six months in and we're doing fine

Well, hi.

I have been itching to get an update on the blog about the two little ones that keep me from having time to blog. Ha. (I don't really blame them...entirely!)

It's been a couple of months, and I have to agree it's mostly true about what they say how the second child is not quite as "well-documented." I do give myself some credit because I believe I have taken nearly the same amount of photos as Maisy so far. But her baby book is looking quite scarce, and we can all see the amount of time since I last blogged about her. I don't feel too bad about this because I am instead pouring all of my time and energy and brain power into spending time with her and her brother all day, every day, and then using my last bit of energy and coherence at the end of those days to hang out with their father. 

So, when you look at my blog one day, Maisy Kate, I am sorry you may not read as much about yourself when you were a baby. When you were a baby, Mommy gave up blogging most of the time because she was trying to rest and sleep instead. That way, when you were awake and it was impossible to blog entirely, I could play with you and Graeme and we could have lots of fun. I do love you so. And you were a super cute and fun baby.

My best girl

To try to make up for it a little bit, here's some updates about our Maisy girl...

She's almost seven months old now! I remember when I was very early on in my pregnancy with Maisy, a lady at PDQ (a restaurant kind of like Chick-fil-a for those who don't know) with kids similar in age difference to what we would have told us, "Just get to six months. It's all going to get much easier after six months." I don't even remember why we talked to her or how it came up that I was pregnant.

We've received much advice as we have embarked on this "two young children thing," but for some reason I've remembered random PDQ lady's words. Maybe it's not true for everyone, but for me, YES. I can't even really say the first six months were bad or anything, but in the past month since Maisy has turned six-months-old, everything just seems better. I'm sure it's due to many reasons.

• I'm getting more sleep now. This is probably the main cause of my fog being lifted. Ha. Both kids are in their beds asleep for 11 hours every night. Praise to God.
• She's on a four-hour schedule now. She eats breakfast and lunch at the same time as us. Her dinner time is earlier but then she's happy to eat puffs or Cheerios while we eat. And she still takes three naps. One of her naps coincides with Graeme's nap. Hooray. The four-hour schedule is like a billion times better than a three-hour schedule as long as they're ready for it! The hard part is being patient enough to wait to switch to it!
• She's eating several foods now and the pediatrician's all like, "She can try almost anything. The allergy people are wrong again." (Still no honey, or milk, or choking hazards, obviously.) So I'm not panicking about her accidentally eating something she shouldn't as much as I was with Graeme. She's had peanut butter several times already and it's one of her favorite things! She loves food and is way more interested in what we are eating than Graeme ever seemed to be at her age. 
• She can sit up on her own and play which makes her so much happier. She wants to get moving, so we will see how much longer before she does. I have a feeling it won't be long!
• Graeme finally acknowledges her existence! He even tries to play with her sometimes! And I think he is really starting to like having her around. It makes my heart so happy! He tries to get her to say "Da-Da" and "Bye-Bye." She says those sounds often, but we don't think she associates them as what they are yet. And he also loves to get her to clap.
• She "talks" and laughs and her personality is really adorable. And dramatic. She might be a bit more like her Daddy... She has always been a joy, but there's something about six months going by and now she is at a stage that's so. much. fun. 

Since Maisy is able to follow along more with Graeme's schedule now, we are getting back to a routine that doesn't require us to split in half all of the time. For the first six months, they never ate at the same time, never took a bath at the same time, never went to bed at the same time, etc. The bedtime routine was especially not very fun because we had to split them up to get everything done. Now, we can all sit down for dinner together and it's not as rushed as it was before. They play and take a bath together (we are even conserving more water!) before pajamas. And then Maisy can have her bedtime bottle while we all sit for some books together. Aaron and Graeme read a few more books while I put Maisy in her bed. Then Graeme gets one more potty break before he goes to bed. It's still a lot of work, and it's definitely still more of a two-person job, but I can verify that it's a lot more fun than it was before!

And the firstborn...

Graeme is getting close to being 2.5 years now! Crazy! He is still our little talker and he is hilarious. I can't even keep track of all of the funny stuff he says everyday and I know it's probably only funny to us because he's our kid. His imagination is growing too. The other day he was playing with his Disney castle and using a giraffe and a dinosaur who were "best friends." Graeme, playing with the giraffe, kept saying, "Where's my best friend dinosaur?" So, obviously, he cracks us up.

