Andrea's Little Blessings: j

[It seems like all my post are for birthdays. I guess if that's all I do at least I'm updating 7 times a year. That's pretty good.]

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Little j turned 4 today. He is such a sweet kid. He is a very good helper and a sweet kid. He is the oldest one at home now and is really a great big brother to the two little girls.

His favorite thing is still sports. We put him in swimming lessons for the winter. We are planning to try soccer in the spring and baseball in the summer.

I still remember the summer after he turned two and Little a and t were in swimming lessons. He was too young to swim, so we played at the park adjacent to the pool. I let him choose the activity. He usually wanted to play baseball or basketball. He had a little plastic bat and ball and could hit a pitch. He also got pretty good at dribbling and passing a full sized basketball by the end of the summer. He got a lot of comments from such a little kid being so interested in sports.

He also likes pirates and superheros and making "projects". He makes projects every day. Projects usually consist of cutting up some paper and then taping it together and writing letters from the alphabet on in. He even asked Santa for rolls of tape for Christmas so he could make projects. If you come to our house he will make some kind of a letter or project and give it to you as a token of friendship.

He asked for a pirate cake for his birthday. We googled "pirate cake" and when he saw the treasure box cakes filled with gold foil candy he switched over right away. We opted to make his cheese pizza birthday dinner into a pirate treasure map with the treasure box for dessert.

At his age I usually have a friend birthday party. But Little j has friends of all ages that are important to him. Like the neighbor boys, age 12 and 13, from across the street that come play ball and tag. Or our friend from church, age 6, that sometimes can come play before he goes to kindergarten. I just didn't know how to do a party for kids of all different ages, so I think I'll wait till the weather is a bit warmer and have a BBQ and invite all their families over.

Here's a slide show of the last year with Little j. I'll add a few photos of his party too in case you don't want to watch the whole slide show. :)

Since I started this blog with e's birth story I thought it would be nice to add all the birth stories. (Thanks for the good idea Doreen.) I almost posted it with his birthday post, but I decided it might have a slightly different audience. I wrote up a version of what I remembered, but I decided to go with an edited version (names and places mostly) of my journal entry. SO. . . if you're not big on birth stories, beware.

Week 39 I was so sure I would have the baby before my doctor’s appointment this week. I had contractions last Saturday, I felt crampy all day on Sunday, then I started feeling great again and had a pretty good week. Then this Saturday I started having contractions again. Oddly enough contractions stopped last Saturday at about 3 A.M. and they started about 3:30 A.M. this Saturday. Then they stopped again around 5. Sunday morning I expelled a lot of mucus. (note: I’ve had basically no leucorrhea with this baby.) I felt pretty good most of the day and had some contractions Sunday night and they continued through Monday morning , about once an hour or so. I went to my doctor’s appointment at 8:15 A.M. The doctor said I was 3 cm dilated, 70% effaced and the babies head was at -1 position. The baby’s back was rotated to the right (my left) just pasted the centerline and his heartbeat was detected low (in the bottom quarter) at about 140 bpm. And fundus height was about 37 or 38 cm. I lost a pound this week to round out my weight at 168 lbs (I’ve gained 38 lbs).
Grandpa W came to visit this evening. I was having contractions about twice an hour by then. He had a load in Boise and was headed back home Friday. I told him to come back by on his way. By about 7 PM Tyler was convinced that we are having the baby tonight. He called all our support people to put them on alert. I guess he got me going too because I finally got the hospital bag together.
There’s a girl I visit teach that was due a month after me and she had her baby yesterday. We went by to visit her tonight and took her some diapers as a gift. She was asleep and her baby doesn’t come home until tomorrow. But I felt like if I didn’t go right away that I might not get to go at all.
One other note: A few weeks ago the baby was right down on my pelvic bone. It was weird. It sort of hurt and made it hard to walk and move my legs up and down (like getting into bed or climbing stairs). I was thinking this poor baby will have a huge ridge because he’ll ride on the bone for weeks before he is born. Fortunately he moved off my bone and I’ve felt better and enjoyed more free movement the last few weeks.

