107+3Weeks

Well, this week has been full of ups and downs - while we have a very cute little baby addition to our family, we are completely sleep deprived and feeling very run down.  Mum has taken pity on my poor tired self and has taken Arley for tonight, so I am rushing through this post so I can get into bed and sleep for the next 11 hours before Carmen wakes up :)  Arley is not a great sleeper - well, some days he is fantastic, but I stress the word DAY.  Most nights he sleeps in short spurts and needs a lot of feeding and resettling.  And some days he is terrible too, and spends all day in the sling attached to my chest.  He also likes me to bounce on the exercise ball (which was the bane of my life when Carmen was a newborn), but hey, whatever it takes to make him stop crying!  Carmen is getting a little more used to our new life and is not nearly as demonic as she was last week.  In fact, she is quite sweet again most days, as long as she gets some quality alone time with one of us.  However, to save our sanity, at least for the time being, she is starting with an extra day at school this week (tomorrow, in fact!), so she will be going three days a week.  I think we will keep this up until life becomes a little easier, unless she really doesn't take to three days.  They tell me that she is still rather solitary at school, but that she is happy there.  She refuses to use the potty there and is still in a nappy (although well potty trained at home), but she does nap there now :)  I think an extra day will be good for her right now, as when Jeffrey is working I don't have the time to spend doing fun things with her like she does there.  They tell me she is very artistic too, and has my genes :)  Swimming also started up again this week, and Carmie has moved up a class, however she was far too excited to listen to instruction, so hopefully she will do better next week.  Anyway, wish us luck getting through this next week.  We are just taking one day at a time.  And I know I sound horribly tired and depressed, but we are happy with our little Arley too!

I had a bunch of different really cute photos from this week-end, but the camera somehow erased them all (again).  I think a new camera is in order.  Below are some links to some videos from this week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQaVLrMpHKA&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKQlKZCMeCY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNjXU6EBZwI

Three week photos

106 + 2 Weeks

Yes, I am extremely tired right now.  Jeffrey is already in bed.  I am scheduled to do the next feed, and if the little bugger doesn't wake up by 10pm, I'm waking him up!  Arley is a great baby - in the day.  He sleeps all day.  He can barely wake up for a feed.  And then at night he switches between alert, fussy and cat-napping.  So frustrating!  So, we can't sleep in the day because we have a very rambunctious toddler to look after, and we can't sleep at night either, because that seems to be Arley's play time.  Thankfully Mum and Geoff have taken Arley for these past two days while Carmen has been at school, so we have been able to catch up on some sleep.  And speaking of the rambunctious toddler, our sweet little Carmen has turned into devil's spawn!!  Kicking, screaming, hitting, scratching, throwing, you name it, these are all in her new set of tricks.  Everything is a fight with her, from getting her out of bed in the mornings, to which Dora video she wants to watch.  She seems to be a little better when she gets in some alone time with me, so that is one of our goals on a daily basis, but it doesn't happen easily!!

This week we did have two outings to the park, one successful and one a disaster.  The disaster definitely outweighed the success.  It started out by getting the kids bags packed for the park, with changes of clothes and bottles and snacks, then trying to get boots and sunscreen on Carmen (total nightmare!).  After 20 minutes of getting ready, we loaded up into the car, with Arley screaming in a rage because he was due his bottle.  Halfway to the park Jeff realised that we had a flat tire, so we had to turn around and slowly drive home, Arley still screaming and Carmen thinking we were going to the park.  When we got home, I took Carmen to play on her coaster in the back yard, walking up and down to get the coaster back into place while feeding Arley - a near impossible task.  Jeffrey changed the tire on the car, and then left the side gate open when he went inside.  Carmen took the opportunity to run out towards the road, so I went berserk screaming at her, and with every step I took closer to her, she took one closer to the road, but I couldn't run because I had Arley in my arms.  Jeff came out and grabbed Carmen which resulted in a kicking tantrum, which put her in a time out in her room.  After this, she calmed down and I insisted we go back to the park, thinking Carmen would be the better for it.  We got to the park, and Jeff left to go buy our hot chips and a smoothie for Carmen.  The second he left, Arley started screaming, and I had to carry him around the park like this while trying to help Carmen onto the swings and on the play equipment.  Jeff got back with our lunch and put it down on the bench.  Carmen ran over to it and proceeded to fall down and knock her smoothie onto the ground.  After calming her down and salvaging about a third of her smoothie, we sat down to eat, but I had to hold the screaming Arley in my arms the whole time.  It was really stressful.  And then the cherry on the cake was when Carmen put one hand on my knee, one hand on Jeff's arm, steadied herself and then crapped her pants, all the while saying, "No poo poo.  No poo poo."  We have decided never to leave the house as a family ever again.