He loves reading books and we have made a point to use the brand new library by our house quite often. We have found lots of books he likes and we check them out when they are on the shelf. He memorizes books after hearing them a few times and helps us "read" them.

He still loves trucks, but has in the past couple of months taken an extreme interest in trains. Namely Thomas and Friends, much to Aaron's initial horror. Aaron very much disliked the idea of Thomas "because he's creepy-looking", but he was out-ruled seeing as Graeme loved watching it and his Mimi kept buying him different Thomas engines. Aaron has come around to Thomas, and you can often find him playing at the train table with Graeme. Graeme's train vocabulary is also hysterical as it consists of phrases like "Oh, the indignity!," "Sir Topham Hatt was very cross!," and "The troublesome trucks pushed Thomas into the buffer!"

We are also still big Disney/Pixar Cars fans too. But not so much sports. Seeing as Graeme yesterday saw his soccer ball outside and said, "Here's my basketball!" Haha.

Graeme is a pretty picky eater. I am hoping he outgrows it. Some days he surprises me like when he devoured broccoli last week. But of course when I made broccoli on Monday he refused to even put it on his fork. Good grief. He finally has all four two-year molars in and he loves brushing his teeth with his "brush teeth."

I am loving this stage we are in right now. Yes, I'm definitely tired, and no, there's not much time for sitting and blogging. But I would highly recommend this "two children" thing. It's double the work to get out the door, double the tears and crying, double the dishes, double the laundry, double the worrying about something and checking the internet to scare myself further, double the tired-feeling. But overshadowing all of those things is double the laughs, double the hugs and kisses, double the snuggles and books, double the cuteness, double the smiles, double our hearts loving them each so much, double the fun, double the thankfulness that we have these two little humans entrusted to us.

Maisy is four months! (And some stuff about Graeme too)

Now that Maisy is almost five months old, I figured it would be a good time to get some sort of post up about her turning four months. Time flies and I haven't made time to sit down and write until now. Oh well.

Happy (belated) four months to Maisy on the blog!

She had her four month well-visit and she weighed 13 pounds, 2 ounces and was 25 inches long. She has gained exactly 5 pounds and grown exactly 4 inches since birth. Her height is up there in the 76% but she's pretty lightweight and only in the 26% for weight. Graeme was already over 17 pounds at four months, so Maisy feels so small to us! Haha. We are so thankful that she is healthy and growing right on track.


Maisy had a busy third month of life in April.

1. She slept through the night. (Hallelujah!) She doesn't sleep all night every night, but she has done it several times and I think by the time she turns five months she will be pretty consistent with it. Of course by "sleep through the night," I mean we dream feed her, so she is sleeping for 12ish hours but still eating once before we go to bed late at night. Aaron is a true gem and usually does this feeding as I can barely stay awake past 9pm. On the nights she has slept all night, she does wake up for comfort maybe one other time, but will go back to sleep with a pat on her back or her pacifier and doesn't need to eat. I never know what nights she will sleep all night and what nights she won't, but when she does, it's glorious.
   
2. She rolls from back to tummy, although I still haven't seen her do this. She has done it twice during the daytime (both times I was occupied with Graeme), and she has done it a few times at night in her crib. At night it causes her to wake up crying because she apparently does not like to sleep on her tummy. This is funny to me because Graeme slept on his tummy as soon as he could and has never stopped.
   
3. She laughs! It's just the best thing ever to hear a baby laugh. Maisy is super ticklish and her giggles usually come out because we are tickling her. But she will also laugh at something we say or a sound we make every once in awhile. She thinks Graeme is the most hilarious of course, seeing as he is the only one who has no interest in making her laugh. Ha!
4. She is getting quite efficient at reaching and grasping toys and chewing on them. And also throwing them when she loses interest. A lot of her toys are passed down from Graeme, who actually got almost all of his toys from Bensen and Keyen. But we have bought her a few pink, girly toys of course.
   
5. She has developed a little bit of separation anxiety already. Depending on her mood, she may or may not want to be out of my arms. She is pretty obsessed with her Mommy. I do not mind this.
6. She is super observant and does not like to be left out of what's going on around her. You can already see the desire in her to move and be in on the action. Maybe she will crawl early.

She will be five months old in just a couple of weeks, crazily enough! She is so pretty and her eyes make me swoon. We are so in love with this little princess.

