom (like being in a car accident) has no known cause. There's not a lot of information about it, but I read it happens in 0.3% of pregnancies. The only indicator is a lack of movement, and a few hours can be the difference between life and death. The fact that both of those happened to her, and she she's doing so well is truly a miracle.

We will be forever grateful to the wonderful staff who helped us care for our tiny baby the first 2 weeks of her life. We are so excited to take her home!

Summer Fun

It's been nice out so we've been spending a whole lot of time outside. Tiny makes me overheat quickly, so we're trying to enjoy the weather before I can't be outside for very long anymore. Luckily, with our fenced yard, I feel totally comfortable sending them outside without me. And they are so happy!

Josh is really enjoying their love of dandelions, they pick every single one they find in the yard! I have 2 or 3 "vases" of pretty yellow flowers going pretty much all the time. I'm so lucky =)

Lots of time in the pool. Both the baby pool that really they've outgrown but is so convenient, and the big pool.

Future Royals player right here!

Siblings

Taking advantage of the pretty flowers on my front step to take what might be the last good picture of our two kids, before there are three kids!

Handsome little ones, they are =) Cheese!!

Third Trimester

Can't believe it's already the third trimester! And I can't really complain, I'm only experiencing the usual pregnancy symptoms. Up to pee all the time, general discomfort. And a new one. My knuckles get so stiff while I'm sleeping that they *hurt* in the morning until I've wiggled them enough to loosen them up. It's annoying. But worth it. At least that's what I keep telling myself.

All my appointments are fine, happy little heart beat and measuring on track. The kids enjoy going because they like listening to Tiny's heartbeat. Tessa even nods along like it's a good song sometimes. =) Here's hoping this last stretch is equally uneventful!

Graduation

Say it isn't so! My baby boy is now a preschool graduate and nothing is standing in between him and kindergarten. (Happy and sad tears all at the same time).

Today was his last day of school, his end of the year party, and his graduation. Some of the moms also arranged an impromptu picnic at a nearby park for right after school. Busy Busy Busy! When I asked him this morning if he was excited for his last day, he kept cheering about the party. I don't think he quite understands that he won't be going to back to that school again. I will for sure miss the routine, but I think after a week or two Luca will really start missing spending all that time with his friends. He was never one to ask me to keep him home or to be reluctant to go--I hope that attitude continues!

His party was a lot of fun! We did a carnival theme with that style of games and prizes and temporary tattoos. Thankfully it was a pretty day (though a little windy) so we got to spend time outside. Our best idea was a pillowcase sack race. Seeing them all hopping across the field by the school was hysterical! =) He was very excited to tell Oma that he won ALL THE GAMES! (Everyone got a prize for playing each of the five games).

Luca with Miss Coleen and Miss Jane

And then, that night, **sigh** graduation. Not gonna lie, I was getting teary eyed already when the 1st year preschoolers were doing their stuff. Was it only last year that Luca was that big? Of course a third of the way through the program I got the low battery warning on my camera, but I still got some good pics and videos. Very glad that I took a picture with him and his teachers before the program though, after was a mad house! Pa stopped to get us all dinner on the way home (in the rain) to continue the celebration. I just can't believe he's gotten so big! At the end of the program the director introduced us to the class of 2029! At least that feels far away, though I'm sure I'll blink and miss all of it!

Congratulations Handsome Fella, we are so proud of you!

22 weeks and Name Brackets!

Even though this is my third pregnancy, I still have no idea how they work out what month of the pregnancy I'm in. Because it's 9 months, but 40 weeks, and the first 3 weeks there isn't even a fertilized egg... It's all very confusing to me. But I think, at 22 weeks, I'm six months pregnant. Because that's what a handy infographic on the internet said.

Kid is already a critic and will grimace if he/she doesn't like what I'm eating

My bump feels so much bigger in real life. If I stand straight and tall and look straight down I can only just barely see the tips of my toes. The camera is moving my pounds around willy-nilly, I think.

Anyway, we had the anatomy scan a couple weeks ago (April 1st, actually) and everything looks normal and great. We had a student working with the tech, so the scan took an hour because she let the student try after she did. Which was fine by me, since it was the last time we'll see the baby until they're born. And, much to the disappointment of several people, gender is still unknown! We call the baby Tiny, and I use masculine pronouns just because I don't like saying "it" and I figure since it's okay to call a group of women "guys" and a lady friend "dude," surely if it's a girl it won't mind.

Because we decided not to find out the gender, we've got lists of girl's names and boy's names going. And because when we started our lists it was late February, I thought at the time "Wouldn't a baby name bracket be awesome and hilarious!?" So we picked out 32 names of each gender (some we are in love with, some we think are ridiculous) and I built a couple brackets. Play with us!

Josh is filling out his brackets, I'm filling out mine. I'm predicting we will have less than half of the same choices by the Sweet 16, and only 1 of the Final Four the same. We won't decide for sure until the baby is born, but I want to hear your guesses early!

Some things to consider:
The names are "seeded" based on popularity according to the Social Security Administration. So the names on the left side of the bracket were more commonly given to babies in 2014 (the most recent year they had data on) than the names on the right side of the bracket.
We don't have any idea what the middle names will be, hopefully family names. But consider how it sounds with our last name at least.
I like nicknames, but only Luca goes by one so clearly that's not a had and fast rule.

Again I say, Play With Me!!

Petting Horses

Every year the park district has a "week of the young child" where they have a free activity daily geared toward younger kids. This year the only day we managed to get to was the pet a pony day at the local stables. Tessa was very, very unsure at first. Luca was so excited I was afraid he was going to spook the horse.

He pet the one that was out with her handler, and fed the one behind the electric fence (that had been temporarily turned off) handfuls of grass. Inside the building we ran into one of his buddies from preschool and made a horseshoe necklace. After chasing the barn cats around for a while, we went back out to say goodbye to the horses.

This time Tessa was willing to stand close enough I could get a picture, and even pet the horse's side while I held her. They had lots of fun!