Trixie Arrival!

She's here! (And I'm a little tardy with my introductions. Granted, I was waiting for her to open her eyes long enough to snap a photo. Today was our lucky day!) Baby Trixie:

Trixie made her way into the world last Thursday, under the threat of induction on Friday morning. Strangely (or not) I was also born under the threat of induction. Perhaps birth-under-the-threat-of-induction runs in the female genes in our family?

The birth was fast and uncomplicated, Trixie was born healthy and is doing great, and the boys are being the awesomest big brothers I could ever imagine. That said, I'm pretty tired and strangely busy. My mind feels like it's very preoccupied processing each little moment. Please forgive me if I'm around here a little less while my mind spins itself around all the newness!

40+3 and a little more

Still pregnant!

Here's the odd part: Trixie has now outlasted both her brothers for time in utero. (Noah: 40+3 and Mattias 40+1) What!? That's not supposed to happen with the third pregnancy!

Three days "late" is not so much "late," and really, I still feel pretty relaxed about it.

At the same time, it would be dishonest to overly sugarcoat this experience. I'm very swollen, I'm very tired, and I'm operating at about 50% of my normal capacity. All sorts of body parts ache, even my tummy button. There are about 2 outfits I can wear because of my size and because of the warmer weather. One positive result, I'm TOTALLY on top of the laundry around here.

I'm weary after twice thinking - THIS IS IT! - and then being disappointed. I'm also feeling a little sheepish about my friends and neighbors who are On Call to help take care of the boys when the time comes. I feel like I'm holding them captive. I worry that they didn't sign on for such a long haul.

I'm answering a lot phone calls with,  "No, no, not yet." Or, "Still pregnant!"

It's okay, really. You're excited. I'm excited, too. I don't really mind the questions, I just wish I had something more interesting or witty or new to say about it!

I've been reading some lists about how to handle it when you go over 40 weeks. One website suggested booking fun activities for three days in advance. This sounds like a horrible idea to me, but I understand how it might seem like a good idea depending on your disposition. I'm of the disposition that being booked with activities for three days would be completely stress-inducing. (Maybe the author thought all that stress would induce labor??) Well, no, thank you, anyway!

What I would like to do the most is take some more really long walks. I believe in long walks as a labor inducer. I believe both Noah and Mattias arrived via the encouragement of this methodology. But, you know, the boys are being kind of problematic about walks. I'm sorry to say, that for this kind of purposeful walking, they're not very good walking companions. They get bored. They want a destination. They stop and start a lot. They either dawdle or run ahead without caution. They want to go home. Or to the playground. Etc. Gone are the days when I can just sit them in stroller and walk. Noah won't even be bribed into our bike trailer (which is a double with a strolling option) anymore. I suspect he's too big for it anyway, but I can't get confirmation because he's so adamant about Not Getting Inside. That leaves coordinating walks with someone to watch the boys. I'm only managing longish walks about every other day. And they're not really as long as I would like (2 hours +).

Being pregnant with pre-existing children is such a fundamentally different experience. In a lot of ways, it's wonderfully distracting. I'm sure the boys are the reason that I'm as chill as I am being "late." At the same time, they have their schedules to be juggled, and I am STILL having trouble with the prospect of handing it off when I go into labor. I'm going to, yes... but I'm anticipating some degree of chaos. I don't know how people with 3, 4, and more children do it. Maybe it gets easier the older the kids are? Noah is only semi-aware of his own scheduling. Mattias is clueless.

According to the weather, there's more SNOW bearing down on Colorado for tomorrow. I am so sick of the snow! But this time, maybe that low barometric pressure will finally tip the scale on labor. We shall see. At least I'll have more wardrobe options again. See? I'm determined to find some sort of silver lining in the snow....

Labor-ish. Patience.

Well, here it is...40 weeks and I have no Big news to report. Still pregnant.

Wednesday morning was really rough: by that I mean, sporadic contractions and lots of pressure. There was so much pressure on my pelvis that I couldn't walk. This is a new-in-pregnancy phenomenon to me. I didn't experience that with either of the boys until I was really, truly IN LABOR with regular contractions.

So, what happened next is anyone's guess. I went into the doctor's office where they confirmed I was both dilating and effacing. (Can I use those as verbs?) It seemed to me that surely we were 24-48 hours away from birth. But I will confide that I kept thinking Wednesday was a really bad day to be in labor. There were a heftier amount of pickups and drop-offs and activities scheduled for the boys. It just wasn't convenient. I had already called Fritz to come home and manage it all for me. The thought of Fritz going to the hospital with me – and me asking someone else to manage all the activities – or should I just cancel them? – was making me feel anxious and nervous. Around noon, I took a shower and every labor-ish symptom stopped. Then I napped and nothing since then.