And because I hate to leave him out entirely, here's a quick update on Graeme Grayson:

1. He's really and truly potty trained! Woo hoo! His accidents are becoming few and far between. He still wears a Pull-Up for bedtimes, and sometimes he will wear one out and about depending on where we are going and how long it takes to get there. I am so, so, so glad we decided to potty train him this early. It's wonderful.
2. He moved up to the two-year-old class at church. This transition probably would have been hard and we would have had a few weeks of tears as we dropped him off in a new environment, but lucky for him, his grandparents and aunt and uncle are the teachers in his new class. So, of course, he's in heaven. In his previous class, it was mostly just free-for-all playtime, and now he is in a class where there are no toys. They have structured activities and crafts and a large group time. Since I have the inside scoop from my mom, I know he only had one little moment of panic his very first day. Now, he loves it and he is learning so much. Tonight, randomly, he said "God made the birds!" I concurred that was right and said, "Yeah! God made everything!" And he followed up with "God made my trains!" Oh, how I have been praying for these moments since he was born. We are witnesses to his little mind first learning about the inexplainable power and love of God. 
3. He loves the library and we have been checking out about 20 books every time we go. If it's a book about trucks, it's pretty much a guarantee he will love it. We have been to story time a few times. He likes the songs the most. And the bubbles at the end.
4. He knows his full name, who's in his family, and how old he is. It took a few days for him to remember that he was two. At first, when I would ask him his age, he would say, "Strong!"
5. We are biased, but he's so stinking smart. I wish I could record him all he time because I can't even keep track of everything he says anymore. But every day, at least once, I think to myself, "How in the world does he know that?" Like in the bathroom the other day, he pointed to the bathroom fan on the ceiling and said, "Is that a smoke alarm?" I was surprised at how well he formed a question, and that he remembered about a smoke alarm from the one book we have checked out of the library that mentions it. He blows my mind.
6. He's sweet, and I hope he always is. Today, he said, "Thank you for walking with me, Mommy!" and also, "I love Cheerios!" out of the blue, and "That's a good idea, Mommy!" at my suggestion of where to put something. 

And, thank goodness, he will finally eat ice cream!

Me and my two kiddos.

Maisy is 3 months!

Maisy is already three months old! It's funny to me this time around with my second because I find myself begging time to slow down and for her to stay little, but then also being excited for her to grow because I know it gets so much more fun (and less exhausting) as they get older. 

Maisy Kate brings so much more adorable-ness into our family (which was already pretty adorable considering we have Graeme). Her smile is seriously the cutest thing ever.

This month, she rolled over from her tummy to her back. I was quite surprised because Graeme didn't do that until closer to four months old. Although, he had quite a bit more weight to swing around! She loves her play gym and smiles at all of her little friends hanging down. She hasn't quite figured out how to purposefully grab one of them, but when she accidentally does she is so excited. She doesn't mind tummy time for a few minutes here and there as long as she's not tired.

She's very close to laughing and she makes sounds that are laugh-like, but I don't feel confident in saying she's actually laughed yet. I remember the first time Graeme laughed was so magical, and I can't wait to experience it again.

I think her favorite thing to do is watch Graeme. Her eyes follow him all around the room as he plays and she gets big smiles on her face. She likes to sit next to him in the chair in his room and read books with us too. He has gotten a lot more involved with her this past month (even though he still mostly prefers for her to sit somewhere and he get all of the attention!) Some mornings he wants to pick her "beautiful bow," and he also included her name in a song he made up that lists everyone in our family (plus his Lovies, because he knows his priorities). Haha.

Maisy sleeps great at night once she falls asleep at the beginning of the night. Some nights it's a lot of us going in to burp her. Or hug her. Or feed her more. And some nights she goes right to sleep. It's hard to say. She still wakes up to eat once each night, but then after that she lays right back down and is asleep again. Most nights she eats at 6:00pm and is asleep by 6:30pm. We will dream feed her again sometime between 9:30pm-10:30pm. And then she usually wakes up to eat again around 2:00am-3:00am. Then in the morning I wake her up at 6:30am.

I have succeeded in creating one Lovie-adict...so here we go again!

Graeme didn't drop that middle of the night feeding until he was closer to four months, so I am hoping sometime this month Maisy will follow suit! I mean, I would enjoy not waking up at 2:00am. I don't mind. But you know, it'd be nice.

