To: Cynthia-The Joys of Pregnancy and Labor.

This post is dedicated to my dearest friend.....Cynthia. 

There are just some things your mom isn't going to tell you about pregnancy, labor, and life after you give birth. That's why you have girlfriends that won't sugar coat things and make it all sound peachy. I did not mind being pregnant and had no major problems. I did miss feeling them move around inside but did not miss all the uncomfortableness that comes along with it.  But by the end of the pregnancy when your huge and fat and so uncomfortable your so ready for it to be over with. 

Some of things written in this post might be a little TMI....just a warning that I will be writing about boobs, nipples, and vaginas.

In the beginning there might be a little morning sickness or a lot. I had just a little for about the first 14 weeks or so. You will be tired and your boobs will start to hurt and get super sore. Oh and don't forget the frequent urination that never goes away and the lovely discharge.

Then you will start to feel good get some energy back and think "Oh this isn't so bad" then about 30 weeks or so all the "cool" stuff starts to happen.............................

• Your boobs may or may not have started to leak at this point.
• Braxton Hicks contractions may have started and sometimes they can be quite uncomfortable. Lots of water will help with these. 
• Of course as I already mentioned......the yucky whitish discharge, sometimes will cause you to have to wear a pantyliner:) This started in the beginning for me....just what you wanted to know...right?!
• Back pain may have settled in. With Easton and Bentley I had terrible back pain....NO BUENO!!!
• The pubic bone/pelvis pain. This hurts so bad!!! I could barely get out of bed. And then sometimes you could hear it popping. This started to happen in the last 6 weeks or so and it was only with Bentley. 
• Feeling major pressure in your area down there. Sometimes it felt like he was just going to pop out or something. It hurts to get out of bed and even walk. Not a good feeling at all. Very strange. I did not have that feeling with the first two.
• Swelling of the hands and feet. This happened early on for me with Cameron. I was not about to go without my wedding ring, so I had it sized a one whole size bigger and it was still tight. Now after 3 kiddos its practically falling off so I need to get it sized smaller again, Ryan reminds me almost daily I will not be getting a new one if I lose it:)

Now here are some great things about labor.......

• Sometimes you lose the "mucus plug", you will know when this happens. It's disgusting! With Cameron I lost it right at the same time contractions started. But it's different for everyone. With Cameron it was a ton of junk down there but Easton not so much. I have also read and heard that you can lose it over time as well. But when you do start losing it that probably means labor is near:)
• It HURTS! I believe I have a pretty high tolerance for pain. With Cameron it wasn't that bad. I got an epidural but then that slowed things down a bit {as Cynthia knows because she was there}. Well we all know with Easton there was no time for any drugs and it hurt like HELL. The burning sensation is the worst and the contractions are no joke.
• Labor can take FOREVER! Make sure to bring some snacks for Joe and maybe the Ipad:) and a pillow from home might be nice. 
• Pushing out a baby is like one of the hardest things I have ever had to do! It's different for everyone. I pushed for a little over 3 hours with Cameron and I never thought it was going to end. My back was killing me towards the end and I seriously thought I would never get him out. 
• You may or may not poop while pushing.....it happens.
• You may need an epsoimoy to get him out and if so Joe will want to turn his head {or at least that's what our doctor told Ryan} and if so your recovery time will take a little longer and you will be a little more sore in that area.....OH JOY!
• If you have an epidural it will take a while for it to wear off. You won't be able to stand up and walk for a bit but at least you really won't feel the doctor pushing out the lovely placenta:)
• Beware when they move you to the bathroom to go pee....this is not a pretty site. Lots and lots of junk coming out down there. With all three boys the bleeding lasted about 3 weeks or so.
• The nurses will give you a little squirt bottle thingy to clean down there after every time you go to the bathroom and then they give some spray stuff to spray down there to help with the burning. This will be your best friend especially if you have stitches.

