Aleksi's Birth Story-One year late

The crazy thing about being pregnant is that in just few hours it can change and you are not pregnant anymore!

Yesterday early morning around 2 am, I thought I felt a contraction. Just one so I didn't think much of it but I went back to sleep. I do remember having the thought "if we have to take the kids to someone's house right now, it will make the day little crazy with Saku's school".  I slept well until 5 am when I felt another contraction, which made me think that this might be early labor. They came every 10 minutes or so, nothing too intense but definitely not just a Braxton Hicks. Around 5:30, I told Troy that I think I was in labor.

I went to the kitchen to make Saku's lunch and got things ready for swimming lessons because that is what you do when you are in labor with your third kid. I also decided to eat an English Muffin to have some food in my stomach as I wouldn't get anything once we got to the hospital. Then I got into shower so I could manage the pain and also to be nice and clean when it was time to push a baby out.

At six thirty, I was sure that this was the real deal so I called Rachael to see if Eerika could go and spend the day with Brad. Eerika was so excited to go and have a day with Brad that she demanded to eat her breakfast at their house so I packed it in her lunch box.  Because I was doing so many things at once so I don't know how far apart the contractions were. By the time, we got in the car and started to drive to Saku's school, they were about 5 minutes apart and I could tell that I would have back pain with this labor.

I started to get the shakes as we were about 10 minutes from the hospital. I felt positive and in control as I figured if I wasn't progressing much, I would just get an epidural and enjoy the labor.

Troy dropped me off to check in and went to park the car to the garage. St Joe's has the worse parking situation for labor and delivery. I walk to the triage and explain what is going on as well as Eerika's labor situation. They calmly, oh so calmly, respond that it doesn't look that this is a repeat of this and hand me a gown and pee sample cup. Then I got hooked up to monitors so slowly. And finally after what seems forever, they finally check me to see how much I had progressed. No one is a fan of cervical checks, but I can deal with them just fine; however, this nurse was awful. It took her forever and it really hurt. I wanted to remind her that she was touching very sensitive lady parts of a woman in labor. Her conclusion was that she couldn't feel any cervix. Another nurse checked me and said that there was a bit of anterior lip left.

I am thinking that Little Ninja will be born in the next 30 minutes. Again, we slowly start moving to a  room. Dr. Farias is being paged and she comes very quickly to break my water. I get poked twice for an IV and once for a blood draw.  Neither of the IVs worked, but Dr. Farias being awesome said that I should be fine without one. She asked if I want an epidural, but I have no pain and I am thinking we will push soon and be done, so I decline.  There are tons of people in the room to get ready And then we wait. And we wait and the quick delivery of this child that I had imagined is not happening. The water breaking makes my contractions more intense, but there is still that part of the cervix that doesn't budge and it doesn't budge until about 10 am. I was fine until about 9:30 and then I started having back and hip pain that gradually got worse and worse and so bad that I just couldn't deal anything. I started to whimper and cry with each contraction. Two amazing nursing students helped me by putting pressure on my hips with the contractions and telling me to start taking deep breaths when another contractions was about to come.

I asked for an epidural but there was no time for it. Dr. Farias came back. I could tell that she was surprised by the change in my coping mechanism and I could tell she was working hard to make things better for me.

When it was time to push, I was really in a bad place mentally. I didn't think there was any way that the pain would stop and I could push this baby out. I didn't feel any pressure to push and I felt so much pain, but somehow I was able to focus and follow the command the push. So I pushed for few minutes and he did come out. He had been facing up, which explained the back/hip pain and did some sort of a flip in the end.

I just cried and cried when he came out. He looked purple to me and he was the messiest one of our babies, but I didn't care. He was out, the incredible pain was gone, he was fine, and again the pain was gone. I kissed his messy little head until they took him away. He seemed so small, but he ended up being the biggest one out of the three. He was so calm. There was no crying while they examined him.

The labor was so good and manageable and even easy for so long. The nurses around me were so impressed and I felt a bit silly to receive so many compliments when I felt like the pain really was manageable. And then some kind of a switch got flipped on, and the back pain, hip pain and unbelievable pain and pressure in my uterus and and it just kept coming and people would tell me "you are almost there" and I just wanted to be done.

Edit: This was written a year ago and yes, it still sounds so fresh. I don't remember the exact time that he was born, but I remember the despair and then the relief when he was in my arms.

Aleksi is one!!!

Year ago I had a fresh new baby in my arms. Aleksi's birth had been a bit more work and pain than I had expected, but he was here and he was ours. I remember thinking that I didn't want to post anything on facebook for a bit as I wanted to keep him as our own private joy for a bit. 

This morning he woke up at 6 am. I nursed him for maybe 15 seconds and he was back to sleep. I kept holding him for another few minutes and enjoyed the moment of being so close to him in such a calm way. He is all over the place now. He is walking. He is babbling. He is crying or yelling when he doesn't get his way. He is laughing and exploring. He isn't still for very long. 

