The Skinny of the Birth Story

Our baby girl's arrival was little more eventful than we had expected, but for now, here are the important details and a quick timeline of the labor

20:20- I had my first serious contraction

20:30-Troy came home from the store

20:50- contractions started to come every 5 minutes

21:10-I jumped into the shower

22:00 Head over to Camille's to drop of Saku

22:30 Arrive at the hospital

22:38-got to triage, water breaks and baby's head crowning

22:42- arrive in the labor room and admitted to the hospital computer as a patient

22:46-baby girl arrives

She was 8 lbs 1.4 oz and 20.5 inches.

It was crazy intense experience. Once Saku recovers from his high fevers and cough, I will give the detailed story for those who care.

No, we didn't plan on making it such a crazy event, but things turned out well. While it was a quick labor, it wasn't an easy labor. Especially since I didn't know that it was going to be so fast, the intensity completely overwhelmed me.

We are both doing really well and happy to be home.

The Glorious Belly

I felt like it was much needed to have one belly picture from baby girl's pregnancy. While I am smaller than I was with Saku, I am still very big. People cant believe when I tell them that my due date is still three weeks away.

With my first pregnancy, I hit a mental wall at 37 weeks and wanted Saku to come out. This time, I don't feel mentally anxious; however, my body is very tired of being pregnant. I worked Saturday night and I have a feeling that it might have been my last shift before she comes. I am scheduled for two more, but I am not sure my body can take it. My upper back has been hurting since Saturday night and I feel utterly exhausted even though I went to bed at 8 pm last night. I have plenty of Braxton Hicks contractions and while they don't mean anything when it comes to going into labor, they are exhausting for the body. My next check up is on Wednesday and I will see what my doctor thinks is the best. I tend to try to be a super woman and do everything, but I think the best thing for me, baby girl and my boys is for me to take it easy until she comes.

I hiked 7 miles when I was 38 weeks pregnant with Saku and now 3 miles is enough of walking for me. Does pregnancy really get harder with each one?

"that's a big belly" is Troy's favorite thing to say to me when he sees me:)

The belly has been a perfect spot for Saku to sit on when he needs some love with me.

Troy admits that he is getting anxious about her arrival as well. I cant wait to see him hold his baby girl.

Welcome 2011-Sorry it took me a while to get excited

Last week when the new year officially started, I wasn't too thrilled. I had been sick over the whole Christmas/New Year week (and I still am, but I am better) and I was tired of being sick. The combination of coughing all night long and peeing all night long is not a pretty one. And hoping that you won't pee while you cough is not too sexy either. Maybe that was too much information, but that's the reality. I felt like energy was getting sucked out of me each day. I had been looking forward to the Christmas time and relaxing with my family and I just felt like I was too exhausted to even enjoy this time with them.

Now two weeks after the start of my sickness, I am feeling better and I am getting excited about this new year. This year I will see more of Troy since he is done with school. I will get to be home at night since I will only work every now and then. I will get to wake up every few hours to nurse a newborn. I will get to potty train Saku at some point. I hope to spend more time with our dear friends. And here for the sake of having a list, I am listing some of my "hopes, dreams and goals for this fabulous year of 2011".

Things I want to DO

deliver a baby (gotta have something you can check off from your list for sure)

deliver the baby without any medications

start running as soon as possible after the delivery (and lose the baby weight)

run a half marathon and beat my last time

read more books (I'm thinking 1-2 per month)

attend the ward book club (because I have never been to one and I want get to know more people)

Take a Spanish class (because I have way too many patient's who don't speak English or Finnish)

Things I want to BE

more consistent visiting teacher

more loving wife

more spontaneous and adventurous

more service oriented

more organized

more willing to forgive and forget

more competent nurse

What I need/want to CHANGE

don't want to envy other people

the way I dress

the way I respond to spending money

the way I worry about my weight (maybe I should get rid of the scale)

Where I want to GO

more dates

Paris

Finland for an extended time in the spring

take Troy to the Alps for a ski trip

more camping trips

more family outings

This may seem like many goals, but some of them are easy to do and some of them are things that I will have to work on every day.

On another note, I am 37 weeks tomorrow. I am less uncomfortable that I have been for weeks. I am not quite ready for the baby girl to show up since I am still a sick one, but I am so excited to meet her. Just in the last few days, I have noticed that my love for her has just exploded and I haven't even met her. She is still a little nameless child. I loved Saku's name from the start and haven't fallen in love with any girl name.

Dear Saku,

Your life will change dramatically in the next few weeks when your little sister arrives. You have been the center of our little family. While I would like to think that we haven't spoiled you, you do get most of our attention and your silliness never fails to make us think that you are the funniest little creature on this earth.