I think this shower method is particularly interesting! Showers do seem to have 1 of 2 effects on me: either end labor-like symptoms or accelerate labor-like symptoms. Both of my "accelerate" examples would be from Noah and Mattias, so I can hardly pretend this is some sort of tried and true methodology. Nonetheless I'm awfully thankful that so far it's been as decisive a methodology as it has been. It's no fun being labor-ish. Uck.

And taking showers before bed? Also very helpful. I really am sleeping at night much better, much later in my pregnancy than I ever have before.

(I have some small degree of guilt about all the water that I'm wasting with all this showering. Water is such an issue in the American West that using it carefully is always in the back of my mind. Denver Water keeps reminding us we're in Stage 2 drought. But then, I think about all the snow we've had in the last few weeks, and how obnoxiously inconvenient it was, and – somewhat irrationally – I feel a little less bad.)

On Thursday evening, I got to watch Noah perform in a concert. It was pure joy. I was so happy to be there. Since then I've maintained an almost euphoric state of mind. I keep thinking about my gratitude as though I've made some sort of bargain. I'm so lucky to have seen Noah's performance; Trixie can come whenever she wants. No pressure, baby, take your time.

The weather is finally gorgeous. I walked around the neighborhood for about two hours on Friday; I was always joined by a walking companion, lest I was suddenly in labor. But nothing. I'm so, so done with that sitting-on-the-couch-stuff-with-my-feet-up-stuff.

It's funny the way my attitude about this pregnancy has fluctuated over the past week. I've experienced everything from Ugh, I'm done! to Just a little bit longer, please! to the current Okay, whenever; I'm patiently ready.

Low Pressure Seque

It's Tuesday again. It's snowing again. My body can tell you that the barometric pressure has dropped again.

As long as I'm sitting here trying NOT to go into labor, I'll tell you why:

Oops. That was Noah's art on display. I forgot about the opening art event because it was the end of the day and I just wanted to sit with my feet up. So the art opening just slipped right out of my brain. (I'm totally self-absorbed right now. It's true. I am.) We made it down to see the art the day after the opening. But we didn't avoid lots of tears at bedtime on the day I forgot. Poor Noah cried himself to sleep. Needless to say, I'm still feeling all sorts of guilt. Noah's got another event coming up this week and now I feel like I MUST HOLD THIS BABY IN until AFTER the second event. Can. Not. Miss. Another. Event.

So, the strategy to keep Trixie IN involves not moving until after the event. And folding lots of moravian stars from my collection of retro wallpaper. I thought maybe I can make them into a mobile?

The boys want to help make the mobile, but the origami folding is a little over their heads. They are further frustrated when I tell them that we'll need to build a structure to support the stars. And hmmm... I think we'll need to wait just a bit on that part.... Noah decides to take matters into his own hands:

Taking matters into your own hands seems to be a common theme. Below, the boys are practicing the drive to the hospital. I do think I've made it clear that they will not be coming to the hospital with me. Still, here they are, practicing driving the sofa-turned-car:

I hope I look as alert as Noah on the way to the hospital.

Slope and Plateau: out of 38 and into 39 weeks

Sloppily typed over the course of the week. Poor verb tense selection. Coherent? Not so much. Just warning you.

Slope: Wednesday, April 17th
I had the worst night last night. Not able to sleep at all. I almost just typed, "I was tossing and turning," but who am I kidding? At this size and shape, 'tossing and turning' is a terrible description of restless sleep. I'm more like a beached whale afraid to injure myself by flopping. And you never know, the next position might be more uncomfortable than the first. Also: grunting. I'm so uncomfortable. No contractions, but lying in bed last night I think I could feel the bones in my pelvis pulling apart from each other. Seriously. This is how I felt. Ligaments pulling bones out of joint and then shooting pains as the nerves going down my legs get crushed by the moving bones. My back hurt, too. Was everything okay? Trixie continued to move. She seemed fine. I crept to my computer and googled 'labor without contractions.' I discovered something called "silent labor." Was I having silent labor???

It's absurd, right? Seriously, how am I balancing at all?

At 1am, I decided to take a bath. Then I was able to sleep for about 4 hours.

I'm wishing I'd taken off my rings last week when they still (barely) pulled off my fingers. Now they're  swollen in place. They itch. But it's only annoying. My legs and feet are swelling, too. This swelling is more than annoying. All that additional fluid in my lower extremities HURTS. My skin is all tingly like little needle pokes. I'm drinking water. It's counter intuitive, but that's what they say to do. Drink. (And pee.) Drink. (And pee.) Drink. (And pee.) Surely there's a point of saturation here. Or how about a point when all those trips to the bathroom are a bigger pain than the swelling?