Other things that happened during Maisy's third month of life were:

• We stopped swaddling her. It took her a couple of nights to figure out how to fall asleep with her arms flinging around. She discovered that she liked having a Lovie next to her to hold. And we are working on the pacifier. Some nights she will fall asleep without it. And some nights we are so exhausted and spent that we just give in and let her have it to fall asleep. Ha. I really love that Graeme just lays down in his bed with his Lovies and goes to sleep with no trouble at all and sleeps the entire night. And he's been doing that since before his first birthday. So that is my goal with her too. Baby steps, I remind myself. She is a great sleeper for a three month old.
• She became more skilled at holding her head up, turning her neck, tracking things and people with her eyes, and she doesn't mind her car seat as much. She also came to like her swing more because she did not prefer it as a newborn.
• Her brother turned two, so we are no longer in the "Two under Two" Club. It was fun while it lasted. :)

We love our sweet Maisy so much and it's hard to remember life without her! How is she already one fourth of the way through her first year of life? I don't even know.

Her eyes are so pretty I can't even take it.

Maisy Katherine is 2 months old!

Oh my, oh my! Maisy Kate is two months old today! It was a great day, although poor little girl had to get 3 shots this morning. She was quite fussy this afternoon and evening, but I'm hoping she can get a great night of sleep and wake up feeling like herself again tomorrow.

Maisy checked in at 10 pounds, 12.5 ounces (38%), and measured 23 inches (76%). She's on track to be a genius like her big brother with her head growing like it is...39.4 centimeters (84%)! I was very curious to compare her stats at two months to Graeme's at two months. He had her beat by everything, although he's a boy so he's supposed to be bigger anyway. He was 3 pounds heavier and almost 2 inches longer than her at two months. Their heads weren't too far off from each other though (his head circumference was 40.2cm).

Graeme and Maisy at the same age. 

Praise the Lord, Maisy is growing perfectly and we cannot thank God enough for a healthy little girl. She is such a joy in our family and we all love her so much! Even when Graeme gets a little jealous of her, I know he really does love her. The other day, unprompted, he went over and kissed her and touched her head and said "Awww!" So sweet. And last night, when he realized "Maisy has chair!" (I put a highchair at the table for her finally because she is now starting to be awake while we eat dinner), he was so excited!

If we want to have friends, we really need more chairs at our table now...

Two months into having two kids under two finds me loving this life. I'm not saying it's not hard, but I honestly really love it! Something about the task of figuring out how to accomplish things with two kids is fun to me. Whether it's getting everybody fed in the morning with the least amount of tears possible, or going to Target by myself with them to get groceries and avoiding major meltdowns. I would much rather tackle getting out of the house with them than stay home all day. A day at home is nice maybe once a week, but any more than that and Graeme and I go stir-crazy. 

We like adventures. So does Maisy. Even though she just sleeps through them right now.

I will say the baby carrier is a life-saver this time. I didn't wear Graeme too much, but Maisy goes in the Moby Wrap or the ErgoBaby at least once a day. Having a toddler makes the idea of Maisy taking all four of her naps at home in her bed impossible. Graeme and I would both be miserable. So, she is perfectly content to sleep in a carrier and I'm so glad for that!

Well, what else about Maisy?

1. She likes baths, but she doesn't like getting out of them. 

   

   Haha this picture really does make her head look big!

2. Her and her carseat have a love-hate relationship. If she falls asleep and the car stays moving, she's fine. But if she's tired (or hungry) and in her carseat, she is not happy. ESPECIALLY when the car has to stop moving.

   

   We were at a stoplight, don't worry.

3. She eats every three hours during the day. She is pretty rigid on this schedule. She's typically not hungry before three hours have passed, but you had best not make her wait too much longer than three or she will let you know that she is starving to death. She never wants more than 4 ounces. We've tried, but she is perfectly content with 4 ounces or less.

   

   She was on a three hour schedule from day one. No complaints.

4. Unlike Graeme, who could not stand to have his arms swaddled, Maisy needs hers swaddled and doesn't mind it. Her hands wake her up otherwise. Although it is her life goal to break our swaddles.

   

   Victory!

5. She has her last "daytime bottle" at 6pm and goes to bed for the night. We have discovered that she has better nights without a "dream feed" (at least right now). We always did a dream feed with Graeme, but we may not need to do it for her. Most nights she will sleep from the 6pm bottle until around midnight when she will wake up to eat. And then she will sleep the rest of the night until 6am. I am kind of playing this by ear and will add a dream feed if we need to in order to instead have an 8 hour stretch from 10pm-6am.

   

   I forgot to mention anywhere else that I am IN LOVE with her hair.