One of the best pieces of advice I got while pregnant with Cameron was from one of the baseball players Mom that Ryan coached....she said to me when I was about 34 weeks pregnant or so to start rubbing my nipples with sponge {or something} to get them ready. At first I thought she was crazy but after 3 kids I can tell you this is not crazy. The nipples get so very sore, especially in the beginning. I can remember with Easton they were starting to get red and cracking when I was still in the hospital...probably because he was a giant and ate all day long:) 

And since we are talking about breasts....they will hurt like hell once your milk comes in. They will hard as rock and like 3 times the normal size. Nurse often and massage them:)

Cynthia is now 33 weeks pregnant {I think}t. I cannot believe she will be having a baby in 2 months! FINALLY!!! 

I cannot wait for her to go into labor and finally experience labor and child birth. Finally after 5 years of talking about it since Cameron was born she will get to experience it herself. She was the only one at the hospital when Easton was born and she was just outside the room and she said it sounded like my arm was being chopped off....YES i was screaming! It hurt so freaking bad. 

Last weekend was her baby shower and everything turned out wonderful. Her mom, sis, myself and a college friend all helped and put our ideas together. Her mom really went all out for everything. It was prefect. 

So tell me ladies what was the best and worst thing about pregnancy and/or labor? We all know the end result is well worth it and by far the best thing ever or why else would we do it again and again:)

Please excuse any typos.....The kids are starting to wake up and I just need to post this or it will never happen. It was one of my many half written posts. 

Party of Five.

So it's been a week already since my induction and we now have another sweet baby boy.

We arrived at the hospital ready to have a baby. It felt a little weird having an appointment to have a baby. We checked in and got admitted and around 7:30pm or so the nurses started the pitocin IV. I was already 4 cm and 70% effaced when we got to the hospital. The pitocin took forever to kick in. I really wasn't in any pain at all. Even once the contractions started coming it was like nothing compared to my labor with Easton. Finally the nurse said instead of prolonging the labor they would get the epidural started then break my water, so that's what they did. Once they broke my water the little guy was born about 3 hours later. This was the easiest labor and delivery for me out of the three. I only had to push for 10 minutes and through 3 contractions, so much easier than the previous two:))

On our way to the hospital.

Ready to have a baby:))

Taking a little stroll around the L&D floor. My butt and back were killing me from laying in bed.

Our sweet new baby boy.

We were expecting to be able to leave the hospital and go home on Friday but when they weighed him at midnight {they weigh all babies at midnight} he had lost 12% of his birth weight so we had to stay an extra day so they could watch him and make sure everything was good, which it was. His discharge weight was 8 lbs. 12 oz and his weight at his appointment Monday was 8 lbs. 14 oz. They are not sure why his weight went down so much and they said that it doesn't happen very often. He is good and healthy. So we were able to leave the hospital on Saturday....My birthday! My nurse brought me a little cupcake and piece of chocolate brownie cake, we took them home and had later that night for dessert.

Later that day these crazy kids came to visit.

 Easton "petting" Baby Bentley.

 At the end of the visit Cameron finally said he wanted to hold him:)

 Getting ready to get him all buckled up for the ride home.

The End is in Sight.

Well today has come and gone and still no baby. Today I had my 40 week appointment and my doctor has scheduled me for an induction tomorrow around 5 pm. I am kinda nervous about being induced because I have heard it can sometimes awhile, fingers crossed since this is baby #3 it will move along smoothly :)

I am very anxious to see this little guy and see how big he is. My doctor said he doesn't feel like a 9 pounder but I hide it well so she wouldn't be surprised if he was. Next time I post I will have some sweet baby pictures to share with you.



The boys content at the end of the year baseball shindig we attended tonight......this lasted about 10 minutes:) I cannot believe we are about to add another one in the mix.

39 Weeks.

Well I am finally on my last week!!!

I am counting down the days now. At my last appointment, which was last Tuesday, I was 2.5 cm dilated and 50% effaced...which really means nothing to me since I was 4 cm with Easton for 3 freaking weeks. This week has been kinda rough. Lots and lots of cramping and pains, weird feelings I never felt with the first two. And then today I felt sick, like nauseous sick.