As a one year old, Aleksi loves to look at animals; especially dogs and birds. He has started to point at the Fruit Loops cereal box when he sees it. They have been used as a bribe to keep him happy while I make our meals. He lovess me. Oh how does he love me.  He has the innocent, yet fierce love for me. If I am around, I am the queen that no one else can compete with. He is content with Troy, but he much prefers me if I am around. If I am not around, he plays happily with Saku and Eerika and Troy. I even hear that he is much more easy going when I am not around...

He is not a fan of sleep right now. He knows when we are about to put him down for a nap and he starts to fight it. He doesn't want to read his books, he doesn't want you to sing to him. It is kind of tough. It is the same thing for bed time. And because he is pretty easy going when naps get pushed, I have become more relaxed about it and his nap schedule is kind of all over the place. He is up once a night. I should stop nursing him but I haven't done it out of pure laziness. I can be up for 3 minutes with him and nurse him and then go back to sleep, so I haven't had the mental energy to stop the habit.

We tried to transition to regular milk but it seemed to give him diarrhea so we are still doing formula. He also nurses once or twice a day, so basically the kid gets a bit of everything. He also lately figured out the whole "sometimes it is fun to spit out food" when I feed him things like yogurt or apple sauce.

I did just look at his newborn pictures and I will admit that I feel quite nostalgic and while I am not sad that he is one year old; I feel a certain longing for the first few days of having a baby. You aren't exhausted yet. They are so tiny. How could he be so tiny. 

Aleksi, you are a treasure. You are such a darling boy.

Aleksi's Sunday Dinner

After a great nap on Sunday afternoon, Aleksi enjoyed a dinner of creamy tomato sauce with farfalle and broccoli.

He likes to feed himself and steal the utensils that you are feeding him with. 

Troy noted that he was mostly using his left hand to eat. 

The messiness of this age is evident in these pictures. 

I hope my love for this child is just as evident.

Skipping the Movie night

We try to do Friday movie nights as a weekly tradition plus a way to relax after a week of school and work. On this particular night we had rented Cinderella (not animated), which is a fantastic movie. About half way into the movie, Saku decided that he rather just read books than watch a movie. So he and I went upstairs and read books while isi and Eerika finished the movie. 

I really cannot think of a much better way to spend time with Saku than snuggling and reading books.

Isi turns 35

Troy's birthday happened to be on a Friday this year. We decided to keep Saku home from school for "personal reasons" because we didn't want the hassle of school morning plus we wanted to spend time as a family.

We spent the afternoon at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and ate a delicious meal at Tucanos that night.

The wait was very long on a Friday night, BUT the birthday man said it was worth it so then it is all good.

Troy got a Costco size bag of trail mix as a present and I had hoped to get these special jalapeno cheddar sausages from Costco, but they weren't available when we went shopping there right before his birthday. 

I had hoped to take Troy on a date and give him all of my attention, but after I contacted two different baby sitters and neither of them could do it, I lost my steam and we ventured out as a family. The kids did a great job at Tucanos and while it was a lot more work to have three kids than just the two of us, full tummies and happy people were the result of our night.

We didn't even end up doing anything for a "birthday cake" as we were so full that night. 

I absolutely love this picture of Troy. I think he looks so handsome. 

First Week of October

Aleksi is going through a very rough patch. He is getting three teeth and he is miserable. Oh it is so miserable for me as well. He will be distracted and happy for few short periods, but overall, there is a lot of crying, fussing, hitting food away and holding. 

BUT he is walking. He still uses crawling as his main way of getting around, but he does proud cruise around on his feet now. It is so exciting and fun. At times he does get frustrated when he falls down but I think in a month he will be quite smooth on his feet.

Eerika is blossoming in pre-K. She loves it. She is learning so much. She can now count to 20 without skipping any numbers. Before she would skip from 14 to 17. The school uses a lot of songs to teach the kids things, so Eerika came home singing "R-E-D spells RED" yesterday. I was able to attend the family picnic on Monday and saw Eerika confidently playing a hopscotch where they would call out the different shapes as they jumped on them. It was cool to observe her in the classroom setting. As Troy said, this Pre-K is worth every penny of the tuition as Eerika loves it and she is learning a ton.

Saku has started to like Spanish. I think that he is finally learning more and he gets excited about that. We have put him on the waiting list for the Spanish immersion class. I really hope he will get in. He has been practicing his baseball pitch in the backyard. He ends up in our bed to snuggle Troy in the early hours of the morning. 

I decided to not be on facebook for a while. It is very deliberating. 

Our neighbors have an Italian exchange student. The kids were conversing with him over the fence last night. Another neighbor brought over cookies. It is very nice to have so many nice neighbors.

Saku has the day off today and it is so nice. The kids have done crafts and played so nicely. 

Saku and Eerika were doing a puzzle few days ago. I overheard this conversation.

Eerika: "why are you so good at everything?"

Saku: "It's because I have so much experience."

The sun is shining but it isn't hot. It is glorious.