6. She has the prettiest smile and she loves to talk to us. Of course, by "talk" I mean make the cutest baby sounds ever. She stares into our eyes and has so much to say. She is also becoming great at following us with her eyes as we walk around and she especially loves to watch Graeme play. She has a strong little neck and holds her heavy little head up high to make sure not to miss what's going on.

   

   He didn't want to stop playing to take a picture. 

7. She uses a pacifier but I won't be surprised if she trades it in for her fingers or thumb soon enough. We took Graeme's pacifier away at three months (although we eventually would give it to him in the car, on a trip, or in a restaurant) because we weren't up for the task of giving it back to him constantly so he could stay asleep. I'm not sure yet what we will do with Maisy and the paci. If she does trade it in for her fingers, at least we don't have to help her find those. 

   

   "Wait now...you would take this away from me?!"

There's a little bit about our Maisy girl at two months old. Oh how the time is flying by. This time around, I'm of course sad that she is growing at the speed of light, but on the other hand, knowing what fun the future holds since I've already seen one baby grow, I also look forward to getting to new phases and stages with her. Each month truly is more fun than the last even when it doesn't seem possible.

We love you lots and lots, Maisy Kate!

It doesn't get much funner than playing dress up the cute baby girl.

two kids

So, we have two kids now. 

I am trying hard to document Maisy as well as I documented Graeme. Haha. It's definitely busy around here these days! Priorities are a must, and sadly, blogging is not a very high one right now. I am enjoying experiencing Maisy as much as I can which lends to less time to write about it. It's the better choice though, for sure! 

Maisy is already almost two months old and the days keep flying by. We've fallen into a nice routine for the most part and our days move along quickly as it seems it's always time for someone to eat, sleep, or get their diaper changed. I am definitely a schedule person, and thankfully, Maisy seems to be too. Graeme is already routine oriented (almost too much so sometimes!), so we all will get along just fine.

Tonight was the first night I had to do the bedtime routine all by myself. I was half dreading it/half excited for a new challenge. Well, everyone made it to bed on time and without too much trouble. It required quite a bit of prep work and a rock-n-play in the bathroom, but we made it work.

I really am loving having these two young little ones. For every hard moment, there are so many more incredibly fun and sweet moments. Yes, we are tired, but it's a very good tired. 

I feel like I should definitely tell you more about our Maisy Kate though! There's a lot to catch up since you've really only heard up to her being born. So...we will maybe try a list-type fashion?

• The day Maisy was born (a Monday) was of course wonderful and amazing. But it did turn a bit scary for awhile. About 12 hours after her arrival our nurse noticed her looking a little yellow. I knew not a whole lot about jaundice because Graeme never had it at all. A quick scan of her forehead gave her a bilirubin reading of 14. We were told that was extremely high for a baby her age, and they needed to do blood work right away. The electronic scanner always reads it higher than it actually is, and the blood work came back a little lower with a score of 11.4. This was still way too high for such a young infant and they immediately wheeled in a light bed and an overhead light. In an overwhelming whirlwind she was taken from our arms with instructions to not get her out of the lights under any circumstances. She even had to eat and have her diaper changed on the bed! It was pretty scary until we were finally able to talk to a neonatal doctor and she explained more clearly the situation. We learned that my blood type (O+) and Maisy's blood type (A+) did not agree well with each other (apparently this is common in moms with O+ blood...who knew?!). The antibodies Maisy received from me were attacking her red blood cells and causing her to be unable to flush out the bilirubin fast enough. The doctor told us that if the numbers didn't steady soon she would need to be taken to the NICU and worst case scenario would be a blood transfusion. Well, thank God that never had to happen. (But thanks for the scare, guys.) Maisy was under the lights for about 36 hours total, although we were able to take her off for 30 minutes here and there on Tuesday. Finally, on Wednesday evening, her blood work came back at a low enough number that we could be discharged. They continued to check it at the pediatrician's office for the next couple of days, and by that Friday, it was stable enough that she didn't have to endure any more heel pricks! Yay!
• Maybe something a little happier now, yes? Maisy was born with a head full of dark hair. This was a bit unexpected as her brother has always had blonde hair as well as both of her cousins on the Bauer side. Aaron and his older brother were both blondies until they were older kids. We figured Maisy would follow suit, but so far she has beautiful brunette hair that takes more after my always-has-been-dark hair. There is a chance it could turn blonde still so we'll see! My mom had bought her a custom-made baby doll with blonde hair before she was born. It has since been replaced with a brown-haired doll. Ha.
• We have learned quickly that Maisy is LOUD. Now, she is almost always completely happy and content. But when she wants or needs something, she literally goes from being quiet to screaming bloody murder in an instant. There's no warm up. We tell her she's quite dramatic. It's pretty comical actually. I guess she's a typical girl. Already bringing the sass.
• Much to my delight and sanity, Maisy instantly fell into a 3 hour routine with barely any straying from it since. After the first couple of weeks where we had to wake her up to feed her during the night every 3 hours, we got the ok to let her go 4 hour stretches at night. Then at around 5 weeks we were able to let her sleep as long as she would. She's been a pretty fabulous sleeper at night, thankfully. The longest she's gone is 8 hours, but typically she goes 5-6. Some nights we can time it with a late feeding before we go to bed (well, let's face it, I crash while Aaron does this feeding), and then she will sleep till about 5:30am which is basically our wake-up time anyway.
• This past weekend she started giving us some real smiles. Melt my heart to the floor. She's kind of stingy with them still, but oh my goodness they are the sweetest. Every new stage I am reminded of just how fun each new stage is. Babies grow and learn so much the first year. And we are only in the first two months still!