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Little j was born 2:31 A.M on the 7th of March 2006. He was 8 lbs. 8 oz. and 21 inches long. Even thought he was born one day before his due date he had many symptoms of a post-term baby including a calcified placenta, no vernix, his skin was starting to peel and his fingernails were so long many of them we breaking off. He also had a suck blister on his wrist. Yes, j likes to suck on things. He is our first child that takes a pacifier. He really likes it and even moves his hands up to hold it in his mouth.
Labor: I had labor start and stop three times. Saturday, Feb 25th, Saturday March 4th, and Sunday, March 5th. T's dad, Grandpa W, came to visit the evening of Monday, March 6th. I was having contractions again, mild, pre-labor type contractions. I didn’t think much of it because of all the other episodes, some of which were real breath-through-it contractions. He took us to dinner at a Chinese buffet. They had gyozas and I ate at least half a dozen. (That’s significant because we went to a Gyozas party with our friends the night before t was born. Maybe it’s the gyozas that put me at easy and help me go into active labor.) Grandpa left after dinner, around 6 P.M. I started telling T every time I had a contraction.. . I just realized I’m repeating myself. We called our angel-sitter (our beloved cousin-in-law) at about 11:00. She came over to stay with our kids for the night. I talked with her for a while, at least an hour. Then we decided we both should try to get some sleep. I layed down for a while. It seemed like only a few minutes. I felt a huge dilation, like a flower opening. Then I started trembling. It was 1:11 A.M. I figured I might be starting into transition so we should go to the hospital. T called our wonderful and talented birth assistant, D, and off we went. They put us in a birthing room and gave me a gown to put on. It seemed like a long time before they came back to us after that. They had me lay down and put a fetal monitor on. Then the nurse brought in the I.V. T and D both said no, ask the doctor first. The doctor said she’s GBS+, put in an I.V. and antibiotics. I was okay with that. I thought I might actually get an hours worth of antibiotics before I delivered. Anyhow, I remember D asking me if I could feel the baby move down during contractions. I thought: no, not really. Then it seemed like the next contraction I really felt him move down. T and D were watching the monitor. It must have registered really big because they made a lot of encouraging comments. After that they let me stand by the bed. Within a few minutes I had the urge to push. I did a little and my water broke in a big swoosh clear, slightly foamy fluid all over the floor. I’m glad it wasn’t the bed. The doctor appeared they were getting me onto the bed. The nurse didn’t seem to understand I was crowning. She kept waiting for the baby’s heart rate to change so she could take the monitor off. The doctor finally told the nurse what was going on. He said she’s complete and plus three or four. I went hands and knees and the doctor told the nurse it’s okay, we talked about it. After that it was all pushing and sounding. D kept reminding me to use low tones, which I finally found a voice for..

There are more details I still remember. I remember when I felt my stomach was about to make a violent upheaval shortly before my water broke. The nurse offered a banana-shaped bed pan, but D saved me by grabbing the 15 gallon garbage can just in time. I remember how baby j hummed through the night that first night. At first I was surprised by the noise then I realized it was coming from the baby. And how he would lay on his back and kick, good naturedly, with both feet. (That's just what he always did in the womb.) He continued to kick like that until he was about two years old. I remember when our angel-sitters brought the two younger kids to meet j they had made him cards and Little a wanted to name him Paper and was so upset that we wouldn't consider it. I remember how Uncle D and Aunt S were so sweet to watch as they held him on his blessing day. They had hoped to have a baby of their own that spring. Their Little M came two years later.

Thank you again everyone who helped with the birth. Also thank you to those who provided moral support from far away places. As I look back I am touched by how we were truly blessed by the support of good friends and family. I don't know if I can really truly express the gratitude I feel. And a special note: Thanks mom for always being there, every time. You have given me so much. I hope I can pass on your good example to my children.