Love, Erika

Where Parker Came From

I just love Parker. He kind of falls into the shadows here on my blog, because Drew is older and has so many extra needs. But Parker is an amazing little guy, and he's such a bright spot in our family. And he has been even since before he arrived.

 
This will possibly sound weird, but I'm 100% certain I'm not the only mother that ever had this kind of experience. After I had Drew, and for several months afterwards, I was completely OVER the whole pregnancy/birth/having babies thing. I was done. I was so bitter about my c-section, so exhausted and fed up with breastfeeding, and colic, and sleepless nights and feeling so clueless and helpless about every minute of my life, that I swore up and down we would never have another baby. Like, okay, I tried it once and wasn't thrilled with the experience, so I just won't be doing that again. And yet, I had this feeling that I would. One more. I felt like there was another child out there for me. Who would be coming later, definitely..... not just right then, but soon enough.

When Drew was 12 months old we started talking about having another baby. Which--looking back on it--seems RIDICULOUSLY soon. What the hell were we thinking? But it was seriously like we were on some kind of path. We had started to have a clue that something was different about Drew but didn't know how, and we really believed that giving him a baby sibling to grow up with, in the long run,  would probably be really good for him.  And I got pregnant when he was just 14 months old.  I cried at night, wondering if we were doing the right thing by Drew because I knew I wouldn't have as much time with him during his twos.  It seems naive, looking back on it. I think you obsess a lot when you only have one child to worry about. In truth, it's not that big of a deal.

 
So anyway, there came Parker. He didn't arrive in the form that I expected. I was 100% certain I was carrying a girl.  I had a girl's name picked out, and girl's bedding and a whole theme for the baby's room.  We went to our ultrasound and the tech said it was a boy and I started crying and cried the rest of the day, actually. The waterworks were endless. I cried for several months after that, in private. Oh well. It all seems so dramatic in retrospect..... but at the time I was really torn up about it. The truth is, it just doesn't matter.

Time heals everything, and by the time I was into the 3rd trimester I was fine with it. His pregnancy was so easy, and everything went so well. When he was born, I had the VBAC I wanted, and it healed all of that unfulfillment that I had with my previous c-section. Whereas for 2 years I had not a day go by that I didn't think about it, and felt the pang of bitterness. After I had Parker and the VBAC, I have rarely thought of that c-section again. It's like it never even happened to me. He healed me in a wonderful way, because I got the birth experience that I wanted, and I have happy memories now.  It was like I called do-overs and was able to correct everything that I hated the first time around. That's good stuff.

 

Now that we're well into the game, I can't imagine not having my kids so close together (despite comments from relatives about how it wasn't a great idea).  Dave surprised me one day recently when he said, "I think the best thing we ever did for Drew was to have Parker." And I have always thought the same thing. For all the therapies that we get him, and all his time at school, nothing is as valuable as having a typically developing role model to live with day in, and day out, at a time when he really needs it the most. I can't even imagine how less effective it would be if we'd had our 2nd child a year or two later. The moment of need would have passed, and things would be so different. Now that Parker is 2 years and 4 months old, he's a a developmental stage that in some ways is not TOO different from where Drew is, from a social and play skills stand point. This puts them very much as peers and they learn so much from each other on a daily basis.  I really think that Drew would not be where he is today if we hadn't had Parker when we did.

He's also good from a momma standpoint. It's thrilling to have a typically developing child. I'm so much more aware of the milestones and the stages, and it's such a relief (and so fun!) to have him hit all his marks when he's supposed to. So cute to hear a child start talking so early, and express himself, and be so funny. It's just nice to have a nice, typical, "normal" experience with your child and be in the moment. We take normal for granted, but it's just such a relief.......a nice, easy thing. And so cheap!!! :D  We often marvel at how Parker says and does things on his own that we've had Drew in therapy for months to be able to do.
 

So as you can see, these two are brothers from somewhere in the universe sent to me to be their momma. Not sure why they picked me, but they came as a package no doubt.

 

We've come full circle

I found this picture taken almost exactly one year ago, September 1, 2008.  Drew was tiny, I was newly pregnant and just feeling the earliest twinges of sickness. Here I am crashed in the floor with a brief wave of queasiness and Drew pulling my hair. :)  And what a mess!!  I'm glad he's not quite so messy anymore.