It's snowing, snowing, snowing. We got about 6 inches of snow on Monday - they say maybe 5 more today - guess what? My boots aren't fitting. My shoes are barely fitting. What do you think, some flip flops? I'm always impressed by the people who wear shorts in 50 degree weather. Maybe you'll be impressed by the pregnant woman in 10 inches of snow and flip flops?

When I pick Mattias up from his parent's day out program, the caregiver offers to watch him longer so I can go to the hospital. Wow. I must look pretty bad. I laugh (unconvincingly) and work harder to look less bad.

I think this will go on for about 24 hours, I tell myself. I should be halfway through it. And then I'll plateau again...

Onto the Plateau: Thursday, April 18th
Fritz and I have a long, long conversation about the probability and likelihood of so-called silent labor after the boys are in bed. One of my friends has a birth story for her fourth child that goes like this: "I had one big contraction and out he popped!" This story scares us.

We sit on the couch, watch Trixie kick, and watch my stomach tighten. Huh. Maybe it LOOKS like a contraction. But it doesn't FEEL like a contraction. We time it. IF it's a contraction, it lasts for almost 7 minutes. Then 2 minutes off. Then it returns. Doesn't hurt. As long as I sit there, nothing really hurts. When I stand up, there's lots of pressure on my pelvis. That particular pain is like a 5 on a 1-10 scale. (Scale provided by me, who has already had two unmedicated births.) Hmmm.

A normal person might have called their doctor long ago, but I refuse. Fritz is frustrated by my refusal to call. Why do I refuse? I don't know. I can't really hold my ground in a logical discussion of the facts. My reasons are blindingly intuitive at the time. Maybe these are just Braxton Hicks? I suggest.

"Just call your doctor!" Fritz pleads. Later, I have a rebuttal: I'm terrified if I call the doctor she'll send me to the hospital, they'll discover I'm 4 cm (what else could all that ligament pulling, bone-moving be?) and I'll end up on a pit drip. That's her responsibility as my caregiver. To do something. And a pit drip will just make everything more painful. Also it's like a domino game, I think:

pit drip –> epidural –> cesarean

But what's happening now? It's manageable. It's mine. I own it. Control. Confession: I'm a control freak, you see?

"I think I need to take a shower," I answer Fritz. I wander into the bathroom. I'm pretty shaky. I attribute the shakiness to skipping dinner. No appetite. I know that these are signs of early labor, which is why I opt for a shower. The words of my Munich obstetrician from 6 years ago are still fresh in my head: "If you are in labor, a shower will make it accelerate. If not, it will relax you."

I get out of the shower relaxed and more comfortable. I sleep relatively well, considering. Considering that I'm 38.8 weeks pregnant.

I wake up the next morning feeling well-rested. Still, I pace myself. Sit down. Feet up. Limit movement. I spend the day drinking pregnancy tea and eating fruit; I wash some bedding; I drive some kids around. I say several thank yous to whomever invented heated car seats, which melt the pressure on my back and pelvis. Heated car seats, I shall never buy a car without you again. Not that I plan on being pregnant again.

I end the day feeling uncomfortable, but good. Trixie kicks her agreement.

Plateau: Friday, April 19
Another night of decent sleep does wonders. I commit to taking a nightly shower before bed until this baby is born. I think of it this way: every good night of sleep is like banking energy for the birth. (Let us not speak of the sleepless nights awaiting on the other side of the birth.) Sleep is too precious to be taken lightly. I will do whatever I can to sleep.

Since I'm feeling significantly better, I focus on the boys. Every quiet moment that I have with them becomes precious. Who knows when we will have time like this again? We snuggle more, we read more books than usual. I tell Noah he's lucky because at 6 years of age, he's really going to remember a lot about the new baby and her arrival. I ask him to save all his memories and write a book for Trixie and me. With Mattias, who was My Baby for a solid two years (– I thought there would be no more babies –) I tell him about what an awesome helper he is and how lucky I am to have someone to help me and Trixie. And it's not all talk: at 3 years old, he really can do some helpful stuff. I think about Noah 6 years ago, nursing and nursing away and my glass of water sitting next to me, empty. All I wanted was some more water. Would Noah ever stop nursing so I could please get myself some more water? This time, it will not be a problem: I'll just send Mattias to get me some more water. "Big" kids: they're great.

I have a regularly scheduled appointment with my doctor. I learn that sometimes fetal movement can trigger something like the tightening/contractions I described. My blood pressure is up, but otherwise everything looks fine. More waiting. And I feel okay. A little disappointed to no longer have the anticipatory excitement from Wednesday. But that's okay: if I just stay on this nice little plateau until real labor, I'll be fine.