My next appointment is Tuesday, which is my due date, and my doctor said she would not let me go a week over due since I grow quite large babies. So if I happen to make it to that appointment I am hoping to convince her to schedule the induction Wednesday....or maybe even Tuesday night:))  But I really hope I don't make it to that appointment. At this point I am so done being pregnant. I don't mind being pregnant but the 9th month is tough, especially when you have 2 active crazy kids. It makes doing things so much harder and sometimes I think they know they can get away with certain things because I am pregnant.

Keep your fingers crossed this little guy decides to make an appearance this weekend:)





I am looking forward to........

.......a glass of wine and an ice cold vodka & pink lemonade, oh heck....add an ice cold beer to this one also.

.......no more leg cramps or major pelvic pains that hurt like hell.

........no more leaking.

........bending over.

........normal sex.

........holding my sweet baby.

........running.

........wearing normal clothes and having more of a selection to choose from.

........drinking an entire pot of coffee if I want.

........eating whatever I want.

Making Room for Baby.

Today I have 29 days left until my due date and we have nothing ready for this little guy. We don't even have diapers and the new car seat is still sitting in the box.  I finally finished painting his room last week so that was a huge step towards getting something done. It was a lavender color before so that was not going to work at all, now its a nice calming antique white color.

So now I have to go through all the other junk in the room and get it organized from when we moved. My goal this week is to go through all the baby clothes we have from Cameron and Easton. Some will get tossed/donated and some we will keep for this little guy. A lot I will be able to keep and use but this baby boy will be born in May whereas the other 2 were born in December.  

One major thing we did get checked off our list a couple weekends ago was finding a new car. Our family car before was our Dodge pickup, which was okay for two kids but adding a third in that backseat was going to be a little tight. And you could forget about storing anything back there. We find a great deal on a new/used SUV. The SUV we wanted when we got the truck but they were way too $$$$, plus we got a great deal on our truck at the time. I am loving the new car! Its so spacious and I love the color! The only thing we need to do is add a DVD player to it, which we will be doing in the next couple weeks.
So since we got a new car we had to say goodbye to an oldie. We sold our Jeep Cherokee. Ryan bought it when we lived in Iowa while he was going to school back there. That little white Jeep was such a good car to us. It got us and all our crap home from the Midwest. It ran great but we really didn't need 4 cars.

So over the next couple weeks I plan to get most of my to do list done. Lots of little things around the house, like paint the boys' bathroom {luckily my brother will be doing that}, hang some pictures and shelves {still left over to do from the move}, finish the baby's room and the boys' room, a trip to Babies R Us, and lots of other little things:)) 



32 and ZERO.

Well last week I hit the 32 week marker and that meant another doctors appointment and another weigh in. Let me tell you the last month was hard with no sweets but I did it. I did splurge on St. Patty's day. I made a Snickers Bar brownie dessert thingy from Pinterest {I will be posting that real soon}. I watched Ryan eat 3 boxes of Girl Scout cookies and it was so tempting and the candy bowl was always full. 
It did pay off.......I gained ZERO pounds! I was so happy:)) Now I just have to get through another month. The day after my doctors appointment we had a baseball fundraiser to attend and I made 2 trips to the dessert table.....whooopsie! So once again no sweets, no fast food, milk, and water only. I hope I can make it this month with only gaining a couple pounds....fingers crossed. I really want that little 8 pounder baby.



Today I hit 33 weeks....only 7 weeks to go!!!! I still don't have any major complaints. I feel pretty good, just your regular pregnancy discomforts. I did buy a book to read to help me at night and falling asleep but I haven't started on it yet. Maybe I should get off the computer and start reading but first I need to find my book light:))

Baby Mink.