Parker's room

 I'm so excited to have his room all done! There's nothing like coming in right under the wire..... It has been a lot of work over the past few months to change this room from Dave's and my office into a baby's room with an owl theme.  I totally took these pictures on Saturday and had my blog post all planned--little did I know I'd be in the hospital that night and never got a chance to!

The paint color on the walls did not change, I just left it as it was since I didn't feel like painting and it goes all right anyway. Not the color I would have chosen IF I were going to repaint, but that's okay. It was there and I went with it.

The furniture is Bonavita, the "Peyton" collection, with big thanks to both sets of our parents for helping us with it. I've had fun filling the drawers of the changing table combo and 5-drawer chest and it seems we have lots of storage for now and in the future. The crib is from our friends Dan and Michelle. Thank you so much!!   The bedding set is Eddie Bauer "Enchanted Hollow" and one of only 2 patterns I could ever find that had owls on it! Kind of an obscure theme I guess.

 

The 3 art prints are from a digital artist John W Golden on Etsy and I loved his "woodland critters" illustrations.

One of the new Fisher Price patterns at Target is for "woodland friends" bouncers, so when I saw the owl I knew it was meant to be! I'm really excited about having a bouncy seat because we never had one for Drew and always wished we did. We never had anywhere to put him other than hold him in our arms or lay him flat on the floor all the time. I don't think either one of those options is going to cut it this time around!

I've been stockpiling diapers for a while now, when I could find great deals on them, and we have TONS to last us all the way up until he's in size 2!  It should be some time before I have to buy any diapers for him, which is a great thing since we will now have TWO kids in diapers, sheesh.

An incredible birth experience

This pregnancy has been completely cooperative from start to finish, and the final delivery was no exception. This is how it all happened (and you know how long-winded birth stories can get)....

Yesterday we all went to the mall to walk around and kill some time and I bought some new sunglasses, and I think all that walking was good for me because it got really hard to walk all of a sudden, like the baby was really dropping far, and later that evening I was getting much more frequent braxton-hicks contractions. They were coming every few minutes although they never really hurt. So I was sitting there a little after 6:30 playing Bejeweled with Drew standing next to me at the laptop watching, when all of a sudden I felt a gush and I knew my water had broken!  So we called the on-call doctor immediately and she said because I was doing a VBAC to come ahead into the hospital and we'd get set up for observation.

We called Dave's mom immediately so she could get ready to come over to our house to stay with Drew. Turns out they were eating dinner at the Yard right then, and their food had JUST been brought out to them when she got the call from Dave. LOL.  Dave and I were running around the house packing last minute stuff.... nothing like not being quite ready!  We had to hurry and put Drew to bed and feed the cats, and we ended up at the hospital just shortly before 8:00.

We started out in triage and they monitored the heart rate and contractions for awhile. Since my water broke, they were starting to get slightly more painful and were getting regular at 8 minutes apart. Then the nurses did my blood draw and started my IV and it was  a complete debacle. The vacuum tube broke and they couldn't get a replacement found quickly enough and there was blood EVERYWHERE. I wasn't looking at it, but I knew something was going wrong. Ugh. So that was definitely not my favorite part. 

The maternity floor was busy last night so they only had one room to offer us, and believe it or not it was our old room where we spent our stay when Drew was born! So it was really meant to be.

So we spent the first night just trying to get some sleep. The nurse said since I wasn't really in "active" labor that I should just try to rest and see if it would pick up on its own. I had a hard time sleeping through the contractions so she gave me morphine in a HUGE needle in my thigh. It did make me sleepier but I still couldn' t go to sleep so she gave me some other kind of pill.  That time I did fall asleep in between contractions for about 5 minutes at a time so even though it wasn't much, it still made me feel better. 