Well, there's a few more things about sweet Maisy. We do love her so!

And Graeme Grayson?

I am due for a post on him too. Can you believe he's almost two?! Because I cannot. For now, I'll say that his sister grows on him a little more each day and if you ask us he's a total genius and HI-LAR-I-OUS.

To close this post, a recent conversation with Graeme:

(Maisy is napping. Aaron and I are getting ready in our bathroom. Graeme is playing in the play room.)

Graeme enters bathroom.

"Somefing in my mouf, Mama!" as he sticks his tongue out with a disturbed look.

I look and see nothing. "I'm sorry, buddy, what's in your mouth?"

"Somefing in my nose!"

"In your nose too?"

"Boogie in my nose!"

Laughing, "Oh, no! Do you need a tissue?"

"Uh huh! "What's in my mouf?" he asks with a curious expression.

And we will never know.

Maisy's birth story part 3

Isabel asked me if I felt like I could wait a few minutes to start pushing so she could run out and gather what we needed and call the doctor. 

I said that was fine, and while she was gone Aaron texted our family that it was time to have a baby!

Isabel came back and said the doctor was on his way. She helped me get readjusted in the bed and asked me if I remembered what to do. I admitted that I needed a little refresher.  As soon as she started talking, it all came back to me. I was ready! Right around 5:25am I started my first set of pushes. After three pushes I asked her if I was doing it right and if it was working.

"Um, yes. You're doing great. We should probably slow down a little and give the doctor time to get here."

That was definitely reassuring.

We did a couple more sets of pushes. The doctor came in around 5:30am. His name was Dr. Campbell and he was not a doctor from my OB practice. He apologized for not coming in the room earlier to introduce himself. "I've been sleeping off a migraine for the last three hours!" he informed us.

I suppose it was good I didn't need to deliver any earlier!

He glanced down to check the progress of the delivery. "Woah! Give me time to put my gloves on!"

Isabel told me to push on the next contraction but to not push very hard so that Dr. Campbell had time. I complied, and then Dr. Campbell took his place.

"Hey dad," he spoke to Aaron, "here's the metal." He held up the scissors to cut the umbilical cord. Aaron and I both laughed.

"Yeah, those aren't for me," Aaron said.

I told Dr. Campbell that Aaron was pretty squeamish and that being in the room for the baby being born was miracle enough!

It was time to push again. After three more, Dr. Campbell told me to really concentrate on pushing for 10 full seconds each time.

I agreed, but asked somebody to count for me. It was easier for me to count to 10 very fast at this point, as it's pretty tiring to push out a baby.

The next contraction came quickly and Isabel counted to 10 for me during each push. After the third one, Dr. Campbell told me that the baby's head was out and I just needed to give one more big push.

I did. And out she came! It was 5:42am and I had only started pushing 20 minutes before.

I couldn't see her very well at first, but Dr. Campbell held her up for a few seconds. Even in the mess of just coming out, she was beautiful and had a full head of dark hair.

"She's a girl, right?" I had to confirm my very last slight concern. His hand was covering a very crucial area so I couldn't actually see for myself! We had a giant explosion of pink at home and were very prepared for a little girl. Ha!

"Yep! It's a girl!"

Dr. Campbell laid her down. I couldn't see very well what he was doing, but I knew he was getting ready to cut her cord. Then next thing we knew, blood went everywhere, all over sweet Maisy.