Finally after the third time going to our 3d/4d ultrasound appointment Baby M was cooperative....well kinda. It took a few minutes along with some pokes and nudges for him to come out of his little spot he has been buried in for the last couple of weeks or so. The first time we went he was all spread out so it was difficult to get clear pictures and then the next time we went he was completely face down so we didn't get any pictures. Some say these 3d pictures look a little freaky and weird and I guess they kinda do but I am glad we decided to do it this time around. With our 20 week ultrasound we only got like 5 pictures, with the first 2 babies we got a ton of pictures. One of the main reasons I wanted to do it this time was to confirm we had another boy in there....and yes it was confirmed at the first appointment.

The second we saw him we both looked at each other and said he looks just like Easton. He has the chubby round little cheeks and the full lips just like his big brother did when he was a baby. I am very anxious to see if he is going to look like Easton when he is born.

 

29 Weeks.

A couple days ago I had my monthly check-up. I was there about 2 hours. Between lab work {including the oh so fun glucose test}, doctor appointment, and getting the rhoGAM and flu shot it took forever. And this was not a good check-up for me, nothing is wrong with the baby, he is good and healthy.

It's me. And that stupid scale I dread stepping on every time I go. I gained another 6 lbs this month:((, so that brings my total so far to 32 lbs. The doctor really lectured me this time. She really doesn't want me having another ginormous baby. Like I want to have an 11 lb. baby. She says that a 9 pounder would be a piece of cake for me and he will pop right out.
She really wants me to try and keep my total weight gain under 40 lbs. So of course that means no more fast food, ice cream, candy or really any kind of sweets, and only milk and water. This is how it was when I was pregnant with the boys. I couldn't just eat whatever. I gained 60 lbs with Cameron and he was 9 lb 5 oz, and 50 with Easton and he weighed 10 lb. 12oz. I am so afraid I will gain less weight and this baby will be the biggest. It really sucks to be pregnant and not be able to eat whatever you want. It's not like I eat all the candy in the candy dish or all the cookies in the package or eat fast food every day. But I will try and do whatever it takes and we shall see in 3 weeks when its time to go back. I did make it to the gym the yesterday. That was kinda weird. I go to a fairly small gym, so not a lot of people and I totally felt like everyone was starring at me and my belly.

I did learn that my official due date has been moved up 5 days to May 15th....Yippeee!!!! So instead of being 28 weeks pregnant I am now 29...hehehehe. And who knows when she will induce. I ask every time I see her and her response is always we will see as it gets closer. I just hope I go into labor a little early. I am so afraid and scared this baby will be as big as Easton.  Looks like I won't be making anything with that fancy new mixer just yet:((

So far this pregnancy has been easy for me just like the previous two. No major problems, so I am very thankful for that. Now I am just exhausted during the day and completely wiped out at bed time. I think some of that may have to deal with my blood pressure and red blood cell count. Both are super low, but that's normal when your pregnant. And not to mention I still have to care for the other two. Some days they can be so good and other days....well you don't want to know, they are just plain crazy.

Well here are some pictures for those of you who care.....I know of a few who have been wanting to see :)) The earlier pictures are on the external hard drive and I am just too lazy to go get it and copy those pics onto this computer. And for whatever reason I am having a problem getting my old fonts on this new computer. I hate learning how to use new programs and this new windows is awesome but it's going to take some getting used to. So no fancy editing on these pictures.

 Seriously there is nothing glamorous about this picture. Not a good look.

 Shame on me for taking the pictures inside the house. That terrible shadow is on all the pictures:((

So does anyone have any hot plans this weekend??? We have a baseball game tomorrow night, which should be interesting because it starts at 7pm and its about an hour away from home. The kids will probably fall asleep on the way there. Hopefully they wake up in a good mood for the game. And I hope it's not too cold.
Then on Sunday we have our 3D ultrasound appointment. We went a couple weeks ago but the little peanut was all stretched out and they couldn't get any decent pictures of him. So hoepfully this time he will be positioned just right and I will have lots to share with you all next week.

Saturday Surprise!

Say hello to Baby Mink coming in May 2012.