This morning we talked to Dr O'Connor who would be my delivering doctor today, and she wanted to start me on a little pitocin to get my contractions closer together. So they started that drip at 8am and things picked up pretty quickly from there. Things started getting really painful after awhile, like holy hell painful. I never knew I could wail and scream like that. LOL. When I was 5 cm dilated they called for an epidural at my request and that seemed to take forever to arrive. I really didn't think I would survive until the anesthesiologist got there. He was also coming for a woman across the hall from me, we could hear her screaming every now and then. Finally he showed up and got me going, it was agony trying to sit up and have it done while having contractions. I seemed to feel SO  much better right away and I was happy as I could be until the next contraction came along. Uh oh. My left side was completely numb but my right side was untouched! So when you still feel half your contraction, that's really no relief at all!! 

So by that time the doctor checked me again and announced that it was time to have a baby! She wanted me to just start pushing and get him born rather than have the anesthesiologist come back and try to fix my epidural. I said let's do it!!  So we started pushing, and that is a weird experience when you first do it, not really having any idea what exactly you are supposed to "push".. It's a weird sensation. And we did 3 pushes on each contraction, and when that was done it felt like ages before the next urge to push came around. I don't know how far apart they were at that point, but it seemed like I spent a lot of time staring at the cieling waiting for the next one to come around and do more pushing. Even though it was a pretty primal experience, I was all growling and screaming and really getting into it, other than that it was a very calm and quiet experience. The only other people in the room were Dave and my assigned nurse, who each held one of my legs, and Dr. O'Cconnor who was cool as a cucumber the whole time. She didn't even put on her johnnies until the very last minute. There was also a baby nurse who came in just before he was born. I remember the sunlight looking so pretty in the room, it was only natural light in the room and it was so quiet and calm other than me screaming and howling. 

I don't know exactly how long I pushed for, but they said I was very good and efficient at it, and at 12:04 he finally popped out! It was amazing. They put him immediately on my chest, skin to skin, and covered him up so I could hold him for a bit. He was a little slimy but otherwise not bloody or cheesy at all. Just adorable! He turned from purple to pink very quickly and was awarded 10s on his apgars. It was so wonderful to be able to hold him immediately after birth and look at him, unlike with Drew. While Dave and I just ooohed and ahhhed over him, little did I know the doctor was already delivering the placenta and sewing me up! I guess they do it when they know you're not paying attention to what's going on. I had 2nd degree tears so I have some stitches, but hey.... if that's the worst of it, I'll take it! 

 

Dave was an amazing birth partner, although he is very humble and says he didn't do much. He did exactly what I wanted him to do. We had read sometimes that lightly rubbing the back or arms or whatever could be soothing during a contraction but as it turned out I did not want to be touched at ALL, so he just stayed back and let me do my thing. He got me cool washcloths for my forehead and that was very refreshing. At some point the pain was so bad that I needed him to count during the contractions, and that helped me stay focused that time actually WAS passing even though it felt like an eternity, and helped me get to the end of each one. I knew was he approached 30 I should start feeling some relief. The only time I ever got short with him was when he forgot to count one time and I snapped, "COUNT!!!!!"  at him. He also was there when I got my epidural and I had to lean over into him while they did it. He was very strong and never got woozy! He held my leg during the birth and saw the whole thing, and gave me all the gory details afterwards. :) LOL.

We're all doing great and enjoying the new little baby. I can't believe how tiny he is!!  He's a whole pound smaller than Drew was and I'm thrilled with that. I'm so thrilled with everything, I have been just beaming all day long. I got my VBAC and everything went so well with that and I'm so happy that I didn't have to have another surgery. Everything today was truly a blessing!

Parker James is here! ♥

Parker made his way into the world today at noon. What an exciting 24 hours this has been for us! Birth story coming soon.

Parker James Follansbee
May 3, 2009 12:04 pm
7  lbs, 3 oz
20 inches
successful VBAC baby!!

 

 

39 weeks

Today is April 30, which means that as long as I get through the next 10 hours, we're having a May baby!  I don't know why it even matters to me, but May just seems like a lovely and happy month to be born in. The other thing that I'm looking forward to is the possibility of a Cinco de Mayo baby! How fun would THAT be?? You know I'm all over that one.

Anyway, it's not seeming like this is going to happen immediately anyway. I had an appointment on Tuesday which revealed not much change. Things are still getting soft and I'm still 1 cm dilated but other than that, it's not looking like labor is imminent. The doctor said she thought another week maybe.