Anyway, it is almost 10pm, and Arley is about to be woken up for his bottle, because I need to get some sleep myself!

A short video of Arley at 8 days old.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i2MiRg37Bc&feature=youtu.be

This is what dinner looks like for me now.

 Arley at 1 week old.

 Our successful outing to the park.

 Uncle Sting came down for a visit this week too.

 Keeping Carmen busy.

This was when Carmen and I had an outing into town.  She loves the Bananas in Pajamas.  So much so, that she refused to get off the car, even when I walked out of the building, hid for five minutes while spying on her, then crept back into the building to hide behind the pole where I took the last Bananas photo of her.  She could not have cared less that I had left and "gone home".  She just sat there playing and giggling, not a care in the world.

 Asleep in his sister's bed.

 2 weeks old

105 Weeks & Arley Arrives!

So, I have a very kind mother who enabled me to sleep a full 8.5 hours last night, so I figured I would update the blog while I can (but don't expect these posts to be in any way consistent in the next few weeks!).

(As a side note: I discovered last week that the only doctor who does epidurals at my local hospital - Milton Hospital - is away for the month, so any mother who wants/needs an epidural this month can't have one!  I was also told by my doctors and midwives that they didn't think that I would make it to Shoalhaven Memorial Hospital (Nowra Hospital) and would have no choice but to deliver naturally at Milton).

I started having proper contractions on Monday 1st July, and I went to my scheduled doctor's appointment at 10 am that morning, and she told me that I was 4 cm dilated and the baby was at a -1, and that given the speed of my last birth, I would probably be having the baby that afternoon.  She said to go home and rest, which I did.  My contractions were moderate and about 10 minutes apart.  At 3 pm I went to the hospital to get checked, and I was still 4 cm dilated.  So, I went home not knowing what to think.  Contractions continued, and then I went to bed that night at around 10 pm, taking a Panadeine for the pain.  The contractions slowed down, and was I woken by about 5 contractions in the night, until 4:25 am when I woke in immense pain.  After three more terrible contractions I called Nowra Hospital, fairly hysterical, but after hearing me have a contraction over the phone, the midwife there told me to go to Milton Hospital to get an internal exam done before I made the 45 minute trip to Nowra.  Jeff dropped me off at Milton, then raced up to Fisherman's Paradise to pick up Mum (they were looking after Carmie).  I had my internal, and the midwife said I was still at 4 cm, and it would be a while yet, and given the amount of pain I was in, she agreed that I should go to Nowra Hospital to get my epidural.  However, we had to wait for the ambulance to drive down and pick me up.  I got a shot of morphine which did nothing to alleviate the pain but made me quite relaxed in between contractions :)  The contractions were still 7 - 10 minutes apart, but were really terrible, much worse than my contractions with Carmen, in fact a different kind of pain altogether.  The ambulance finally arrived, and they strapped me on to the gurney and Mum and the midwife rode with me while Jeff followed in the car.  That ambulance ride was pretty much the worst experience of my life.  I had five contractions, and the pain was like nothing I have ever felt before, and being strapped down onto a gurney unable to move was dreadful.  It literally felt like someone was ripping me apart on the inside.  One contraction was even two minutes long.  I am cringing at the memory of that trip.  I even damaged my voice box from yelling/screaming.  Anyway, we made it to Nowra Hospital, and as soon as I got there I was begging for my epidural.  The midwife had to check me first, and when she did, low and behold, I was dilated to 10 cm.  She gave me an internal while I had my next contraction (OH MY GOD!!), and then I was ready to push.  No epidural for me, again.  The pushing was much easier this time (I was on my knees instead of on my back), and so much less painful than those Godawful contractions, and after 35 minutes, little Arliss James (Arley) was born, at 9 am, 2 years and 11 minutes after his big sister.  I simply cannot believe that my kids share a birthday.  Apparently the odds of their birth days, hours and minutes are about 1/50,000 (thanks Jay!).  Anyway, the drama wasn't over with his birth, because apparently I had a 'gusher', and while the midwives were dealing with me, Mum and Jeff were over with Arley under the heat lamp, and they yelled out because he had stopped breathing and had turned grey.  So the nurses ran over and pushed some emergency button, and someone ran in to the room and hooked him up to oxygen and started pushing and poking at him, while I was being told that he was OK.  I can still see his limp little body, it was pretty scary.  Anyway, he revived, and someone came in to sew me up (by the way, the anesthetic didn't work, and I felt the stitches!).  But that was the end of the drama, thank goodness, and I decided that I would rather be at home (home being my parents' house) than at a hospital, so at 1pm the doctor checked Arley and me out of the hospital, and we were on the road home by 2pm.