The doctor laughed and reassured us, "I promise I didn't just hurt your child! She grabbed her cord and yanked it before I could finish cutting it!" He wiped her off.

Maisy had to go over with the other nurse in the room after that and I sent Aaron with strict orders to take a lot of pictures and videos.

Then came all of the other not-fun stuff for me. I had not been looking forward to this part and feel like it is kind of the worst part. Probably because I would rather be holding my new baby or at least be able to watch her better as she got weighed and such.

Anyway. I won't bore you with all of the labor aftermath. It was over soon enough. Finally, I got to hold sweet Maisy Kate.

She was perfect, and she even listened to me and was smaller than her brother when he was born. She was 8 pounds, 2 ounces of pure cuteness.

After awhile, Aaron's parents and my mom came in to meet her. My mom said that my dad texted that Graeme woke up right at 5:45. I joked that he must have sensed something was off. His new baby sister was born just minutes before that!

My mom left to go help my dad with Graeme and said they would bring him by in a couple of hours. Aaron's parents stayed for awhile longer and got to see Maisy's first bath and all of that fun stuff.

They offered to get us breakfast from Chick-fil-a, but I opted for something a little more bland from the hospital room service.

We were finally able to make the short trip to our hospital room and relax after they left. It was hard to believe that it was pretty much exactly 12 hours from the time my water broke at home to when Maisy made her way into the world.

I am so thankful for another healthy, quick delivery. Aaron thinks I'm crazy because after it was over and he asked me how I was, I replied, "I'm good. That was fun!"

"Fun?! What's wrong with you?"

"Well, fun might be the wrong word..."

Maisy, whether or not it's crazy, I did have so much fun bringing you into the world! I'm so glad you're here and that I get to be a mommy to a little girl. You are a princess of the King and we pray that your little heart will love Jesus always! Mommy and Daddy love you so very much. And so does Graeme...even if he doesn't know it yet!

Maisy's birth story part 1

It's been awhile since I've had time to sit down and blog, and as I'm sure you all know, Maisy is here!

Yes, she is beautiful. I mean, I'll be honest in that I was a little nervous that our second baby wouldn't be as cute as our first. Graeme was clearly adorable...

I had nothing to worry about though. God gave us two beautiful, healthy children. We are so very thankful for both of them!



I guess I'll backtrack a bit before I get into the birth story...

The end of my second pregnancy got fairly miserable. I know I didn't have it nearly as bad as some people, but I was done being pregnant. My feet were so swollen and sore, and I was running out of shoes that fit. My back hurt. My heartburn was bad. I was so tired all the time. And uncomfortable. Among other things that weren't fun. Oh, and I still had to wrangle a heavy toddler every day...

Sorry. After-the-fact, not-necessary complaining is over.

And I knew that any day none of that would matter anymore and of course it would all be worth it. And I knew I shouldn't complain because I was blessed to be pregnant with a healthy baby. But, truthfully, when that "due date" is still a mystery and days keep going by with no baby, it gets a bit frustrating. I wasn't really counting on Maisy coming early, but I hoped that she did.

She did not.

January 1st. New Year's Day. Due Date.

It came. And it went.

I had an appointment on New Year's Eve (Thursday) and my doctor said I was half a centimeter dilated. I was pretty sure he just said that to try to make me feel a little better. My only solace was that I had an appointment Monday morning and I could schedule an induction from there. I was nervous about going too late because Graeme was a pretty big baby and Maisy had been measuring big too. 

I tried to keep my hopes up and pray a lot. I knew that God knew exactly when Maisy would come and all I really cared about was that she was safe and healthy. We enjoyed a fun weekend with Graeme.

On Sunday, all was normal. No signs of baby Maisy. Graeme and I went to church. I sat in our first service with Aaron. I had steady contractions all through the service, which was really nothing new. They were hardly painful. And when I stood up afterwards and moved around, they stopped.

I lead worship for our preschoolers during the second hour. One of the songs was a bit lively and required some jumping. I told the kids that it had better help me have a baby.

Little did I know, it just might have...


Graeme took a great nap that afternoon. I had considered a nap, and was tired, but at that point it was a lot harder for me to sleep at night if I slept during the day. (But I really should have taken a nap!)