I'm sleeping like CRAP lately, for the past couple of weeks actually. I can sleep literally for about 30 minutes at a time before I have to roll over and try to do something about my excruciatingly painful hips. They're killing me. They feel totally liquified. I don't know how else to explain it, but the hip joints are just soft and crunchy and feel like they can barely hold me up. So the nights are very long and frustrating.

I'm hoping to post some pictures in the next day or two....

38 week update

Things are getting really tough in a lot of ways. They didn't do an exam this week at the doctor's but she did say he looks like he's dropped even more since last week. Next week they'll check my dilation again and see what's happening. My blood pressure was up a bit this week, and she said I needed to rest more. Dave has really stepped it up lately and takes care of Drew and the household stuff as soon as he gets home. I feel bad that he has to do so much, so I hope I can get back up to speed quickly afterwards. Dave's mom also comes over most mornings to give me a break so I can sit down rather than chase Drew around.  It's a huge help!

I've kind of been feeling "off" in some ways lately, and I get lightheaded easily and can't stand up for much length of time at all. I used to love getting out of the house at least once a day, but now I just don't even want to go anywhere because it's so much effort to walk anywhere. It's also just embarrassing because I have nothing that covers my belly. So I just stay home and let it all hang out. I figure if I have any energy at all to spare, I need to get Drew outside to run around. I'm definitely into rationing whatever I have left at this point!

37 weeks and counting....

We're getting there. I'm having a really hard time walking, sleeping, taking care of Drew, etc right now. The baby is so low that it's hard to move. I never felt like this with Drew, because his head was never in this position. Oy. My doctor visit this week was fine, everything is still looking good. They didn't examine me this week, so I don't know if anymore progress has been made. But we did talk about what kinds of things I can expect at the hospital with attempting a VBAC..... basically I just have to have an IV but other than that I can labor however I want to.  I'm just really crossing my fingers that everything will progress well on my own without having to have too many interventions (of course everybody hopes for that, don't they?).  I don't have any feelings about whether I'll make it to my due date of May 6th or not.... part of me thinks no way but another big part of me wants to make it till May. I'd rather have a May baby.  Things are looking better and better every single day and if he just waits another couple of weeks there may be flowers and leaves even!

We've done a lot of work this weekend to get ready. Dave put the crib together, and we got the pack and play out to make sure we still had all the pieces. We brought the swing up from the basement and washed the cover, and the carseat is ready to go. The furniture came last week.  We still need to pick up a mattress and changing table pad and some bedding, and we'll be all set!

Baby action!

Oh boy it's getting exciting now. I'm 36 weeks now, and I had an ultrasound yesterday which confirmed that he's still head down and not going to be turning around! That's awesome news, but not a surprise to me since I've been able to tell where he's positioned from his frequent hiccups. They estimated that he's weighing 6 lbs 5 oz which is about 50th %tile and just fine with me!  The head of course was crazy huge and measuring 40w2d. I'm not too thrilled about that, but she did say it was hard to get a good measurement since he's wedged so far down there.

Also today I had my regular OB appointment (which is now WEEKLY, yikes) and she did the exam and everything and discovered that I'm 2 cm dilated and 50% effaced. Baby is engaged and way down in my pelvis! Woohoo. No wonder I feel like I can't walk.  This is exciting, I didn't get to go through any of this with Drew. It was at this point with Drew that we knew he was breech and were starting to make alternate arrangements.

The doctors always laugh at this baby because he's SO active and everytime I'm lying on the table he's got a butt or a foot sticking WAY up high out of my belly. She actually grabbed his foot today and wiggled it around. They say "is he always like this?" and I'm like oh yes.....

My veins continue to get worse and worse and she said I'll definitely need to see a vascular surgeon after I deliver. They are truly a mess. I'll have to see if I can get a picture of the black and purple stumps that are my feet, I look totally DEAD. Actually I think a corpse has a better looking feet than I do.  I got a pedicure a couple of days ago and I was sooooo embarassed to go and have somebody look that closely at my feet. But now my toenails are beautiful but it still didn't help the black feet.

Pregnant lady gas.