When Carmen got home from school that day, she met her little brother for the first time, and it was such a lovely moment.  Since then she has been acting up a little bit, but that is to be expected.  We have all been staying at my parents' place at the farm, but we plan on going home tomorrow.  For the first two days, Arley was a very contented little guy, but then he started to become unsettled.  With all of the trouble I had breastfeeding (or not breastfeeding!) Carmen, we weren't sure if I would be able to this time either.  Well, my milk has been coming in very slowly (it took 5 days to really seem in), but the poor little guy hasn't been able to get it out, despite a very strong suckle.  It's just like last time.  The midwife has been out here twice to visit, and she said it was time to start supplementing formula, as he had lost 10% of his birth weight.  So, we did that for 1.5 days, but after feeding on me for an hour, he still just can't seem to get anything out, so I have  given up on breastfeeding, and Arley is completely on formula now.  I just thought I would try to enjoy him rather than stress about it, as I don't think things would be different from how they were with Carmen, and all that pumping made the first month with her awful.  And as a bonus, Mum took the second feed last night, and the morning feed, and I got 8.5 hours of sleep!

Below are the less gruesome photos from Arley's birth :)

104 Weeks, and Contractions!

Well, it seems today is the day - I am having contractions, and right now Jeffrey and I are just at home passing time, waiting until I feel desperate enough to get to the hospital.  I found out the other day that the only doctor who does epidurals here is away for the month, (barbaric, I know!), so that isn't going to be an option for me, again. (and God forbid they bring in another doctor!)  Why rush up there?  The hospital is only about 3 minutes away, so as for now, we are waiting it out.  I have some reflexology combs to squeeze in my hands, and they seem to be taking the edge off.  Anyway, I thought I might update the blog, because it could be a while before I get back on.

Yesterday we told Carmen it was her birthday (even though it is tomorrow), so she woke up with the house decorated with balloons and streamers, then after breakfast her Lolo and Dida (grandparents) came over for presents.  At 10am we had a little party for her, with her two little friends, their siblings and parents.  I think the kids had a blast.  This week I went to the second hand stores here and bought all kinds of hats, shirts, scarves, necklaces and bags, and made a dress-up box for Carmen.  She loves it, and has been into it all week, and it was a big hit at the party.  It was a nice time, despite the fact that I was having a few contractions!

Right now Carmen is at school, so if this baby comes in the next few hours, it will really be very good timing!

Wish me luck!

Here is a video of Carmen on her new coaster car:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd7CQadlF0Y&feature=c4-overview&list=UU21-zydO1IYNApoXHx_P8LQ

A video of Carmen in her dress-up gear:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZReH7FU4i0&feature=youtu.be

 Birthday girl

 Going for a walk, the little fashionista

FaceTiming with her Oma and Opa, and unwrapping their presents