When we saw your doctor for the 15 month check up, she was little worried about the fact that you weren't saying any words and wanted us to come back at 18 months to re-evaluate your speech. I was never worried since I knew you were processing and learning two languages so I wasn't really planning on going to see her. Yes, what a rebellious mom you have. In the last weeks, your vocabulary has exploded and it has added a whole new dimension to your personality.

Just for the sake of journaling, here is a list of your current words.

English

car

apple

no

monkey

ball

bye bye

please

baby

two(after I say "one")

wheredigo (where did it go)

Finnish

äiti-mom

isi-dad

tutti-pacifier

maito-milk

peitto-blanket

tähti-star

susi-wolf

kiitos-thank you

ukki-grandpa

joo joo-yeah yeah

ajaa-drive

Random words

Mickey

Elmo

Miko(referring to a finnish reindeer Niko)

Anna

Mio

Nemo-finding Nemo as well as every other fish

abc (which he signs to the tune of ABCs)

You like to make silly faces. And at the moment, your hair is way too long, but since it is so blond, it doesn't look too bad.

You enjoyed your second Christmas and the fact that we let you rip paper and make a mess without any consequences.

Ukki and Paula gave you a book about animals as well as a new high chair. You continue to love animals and love the fact that you can climb up to your own chair when you want to it. We love the fact that it is a whole lot easier to clean up this chair after you are done eating.

You are obsessed with milk. You ask it for all the time. We somehow misplaced both of your sippy cups so for the last two days, we have been drinking from a regular cup and you are doing really well.

One of your Christmas presents was a little tricycle. You aren't quite ready to pedal yet, but love to sit it in while we push you around.

You have made quite the reputation among your peers as a boy who never stops going. One of your favorite things to do is to push your umbrella stroller around or sit in it. We let you play in the backyard by yourself, which works beautifully for all of us. Yesterday, you pushed the stroller onto the grass and sat in it for 10 minutes while you talked to yourself.

It seems that a boy of your age needs a train set. We bought you one for Christmas, your grandma got one for you and aunt Regina had saved cousin Hayden's old train set for you. You really enjoy your "choo choo" and we play with the set few times a day.

We are still trying to figure out how to deal with your temper tantrums. You like to throw toys when you are done playing with them and then you say "uh oh". Time outs don't have much of an effect, but we try to be consistent with them. You are very good about saying sorry and giving us a kiss after the time outs are over.

You give great high fives and knuckles. You love to run to us and give us a big hug when we ask for one. You have even learned to give a kiss with sweet lip smacking noise.

There is part of me that is sad about the fact that you won't be our only little child anymore. I hope I can help you to understand that my love for you doesn't change even though you will have to share me with a little sister. I wish I could freeze time and keep you as my little boy (without the temper tantrums) forever, but since that is not an option, I will just enjoy the fabulous adventure that your life is.

I know I have a lot to learn about being a mom and there are days when I am far from a perfect mom, but I hope you never wonder about my love for you. My love for you is unconditional and increases each day.

Love,

Äiti

Jinxed

Last weekend, we hung out with our friends Brian and Alia. Alia had a little cold and warned me to not get sick. I responded along the lines of "I work at a hospital, so I am pretty immune to things, I wont get sick". This is true and I haven't been sick in a long time. However, Wednesday came and I started to feel sick. By the way, I don't think Alia got me sick since Saku has had a cold for days. So I went to work last night with some sniffles, but nothing dramatic. However, four hours into the shift, I called Troy to make sure that he was working on his final project and informed him that I was feeling so terrible. I had five patients that night and kept running around to make sure everyone was OK. Every time I got up to go to a patient's room, I felt like I was going to either pass out or vomit. My blood pressure was way high for me (a perk of working at the hospital is that we could check it) and I alternated between hot and cold. Finally at 3 am, Troy picked me up from work and I came home four hours early. The whole time, baby girl kept moving around like crazy and I had some achy pains, which worried me. The last thing I want to do is to get the baby stressed out.

None of my co-workers read my blog, but I am so grateful for them. Almost each time, I got up to do something, they offered to do it for me so I could just sit and chart. They remind me to make sure I'm eating and resting enough and baby girl receives plenty of belly rubs.

What would be do without wonderful people around us?? Good thing we don't have to go through this life alone.

Troy let me "sleep" this morning. I put sleep in quotation marks because Saku kept coming to the room every 15 minutes for few hours saying "aiti" "aiti". He loves to check on me. Finally, I got some uninterrupted sleep when the boys went to the park:)

Let's hope Saku won't always feel this way about family scripture study!

Hard to be honest

I'm not talking about not stealing, cheating or lying; I'm talking about truly expressing my thoughts as they are and making an account of my life as it is. I started my second blog as an outlet for my "true" feelings, yet maintaining two blogs is just too much right now and even there I felt like I unconsciously edited things I wanted to say.