Aaron had to stay late for a meeting after church and didn't make it home until around 4:00 that afternoon. When he got home, we put in place our plan to start cleaning the house for the week ahead. I typically do all of the cleaning, but the week before when I had cleaned by myself I hurt my back really bad. I relented that I was pregnant enough (at 40+ weeks...ha!) that I needed his help that he had offered for many weeks. He played with Graeme while I did the lighter work of dusting and wiping things down. Then we would switch and he would vacuum and mop the floors and do anything that required a lot of bending over. 

It was slow going, but we made a lot of good progress. We would be able to finish quickly once Graeme was in bed and we could both work at the same time. Around 5:30, we did one final switch before we would take a break to do Graeme's bath/book/bedtime routine. I came upstairs to play with Graeme while Aaron went down to mop all of the hardwood floors.

Graeme and I were in the playroom and I had painstakingly lowered myself down to sit on the floor for the thousandth time that day. Even though I was trying to take it easy with the cleaning, I had still been working pretty hard and had been on my feet a lot all day. Graeme got up from where we were playing with his kitchen and ran into his room.

"What are you doing, buddy?"

No answer.

"Hey, Graeme, come back out here please..."

Silence.

Not that there is anything in his room that could hurt him. But, he's a toddler. We are constantly only seconds away from some sort of giant mess. And it was really close to bed time. I looked down at my watch. It was 5:44pm. The time for giant messes had passed.

The thought of getting up from the floor to stand and walk the 10 feet to his room sounded nearly impossible at that time. My brain couldn't get my legs to stand. But, crawling didn't sound so bad. My legs didn't mind that so much.

I began crawling to Graeme's room. And all of a sudden, I felt a very slight and strange twinge-y thing in my stomach. And then my legs were very warm. And very wet. And I quickly deduced that it was impossible that I was peeing my pants.

And remembering it now seems like it all happened slowly. But no, it was very fast. I suddenly had no trouble at all bolting to my feet and running quickly to the bathroom that was thankfully right next to me. All the while yelling "IT'S HAPPENING! IT'S HAPPENING!"

"What?! What's happening?!" Aaron yelled from downstairs. "What's wrong?! What is it?"

"MY WATER JUST BROKE!"

I was in quite a bit of shock. My water did not break when I had Graeme and I was not expecting it to this time. It was quite the strange feeling. 

Aaron ran up the steps freaking out and brought me towels.

I called the on-call doctor while I stood in the bathroom on towels. I had to leave a message.

While I was on hold to leave a message, Aaron quickly called my parents to try to figure out what to do with Graeme since it was almost time for him to go to bed. I asked if they would mind coming up here so he could just sleep in his own bed for that night. They agreed that would be easiest.

Graeme thankfully ran around clueless to everything but probably thought we were being quite crazy.

Thankfully, the doctor called right back. It wasn't a doctor from my practice, but he was nice. It's funny to me that the first question is "Is this your first baby?" I feel like when I say it's my second I earn a few points and they trust me a bit more to know what's going on. The doctor said that since I hadn't been having any contractions, there was really no rush to get to the hospital. As long as I was comfortable at home, we didn't need to head that way for a few hours.

This made me feel much better and then I was able to be quite calm. I loved that I could now put Graeme to bed like normal, finish cleaning the house, finish packing the hospital bag, and take a shower. As long as I did all of those things with towels in between my legs, of course. Ha.

Aaron, on the other hand, thought I was insane when I spouted off all the things I wanted to do. He might be right, but coming home with a baby to a clean house was definitely something we were doing. No question.

My parents arrived not long after we called them as we set them into panic mode as well. But, it was good that my mom was there to help Aaron finish cleaning. The plan was for my dad to spend the night at our house with Graeme and for my mom to come to the hospital with us.

Aaron's parents joined us shortly thereafter and his mom was going to come to the hospital with us too while his dad kept my dad company and watched the football game before he would come.

Around 8:30pm I finally decided that I should probably drink some water and actually rest for awhile.

As soon as I laid down on the couch, I noticed that I was having contractions. And they were a bit painful. I started watching the clock and realized they were only two-three minutes apart.

Thirty minutes later, I went upstairs where Aaron was shaving and finishing getting ready to go.

"Hey...so, no big rush, but I think we should probably leave pretty soon. My contractions are starting to hurt pretty bad and they are about three minutes a part..."

At that, he accidentally cut his face in his rush to finish shaving. I reminded him that I had said "no big rush..." We quickly threw the last couple of things in the bag, peaked in on Graeme one last time, and said goodbyes to our dads.

Our moms got in Aaron's car while we got in our van. And off we went to the hospital. Maisy was for sure on her way!'

To be continued...