It is true that there is a certain satisfaction when people agree and comment on your thoughts. It feels good to be validated. And mostly, I know who my audience is (hah, makes it sound like my blog is somehow popular,which it isn't) and what they think. I can say with 100% sincerity that I don't attempt to portray my life as a picture perfect family life nor do I feel like I have more trials than others. Yet I wish I could really make my blog feel and sound like me. I don't want to offend anyone, yet if you know me and I write something that you don't agree with, I would hope that you would know me well enough to not be offended.

So here is few attempts on more honesty about me and my life.

I need some "Eevi" time. At the moment, I take care of Saku and Troy and the house and when I go to work, I take care of my patients. It is rewarding and so worth it, but I feel burned out.I know that when Troy reads this, he will feel guilty and that is not the purpose of this. He knows all of this, but for two more weeks, he can't help much because he is so swamped with his responsibilities. Because this is all so exhausting, whatever "alone" time I have, I usually end up trying to catch up with sleep. I need some quiet time, few good books and movies, good food and good laughs with friends.

Last few weeks of this pregnancy have been really hard on me. I get lots of pains and aches. I hate to complain to Troy, but it has been tough on me to be hurting. Baby girls moves around well so I am not worried about her. I am also slightly anemic, which adds to my exhaustion. I am not running anymore. Thanksgiving day marked my last 1 mile run and I think I'm done until she comes out.

I am blessed with many wonderful friends, yet at times, I feel alone and lonely. This feeling quickly fades away as I meet up with a friend. In high school, I hung out with my friends every day. During college, I lived with my friends. Nowadays, I don't have a friend who I talked to on daily basis or hang out all the time. I don't know if it is a social pressure that makes me feel like I should have someone like that. I don't aspire to be popular nor need a play date every day, yet sometimes I wonder if people miss hanging out with me.

The other night I was talking to a co-worker about my mom and she asked me what my mom was like. I explained how much mom loved life and how people liked her so much. She quickly responded "just like you". She isn't a close friend and happens to be a very honest and straight forward person. I made me happy to think that I have that quality that I so miss and admired about my mom.

I really like my job, yet I hate how tired I am at the end of the night. The other night a doctor thanked me for all the helped during the day. No offense to any doctors or doctor's wives, but they don't show appreciation too often, so I was impressed and obviously flattered by her saying "Thank you so much for all of your help". I love how I feel after successfully completing a procedure or noticing that something isn't right and getting it fixed. I often feel like I should apologize for the fact that I enjoy my job and working. Some people might think that I have to work and feel bad for me and I have to remind them that I am up all night and day by choice. I can't wait to only work once in a while because my body simply can't take this kind of schedule. Yet I am truly grateful for my education and what it allows me to do. Working has also blessed me with a new group of friends and an opportunity to share the gospel little by little.

As I read my thoughts, it kind of makes me sound sad, which I am not. I am very happy, but I have my struggles.

Do you feel like you are able to honestly portray your life? Do you prefer to just talk about the nice and fun things? Everyone has their own motive for blogging and I'm curious to know what you want your blog to be like.

The Season of Love

I cannot believe that it is December. I love Christmas season. It is my favorite time of the year. I'm sure I've said this before, but my mom made Christmas magical each year so I am trying to do the same in my own home. We already have our Christmas decorations up and this year will be the first year with our own Christmas tree. Since Troy and I firmly believe in real trees over plastic ones, we don't have one yet, but I am excited to go and pick one up and decorate it. It will be interesting see how the tree and decorations will handle Saku's exploring:)

On Sunday we took some family pictures. As cute as my child is, he wouldn't make a good child model since he refuses to smile to the camera 99% time. We probably took close to 100 pictures and only few of them actually turned out. Saku wasn't to be blamed for all the "bad ones". Somehow I have adopted this retarded smile and made bunch of the pictures look stupid.

Mom, dad and the baby girl in the belly. I can't believe she will be here in 8 weeks (give or take).

One somewhat successful family picture.

We have spent the last few days cuddling each other a lot. Saku has a terrible, absolutely painful diaper rash that hurts so badly that poor kid can't sit or even walk well at times. So we have cuddled on the couch as Saku lays on me.

Saku loves hiding behind us as we go "where is Saku?" and then he jumps around to show himself.

This little boy was in heaven as he got to run around for an hour outside. Even the cold weather didn't slow him down.

Saku doesn't smile on command; however, it doesn't mean that he doesn't smile. He loves being silly and playing with us, so some of the best happy faces are when we goofed around.

I love the fact that it is finally cold and I can drink hot chocolate to warm myself up in the mornings. We still haven't turned on the heater. Saku gets the space heater for his room, so his room is nice and cozy. In fact, Troy ended up getting dressed there after his shower because he was so cold. I have noticed that I don't have enough warm clothes for Saku. Does anyone else seem to have this issue with their kids? I forget that the weather does get chilly enough to require warm clothes.

Happy December 1st!